Week 4 - continued

For some reason, they don't offer free therapists here. Wouldn't that be a great idea? Instead, most of the control you normally have is taken away from you so you learn to roll with the punches. It's like someone telling you to ride a roller coaster without a seat belt. The recurring theme here is "Trust the process." So my therapy is to "communicate" (I'm using a nice word) through this blog.

So today is Wed (Sammie's favorite day - Hump Day). When the alarm went off at 7:30AM this morning, I awoke 90% zombie, 10% human. My instinct for Tues night was right...movie night. We weren't released until 4:30AM (um, gotta think, that would be Wed!). Needless to say, morning yoga at 8:30AM was tough. I didn't have a rock star class and was fine with that. I, along, with the rest of the class, were a bunch of yawning half moons. Thank the yoga gods that I finished. After class, I was even more sleepier! Zzzzzz......(I know this blog is putting you to sleep). Ahhh...I love 3 hours of sleep!

We had anatomy class w/Dr. T in the afternoon. For some odd reason, they found out how to turn on the AC and it was a wind tunnel in the lecture room! I even ran up to get my polar fleece jacket. Such an extreme...one day it's 189 degrees and the next it's 52 degrees. Dr. T let us go a half hour early (he felt sorry for us - what a nice guy).

Evening yoga class was taught by Bikram. It's the first time he taught since he's been away for a week. He was in his usual form. Get this - my group had to be on rows 1 & 2! Right in front of Bikram. So, there I was on row 1, staring at myself in the mirror for the first time. The mirror makes you look stubby. Reminds me of a circus mirror. Let's just say that you don't take shortcuts or half ass postures when Bikram is teaching because he will call you out and make you do it by yourself in front of everybody. Today, he yelled out, "I HATE LAZY PEOPLE!" and made us do 3 sets of balancing stick. Wobbily hamstrings 'r us! He only told me to push harder in half moon and left me alone (thank yoga gods once again).

Tonight we have posture clinic at 9:00PM and then a Bikram lecture / possibly movie night at 11:30PM. If we do movie night two nights in a row, I'm going to...oh..i don't know...feeling morbid so will stop here.

On a tangent, Keri (blog friend that inspired me to do this blog) referred me to a gal at KOMO news that was interviewing bloggers. I chatted with her today and she said that my story may be published on the KOMO website. Yay. Fun. I'll send the link if I get famous. :)

Week 4 (Monday only)

It's almost midnight on Monday and I just got out of posture clinic and settled into my PJ's (ah! PJ's are heavenly!) I thought I would do a quick post since I was on the web.

Today's first anatomy test went well. I think pretty much everybody passed. You'd have to miss like 17 out of 50 questions to fail. I missed 5 so I was happy about that. I'm more concerned about memorizing and delivering the dialogue. Tonight, I delivered Eagle on stage w/the mic (again). That's me in the shorts - not a great angle but my camera woman was sitting on the right side of the room. My critique was understandable. A senior teacher guy said I had a good voice and projection but I should play w/being more commanding since I had the dialogue down already. Honestly, after waiting in line for an hour, I just wanted to spit it out and get off stage! It was late and I was tired. Maybe it was the Monday blues. We had a packed day today....AM yoga was really really really hard! During triangle, I felt like I was going to fall on my face and pass out. I fought so hard to make the stars go away and managed to get through the entire class. It was TOUGH. I heard a big "thump" and a girl close to me had fainted. Another girl was crying. Come to find out that the temp was turned up ten degrees today. I guess it's a Week 4 thing. The PM class was much more bearable (I went early and got a space to the left, not in front of the podium so there was some sort of breeze coming through). Even if it's a hot breeze, I'll take it!

Bikram hasn't made his appearance but I have a gut feeling that tomorrow will be bollywood movie night! So pretty much yoga, anatomy class, yoga, posture clinic and movie night til 3am. CAN'T WAIT!!!! :)

pic 1 - me delivering Eagle (I'm in the shorts)
pic 2 - me doing Eagle after delivering it

Week 3 - The studying begins...

Bikram was traveling this week so we had anatomy class with Dr. "T." during the afternoons. All I have to say is THANK GOD there is a Starbucks in the hotel lobby. Sitting in a room that feels like 110 degrees (no A/C) with 300 other students is painful. You doze off...your butt cheeks hurt...your back 'hurts like hell' (uh oh starting to use dialogue in normal speak). The caffeine helps a tiny bit to stay awake.

Dr. "T" likes to talk about nutrition and everything that is bad about food. Food additives, growth hormones injected into meat, dairy...by the end, you realize that everything you put in your mouth is toxic! I guess that's why we do two yoga classes a day, huh? Dr. T is a local - he's from Walla Walla. He must be in his 60's or 70's and likes to try out his latest jokes on us. Monday is our first anatomy test so we've been studying up on synovial joints, vertebrae and platelet aggregation!

Aside from anatomy, we've started to move faster in the posture clinics. We are on Eagle now. Clinics are held 9pm-11pm and each person gets up and delivers teaching a posture in front of two groups and sr teachers. You have to memorize the dialogue word for word or else!! So far, I've seen three girls cry in posture clinic. Luckily, I had memorized the first few postures so I didn't have a problem with the dialogue. It is still nerve wrecking. I had to deliver Awkward on a mic in the lecture room in front of everybody. My knees were shaking like jello. Hopefully I'll get more comfortable as I deliver more and more postures. It's weird. I talked to people here and alot of them say that they have jobs in the public eye, but when it comes to delivering the dialogue, they get nervous.

As far as the practice goes...it's going well except for Monday PM class when I felt like I was going to DIE during the floor series. It was hotter than usual and I was in a hot spot. All of my water was gone and I had to mentally keep it together to finish class. Hey! I didn't lay down. Sometimes it feels worse to lay down because then you feel like you're broiling in an oven. Better to move. This week, we've had senior teachers teach the classes - Ren, Val, Mike, Martha. Ren from LA and Martha from MN are the most entertaining teachers (besides Bikram). Ren is a diva and likes to emphasize certain actions like, "Touch it, touch it, touch it! Suck it, suck it, suck it!" Martha is the singing teacher. She is also pregnant so she's probably practicing for her baby. She even sang while teaching one of the postures. It's entertaining...keeps your mind off of the heat. They've got group assignments now so you can't choose where you want to practice in the tent.

Back at home, my boyfriend sent me a care package of extra clothes and a scale (I asked for it). I was curious because 2 classes a day and eating pretty healthy (excluding weekends!) must've shed some lbs, right? Boy, was I wrong!!! I stepped on the scale and was horrified to see that I lost ONE lb! How could that be? I started seeking answers...maybe my body is bloated from all of the water...maybe yoga doesn't burn as many calories as i thought...maybe my scale isn't calibrated cuz it had a rough flight...ahhhh! So, there it is. 1 measly pound. Oh well, I guess I better put my Whatchamacallit bar down.

pic 1 - visiting teachers
pic 2 - Dr T
pic 3 - "studio" where we practice