Bon Voyage dear friend

May saw me waving goodbye to my dear friend and fellow Fall 11 TT buddy Jasmine. Her husbands job in the Singapore Air Force required them to leave Australia and move to France. 

I was so shocked, gutted and sad when Jas told me she was leaving. I knew it would happen at some point, it's a huge part of being a forces wife but not so soon. We shared so much together and supported each other pre & post TT. A true, solid friendship has been formed. I loved taking Jas's class, watching her grow & flourish into the most amazing, caring and devoted teacher. Her classes had me smiling, even in Full Locust! She always had sweet but constructive feedback for my classes. "Stay true to yourself," being my favorite. It is so easy to be 'molded' or 'influenced' into being something your not.

We got to share a private goodbye together after one of my Saturday morning classes over full English breakfast in Joondalup. I know our paths will cross at some point in the future. After all France is a mere short hop on Easy Jet from the UK. We might even be able to coordinate a Lux Yoga retreat in as well ;-)

Friends :-)

 

Down South

With four Bikram studios in Perth all within an hour or less drive away from my house I don't really have an excuse not to have visited them all. It's taken a while but I finally fulfilled this task. Yesterday I took a trip down to the Bikram Yoga South Perth studio based in Myaree. It's a modern, light & airy studio, with a massive reception and inspirational quotes on the yoga room ceiling. 

My TT buddy Kana was teaching, good excuse for a coffee & catch up after class. After all the studio is an hour drive for me so I scheduled my spa treatment before class and socialising after to get the most out of my journey South. I obviously didn't know a single student there so was nice to just hang out & be anonymous. Just be, just practice, student again. 

I had a lovely class despite being slathered in moisturizing lotion from my spa treatment at Bodhi J Spa. I had a divine Sodashi Purifying Body boost with dry brushing. Major detox session for me! I know it seems a bit backwards going to the spa then yoga, should be the other way round but I figured after this treatment a session in the hot room would be a compliment. It was an added challenge with a very slippy grip and slimy sweat for sure! I had to make sure I drank a lot of water afterwards. The double detox would only work if I flushed it out with plenty of the wet stuff. 

A great way to spend day two of the long weekend. 

Large, airy reception space at BY Perth South.

   

Madness Goodness

This week started with a nice long public holiday weekend & a migraine. Super! Left me with a migraine hangover that lasted nearly all week. Lots of water & less sugar. In an ideal world I would have spent a day in a dark room sleeping it off but that wasn't a option. I soldiered on. 

The title of this blog is spot on, after a slow, sickly start to the week it turned mad but in a good way. I taught Sunday, Monday & Tuesday which was great I don't usually get consecutive days. Wednesday off but I practiced. Then taught my usual Thursday night class. 

I'd heard one of my dear friends and colleagues was sick, sore throat, fever, cough = not good for teaching. I casually offered to cover her 5:45am on Friday morning. This broke my rule of not teaching an early after a late. (Only because I still have to do 8 hours in the office day job) I got the text as I was getting home at 10pm. Quick re order, grabbed some clothes for the next day (in the dark as The Man was sleeping), threw together my bag, lunch food & was all ready to go. 

Five hours sleep & some Energy Tea off I went. Class was great. Everyone arrived under ten minutes before kick off, total of about 14 students. I was worried no one would turn up! Finished on time, everyone was showered & out the door so I could do the same with an extra five minutes to spare. Usually when I teach I can't get parking at the station & have to park at my friends house & walk down. Not today! I got parked. Bonus. Day job was nice and stress free. Not much going on & some down time to get some in house work finally finished.

About lunch time I got a text from another instructor who needed cover for the 6pm at Scarbs. Usually I can't teach 6pm, especially at the beach, as I wouldn't get there on time but as it was Friday and work was quiet & managed to get off a little early and cover the class. Unfortunately I had to wear my teaching clothes from the morning that had been festering in my hot car all day. Gross!!! Stinky, wet tops are not nice.

Pulled it off, taught a good class, I wasn't flagging as I thought I might. I had left my teaching notes at Joondy that morning so was without anything interesting to read out in savasana so let them be in silence which was probably fitting.

The night didn't end there. I hot wheeled it down to Cottesloe Beach for a drinks party with the other instructors. One is leaving full time teaching to get a city job in order to stay in Australia a while longer. Really fun, great to get to know the girls on a personal level. Instructors come and go at top speed, the way of the gypsy traveling teacher. The teachers we have now are sticking around a while which gives us chance to get to know each other. You never know we might end up on the same coast again, building global friendships. 

Finally making it home at 1am. Grand total of 20 waking hours. I have no idea how I did it. I even woke up on Saturday morning feeling quite chipper. Must be the Full Moon working in my favour this month!

Photos to finish with

The Hot Yoga Girl taking a 'Peep' inside my Peep Show jacket!

Demo team busting out their Standing Bow's!

Boss arrives at the Graduation dance party

Group 7 study pals!

Champagne super nova with the Brit pack

Week 7 & 8

One week to go here at BYTT Fall 2011. It's nearly over. Apologies to my one reader for not posting last week (Hi H, hahaha!) I skipped town & went to Las Vegas. Posture clinics wrapped up so I took advantage of the fact I wouldn't be chained to studying to go visit with my friend Liz for some R & R, tea & sympathy, shopping & a show. After an hours conversation on Sunday night I woke up and just knew I had to go. 

It was great. The desert is a very powerful place to be. I left a lot of things in the crator and came back refreshed and ready. I got to see my idol Holly Madison live in her awesome burlesque extravaganza 'Peep Show.' I shopped till I dropped and had some much needed 'me' time. It may seem weird going from one artificial bubble to the next but it worked out easier to jump on a plane to Nevada than try and get around LA by oneself. I needed to get out of here. Don't get me wrong I have loved my experience here, the yoga, even all the lectures haven't been as grueling as I thought it would. The only thing that I have let get me down are the people. 

I don't want to go into details but it has saddened me that friends I thought I'd have for life I am now doubting. It might just be my raw emotional state but I  the past two weeks have left me feeling like a 'tag along' only being asked out because of obligation or actually not being asked at all now. No drama. We're all adults here. It has made me go out and find people on my level. With nearly 400 of us I shouldn't be restricting myself to the same people, so many people to know, so little time. Only yesterday I met another Aussie girl who I didn't know existed. These are the people I feel I need to bond with for future connections, after all there is a great chance we can help each other out with classes/couches when we get back down under.We have team Australia dinner tonight so we'll get the chance!!

Dialogue has not stopped. My posture chicks and I have worked hard this week stringing together 4-5 postures. One set both sides. It throws you. Especially when you're faced with a 20 second savasana and your mind goes blank as to what is next!!! I can't wait to get back to teach. I feel ready to give it a go, I need to start the next phase of teaching, teaching, teaching. 

Our studio director Miss Jo dropped by last week and brought BYSB's director with her. So great to see them. We had a team Perth dinner and caught up on the gossip. Apparently the 'parallel universe' of training and the weird and wonderful things that go on happen every training. You have to be here to understand. 

Body wise I have got progressively stiffer and more sore as the weeks have gone on. Sitting down crossed legged is near impossible. I even thought the plane seat last week felt like bliss compared to the lecture room chairs. How sad is that.

I will definitely miss my posture group #7. We had an awesome night out on Saturday and shared hilarious stories of each of our different experiences. I know I have friends for life from this group. We also have three of our group in the demo team for graduation!!!! Go Neda, Liz & JJ. (Also Aussie Kaz!) 

I'm off, my last Sunday and I'm spending it with my Brit pack gang down Venice beach. This time next week I'll have my certificate in my hand and be packing my bags to get the hell out of here and back to The Man. I'm allowing myself now to miss him and I need to get back to the farm & out of the city asap!

Week 4, it's flying by!

 A lot has changed and shifted this week for me. After isolating myself last week I have thrown myself into the pit literally head on. I’ve been out and about giving back to others and doing my karma yoga.

Last weekend was great. A group pf us drove out to Santa Monica, found a strip of park over looking the ocean and spent the day studying dialogue. Finished off by Thai food and Baskin Robbins. We didn’t even care people were staring at us whilst we busted out postures or sat talking to ourselves in a strange language. I dedicated a lot of time on Sunday to help other’s with their memorization. Even though I was down solid with the postures myself it was good to revisit & brush up on those pesky words I miss or have adjusted.

My yoga week started off stiff and achy. To be expected. Nearly two days off yoga gives that lactic acid time to build up. More great teachers this week taught. Ida Ripley stopped by and the highlight was Tuesday night’s class which was taught by Shawn Taylor. Shawn taught at BYJ earlier in the year so I was very excited to take his class. It was a HUGE honour for him to be selected to teach here at Training as he’s only been teaching two years. He taught a great high energy, rocking, funny class. I even ventured into the ‘death zone’ to be right in line with the podium.

I had another friendly face visit me this week. Liz from Las Vegas dropped by for two days to say hi. Liz also taught me at BYJ. It was lovely to catch up & have my own personal dialogue coach. Hopefully she’ll be back soon!

I didn’t present any postures till Wednesday this week, quite a long gap from Friday. My feedback has been pretty much the same all through “good, keep doing what your doing.” So they started nit picking a little which is fine by me. I believe there is always room for improvement and I wanted to hear something different.

One comment was because of my accent some things come out kinda ‘sing song’ like. I was lucky enough to deliver a second posture on the same day and rectified this. It was hard as I was altering my voice not to go higher at the end & it hurt. The vocal coach did mention it is very bad for your vocal cords to talk in other accents which are not natural. I can see why now. I’m sure I can pull it back without hurting myself.

I was also given my first mini challenge. Instead of three demonstrators I was given six to teach for Standing Separate leg stretching. It went well, it was actually good to have more bodies as it really made me watch what they were doing.

I finished the week off by presenting Triangle to Jim Kellet. He didn’t like it, I was too intense (but verbatim bar one!). That’s cool. I can see I need to pull back in this one, I’ve had this comment before. I just love the flow of the dialogue and I can get really excited about it. He mentioned that students need to be meditating in this one and my barking instructors wouldn’t work. He taught class in the evening & I really paid attention to how he delivered it himself…kinda race commentator/auctioneer style. For me personally I don’t usually go for this. His words were fast but non aggressive so I can draw from this as a comparison. This is how to get that energy going in a less commando style whilst sticking with the dialogue.

My homework this week has been to help another Trainee who has been struggling with their dialogue. I was so blessed to be assigned to my friend Ms Darling who I connected with on my first weekend here & have hardly seen since. Darling is the best person to work with. She is very keen, willing to learn and can tolerate my no messing attitude. I don’t give her an inch!!! We worked together on two postures so far. It’s great to be giving back and it’s giving me valuable experience in actually teaching. Who knows some where down the line I might have my own students to mentor. Its also got me out of my hermit hole.

Bikram is back from his travels and requested our presence for a movie after our anatomy lecture. The lecture finished at 12am. We were told it was ‘optional’ and we could stay for 15 minutes then leave. Nothing is to be taken face value here. It was not optional and we were literally in lock down. No one could go to the bathroom with their bags, you had to leave them behind as collateral so you had to come back. It didn’t really bother me. It was a little crappy they ‘lied’ I’d rather be told straight. Hey ho. Myself and three friends bedded down at the back of the room & took a nice long nap despite it being freezing cold & very, very loud!!! Thank you to the kind lady who woke us up at the end.

All in all I’m still loving and cherishing every moment I have here. I’ve had a good week and I’m in good spirits. Who knows what next week will bring…

Lecture buddies

Liz & Me before class

Don't get in the way of hungry yogis

Amazing wonton soup

Week Two round up

Time is certainly flying by. Our daily schedule is in full swing now. We have to sign in for everything or else we join ‘Team Saturday’, aka the 11am make up class, pretty much straight after the 8am as classes are tending to run for two hours.

People have more defined cliques this week. I have found my people. We are on the same wave length and have the same reasons, goals and aspirations for being here. Number one my clan have compassion and respect. 

The Yoga room was like Death Valley at the start of the week. It was like trying to breath in a cloud. Didn’t help I’ve cold a cold and a reoccurring sore throat. I struggled with my ice, it is still a distraction in the hot, hot, hot classes. Dousing my mat with ice between postures so I can lay in a pool of icy niceness is quite embarrassing. It’s not just me but I shouldn’t let that be an excuse.

After the nose bleed class on Wednesday morning I was revived by an awesome class with Marlin from Aspen in the evening. She left the door open!!!!! I was about 0.5 km away from said door but it made the difference. I had a near normal practice for me, ie. I did every posture, was focused & didn't touch my ice. We could all breath & no one threw up or left the room.

You can never predict anything here it’s a waste of time/energy doing so. Rolling with it is one of my strong points right now. After a great Wednesday pm class I was literally left for dead Thursday morning. Such a shame as Emmy was teaching. We had no idea and by a twist of fate ended up on the back line near the middle of the room aka the death zone. Emmy teaches from a chair at the back. She most definitely probably saw me laid in recovery position for most of the floor series. It took every once of will power not to leave the room.

Two of my mat buddies left. It was so hard. I made it through. I keep questioning is it better to stay in the room & do nothing but lay out the floor postures or leave, revive and come back in & do something. We have been told only we can decide on that. I stayed in the room and did nothing. I could barely walk out the room at the end. I couldn’t even stand up to wait for the crowd to filter through the door. I ended up sitting by the door waiting for it to clear.

The week finished strong class wise, such a contrast. We all have delivered Half Moon to Bikram. Posture clinic starts next week, wooo hooo!! So excited for that. We had our first and only, so far, late night Bollywood movie, 2:30am finish. Friday a speech therapist gave a lecture on how to look after and use our voice properly. Much needed advice as our future teaching career will depend so much on the voice. We had Friday night off to relax, so great. The girls and I hit up a cute Mexican for huge burritos. It’s strange to say I hadn’t left the hotel or even been in the lobby from Sunday night to Friday night. This course is not for the claustrophobic or fresh air lovers!

Food wise, I am still not properly hungry, probably as I have to eat when I’m not hungry or else I don’t get to eat. I’ve moved onto eating steak instead of cold meats. So much better. I even managed to boil up some pasta in my water boiler. Crazy I’m craving hot food after being in a hot room four hours a day.

All in all I’m doing good. Nothing crazy has happened yet emotionally or physically. I’m looking after myself on all levels which is helping a lot I think. I’m having my first massage today even though nothing is really hurting too bad yet. People are sharing their problems and drama’s but I’m not getting involved. Just being supportive by listening. It’s nice to know we are all having such individual, personal experiences. One course with 400 different journeys.  

Friday night freedom

My small Burrito omm nom nom

International friends!

Help! Let us out!!

Kindness

You probably all know this has been a rough two weeks on the emotional roller coaster of the 60 Day challenge for me. I now have come to accept this is totally normal and part of the 'process.' With a total shift in my mind set I am feeling totally centred again now. All those hours wasted on being angry has left me right where I should be. Normal again. So really they weren't wasted hours, they were needed hours that now has made me realise I'm on the right track. 

There's nothing nicer when your feeling down to receive a little pick me up. Out of the blue this week I have been extremely grateful to be on the receiving end of other people's kindness. I'm not alone, people out there understand and know just what to do to get me back on the horse. 

The first act of kindness came from my yoga buddy J who has just completed a course in Reiki healing and Bach flower remedies. I had a mini healing session on my right knee that has been playing up a bit of late. I've not felt a twinge or niggle since! I was also given a special Bach potion to help combat my crazy emotions. It contains:

• Rockwater - self repression, denial, uptightness
• Gentian - Discouragement and despondency
• Olive - Complete exhaustion, positiveness
• Hornbeam - Monday morning feeling

I've had Monday morning feeling for the past two weeks! It took a lot of self control not to down the whole vile in one slug. I like alternative remedies and have been taking my drops as prescribed. I do believe it's helped me feel better.


Monday I was presented with a carton of Beyond coconut water from my studio director. This will hopefully keep me alive for the next two weeks. Mixed with the protein powder J also gave me it makes a great pre yoga snack before evening classes. 


Friday saw my five year anniversary with The Man. He surprised me at work with a delivery of 12 long stemmed pink roses, Moet and chocolates. WOW! Lucky girl. He's never done anything like this so being out the blue made it so much more special. I'll save the champagne for after the challenge when we'll hopefully get out of town for the night for some quality time before I jet off to LA.


Saturday my TT training buddy JJ (so many J friends I have!) gave me some home baked green tea cake and yummy sticky sesame snap like treats. She loves baking and gifting people with these tasty snacks. Such kindness. I'll be taking a lot of our eggs in next week for everyone. 

We both also were given  BYJ yoga mat for TT. It's been a hot topic of debate yoga mat's. I was planning on getting another Jade mat which is light weight and dries quick. Knowing full well it will be a stinky health hazard by the end of training and will be binned. Jade's cost $70, that's a lot. No worries we have our trusty bright red team BYJ mat's to see us through. It's cool we'll have a little piece of our home studio with us at training. I will just have to make sure it gets sprayed often with tee tree oil and water, or any antibac spray I can find in LA.

BYJ Yoga mat, tasty treats & Beyond

Roses and Champagne

Roses arranged at home

3rd time up

Last night saw my third appearance on the podium for some pre TT practice. I delivered the full half moon series again. Talking to other future trainees not everyone gets the opportunity to get up in front a real live class to practice their delivery. I think somewhere in the Bikram book of rules there might be something that says only qualified teachers can teach. We only get to practice teach in this way under the strict supervision of our studio director. No way would we be let loose if she didn't think we were up to it and in danger of putting her students/studio in danger. 

I'd not told anyone that I was up last night, apart from Courtney who read about it here!! I was so touched by this as she decided to come along to the class after not practicing for a while. *thank u* Slowly more and more of my friends and fellow regulars started trickling into the studio last night. I did well not to say anything. In the end there was about ten people I knew in attendance. 

It was very reassuring and I think it helped me a lot. I wasn't sure whether if it was a good move to focus on my friends or not. Turned out to be the best option as they were all concentrating on themselves in the mirror like good little yogis. Not looking at me. When I did look at the other students I must have had eye contact with at least three or four people. One lady was actually stuffing up her alignment so she could have a squiz at me up there! Look in the mirror people, I'm not doing anything exciting up there! It was hard not to slip an extra line in to say so but no I had to stay verbatim. I saw a few corrections too that needed attention but that is not my place, I am not a teacher yet so I cannot correct.

I've been practicing speaking from my stomach rather than my throat. I was better than last week and I didn't yell but there's a lot of room for improvement there. I felt a lot more relaxed last night and my thighs weren't wobbling with nerves. I may have even waved my arms round a bit on the uplifting sections.

I had some lovely feedback after class too. Such great support and community spirit we have going on at BYJ. A few people have commented on my accent which is cool. Despite pledging my allegiance to Australia last year I am proud to have held onto my British accent. I think I am still maybe the first British accent to grace our studio? Kinda cool being unique. 

Onwards and upwards. My dialogue study sped up this week. I've down with Standing Separate leg stretching and am half way through Triangle. I envisaged needing two weeks on this at my usual study pace but its going in very well. I think I have a lot of it it from just hearing it in class. I'm well on track for getting all the Standing Series in by September. May well get half of the Spine strengthening series down too...maybe?!

London Calling

After a very alcohol fueled social weekend of fun it was time to get back on track. Off I went to London for a quick adventure to catch up with my uni friends and fellow Bikram blogger Mon. I timed my trains so I could duck into Bikram Yoga Chiswick for the 3pm.

It still amuses me that this studio was here all the time I lived in Chiswick, right above La Tasca, next to Sainsbury's and I never knew it existed. Looking back I probably would not have been able to afford to practice back then. Instead I had a vast collection of work out DVD's and video's.

I had a great class. I felt really strong, hydration and food was spot on. The room was fairly busy even for the middle of the afternoon. The first thing that struck me was when I matted down was the room was cold. The heating didn't come on till about ten minutes before class started. Then slowly heated up. I feel I did cheat by going next to the wall of windows but with a view of Turnham Green as we turned sideways for Standing Separate Leg Stretching it was worth it. The windows only got opened for a minute or two in triangle. Very strange not stepping over our mats and staying on them. What I've heard the room gets so packed there is no other way to organise it! However I had no clue what my Triangle looked like as I wasn't facing the mirror.

All this socialising and bombing about visiting has taken it's toll on my diet. For a self confessed chocoholic being surrounded by creamy, decent Cadbury's again has been killing me. As well as my Mum's homemade cakes. I could see in the mirror the bulge of my binges already. Even sucking in that stomach for postures there was no escaping the holiday spread!!! I have been shocked about my lack of vegetables & large intake of bread based meals this past week. Another lesson to be aware of for LA. Lack of time and eating on the run = snacks and sandwiches. I'll be back to normal next week, back on routine and back to my Thermomix!