Week Three- you can't hurt me

Well, now that it's over at least. Week three was more ups and downs and UPS and DOWNS. We started Posture Clinics and Anatomy this week, so the heat is on. No pun intended. I am so glad that I studied the dialogue before I came here! I got up to Triangle (sort of, the last posture I presented at BY Boston was Balancing Stick and I learned Standing Seperated Leg Stretching and Triangle on my own) and I'm really hoping that we don't get past there until after our Anatomy test next Monday. At PC last night one of the leads was telling us that once things start picking up we'll be doing a posture a day. Hopefully we won't have Bikram here keeping us up alllll night long watching movies when that fun day arrives :) I think most groups have gotten through Awkward and are now on Eagle, which I have down solid. This is only 2 postures per week. It's not going to be like this for long.

So, I mentioned that Monday I had a less than exciting PC with Martha and that she taught a VERY long class the following day and I was not feeling it. Well, her class on Thursday night was UNBELIEVABLE. I am now completely in love with her! Ha. It's so funny how you literally change 180 degrees here within moments. She had a lot of poignant musical interludes in her class and this time she put them in our resting poses, so that her class actually ended on time :) At one point, in Full Locust, she started singing "Sweet Caroline" ("hands, touching hands, reaching out, touching me, touching you!") and we all did the "Ba Ba Ba!"'s, it was unreal. The laughter in that room that night moved me to absolute tears. Thank you, Martha!

Tuesday night's class was taught by Jim and it looks like it's his last class with us. Boo :( I love Jim! It's kind of sad how we get all these amazing teachers here and then they have to go back to their lives and their studios. I get so attached to them! Tuesday night, I had PC with Mike from Chicago, but we were still getting through Backward Bending/Padahastasana, and I didn't get to deliver Awkward. His feedback was awesome. So positive and helpful. Even though I didn't feel ready to deliver Awkward, I had hoped I'd be able to anyway, just to get some feedback from him.

Wednesday night I had PC with Ren and I presented Awkward. I was pretty nervous (they like us to say "excited"- ha!) because I didn't have the posture 100%, but his energy really helped me to just get up there and do it and I was glad I did, he said he really liked it! Phew. I was definitely questioning myself after PC on Monday night, "maybe I'm not going to be any good at this, maybe I should just quit", etc., etc. , but after getting some positive feedback I was up and running again and ready to really do this thing! I already talked about the amazing teachers we had Wednesday. Thank God for them, really!

Thursday we had a great class from Pubali! She took some pictures from the podium and gave Allie and I a little shout out. Thursday was a great day, but that is when my nose started to get a little stuffy. I started throwing EmergenC at it and hoping it would just go away. I'm sure you can guess what happened? Thankfully, the cold didn't really take over until Friday afternoon, so I got to really enjoy PC with Val Thursday night (we STILL didn't get to Eagle and I really, really wanted to get feedback from her because she is AMAZING) and her class Friday morning. She started off the class dedicating it to the women who had left their children for these nine weeks to attend this training. She had me at "hello". By the end of class, while tearfully sharing her inspiring story of her Bikram Yoga journey, and talking about her daughter, I REALLY started to miss Sadie. Bad. I think letting that all out also opened the flood gates for this cold to run its course. With little, to no, defense against anything my body slowly began to succumb to this cold. Needless to say class and PC Friday night and class this morning were pretty miserable. I sat out postures, I left the room, it was bad. I wanted so badly to end the week strong, but I did the absolute best I could!

After class, I came back to the condo, ate some breakfast and passed OUT for two hours solid. I missed the Anatomy study group, which means I'll need to make some flash cards today at some point and get serious about this test on Monday. Blah. I just want to go back to bed! Being sick in a yoga class is really not a lot of fun. I had to really put my ego aside and just do what I can, not push it, sit out when I needed to and take it easy. Hard to do Week Three when I was feeling SO good in the middle of this week.

So, here at Yoga Bootcamp, it's all about ups and downs, ebbs and flows and trusting the process. When it seems impossible to do so, there is always someone there who can bring you up from the depths of despair with a kind word, a "how are you doing?", a hand on your shoulder or a look of sympathy because we all have to go through it in our own way. They use a lot of 12 step slogans here because so many that are attracted to this yoga are in the program. Addicts love routine and ritual and this yoga definitely had those components, but it's good for you! I've heard the following so far:

"Trust the process"
"The only way out is through"
"Don't leave before the miracle happens"

It's pretty cool hearing these familiar slogans. They put a smile on my face and help me to believe that I'm here for a reason.

I'm one-third of the way to being a Bikram Yoga teacher. All the visiting teachers keep throwing out Week 5 as the doozy...you mean I haven't already hit the wall? Sweet. Loving and missing all of you!