Week 3 : My Hips, My Hips!

First of all, I would like to thank the lovely Gib from New York [also known as Sweaty Yogi] and his roommate Greg for letting me crash their place and use a fabulous lappie to blog. Gib has a pretty awesome and really in-depth blog about Week 3 events, so go check it out here!

Week 3 heralded the beginning of Anatomy with Dr.Trippani [if my Italian is correct] and his lovely wife Sonya. I know I’m such a geek and sucker for Latin words and anything anatomy/biology related – I absolutely enjoyed and adored his anatomy classes! A pity we have to blaze through the anatomy lessons because I would dearly love to learn more about ischial tuberosities and the gluteal muscles. In relation to yoga. Ahem ahem. And definitely more about carpal tunnel, the nerves and the alleopathic system! I find it oh-so fascinating – even more than going out shopping for a new pair of heels [I hate shopping for shoes cause I have demented feet].

Emmy was here this whole week! I looooove her. She is full of knowledge, wise and practical. As Gib says, she advocates yoga AND modern medicine, 2 mixes that go well together. For example, you tear a ligament? Chill out, go see a doctor. So sad to see her leave, I will miss her energy, wisdom and knowledge! Can you believe she is in her 80s and able to put her leg over her head?! I’m 1/4 her age and can’t do crap! Emmy is SNEAKY in that during class, you hear her voice revebrating out of the speakers, she says “Aha, I see a girl who’s sitting too low” and WHAM hits you with a posture correction midway. [yes, that was me]. So in the beginning all us trainees were looking around nervously for where Emmy was, just so we wouldn’t get freaked when she pounces on you with a posture correction!

Ahh, had a bit of a mini run in with this person whom I shall call Chicago Bull. Cause Bulls have a temper [ironically I'm born in the year of the Ox] and boy oh boy, his temper is terribly revolting for a trainee. So I was standing on my left side of the mat waiting for people to line up on the lines, so I can determine which side [on the line, above the line] I belong on cause some of the teachers here are particular about where you go, which is GOOD because I don’t want someone’s sweaty balls dangling in my face. As I was waiting, Chicago Bull turns to me and aggresively tells me to “HURRY UP, COME ON”. OK, WTF. Seriously? In the yoga room? Dude, if you’re really anxious to know where to step, and this is my opinion purely, just COUNT a few mats down and estimate YOURSELF whether you need to step forward or backward. Don’t rush people, and stop being so aggressive! This person falls out of postures [as we all do], gets all aggro, stomps his feet around, huffs and puffs and is very very … unprofessional about his conduct in AND out the yoga room. I had the misfortune [or fortune] of practicing in front of him, and I fell out of Standing Bow a couple of times. I could feel his mean, horrible and negative energy BORING into the back of my skull, cause he’s probably thinking, “Why the FUCK is she standing in front and always falling out?!”. Oh well, maybe that was my yoga for the day, to put up with negative energy and give him positive energy. Or I could be the mean bitch that I am and lace his water with laxatives.

Friday evening marked another emergency exit for me. That was a hot, sweaty and juicy class! Again, my face went numb, fingers and legs started getting tingly and I decided to not be a heroine. Dragged my soppy, self out muttering [in my head], “Fuck fuck face face face!”. The very nice and absolutely cute Tu from New Orleans [I just wanna hug him, squeeeeeze him and carry him back to Malaysia cause he's SO CUTE and CHARMING!] gave me a cup of Coke laced with oodles of salt [which I found to be very delicious] and another cup with regular Coke [it has subtle differences to the Coke we have in Malaysia, not that I drank much of it to start with]. 2-3 postures later he booted me back to class, saying “You learn more in there than you do out here, get back in!”. Oh, and I used the Sick Bin [the bin where you puke in] as all the gas in the Coke was making me all burpy and puke-worthy. Lesson of the class? I’m STRONGER than I think I am! Oh, it was David from Dallas’ class, it was so wonderful and he stuck with dialogue word for word!

A few things about the dialogue and the way it’s written. As a former copywriter, I must admit that when I got my copy of the dialogue from the studio director I grabbed a pen and started correcting the spelling AND grammar. In fact, if you have a look at that muffin-ridden oil-stained copy, you WILL see traces of where I amended standing head to knee, amongst other poses. Basically, yes, it’s written in pidgin English BECAUSE it is the fastest way to get the commands to your body in order for your body to respond to them. For example, instead of “Bring your right leg up”, the dialogue says “right leg lift up”, cause it’s so beautifully SIMPLE!! This goes with other parts of the dialogue, instead of “Touch your forehead exactly on the knee”, it’s “Touch your EXACTLY forhead on the knee” because first, you know it’s EXACT. Forehead. Knee. There, isn’t that simple?

I bring this up because I heard a trainee moan and groan about how the dialogue is easier for ESL [English as a Second Language] students as we can’t tell correct grammar from wrong grammar. It’s not about correct grammar, punctuation or whatever, it’s how it’s delivered straight from the teacher’s mind, to her mouth, to her student’s body.

Another point about certain members of this TT is how some people look upon disdain at the anatomy lectures and Dr.T’s nutrition lecture. This man I was sitting next to said to a couple of his mates, “What the hell, this isn’t a posture, this isn’t a dialogue, why should I care?”. Well, firstly, I KNOW that the lectures are important because what if someone comes up to you and says, “I have a fracture on my C7, pain in my carpals and I recently squished my ischial tuberosities in a car accident, is it safe for me to do Camel?”.  And if you don’t know SQUAT about what the heck the person was talking about, how are you going to advise and subsequently TEACH and CORRECT and HELP the person? AND, to add to that, if you’re misdiagnosting and not helping the person, you WILL be giving bad advice and consequently leading the person to injury, making the person to think that Bikram Yoga is not safe and will cause herniated discs and what not, all because you did not pay attention at all during the lecture. As Emmy says, “Precision, Intensity and Frequency” !!!!

Gosh, ranty much? OK, rant over!

I feel so blessed and lucky to be in a group of really positive people who love this yoga and love that they’re here! I also am loving the wonderful faces and generosity of the many yogis and yoginis in this training!

And with that, I will leave y’all here as I think I’d better give Gib and awesome Greg some privacy. A little person like me can do much damage, apparently, according to my feedback from the posture clinics! First I was told to not find power through volume [oops!], then to not speak so fast [oops!]. I have a feeling I’ll be a meanie teacher who teachers a tough class, and this was proved by Tomoko who said “Oh my, I’m afraid to take your class! You’re gonna be so tough!”. :s

I promise not to hold y’all in Awkward Part 2 for tooooo long.

M*