Well, we are starting week 8. Unbelievable. I have been studying all day, I am trying to get the final posture word for word and it is a struggle. But one of the visiting teachers had an excellent suggestion for me a few weeks back, and every time I have tried it, it seems to work. I walk and meditate and walk and meditate while reading the words and it seems to help calm my mind enough to remember the posture bit by bit. I think at one point my stress level was so high, I could not even remember my name, and this seemed to take the edge off. So, after much studying today, meditation and a short swim, I am looking forward to this week with a little less apprehension and fear and more hopefulness. I am slowly beginning to see that most of what affects you, are usually self imposed limitations or fears, and the other stuff, well, it really does not matter. We are here to help one another, to care for one another, to appreciate each other, and I try to remember that each day I am here. I have seen Bikram twice this weekend and everytime I have seen him he is hard at work, as usual. Took this picture on my second meditation/study walk of the day. Beautiful.
Well, it seems it is getting down to the wire with only a few weeks left, and I get hit with, Diarrhea. It is something that many people here have been hit with while we are here, but I had successfully avoided it until now, Tuesday it started and I had hopes it would just go away, today is Thursday and I was advised yesterday by the staff nurse I should go see the doctor if it continues. The huge complication with it is the potential for dehydration. The water I drink is being immediately dumped with everything else so I tried taking my travel antibiotic and that made the cramping and intensity worse, so I took an over the counter medication and so far it has quieted the loud sounds coming from my tummy, but it has not stopped the activity. The other complication is access to food that is okay to eat. I believe I may have actually gotten sick from a tuna sandwich I ate at one of the hotel stores Monday night, and now I am a little hesitant to really eat anything here on the grounds, once bitten, twice shy kind of thing, and the buffet offerings are a little limited in the diarrhea friendly department, but I will try to figure it out. I just am having a bit of a problem with having to leave the yoga room, which in other forms of yoga is okay, but in Bikram yoga, is a big no-no. It is hard to determine if the searing gas pain is just gas or going to produce much more, so my last three classes I have had to leave only once each time, but for me it is horrific. The staff come running up and try to hand you a vomit container because that is the only reason they think you should be leaving the room, which I agreed with, until now. I actually had one of the staff go into the bathroom with me, maybe to check on me, I am not sure, it is hard to say. I am so hard on myself, I have had to leave the yoga room 4 times now the entire time I have been here, and in my 2 plus years of practice I have only left the yoga room 2 times total. It is really hard. I love my meditation, I love my yoga, but when my gut feels like this, it is hard to think about anything else. I am really trying though, the humiliation I suffer from leaving the room is too great, heading off the class now, hoping for the best.
Buffet burn out. Our complimentary buffet meal once daily has become one of more necessity than enjoyment. The people here at the hotel have been really great in trying to add variety but it is a challenge in itself considering where we are, and how long we are here. It has got to be virtually impossible to please everyone all of the time, and having hundreds of hungry yogis show up wanting food has got to be a strain. There is a convention here of plastic surgeons and that has been pretty interesting seeing us try to navigate, the yogis cant drink alcohol, and we run around staying up late-studying dialogue, while the doctors or botox professionals or whatever they may be, are the types that many stay up drinking, and just having a pretty good time, and here we come from our yoga class, sweaty and sort of dragging our mats past them in the hallway, I wonder what they think. One of the students asked one of them to join us for a yoga class, and pretty much just got the un-hunh, sure, you bet sort of look. It is kind of a deal killer having yogis dragging their butts through the halls, looking comatose, or zombie like, i am not sure which. Oh well. My class today was very difficult. I busted my butt in Craig Villanis class last night, since most classes go just under two hours, I underestimated the power of accrued dehydration and fatigue. So, this morning I get to the 8 AM class smiling, excited and thinking, this is in the bag, then, 10 minutes into it, I hit the wall, my head was spinning, my limbs felt like they had left my body, and I felt like I could pass out at any moment. It was weird how hard it hit me, and how fast, but I made a point of consuming lots of water and electrolytes today so hopefully I will be out of my deficit, ha ha. Side note: my lips have steam burns, not sure WHY! The yoga room is hot. That is all I can say, and I have realized there is not any way in human words to describe the blistering heat, I know hot, but the combined heat, humidity and lack of ventilation create a perfect storm of, blast furnace and steam room? I will have to think of some more words while I nurse my brain cells back.
A friend and acquaintance of mine back home died on Saturday, he was only 44 years old and one of the sweetest most giving men on the planet. An infectious smile and laugh that filled a room, and died pretty suddenly. I am truly sad and in mourning. I feel weak from that this morning, and also the fact that I have lost around 16 pounds so I have made the connection to that with why I am not feeling so strong in my classes as well. Our class nurse has given me directions to eat more, but my appetite is either very low or not there when we get to our daily buffet. I increased my intake of electrolytes and nutrients, but appetite still not where it was a few weeks ago. I am not alone, other classmates are stating they have the same problem, no or low appetite and weak, and it also makes it hard to think and concentrate. Luckily, there are some great people here from other countries I have talked to that are all experiencing the same or similar issues, so I am going to keep moving right along.
Today was the weirdest day yet. I had what I would consider a mini break down in our morning posture clinic (A critique session where staff and studio owners watch you with three demonstrators perform dialogue, the copyrighted version of the directions for Bikrams 26 postures). I was in the middle of setting up people in separate leg stretching posture and I had this flash in my mind of the first Bikram class I took at the Bloomington studio, and how I could not really do the posture, I could not breathe, could barely reach my feet, and I had a mini meltdown right in the middle of the practice teacher session, tears and all. I could see myself in that room, struggling to do the posture and it blew me away, I had been suppressing this for a long time, how important the yoga is. WOW! This yoga has changed me in ways I have only begun to see. So, this evening we were all in our posture clinic to do triangle, and I decided, I am going to do this posture! I saw that moment as a defining moment, and needed to get back on the horse. I thought, oh my god, they are going to throw me out of this training if I cant pull myself together. I got up tonight, I did my dialogue, and I was fine, and the great part was, I extended myself to one of my Canadian class mates, said "we are going out on this balcony and practicing this posture and we are going up there to do it, TONIGHT!" and we did, and it was fine. This yoga is about being healthy, and happy, and balanced, and I think I am seeing things so differently now. The classes are a struggle, and yesterday, when I was thinking about jumping up off of my mat and running screaming from the room because of the heat, and one of my classmates beat me to it, I wound up laughing instead of running because it was not just me who was freaking out. The yoga room is HOT HOT HOT. More about that later.
