Shooting For Every Syllable.

Argh!!!

I am working on cleaning up the first few postures this week, now that I finally have some time to sit and think about them. (Work was insane up until this week.) I have Half Moon down... But...

I keep leaving out words. Little ones.

It's mostly just small words... Like using "you are" instead of "you're" or using "the" instead of "your." It may seem small... But it is annoying to me. I want to know every. Single. Syllable.

I know at this point I will probably only have Half Moon with Hands to Feet, Awkward and Eagle down pat before I go in three weeks. But I will have read through the full dialogue hundreds of times. I know bits and pieces of everything. But verbatim? I only will (probably) know just the first three postures that way.

"Your" Leaning Against the Wall.

Just reviewing Awkward pose... And now have a question.

Can "leaning" ever be a thing? Instead of a verb?

I guess it can be, as in "leanings." As in, "I have leanings towards vegetarianism from time to time."

So, when it is used as a noun, it is okay to say "Your leaning is towards vegetarianism." But in this instance, "You're leaning towards vegetarianism" (as a verb) would be correct too.

But I am slightly thrown off by how it is used in a sentence of the dialogue... "Your leaning against the wall."

Shouldn't it be "You're leaning against the wall"?

Or am I getting too far into trying to understand each and every syllable in the dialogue that I am missing the point?

A Whole 194 "Standing Head to Knee" Poses "Lucky."

I am lucky. I will not try to deny it.

When I hinted in January of this year, at work, that I was thinking about going to teacher training this Fall, my boss mentioned that a leave of absence was a rare thing.

I was in the first month of my Bikram 101 challenge, and I was finding myself randomly pushing my hips forward (towards the mirror) while standing in line for coffee during the work day. I would hear bits of the dialogue echoing through my ears while researching things for clients. The idea of finally attending teacher training was becoming more and more difficult to evade.

So by late February I made a decision. NOT going to teacher training was not an option for me. I wanted to go. I had already put it off once. I was not going to do it again.

So I said to my boss, "I have decided to go to teacher training in the Fall. I hope you'll have me back when I am finished. But I completely understand if I have to look for a new job when I come back. Either way, I wanted to make sure I gave you enough notice."

And to my surprise, he was happy to have a discussion with me about taking the time off. But back then, it seemed like Fall training was a long ways off. Way off. In the distance.

It was a whole seven months away.

It was. And now, it's a mere 27 days till I hop on a flight.

TWENTY-SEVEN DAYS!

And you know what? I only have 18 working days left.

EIGHTEEN WORKING DAYS!!!

Panic is now starting to set into my brain. Why? I feel like I have so much to do before then. New business to pitch. Contracts to put together. Duties to delegate. Egos to manage so that my boss won't see how poorly I run my team while I gone by having to deal with them himself.

Here's to busting my ass like crazy over the next few weeks, before I go. Yes, I am letting the guilt of taking the time off get to me.

But, I will have a whole nine weeks to let it pass. I mean, my mind will be preoccupied with other things. Like the (at minimum) 194 Standing-Head-to-Knee poses I will be doing.

After that many, I better finally have a fucking supreme Standing-Head-to-Knee.

Getting Through The Standing Series Is The Toughest Part.

My mind, as you may know, has been all over the place these past few weeks. And the "monkey mind" seeps into my practice... And as a result, causes me to have a crap-tastic class.

I so mentally exhausted that every time a "party time" (aka "water break") comes in class, I carelessly grasp for my 40 ounce Klean Kanteen filled with cold relief. Which then causes me to have acid reflux throughout the class, as the water slushing around in my belly makes things difficult.

So in this afternoon's class, I made a concrete ("lampost, you have no knee") decision. I decided I was not going to take any water break until I got to the floor series. And you know what I discovered?

Like with learning the dialogue, it is best to just get through the Standing Series... And then things will be easier in the Floor Series.

I drank after Toe Stand, right before Savasana. And then again in Supta Vajrasana (Fixed Firm). Then right before Final Savasana. And I had the best class I've had since - I kid you not - I finished the Bikram 101 Challenge.

Not throwing water in me right before Standing Head to Knee made the pose much easier. I only fell out once on each side. My Standing Bow was AWESOME today. And the spine strengthening series was amazing. I stayed in every single time.

This gave me a great opportunity to get some serious form guidance from my teacher today... As she was able to accurately see what I was doing and how I could tweak things.

So from here on out... I am going to be much cleaner and efficient with water. I've given way too much up to my monkey mind and started to get sloppy.

Bikram Yoga Teacher Training: A Peek At What It's Like.

Came across this article about teacher training earlier this week. Below is the video embedded within it.

Gives a small peek at what to expect at training. Really looking forward to being told to "get the fuck down" and that I am a "chicken shit."

And no, I am not kidding. This is going to be a ton of fun.

Good Form. No Fidgeting.

I took the early morning class yesterday with one of my studio's directors.

Any of the teachers at my studio would be ideal for me to practice with before I go away. Every single one I have practiced with in the past few months knows I am going to teacher training next month. And they have all given me great feedback.

However, I am trying to make sure I take classes with the directors before I go because they are the ones who wrote my recommendation letter for me. I want them to be secure with the fact that they signed their name to paper to say I was "ready" for teacher training.

Plus, it's good to practice with them so that they will remember you are going to teacher training... And will hopefully be willing to give you classes to teach when you get back. (Fingers crossed!)

Anyway... Back to yesterday's early class...

Early morning classes are tough for me. I am naturally dehydrated. My body isn't warmed up yet, because I haven't been up all day walking around. Any water that I do drink for the first hour after I am up tastes like toothpaste. So I knew this, one of my first early morning classes in a long time, was going to be rough.

My endurance in the poses was crap. Complete crap. I fell out of Standing-Head-to-Knee and Standing Bow a dozen times each. And during Half Moon, I wasn't able to go nearly as deep as I normally can.

It was disappointing.

Till after class.

My director waited around for me to come out of the room. He said my focus in my practice is much improved from where it had been.

"You aren't fidgeting anymore," he said.

I am normally a fidgeter. I scratch. I wipe. I tug. I grimace and make funny faces. And before I go away to teacher training, the fidgeting is something that needed to stop.

I don't want to be called a "chicken shit" by Bikram for fidgeting.

I told the director that I felt I needed to build up my endurance before I go away. He said not to worry too much about that.

"You have good form. And you aren't fidgeting as much as you used to," he said.

So I am going to stress less about the fact that I am falling out of postures. There will be plenty of time practice staying in them, as Bikram allegedly likes to make us hold poses super-duper-extra long.

Here's The Plan!

Following up yesterday's post about having a shitty practice lately...

I was in class last evening, chatting with a teacher about training. I was telling her how I was trying to do another 30-day before training begins in six and a half weeks. She told me, though, to make sure I don't kill myself with my yoga practice right up to the start of training.

"Take a week or two off beforehand. The first two weeks of training are spent getting used to the energy and the room. You want to go in craving the yoga. Best way to do that is to take a break right before you go."

I said I didn't want to have a shitty practice when I get there, and that I wanted to have everything in good form.

"The first two weeks is a leveling for everyone. People are falling out left and right. You will be no different from anyone else when you get there."

This made me feel TONS better. I will take the week and a half before training off and just focus on my dialogue. I will finish my current 30-day, and then take a little break.

Shitty Practice Lately.

My practice has gone to total shit lately. Total shit.

I am doing my best to pull through each class. But my mind is being a total asshole to the rest of my body, and as a result, my practice has sucked the past few weeks. I can't seem to "concentrate and meditate." It's all emotional and mental stress. Totally in the mind. It's not my body. My body can execute the postures. But my mind is all over the place lately.

"What's going on in my head?" you may be wondering. Well, there's so much to take care of before I leave for San Diego for two months...

• Work: I am trying to hustle and confirm a significant promotion for myself before I leave. And in order to do this, I am doing a lot of work to get new business signed on and make sure my team is able to handle it while I am gone. They totally are. But I still stress about every single little thing. I have a hard time letting go and stopping the micro-managing. I have this, "If the business fails, it's my fault" mentality.
• Husband: The Husband has been nothing but wonderful about the whole "going away for two months" thing. But it still stresses me out... The guilt, that is. It's guilt that is brought on by myself. And so I am trying to spend as much time as possible with him before I leave... But then the work thing gets in the way. As does the yoga and the dialogue studying.
• The Yoga: I am forcing myself to get to class as much as possible, despite the shitty practices I have been having. And the dialogue study is taking some major focus and commitment on my part to actually get done.
• Redecorating. I am trying to get a room redecorated in my house before the end of August. My mind is scattered, despite having a half dozen things to do.

I leave for San Diego in less than seven weeks. It will be nice to finally get there, and just immerse myself in the yoga and the study. But until then, I still have all this to deal with... And it is definitely taking its toll on my practice.