Week 1

Everything is different and/or new. The environment, the people, the American culture, the weather, the bed you sleep in, the food you eat and the fluids you drink, the heat in the hot room, the instructors, your roommate.. When all has its place in your life, in your mind, you’re ready to roll. Week 1 is down and it has been a tough week for most of us, but a good week. A lot of nice moments to look back to already.

After Mondays first class by Bikram himself we had a pretty good understanding of what TT is going to be. We had nine more classes the first week. Some of them where great (Emmy Cleaves) some of them were tough (Ulises Calatayud from Mexico and Bikram’s classes ofcourse) and some were just very nice because the instructor addressed us as soon-to-be-teachers (Patrice) and stressed the points we had to look at if we gave class ourselves.

We did a lot of half moon pose dialogue individually on a podium in front of Bikram the first week (250 people out of 421) and 90% knew the dialogue pretty well. Those who didn’t, got help from people in the ‘audience’. One girl was so nervous, she cried most of the time during Half Moon and everybody helped her by saying the words out loud for her… 420 people saying dialogue and one beautiful crying girl on the podium… This was awesome…

Half Moon Pose

This afternoon I did half moon and didn’t have to finish it. Bikram said I could teach Bikram Yoga to anybody, even a dead body. I’m not the kind of guy that brags and I know we still have a lot of dialogue to learn and eight weeks to go, but this makes me very happy.

The Radisson hotel is really great. Cleaning is good, the food is good, the swimming pool outside is great after a hot class or just to relax a little bit, if you have any questions for instance about the air-conditioning they come fix it right away. There are good groceries shops nearby (Wholefoods, Trader Joe’s, Ralphs), I’ve been to Manhatten Beach en Hormosa Beach yesterday by bus with my roommate Bram and Maddy, so overall everything is very good organized. No complaints.

Basicly every day consists out of four parts. Two yoga classes and two lectures. As soon as instructing Half Moon in front of Bikram is over we probably will get Anatomy classes and Posture clinics. During posture clinics you will actually learn how to teach with the dialogue. I’m up to Triangle pose now with learning the dialogue, but still worried about the amount of time I will eventually have to really be ready when I will go to San Francisco after TT. We’ll see..

Week 2 has already started… Watched the first episode of the Mahabharat.. A Bollywood movie… The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India.. We went to bed at 02:30 am… Class starts at 8:30 am…