This Ain't No 9-5 . . .

Well Week 3 is done and we are definitely in the thick of it and like I said above, this ain't no 9-5 . . and it ain't no picnic either . . . for those who are curious, here is my typical day: alarm goes off at 7 a.m. so I can make coffee in my room (I actually bought a coffee maker because I was investing way too much in the lobby Starbucks), leave a little before 8 for 8 a.m. sign in and class at 8:30-10 . . then we are "free", a term I use with great sarcasm because there is no such thing as "free" time in this yoga boot camp (hence, my infrequency of blog posts), until 12 when we sign in for 12:30 p.m. lecture or posture clinic which runs until 4 when we are dismissed to get ready for 4:30 sign in for 5-6:30 p.m. class . . after which we are "free" again until 9 p.m. when we sign in for 9:30 lecture or posture clinic which runs until approximately 12 a.m. . . and after that we may or may not be watching a Bollywood movie until the wee hours of the morning (this depends entirely on whether Bikram is here, which right now, I hate to say it but fortunately he is not and we are able to get to bed at a respectable hour) . . so that is a day in my life at BYTT. We are now well into the dialogue and moving along at a fast pace through the postures. We are up to Standing Head to Knee and are pretty much at a pace to memorize and practice delivering a posture every 1-2 days. We also are well into our Anatomy lectures and have our first exam on Monday covering the Skeletal, Muscular and Nervous Systems. Talk about flashbacks from 8th Grade, Strong School, Mrs. Conforto's Science class! She must have done a pretty good job drilling in those bones to us because I easily recalled the tibia, fibula and mandible to name a few. As far as memorizing the dialogue goes, I am a phenomenal memorizer when I can write things down but reciting the postures out loud is another story and I freeze up . . add to that my stage fright and it's a bad combination. I was the first in my posture clinic to deliver Back Bending and Padahastasana (Sanskrit for 'Head to Feet' pose) and did well but it was a complete blur to me, I remember nothing from being up there and, honestly, don't think I should be held responsible for anything that came out of my mouth since I was totally on auto pilot . . next was Awkward Pose (Utkatasana) . .which, despite it being one of the longest and trickiest poses, went fairly well . . then there was Eagle Pose (Garurasana) . . I went totally blank in front of the 40 or so other people in our posture clinic and then quickly went into panic mode . .I could feel my knee caps (patellas, by the way;) sweating and my face turning beat red and the more I pushed my mind to recall the next line in the posture the more I saw a blank, white, vast chasm in space . . it is a pretty awful feeling and I vowed never to experience it again (which is precisely why I should be studying and not blogging at the moment). I managed to get them out of the posture which is our ultimate goal: "get them in and get them out" because, as teachers, even if we forget the dialogue we MUST finish the class and so our job is to get them in and out of all the postures . . some f'n how . .some f'n way . . even when the words are GONE . . I am now working on Standing Head to Knee and although I feel relatively confident in my ability to deliver it there is no telling what will happen when I am in front of everyone in Posture Clinic . . so I am nervous and I am hoping these nerves will dissipate as we move through the dialogue.

All that said, I am off to shower and STUDY for the rest of the day, both Anatomy for the exam and dialogue for Posture Clinics . . because times' a tickin' . . .