Week Seven

Week seven was great. We had some fantastic classes with visiting teachers, notably John Salvatore from New York who is in Las Vegas playing the role of Bob Crewe in the Jersey Boys show. Such an animated and dynamic class - he loves an audience and clearly loves teaching this yoga. I will have to go to his class at Bikram Yoga Lower East Side in New York over the holidays. Diane Ducharme from Massachusetts has been with us a few weeks now and has been invaluable during posture clinics, she has also taught us a few classes during her stay with us. She has been dubbed 'The Queen of Dialogue' and can't stress enough how important it is to stick to the script, or prescription as she calls it, when teaching. I'm sorry to see her go. We've done 76 yoga classes to date - the end is definitely in sight! Week seven was light on the posture clinic front as we had several lectures with Jon Burras in the latter part of the week. Jon Burras is a yoga therapist who specializes in Intuitive Connective Tissue Bodywork - 'The Fascia Guy" as he is known. He spoke in depth about the body's connective tissue and how it reacts with the therapeutic practice of Bikram Yoga, He also opened up a very lively discussion on the laws of resistance and attraction and how we are all in control of our destinies. We are not victims of our genetics unless we choose to be, and that our own 'personal vibrations' draw positive and/or negative energy that shape our lives. We did not see too much of Bikram himself this week - do doubt he'll make up for lost time week 8!

On saturday morning we had our CPR training, got a bit of grocery shopping done in the afternoon and in the evening Brigette, Nickky and I walked 'The Strip' for nearly six hours - so much to see. The Bellagio is quite impressive but everything is all quite ridiculous at the same time! You can buy yourself a $7,000 bag at the Bellagio Hermes store whilst sucking back a $14 'souvenir' cocktail served in a plastic Eiffel Tower beaker purchased at the next door Paris Las Vegas. It was good to get out of The Hilton confines though! Sunday was very relaxing...desperately need a lie-in, followed by more study, then a blissful massage in the evening. Week eight just around the corner!

Week Six

Wow, week six was a tough one. There was a lot of dialogue to memorize in the early part of the week as we were having posture clinics twice a day and cranking through a good chunk of the floor series postures. The teachers holding the clinics are steadily pushing us out of our comfort zones by having us deliver the postures in some very bizarre ways. The concept of acting out a role or doing some crazy ass movements whilst 'teaching' can be very liberating! The clinics, depending on who is holding them, can be more like acting or drama sessions and are really entertaining sometimes. I was asked to repeat one dialogue in another accent, and all I could think of at that moment was my sister in law's North Carolina drawl. My 'Wind Removing Pose' suddenly became my 'Gone With The Wind Removing Pose'. Fun stuff! The not so fun aspects of this week having included a couple of very late nights with Bikram, which does nothing for my focus or energy levels the next day. Tuesday evening we had a lecture and movie that started after the evening posture clinic at 11:30 pm and wrapped up at 3 am. Thursday evening was the same but continued until 5 am, so I think I may have squeezed in an hour & forty five minutes of sleep that night! Despite the exhaustion, the yoga classes themselves have been going really well. The weekends still consist of laundry, shopping studying, eating and sleeping. I've not seen a lot of Las Vegas since I've been here. Hopefully there will be some time in the next couple of weeks to do that. On saturday I took a complete break from studying and just spent some time with friends and had sushi with my roomie in the evening. Sleep is king!