Thursday, November 29, 2001

woo hoo // What a week - the final one. Monday was the video shoot. Did I mention it? Bikram is making an instructional video and we were all invited (commanded) to participate. I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of being in it so I volunteered to be a production assistant. The worst part of my job was having to arrive at 6:30 am. With all my experience as a theatre technician I was disappointed to be asked to work "craft services." That's the food and snack table. It was ok having a break from the studio and it meant my first time in nine weeks without a class for two days in a row (Sunday's are always off). My knees and ankles were killing me all day long and the talent (my fellow trainees) kept me busy as shit - some break.

Tuesday morning the heating system was down and we had a cold (early 80's) class. I always thought a cold class would be easy. It wasn't. The best thing about it was that it proved how iimportant the heat is to this yoga. I'm sure one could practice these postures "cold" regularly and benefit but it wouldn't nearly be as deep and stimulating.

It's now Friday eve (Thursday night) and things are nutso. I'm exhausted and our schedule has been cranked up a bit. I probably won't write again until after graduation -- I'm not going to have any free time until it's all over.

Bikram didn't hasn't had time to approve my speech so he had Rajashree read it. She told him it was fine but that it didn't excite her. I assume that's because the bulk of it contains tongue-in-cheek references to a things that came up during posture clinics and if you weren't there for most of them they'd go right by you and just sound weird. I'll spend some more time tweaking it but ultimately, I'm hoping she'll appreciate it more when she hears it being read. I'm certain the other students will get a kick out of most of it. I'll post the final version.

My back pain is gone for the first time since it began several weeks ago. Except for a general state of exhaustion and sore knee and hip joints I'm feeling great physically. I've been practicing my first yogi task -- trying to sleep while sitting upright with my eyes open. It works great for 10-15 second naps. If I get enough of them in a row I actually feel somewhat rested. I go into them by crossing my eyes and letting my vision go out of focus. It creates a hypnotic like state that, were I laying down and able to let my eyes close, makes me feel like I could be in a deep sleep in seconds upon command. It only works during lectures, though.

I've got lots of short notes to myself that I hope to expand into entries during the drive home next week.

woo hoo, almost done!

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