That's right, I got a new job this week! Woo hoo, go me! (I've spent half my time bumming around and being slightly broke since I finished grad school, and it's been getting kinda old.)
My new job is a part-time gig with an SAT test prep company. (This one, if you are curious.) I'll be teaching weekly classes, doing private tutoring, and running a few workshops. So far, I'm really impressed with the company. I like the people who I've met and I like the way they've put together the curriculum. I applied for the job online (after finding the craigslist listing, of course), went through a little Skype interview, and then got invited to a 2-day training session, which they consider their "second interview." The training was on Monday and Tuesday of this week. I spent the whole weekend watching their training videos and cramming like crazy. (Thank goodness for my memory!) At the end of the first training session, my new manager said, "Ok, I'm really impressed, I'm gonna be hiring you, and are you interested in teaching an SAT writing workshop at the high school on Wednesday and Thursday?" So I spent all day Tuesday going over material, went to my 2nd training session on Tuesday night, and then spent all of yesterday and today at the local public high school, teaching high schoolers.
Let me repeat that - I just taught high school students. I find this bizarre and shocking and totally exciting!
Some of the classes were well behaved. Some of them were totally crazy and out of control. Some of them were filled with distractions - school bulletins, lunch, the end of the day, the sports teams' victories, etc. I taught the same 2-day workshop to 4 different groups, and every one of those periods was a unique experience. You know how teachers always say that they learn the most from their students? And it's kind of a clique, because it's been repeated so many times? I totally get what those teachers are talking about now, because I learned tons! I learned how to improvise. I learned when to laugh and "go with it," and when to take control and use my "loud voice." I learned how to adjust my plans based on time, based on attention spans, based on teacher feedback, and based on blind guessing. When I say that I "learned," what I really mean is that I started to learn, because these are all huge things that I hope to get better at with practice!
I am shocked at how much overlap there is between this SAT test-prep job and my future Bikram yoga teaching job! First, let me state the obvious: teaching high schoolers has got to be great practice for teaching yoga, because it's hard to imagine that any group of yogis could be harder to manage than a group of average high school students. (No offense to any readers who are high school students themselves! Come on - you go to high school - you know what some of the kids in your classes are like!!) At least yoga students, for the most part, really want to be there and have some interest in learning! With high school students who don't even care about the SAT, you're fighting an uphill battle all the way.
I've also noticed tons of overlap that I didn't expect. The very first page that my trainer had me "teach" for her during training was a page about getting in the "test zone." In a nutshell, it was saying that there may be tons of distractions in your surroundings that you can't do anything about (when you take the test), so you have to worry about the things you can control: your physical state and your state of mind. Um... hello?!? Is this not one of the biggest, best, and most important things that we work on in Bikram yoga?? I had no trouble teaching that page. I was in my element!
This job also gives me a great opportunity to work on my speaking voice and energy. During the training on Monday, we did a mock teaching thing where I went through and delivered parts of the curriculum for a couple people. At the end of the session, my trainer told me that I speak very concisely and clearly - thank you yoga, thank you blogging! She also said that not only do I have a lot of energy (which I knew), but I also have a lot of control over my energy (which was a surprise). Apparently I was very focused whenever I spoke, and I also brought my energy up every time the energy in the room started to dip down. I had no idea that I was doing that. How cool! This was the most exciting feedback ever! I felt pretty good about myself after that...
Unless my feelings change, I definitely plan to hold onto this job when I come back from teacher training; the pay is good, the work is fun and interesting, it keeps me on my toes, and it'll be a way to earn a bit of income without sweating my balls off for 4+ hours every single day!! Hooray for conservation of electrolytes.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Practice, practice, practice! (Comp. Report Part 3)
This is the last championship follow-up post, and then I'm moving on to other things!
A few people have been asking about how someone becomes a yoga champion. How much of that skill comes from hard work vs. natural ability? How do people chose their "optional" postures? How do they train?
I can answer all of the above with two words: "It depends."
The choice of optional postures really depends on the competitor's experience level. If you're a student who is new to competition, you can pretty much depend on your teachers to suggest a few optional postures for you. They know your practice, they know your strengths, and they know which postures will show you off the best! If you're more experienced - you've done the advanced series for a while, you've been around the block a couple times - then you'll already have an idea of which postures work well on your body (though you can always ask a coach for advice).
It's good practice to work on more than 2 optional postures - maybe 4 or 5 of them. You can choose 2 postures that you're already good at, along with 2 other postures that are challenging but possibly achievable. When the competition comes closer, you make your final decision. This year, people could (and did) change their optionals at the last minute. Word from the judge's clinic (thanks Libby!!) says that in the future, competitors will be required to commit to 2 optional postures before they go on stage.
The training for competition can be as simple as going to a couple advanced classes for coaching and spending an extra 10 minutes after class to run through the routine... or it can be as extensive as going to a 2-week long championship training retreat and spending hours a day on extra practice. It really depends on the individual - their level, their goals, their time commitment, etc. There are some teachers - Mary Jarvis, Esak Garcia - who really specialize in preparing yogis for competition and who teach lots of extra exercises, such as backbends down the wall and other "homework." I don't know too much about it, having never participated in one of these workshops (yet!), but a lot of medalists have been involved in these trainings and these techniques clearly produce results! On the other hand, many competitors do very well by sticking to their basic 26 and 2 plus advanced classes and feedback.
What about "hard work" vs "natural ability"? I'll tell you one thing right now: NO ONE is winning championships based on "natural ability" alone. It's true that there are some people who are naturally very flexible or very strong, but the championship judges are specifically looking for a balance of strength and flexibility that can only be achieved through really hard work. I've seen some champions who had incredible natural range of motion, but those people worked for years and years to gain the elements of strength, technique, and control that are necessary to harness that flexibility and produce a truly excellent yoga demonstration.
I also want to mention Joseph Encinia (hi Joseph!), who has been the U.S. gold medalist and international silver medalist for the last two years. Besides being an all-around sweet guy, Joseph is a true Bikram yoga success story. He was very unhealthy as a child - he was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and had a heart attack at age 13 - and came to Bikram yoga totally out of shape and overweight. And then he just practiced. Class after class after class. Now his postures are some of the best in the world and he's in great health. It can be done!! Practice, and all is coming.
You can watch his routine, along with all the other top routines, at the Yoga Cup website. I'm so glad that they've updated the page with all these great videos! I could watch them over and over...
After all this inspiring competition talk, I need to mention one thing. Competition training is great and amazing, but it is not the most important part of our yoga. The most important thing is health. Always. I talked to a friend over the weekend who owns one of the newer Massachusetts studios. Her studio has been open for a couple years and has not produced any yoga champions yet. Maybe it never will. But my friend doesn't really care. That's because her students are all getting healthier, sometimes to a miraculous extent. She has a 73 year old student who "couldn't kneel on her own knees" when she started coming to the studio. Now this lady comes to class every day, has no problem kneeling on her knees (or doing the rest of the postures), and is recruiting all her friends. It's hard to imagine a greater reward than that!
A few people have been asking about how someone becomes a yoga champion. How much of that skill comes from hard work vs. natural ability? How do people chose their "optional" postures? How do they train?
I can answer all of the above with two words: "It depends."
The choice of optional postures really depends on the competitor's experience level. If you're a student who is new to competition, you can pretty much depend on your teachers to suggest a few optional postures for you. They know your practice, they know your strengths, and they know which postures will show you off the best! If you're more experienced - you've done the advanced series for a while, you've been around the block a couple times - then you'll already have an idea of which postures work well on your body (though you can always ask a coach for advice).
It's good practice to work on more than 2 optional postures - maybe 4 or 5 of them. You can choose 2 postures that you're already good at, along with 2 other postures that are challenging but possibly achievable. When the competition comes closer, you make your final decision. This year, people could (and did) change their optionals at the last minute. Word from the judge's clinic (thanks Libby!!) says that in the future, competitors will be required to commit to 2 optional postures before they go on stage.
The training for competition can be as simple as going to a couple advanced classes for coaching and spending an extra 10 minutes after class to run through the routine... or it can be as extensive as going to a 2-week long championship training retreat and spending hours a day on extra practice. It really depends on the individual - their level, their goals, their time commitment, etc. There are some teachers - Mary Jarvis, Esak Garcia - who really specialize in preparing yogis for competition and who teach lots of extra exercises, such as backbends down the wall and other "homework." I don't know too much about it, having never participated in one of these workshops (yet!), but a lot of medalists have been involved in these trainings and these techniques clearly produce results! On the other hand, many competitors do very well by sticking to their basic 26 and 2 plus advanced classes and feedback.
What about "hard work" vs "natural ability"? I'll tell you one thing right now: NO ONE is winning championships based on "natural ability" alone. It's true that there are some people who are naturally very flexible or very strong, but the championship judges are specifically looking for a balance of strength and flexibility that can only be achieved through really hard work. I've seen some champions who had incredible natural range of motion, but those people worked for years and years to gain the elements of strength, technique, and control that are necessary to harness that flexibility and produce a truly excellent yoga demonstration.
I also want to mention Joseph Encinia (hi Joseph!), who has been the U.S. gold medalist and international silver medalist for the last two years. Besides being an all-around sweet guy, Joseph is a true Bikram yoga success story. He was very unhealthy as a child - he was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and had a heart attack at age 13 - and came to Bikram yoga totally out of shape and overweight. And then he just practiced. Class after class after class. Now his postures are some of the best in the world and he's in great health. It can be done!! Practice, and all is coming.
You can watch his routine, along with all the other top routines, at the Yoga Cup website. I'm so glad that they've updated the page with all these great videos! I could watch them over and over...
After all this inspiring competition talk, I need to mention one thing. Competition training is great and amazing, but it is not the most important part of our yoga. The most important thing is health. Always. I talked to a friend over the weekend who owns one of the newer Massachusetts studios. Her studio has been open for a couple years and has not produced any yoga champions yet. Maybe it never will. But my friend doesn't really care. That's because her students are all getting healthier, sometimes to a miraculous extent. She has a 73 year old student who "couldn't kneel on her own knees" when she started coming to the studio. Now this lady comes to class every day, has no problem kneeling on her knees (or doing the rest of the postures), and is recruiting all her friends. It's hard to imagine a greater reward than that!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
If At First You Don't Succeed... (Competition Report Part 2)
Okay, let me talk about some of the things that I noticed and learned at the championships last weekend.
But first, let me refer you to this article which I wrote for "Oh My Bikram," an awesome new Bikram yoga blog based out of Toronto. There's some excellent content posted there. (I loved the last discussion about standing bow pulling pose!) I've had a couple of guest posts on there and have now been dubbed the blogarazzi. Hehe. So the article on OMB is my big competition overview, and I'm going to keep posting bits and pieces here until I run out of things to say. Or until I get distracted by something else. (Ooh, shiny!)
Now let's have some shop talk!
Over the course of three days, there were 117 routines performed by 93 yogis, plus 21 routines performed by the boys and girls in the youth division. (The U.S. and international finalists performed more than once.) That's 117 standing head to knee poses. I got to watch almost all of them - I missed some of the U.S. men when I was guarding the door from the outside - and I don't remember seeing a single person fail to execute the pose. As far as I saw, all 93 people were able to balance with their forehead on their knee.
Think all standing head to knee poses look the same?
Think rabbit pose is kinda boring to look at?
Try watching 117 of them in a row.
It is the most interesting thing ever. No really, you guys, I am dead serious! Because at that level, after you watch for a while, your eye starts to recognize all the nuances and subtleties of the posture. The tiniest technical details - a slightly higher leg, a slightly bent wrist - start to jump out at you. And since every body is unique - short torsos, long legs, long spines, short arms, muscular and compact, slim and flexible - you get to see what correct execution looks like on all these different bodies. You get to understand the postures better just by seeing how the champions' muscles move...
It's great. And strangely exhausting! I was sooooo tired after a full day of just watching other people doing yoga. I did not envy the judges. They really had a tough job! By the way, Bikram and Raj didn't judge, but the panels were all made up of very senior/experienced teachers - Emmy, a bunch of Indian folks, Jim Kallet, Diane (yay!), and tons of previous world champions.
(Incidentally, I am watching the Ice Dancing from the Winter Olympics right now, and I'm pretty impressed by watched these guys do a position resembling standing head to knee, on ice skates, while they spin around in a circle at about 500 rotations per minute...)
Another highlight of the weekend was hearing all about the judging from Emmy and Bikram at the Monday advanced class after the championships.
They both talked a lot about basics and the dialogue. I really appreciated hearing this stuff! They both said that, even if you get "advanced," that doesn't mean you can stop listening to the dialogue. The dialogue is your foundation. Back to basics, yay!!
Emmy spoke quite a lot about the placement of the grips. Standing head to knee is THREE INCHES below the toes. I took a look at mine. Uh oh, busted. I was SO not holding 3 inches below the toes - more like an inch two inches at best. Now my balance is a little wonky, but I can already see that the posture is getting better. The grip for standing bow pulling pose is at the ankle, with straight wrists. The grip for bow is 2 inches below the toes, STRAIGHT WRISTS. If the wrists are bending to let your hand wrap around the foot more, it's cause your fingers need to get stronger.
Emmy and Bikram both talked about locking the knees. (News flash! Hehe.) Apparently tons of people got deductions for not fully contracting their thigh muscles and getting rid of the gap under the knees in the stretching pose (paschimo). Emmy said that from where the judges sit, any gap at all is very visible. They also talked about really contracting the top thigh muscle of the kicking leg in standing head to knee. (Oh! Oh! I totally called that one.) Emmy reminded us that you should already be practicing this action with your legs during pranayama and half moon pose.
Bikram also gave us a great description of how to place the kicking leg in standing head to knee. Lots of people's legs "floated up" a little bit on stage. Bikram asked us, "You remember the dialogue? What did I say in the dialogue?" Leg exactly parallel to the floor, no higher, no lower. But then he pointed out that the leg is maybe 3 inches wide at the ankle but 10 inches wide at the thigh. So... which part of the leg do you look at when you're trying to find parallel? He said to forget about the flesh and look at the skeleton. Look at the bones. (Oh man, I called this one too! This was the first time I've heard Boss describe this concept explicitly, and it made me so happy.) Bikram says that parallel means the heel should be in line with the hip bone. He also said that you can't tell on your own whether it's in the right place - like balancing stick, you have to ask someone else to take a look and tell you whether you're straight.
I really appreciated that Bikram and Emmy brought everything back to the fundamentals. They pointed out that no matter what level you're at, even during competition, the goal isn't to do the "prettiest" posture. The goal is always to do the posture the right way, for the greatest medical benefits, just the way it's described in the dialogue. For the most part, competitors didn't lose points because they forgot to point their toes while they wrapped their ankles around their necks and stuck their feet in their faces. They lost points because they didn't follow the set-ups given in the dialogue.
As they say: If at first you don't succeed, try reading the instructions. Love it. :)
More later!
But first, let me refer you to this article which I wrote for "Oh My Bikram," an awesome new Bikram yoga blog based out of Toronto. There's some excellent content posted there. (I loved the last discussion about standing bow pulling pose!) I've had a couple of guest posts on there and have now been dubbed the blogarazzi. Hehe. So the article on OMB is my big competition overview, and I'm going to keep posting bits and pieces here until I run out of things to say. Or until I get distracted by something else. (Ooh, shiny!)
Now let's have some shop talk!
Over the course of three days, there were 117 routines performed by 93 yogis, plus 21 routines performed by the boys and girls in the youth division. (The U.S. and international finalists performed more than once.) That's 117 standing head to knee poses. I got to watch almost all of them - I missed some of the U.S. men when I was guarding the door from the outside - and I don't remember seeing a single person fail to execute the pose. As far as I saw, all 93 people were able to balance with their forehead on their knee.
Think all standing head to knee poses look the same?
Think rabbit pose is kinda boring to look at?
Try watching 117 of them in a row.
It is the most interesting thing ever. No really, you guys, I am dead serious! Because at that level, after you watch for a while, your eye starts to recognize all the nuances and subtleties of the posture. The tiniest technical details - a slightly higher leg, a slightly bent wrist - start to jump out at you. And since every body is unique - short torsos, long legs, long spines, short arms, muscular and compact, slim and flexible - you get to see what correct execution looks like on all these different bodies. You get to understand the postures better just by seeing how the champions' muscles move...
It's great. And strangely exhausting! I was sooooo tired after a full day of just watching other people doing yoga. I did not envy the judges. They really had a tough job! By the way, Bikram and Raj didn't judge, but the panels were all made up of very senior/experienced teachers - Emmy, a bunch of Indian folks, Jim Kallet, Diane (yay!), and tons of previous world champions.
(Incidentally, I am watching the Ice Dancing from the Winter Olympics right now, and I'm pretty impressed by watched these guys do a position resembling standing head to knee, on ice skates, while they spin around in a circle at about 500 rotations per minute...)
Another highlight of the weekend was hearing all about the judging from Emmy and Bikram at the Monday advanced class after the championships.
They both talked a lot about basics and the dialogue. I really appreciated hearing this stuff! They both said that, even if you get "advanced," that doesn't mean you can stop listening to the dialogue. The dialogue is your foundation. Back to basics, yay!!
Emmy spoke quite a lot about the placement of the grips. Standing head to knee is THREE INCHES below the toes. I took a look at mine. Uh oh, busted. I was SO not holding 3 inches below the toes - more like an inch two inches at best. Now my balance is a little wonky, but I can already see that the posture is getting better. The grip for standing bow pulling pose is at the ankle, with straight wrists. The grip for bow is 2 inches below the toes, STRAIGHT WRISTS. If the wrists are bending to let your hand wrap around the foot more, it's cause your fingers need to get stronger.
Emmy and Bikram both talked about locking the knees. (News flash! Hehe.) Apparently tons of people got deductions for not fully contracting their thigh muscles and getting rid of the gap under the knees in the stretching pose (paschimo). Emmy said that from where the judges sit, any gap at all is very visible. They also talked about really contracting the top thigh muscle of the kicking leg in standing head to knee. (Oh! Oh! I totally called that one.) Emmy reminded us that you should already be practicing this action with your legs during pranayama and half moon pose.
Bikram also gave us a great description of how to place the kicking leg in standing head to knee. Lots of people's legs "floated up" a little bit on stage. Bikram asked us, "You remember the dialogue? What did I say in the dialogue?" Leg exactly parallel to the floor, no higher, no lower. But then he pointed out that the leg is maybe 3 inches wide at the ankle but 10 inches wide at the thigh. So... which part of the leg do you look at when you're trying to find parallel? He said to forget about the flesh and look at the skeleton. Look at the bones. (Oh man, I called this one too! This was the first time I've heard Boss describe this concept explicitly, and it made me so happy.) Bikram says that parallel means the heel should be in line with the hip bone. He also said that you can't tell on your own whether it's in the right place - like balancing stick, you have to ask someone else to take a look and tell you whether you're straight.
I really appreciated that Bikram and Emmy brought everything back to the fundamentals. They pointed out that no matter what level you're at, even during competition, the goal isn't to do the "prettiest" posture. The goal is always to do the posture the right way, for the greatest medical benefits, just the way it's described in the dialogue. For the most part, competitors didn't lose points because they forgot to point their toes while they wrapped their ankles around their necks and stuck their feet in their faces. They lost points because they didn't follow the set-ups given in the dialogue.
As they say: If at first you don't succeed, try reading the instructions. Love it. :)
More later!
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
World's Best High School Reunion (Competition Report Part 1!)
After throwing up my hands saying "I don't know what to write!," I took a walk to the grocery store and realized exactly what I want to write. (Walking always helps me think!)
One of the very best things about Bikram yoga is the people who do it. I don't know what it is, exactly - a camaraderie, a bond, an understanding, a common desire, a shared experience, a mass psychosis (?) - but there's really something that holds us together. I've been a part of many different groups in my time - a church, a ballet company, a marching band, a high school, a sorority, a college, a summer math camp, a research group - and I never quite felt like I had found my People. But when I started really spending time in the Bikram yoga community, I had just one thought. "Holy crap. I think I've actually found my People."
And we're not quite normal people. To be perfectly honest, we're kind of a bunch of freaks. But in a brilliant way!
I hated high school. I don't know if I'll ever go to a high school reunion. But at these championship weekends, when all the generations of Bikram yoga teachers and students come together for a few days, I always think, "Wow, this is what a high school reunion would be like if you had really loved high school!" It's great. All the teachers get to catch up with friends from their teacher training classes. My friends from Fall Spring 2005 kept bragging about how they have the best TT class, because so many of them were there, including almost ALL of group one! They took a class picture with Bikram that had about 30 of them in it. Three or four of the women from that class had tiny babies in strollers this year. (Sarah Baughn's baby kept on stealing the show - I think she had about 15 babysitters, including Bikram, who adored her. He is GREAT with babies!!) It's actually more like a family reunion, except that the family has hundreds of people in it and none of them are related by blood. (Blood is thicker than water, but maybe sweat is thicker than blood!)
The whole thing is kind of a circus. You've got all the competitors in their leotards and nice hairstyles, running around in sweatpants looking focused. You've got the volunteers in red t-shirts (including me), running around trying to keep people from going OUT the "no exit" door or IN the "no entrance" door. You've got coaches giving last minute advice, judges working hard up at the front table, video guys trying to fix the live feed, and Bikram hanging out in his white disco suit having a great time. In the ballroom, when the competitors go on stage, you could hear a pin drop. Outside in the hallway, you've got all the different vendors. There were 3 or 4 different yoga wear companies, which put on amateur (but good!) fashion shows during the "commercial breaks." There was a guy selling "yoga swings" who looked like a refuge from a 1980's David Bowie movie and claimed to only sleep 1-3 hours a night because he spends so much time hanging upside-down. (No one's really sure who invited him.) There were some people selling an "oxygenated" yoga mat which, by Emmy's sardonic description, "is supposed to do all the work for you so that you don't have to work." Hilariously, Bikram bought one; he practiced with it during advanced class on Monday. Things that are supposed to start at 10am start at 10:30, and things that are supposed to start at 2pm start at 5:30, and the thank-you speeches last for an hour, and everyone has flashbacks to their teacher trainings.
And then there's the party. Every year, Bikram celebrates his birthday on an evening during the championships. (For the record, the actual date is Feb 10th.) The party includes a buffet of Indian food and some mind-boggling yoga demonstrations from the reigning yoga champions. And then Bikram gets ups and talks, and I can't remember half of it, but I laughed until I nearly cried. Because he knows how he is. He gets up there, already laughing, and says "You guys really want to hear my speech again?" Everyone thinks of their 5-hour teacher training lectures, laughs, and says "Yes!" Then he breaks out all his favorite lines and all his favorite stories. He says, "Having doesn't mean anything if you don't know how to...?" Two-hundred people call back "USE IT!" and he cracks up, legitimately delighted that we've been listening to him all these years, and then we crack up, because there's something honest and infectious about his laugh. I overheard a guy walking past me, talking to himself, saying "Thank God, he never changes."
And then there's the disco. It's everything that your awkward middle school dance never was! Bikram says, "I invented disco, I just took off the -theque." That man turned 60-something this year, and he still knows how to shamelessly get down. It's such pure, ridiculous, glorious silliness. I spent half the time just watching the dance floor, totally entertained by the craziness that is Bikram, but finally I grabbed a friend and jumped in. The DJ played "Celebration" - "Celebrate good times, come on!" - and we all sang the "Woo hoo!"s. At one point I was dancing next to Bikram. He started doing this little cross-over side-step, and Libby and I fell into step with him on his right while another girl fell into step on his left. It was too funny. This is our Boss. Who else can say that, besides a bunch of Bikram yogis?!
I love us...
-------------
EDITED TO ADD:
I met Cira on Sunday, and she's written some great stuff about her experience here. It was great to meet her, and a couple of other readers, too! Hi, guys! Thanks for making me feel slightly famous!! It was surprising and fun. :)
Also, when I say "Part 1," that means there is plenty more to come, so keep sending suggestions for things you'd like to hear about!
One of the very best things about Bikram yoga is the people who do it. I don't know what it is, exactly - a camaraderie, a bond, an understanding, a common desire, a shared experience, a mass psychosis (?) - but there's really something that holds us together. I've been a part of many different groups in my time - a church, a ballet company, a marching band, a high school, a sorority, a college, a summer math camp, a research group - and I never quite felt like I had found my People. But when I started really spending time in the Bikram yoga community, I had just one thought. "Holy crap. I think I've actually found my People."
And we're not quite normal people. To be perfectly honest, we're kind of a bunch of freaks. But in a brilliant way!
I hated high school. I don't know if I'll ever go to a high school reunion. But at these championship weekends, when all the generations of Bikram yoga teachers and students come together for a few days, I always think, "Wow, this is what a high school reunion would be like if you had really loved high school!" It's great. All the teachers get to catch up with friends from their teacher training classes. My friends from Fall Spring 2005 kept bragging about how they have the best TT class, because so many of them were there, including almost ALL of group one! They took a class picture with Bikram that had about 30 of them in it. Three or four of the women from that class had tiny babies in strollers this year. (Sarah Baughn's baby kept on stealing the show - I think she had about 15 babysitters, including Bikram, who adored her. He is GREAT with babies!!) It's actually more like a family reunion, except that the family has hundreds of people in it and none of them are related by blood. (Blood is thicker than water, but maybe sweat is thicker than blood!)
The whole thing is kind of a circus. You've got all the competitors in their leotards and nice hairstyles, running around in sweatpants looking focused. You've got the volunteers in red t-shirts (including me), running around trying to keep people from going OUT the "no exit" door or IN the "no entrance" door. You've got coaches giving last minute advice, judges working hard up at the front table, video guys trying to fix the live feed, and Bikram hanging out in his white disco suit having a great time. In the ballroom, when the competitors go on stage, you could hear a pin drop. Outside in the hallway, you've got all the different vendors. There were 3 or 4 different yoga wear companies, which put on amateur (but good!) fashion shows during the "commercial breaks." There was a guy selling "yoga swings" who looked like a refuge from a 1980's David Bowie movie and claimed to only sleep 1-3 hours a night because he spends so much time hanging upside-down. (No one's really sure who invited him.) There were some people selling an "oxygenated" yoga mat which, by Emmy's sardonic description, "is supposed to do all the work for you so that you don't have to work." Hilariously, Bikram bought one; he practiced with it during advanced class on Monday. Things that are supposed to start at 10am start at 10:30, and things that are supposed to start at 2pm start at 5:30, and the thank-you speeches last for an hour, and everyone has flashbacks to their teacher trainings.
And then there's the party. Every year, Bikram celebrates his birthday on an evening during the championships. (For the record, the actual date is Feb 10th.) The party includes a buffet of Indian food and some mind-boggling yoga demonstrations from the reigning yoga champions. And then Bikram gets ups and talks, and I can't remember half of it, but I laughed until I nearly cried. Because he knows how he is. He gets up there, already laughing, and says "You guys really want to hear my speech again?" Everyone thinks of their 5-hour teacher training lectures, laughs, and says "Yes!" Then he breaks out all his favorite lines and all his favorite stories. He says, "Having doesn't mean anything if you don't know how to...?" Two-hundred people call back "USE IT!" and he cracks up, legitimately delighted that we've been listening to him all these years, and then we crack up, because there's something honest and infectious about his laugh. I overheard a guy walking past me, talking to himself, saying "Thank God, he never changes."
And then there's the disco. It's everything that your awkward middle school dance never was! Bikram says, "I invented disco, I just took off the -theque." That man turned 60-something this year, and he still knows how to shamelessly get down. It's such pure, ridiculous, glorious silliness. I spent half the time just watching the dance floor, totally entertained by the craziness that is Bikram, but finally I grabbed a friend and jumped in. The DJ played "Celebration" - "Celebrate good times, come on!" - and we all sang the "Woo hoo!"s. At one point I was dancing next to Bikram. He started doing this little cross-over side-step, and Libby and I fell into step with him on his right while another girl fell into step on his left. It was too funny. This is our Boss. Who else can say that, besides a bunch of Bikram yogis?!
I love us...
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EDITED TO ADD:
I met Cira on Sunday, and she's written some great stuff about her experience here. It was great to meet her, and a couple of other readers, too! Hi, guys! Thanks for making me feel slightly famous!! It was surprising and fun. :)
Also, when I say "Part 1," that means there is plenty more to come, so keep sending suggestions for things you'd like to hear about!
What a weekend!
I got home from championship weekend yesterday afternoon, slept all morning today, and am still trying to unpack my brain...
The weekend went roughly as follows:
Thursday night:
Drove down to LA to stay at a friend's house
Friday:
Took 7am class at HQ with Courtney Mace, last year's female champion
Went straight to hotel and signed in to volunteer. Spent all morning guarding the door, from both the outside and the inside. Then went in and got to watch the U.S. women. The whole thing (including awards) went on until maybe 8pm. Got dinner at hotel restaurant with a bunch of teachers, then ended up hanging out at the hotel bar until 1am talking about yoga, and crashed in a friend's hotel room.
Saturday:
Took 7am at HQ with Leslie (not sure last name), who was the champion from the very first yoga championship 7 years ago.
Went to hotel for international championships. These went on all day and were awesome.
Got dressed up, went to dinner, then went to Bikram's birthday/disco party. Good times.
Sunday:
Totally overslept and missed the 7am class. Was tired!
Watched the Youth division. Oh man. The kids are getting GOOD!!!
International finals - top 10 men and top 10 women. Best yoga I've ever seen in my life. These guys seriously BROUGHT it. The winners were Brandy (USA) and Kaspar (Netherlands).
Monday:
Took 7:30am class at Hermosa Beach. Went to Jamba Juice. Practiced dialogue with another spring 2010 trainee. Took 12:15 advanced class with Emmy. (Bikram was there for the first half of it, then he had to leave to go to the judge's clinic.) Drove home. Had to stop halfway to get salad. Totally beat, in a great way.
This is NOT my championship report. I still need to write that. I'm just having trouble unpacking my brain. Yoga overload!
Tell me what you want to hear about!!
The weekend went roughly as follows:
Thursday night:
Drove down to LA to stay at a friend's house
Friday:
Took 7am class at HQ with Courtney Mace, last year's female champion
Went straight to hotel and signed in to volunteer. Spent all morning guarding the door, from both the outside and the inside. Then went in and got to watch the U.S. women. The whole thing (including awards) went on until maybe 8pm. Got dinner at hotel restaurant with a bunch of teachers, then ended up hanging out at the hotel bar until 1am talking about yoga, and crashed in a friend's hotel room.
Saturday:
Took 7am at HQ with Leslie (not sure last name), who was the champion from the very first yoga championship 7 years ago.
Went to hotel for international championships. These went on all day and were awesome.
Got dressed up, went to dinner, then went to Bikram's birthday/disco party. Good times.
Sunday:
Totally overslept and missed the 7am class. Was tired!
Watched the Youth division. Oh man. The kids are getting GOOD!!!
International finals - top 10 men and top 10 women. Best yoga I've ever seen in my life. These guys seriously BROUGHT it. The winners were Brandy (USA) and Kaspar (Netherlands).
Monday:
Took 7:30am class at Hermosa Beach. Went to Jamba Juice. Practiced dialogue with another spring 2010 trainee. Took 12:15 advanced class with Emmy. (Bikram was there for the first half of it, then he had to leave to go to the judge's clinic.) Drove home. Had to stop halfway to get salad. Totally beat, in a great way.
This is NOT my championship report. I still need to write that. I'm just having trouble unpacking my brain. Yoga overload!
Tell me what you want to hear about!!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Yoga Competition?!
Yoga competitions!! What's up with that?!
I'm heading down to LA tonight for the weekend of the national and international Yoga Asana Championships. Woo hoo! Good times.
When people first hear the words "yoga" and "competition" in the same breath, the typical response falls somewhere in the spectrum between a puzzled "Wait.... what?" and an aggressive "What the fuck?!" Now, I could go over all the talking points for why yoga championships are a fine idea (like the fact that they've been doing them in India for centuries or the fact that it's a yoga asana competition, not a yoga competition), but first I just want to share my personal competition experiences.
The first time I competed was in the New England regionals in October 2007, at the request and encouragement of my studio owners. I was still pretty new to the world of Bikram yoga, and I had never heard of a "yoga competition" before, but I was interested in trying something new and learning a little more about yoga, so I said, "Sure, why not?" So I started training, with a group of other students and teachers, and I learned how a yoga competition works.
It goes like this: each participant has exactly 3 minutes (no longer) to demonstrate a routine of 7 postures on stage. The first 5 postures, the compulsories, are taken from the beginning Bikram class and are the same for everyone: standing head to knee, standing bow pulling, bow, rabbit, and stretching. The last two postures, the "optionals," are where you get to strut your stuff a little bit and demonstrate something that you are especially good at. Those postures are usually chosen from the advanced series. The goal is to demonstrate strength, flexibility, and balance. Each of the postures is scored out of 10 points based on form and technique. There's also a subjective score for "grace."
I had a lot of fun training, because all us students started working together after class to help each other improve in the postures. We started sharing tips and trick and stories, and it was the first time I started being really social at yoga. (Of course now I am Miss Social Butterfly, but in the beginning I didn't talk to anyone!!) I learned a ton about the postures, and I gained so much confidence. Before I started training, I really never wanted anyone to watch my postures. After a couple months, I was totally comfortable going up to any teacher after class and asking them to watch my routine and give me feedback.
One of the most important things about yoga for me has always been the lack of judgement. Yoga class was the first place in a very long time where I was able to just see myself instead of constantly judging. So this idea of getting up on stage to be judged was unsettling, at best! I went up to one of my coaches after a class in September, all teary for some reason, and told her that I didn't like the thought of going to stage to have everyone judge me. She said that I shouldn't think of it like that; I should just think of it as "show and tell." It was a chance for me to go in front of my teachers and peers and show them what I'd been working on, nothing more. I liked the idea of "show and tell." I decided that my goal for the performance would be to demonstrate everything that I had learned in the past months, so that other people could see how wonderful my teachers were.
I was scared shitless before I got up on stage, but once I was up there I had SO. MUCH. FUN. Time went in slow motion. It was a crazy extended adrenaline rush. I held all my postures and I was so proud of myself, because I'd made my teachers proud and I'd done something that I didn't think I could do. The whole team went out for a celebratory dinner that night, and I was the happiest I'd been in a long time.
I competed again a year later, in November 2008, in the southern California regionals. I had just moved cross country a few months earlier. This time, I didn't have a team of coaches and teachers and friends. It was just me! I did it to challenge myself, because I didn't especially feel like doing it, but I knew it would help me to grow as a yogi. I practiced my routine on my own and got feedback when I could.
My postures definitely improved through training, but that year was all about the social networking! If you're new in town and you want plug into the local community, showing up on stage at the competition is a pretty good way to do it! The best part of competing that year was spending time backstage with other local yogis and getting to know all these cool people. Competitions are just like these big old yoga conventions. They are the least competitive things ever. We all hang out backstage and help each other with our routines. We watch each other from the wings and hold our breath, wanting to see everyone else do their best. Everyone winces when someone wobbles and cheers when someone does well. Some of the people who I met at that event are now among my best yogi-friends in Los Angeles, so it was totally worthwhile!
As far as the actual performance that year, I was totally relaxed backstage, giving last minute tips and cracking dirty jokes, and then I was scared shitless when I got up on stage! It was very dark, and Emmy was in the middle of the judges' table - yikes! I wobbled pretty badly coming out of standing head to knee and was sure it was all over. But as soon as that happened, I thought to myself, "Whoops, well that's that, oh well, too bad!" I put a big smile on my face, relaxed completely, and finished the routine very cheerfully. (My friend in the audience said that I was the only one who smiled, like, at all.) Whaddaya know - I got third place. Didn't qualify me for nationals (that's first and second place winners only), but it was something to write home about.
I didn't get to compete this year, so that's the extent of my personal experience on the yoga stage! (I'm really gonna have to do it again next year, though, or certain people will kill me.)
Since my experiences have been so positive, I always encourage people to get involved in their local events. They're inspiring to watch, they bring the community together, and it's empowering to be a part of them. "Competition" gets a bad rap, but it's not inherently a bad thing. When good people compete with each other - not against, but with - without malice or pettiness, everyone improves from it. Bikram likes to point out that competition is the foundation of democracy, and I think he's got a point. Without competition, you have either a monopoly or a caste system, right?! Everything in life is competition, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Let's compete with each other to see who can raise the most money for Haiti, and we'll see if anyone's worse off at the end of the day.
I'll be in LA all weekend for the national and international championships, and it promises to be a fun time! (Yoga family reunion!!) Maybe I'll see some of you there! For those of you staying at home, the events will both be streaming live online. You can watch on Friday at USA Yoga and on Saturday and Sunday at Yoga Cup. The schedule of events is here. Enjoy!!
I'm heading down to LA tonight for the weekend of the national and international Yoga Asana Championships. Woo hoo! Good times.
When people first hear the words "yoga" and "competition" in the same breath, the typical response falls somewhere in the spectrum between a puzzled "Wait.... what?" and an aggressive "What the fuck?!" Now, I could go over all the talking points for why yoga championships are a fine idea (like the fact that they've been doing them in India for centuries or the fact that it's a yoga asana competition, not a yoga competition), but first I just want to share my personal competition experiences.
The first time I competed was in the New England regionals in October 2007, at the request and encouragement of my studio owners. I was still pretty new to the world of Bikram yoga, and I had never heard of a "yoga competition" before, but I was interested in trying something new and learning a little more about yoga, so I said, "Sure, why not?" So I started training, with a group of other students and teachers, and I learned how a yoga competition works.
It goes like this: each participant has exactly 3 minutes (no longer) to demonstrate a routine of 7 postures on stage. The first 5 postures, the compulsories, are taken from the beginning Bikram class and are the same for everyone: standing head to knee, standing bow pulling, bow, rabbit, and stretching. The last two postures, the "optionals," are where you get to strut your stuff a little bit and demonstrate something that you are especially good at. Those postures are usually chosen from the advanced series. The goal is to demonstrate strength, flexibility, and balance. Each of the postures is scored out of 10 points based on form and technique. There's also a subjective score for "grace."
I had a lot of fun training, because all us students started working together after class to help each other improve in the postures. We started sharing tips and trick and stories, and it was the first time I started being really social at yoga. (Of course now I am Miss Social Butterfly, but in the beginning I didn't talk to anyone!!) I learned a ton about the postures, and I gained so much confidence. Before I started training, I really never wanted anyone to watch my postures. After a couple months, I was totally comfortable going up to any teacher after class and asking them to watch my routine and give me feedback.
One of the most important things about yoga for me has always been the lack of judgement. Yoga class was the first place in a very long time where I was able to just see myself instead of constantly judging. So this idea of getting up on stage to be judged was unsettling, at best! I went up to one of my coaches after a class in September, all teary for some reason, and told her that I didn't like the thought of going to stage to have everyone judge me. She said that I shouldn't think of it like that; I should just think of it as "show and tell." It was a chance for me to go in front of my teachers and peers and show them what I'd been working on, nothing more. I liked the idea of "show and tell." I decided that my goal for the performance would be to demonstrate everything that I had learned in the past months, so that other people could see how wonderful my teachers were.
I was scared shitless before I got up on stage, but once I was up there I had SO. MUCH. FUN. Time went in slow motion. It was a crazy extended adrenaline rush. I held all my postures and I was so proud of myself, because I'd made my teachers proud and I'd done something that I didn't think I could do. The whole team went out for a celebratory dinner that night, and I was the happiest I'd been in a long time.
I competed again a year later, in November 2008, in the southern California regionals. I had just moved cross country a few months earlier. This time, I didn't have a team of coaches and teachers and friends. It was just me! I did it to challenge myself, because I didn't especially feel like doing it, but I knew it would help me to grow as a yogi. I practiced my routine on my own and got feedback when I could.
My postures definitely improved through training, but that year was all about the social networking! If you're new in town and you want plug into the local community, showing up on stage at the competition is a pretty good way to do it! The best part of competing that year was spending time backstage with other local yogis and getting to know all these cool people. Competitions are just like these big old yoga conventions. They are the least competitive things ever. We all hang out backstage and help each other with our routines. We watch each other from the wings and hold our breath, wanting to see everyone else do their best. Everyone winces when someone wobbles and cheers when someone does well. Some of the people who I met at that event are now among my best yogi-friends in Los Angeles, so it was totally worthwhile!
As far as the actual performance that year, I was totally relaxed backstage, giving last minute tips and cracking dirty jokes, and then I was scared shitless when I got up on stage! It was very dark, and Emmy was in the middle of the judges' table - yikes! I wobbled pretty badly coming out of standing head to knee and was sure it was all over. But as soon as that happened, I thought to myself, "Whoops, well that's that, oh well, too bad!" I put a big smile on my face, relaxed completely, and finished the routine very cheerfully. (My friend in the audience said that I was the only one who smiled, like, at all.) Whaddaya know - I got third place. Didn't qualify me for nationals (that's first and second place winners only), but it was something to write home about.
I didn't get to compete this year, so that's the extent of my personal experience on the yoga stage! (I'm really gonna have to do it again next year, though, or certain people will kill me.)
Since my experiences have been so positive, I always encourage people to get involved in their local events. They're inspiring to watch, they bring the community together, and it's empowering to be a part of them. "Competition" gets a bad rap, but it's not inherently a bad thing. When good people compete with each other - not against, but with - without malice or pettiness, everyone improves from it. Bikram likes to point out that competition is the foundation of democracy, and I think he's got a point. Without competition, you have either a monopoly or a caste system, right?! Everything in life is competition, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Let's compete with each other to see who can raise the most money for Haiti, and we'll see if anyone's worse off at the end of the day.
I'll be in LA all weekend for the national and international championships, and it promises to be a fun time! (Yoga family reunion!!) Maybe I'll see some of you there! For those of you staying at home, the events will both be streaming live online. You can watch on Friday at USA Yoga and on Saturday and Sunday at Yoga Cup. The schedule of events is here. Enjoy!!
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Dancing Juliet
"The preparation that's involved in dancing a dramatic role is know and learn and read the book, and then forgetting about it. Then learning the steps, and then forgetting about them. And then finding everything you know of that person in you. So really, when I'm playing Juliet, I'm playing me, as Juliet."
- Ballerina Alessandra Ferri on dancing "Romeo and Juliet"These lines from an old ballet video have been floating around in the back of my head for months now.
This, in a nutshell, is my explanation for why I am so devoted to studying and internalizing the dialogue, even though I would have no problem "getting through" teacher training if I didn't look at another page of it between now and April. Because for me, this is the goal: to learn the story, the words, the steps so well that they become second skin, second nature, and I can forget about them completely.
In my former life as a ballerina (see my last post on Bikram 101 for a little more about that), this was something I knew. You cannot perform a piece of choreography in a 100% convincing way if you are still just trying to remember the steps. You have to learn the steps so well that you don't even have to think about them. You have to dance the choreography as if you're inventing the steps yourself, for the first time - without ever missing a choreographed step. This is hard to do!! But when you really know the steps and the story and the reason behind them, inside and out, forwards and backwards... then it just flows. Then you can inhabit the steps, find yourself inside them, and create something absolutely new.
How can you be yourself as a yoga teacher, if you use the same words as everyone else? Silly question. How many ballerinas have danced the same exact steps as Juliet? And how many of those Juliets have been the same?
In the words of Stephen Sondheim: "Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new."
I think this concluded the run of dialogue-obsessed posts. Tomorrow I will start reporting on the weird and wacky world of the international yoga asana competitions!!
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*Here is the Romeo and Juliet video that I was remembering. It's pretty stunning.
**HUGE musical theatre nerd points to anyone who know what musical the Sondheim quote is from. Not you, Mom.
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