angelak | Hail and Welcome September (Reply)

We’re into September now. September in my life is full of a LOT of stuff. August was a precursor to the September busy. And of course, I’m a little amazed or in disbelief that the end of the month – I will have begun my journey in Los Angeles. It’s all pretty surreal to me at this point. It’s a staggering realization that it is no longer that “Thing that is far away,” but – that Thing that is right around the bend. And that it’s real. And that it’s coming. And that I made this possible for myself, somehow.
I am glad. I do not like waiting for things that feel very unknown to me. As everyone should know, I am a research whore. I live and breathe off of facts. Not recalling them necessarily, but data mining. A great passion of mine is honestly research. It took me many years to figure this out – strangely. But now it’s obvious. I have done every piece of research that I can on what it is like to do TT. But the only missing piece is what it is like for ME. I can read a thousand memoirs, I can learn every little fact and watch videos… but nothing is like being there, and going through it. It’s like we can all basically understand what Basic Training is like to soldiers… but even then they eventually realize that we all have our personal challenges and growth will be so VERY different for each person. I hate the fact that I only have half moon down, and nothing else, but from early on it was really obvious to me that I would not be one of those “already have up to standing series” pupils. I also work awful solo. Which is probably the big issue. All of this here at home with all the focus in the world does me no good even if I carve out time. Being alone is not my learning style. I am social in every aspect, and the biggest aspect of me being social is with learning. This is why school online would probably never work for me. And I find that my dialogue practice at home has been very solo. While Jim had at one point mentioned wanting to help me in any way possible… he is also not (and while I am not harping on him here, this is just how it is) very enthused or energizing when I have brought up working on it. Once we said he would help me work on it for 10 minutes. We didn’t even do that. It was “too late” that night. Or “he didn’t have enough time on XYZ game “ that night, or we wanted to watch some show instead. It’s pretty important to me and he is very sharp and KNOWS the importance, but the team work study never manifested even when I was putting some effort at trying to team up with him. I haven’t even had him pretend to be a student for me, and lots of other student teachers have made their spouses do this stuff so many times at home.

I know that the program is certainly designed to do this while you are there – and I also know that anything I have NOT done will just eat into my sleep. Unfortunately, it’s not working at home. The way my home schedule is anyway, is very “go to work. Grab work out clothes, come home shower… eat. Relax for maybe an hour max and tlhen sleep.”

This morning was rough only because I woke up and it was beautifully sunny out. I miss my running routine, I miss my weights and circuits. But my focus has obviously shifted to all yoga ;) Or 95% --- My arms feel pretty weak – sure they might look pretty toned, but compared to what I have built in the past with the weights, the strength is not behind it. I do sincerely miss it. But who knows, maybe training will do some stuff for them that I can’t predict. I’m not particularly a “build up my guns for show,” lady. I really do it to become stronger and feel strong. Now I know what I am missing ;)
Granted, I keep steadily reminding myself that I CAN DO WHATEVER workouts I want when I come home, that this phase is only a little while. I’m unlike some Yogis and Yoginis, I don’t want to only do Yoga.

The good news is my practice in the studio feels pretty strong. The last couple of weeks I have moved up to the hottest part of the room to prepare for Bikram’s torture chamber. When I moved back and to the middle of the room yesterday for Joel Brown’s class, (my friend) I did noticed a marked difference in “not so hot” ness after having been in the hot corner for a while. That’s good news.

Other students also report their practices kind of going to crap pre training. Again - that was so far, me in July. Right now I’ve accepted that all I got is in this moment. And perhaps this attitude has me feeling rather strong somehow. Other folks are also reporting that they aren’t wanting to be social. I, on the other hand – am opposite right now. This is a lesson in not attaching to someone else’s journey. I heard someone say that socialization could wait until I got home. Not sure if they were serious. I personally think that’s hogwash. Why? Well. Without socialization, I don’t enjoy life. Being happy is going to power me through the last few weeks and get me to LA with energy. Spending my time with people is a huge part of that. I have spent a lot of my life being mildly anti-social, or prioritizing my workouts and anything else over socialization time. But now, in September 2011, is obviously not that time – the Universe is throwing me visitors in my home (Barry and Joel) and other social opportunities that are too awesome to turn down. I roll with the flow now days more than I’ve ever done before, and I am absolutely trusting in the process.

I know senior teachers will be spewing that line a 100 times a day when shit hits the fan in training… but maybe I’ll be able to hold that as a dear mantra and not hate it while I am hearing it there too? IT’s working here at home.

What else? Hard not to be writing about TT at this point. Tomorrow is my party. I have more people showing up than usual, and that’s fine. I am excited. Hoping there will be enough space for them all!!! And kinda bummed that my house looks a little messy and I have like .3984209382 days to prep. It’s okay, I’ll make it all work. A huge chunk of these people have never seen our home before too. Goody :P

Actually that is cool. It’s just not as cool because it IS harder to get stuff done in my routine “Angela whirlwind cleaning” sort of way when I have guests. Lianna will be arriving early for the party – that is fine. But I will definitely be doing some last minute prep.

I took Laurel’s class last night and felt very strong, just a little imbalanced. She threw me off by having me demonstrate the breathing exercise for Joel. That wasn’t a bad thing! I do like demonstrating stuff. That is why I predict a lot of yeay in my future for September. Oh boy.
While discussing the 30 day challenge with some yogis/yoginis, someone pointed out that I may not hit 30 in 30 days, but I will do 21/22 classes in 2 weeks. This is obviously a lot of yoga. When prompted about the gumbi idea… I honestly keep telling people it is likely my flexibility will take a hit rather than come back powered up all ultra-gumbi. But I can’t say for sure. I’ve never asked this kind of thing from my body. This falls under the letting it flow. My teachers insist I am ready, and well in 2009 I thought I was ready (first thoughts of TT entered my heart at that time). But circa 2011… I feel my practice isn’t as awesome and neither am I. Fortunately… I am forging ahead anyway. Pretty sure within a couple of weeks my practice will at least shift and do things I couldn’t imagine.

I also need to share that my backbend in class last night really, really shocked me. I was pointed at the floor, I was further than I’ve ever been. Some days this happens. And it’s an amazing moment (between the moment of wondering where my next breath will fit into my lungs, and whether I’m going to break in half, and whether I’m going to fall over) is a moment of hanging in the balance and pushing one step further and elation because of the 100s of classes where it doesn’t happen – it HAPPENS.

I do love backbends, even when they aren’t working out great for me.
I love the feeling of backbends during and afterwards… no getting around it. I also love camel pose… although I shudder to think of the moments when camel will in the coming months, does its special love/hate thing. And when I say that, I mean the days when it really does make you feel nauseous. (But that’s a good thing, you’re “detoxing.”) Sometimes I really hate hate hate the term “Detoxing.” Is that bad? Bikram teachers everywhere love to throw that one out there. Maybe I should be in love with it as much as all the other Bikram teachers……. But I’m not.

And today. I’m being productive. On to the topic of Issy Work. I am doing more personal folder copying still. I also feel exceedingly good about our inventory system. Looks like progress will move just perfectly and everything is going to turn out just fine with my VERY important MEP project. The MEP is certainly a big deal in terms of the bonus for TT payment. TS has also been throwing me extra meetings in September, which I wasn’t expecting. Concerts on the green are done, and it feels good to have them behind us. I enjoyed working on the camera crew/team this year because Miguel, TS#2, and me with TS#1 have it down to a science. A system, and we’re pretty spot on to what needs to happen during the show and afterwards. So that went great.

As for the extra meetings I am getting from TS#1… it is awesome because it’s spare cash I didn’t intend on having. That makes it easier to say – fly my mom down to graduation !!!
She will get a heavy dose of Yoga freaks. I can only imagine what that will look like once it happens. She may get some November sun. I believe I can have 2 people come to graduation. My intent is Mom and Jim. I have yet to purchase tickets for them to fly down. I do intend on using my airmiles for Jim’s ticket. I am leaning against having him visit part way, because I would have to pay for his ticket yet again and he isn’t interested. If he misses me, then he can go ahead and buy a ticket and see me on the weekend in LA. Otherwise… one ticket is enough for me to purchase for him to come see me.
Maybe I would just be too busy anyway.

Definitely will be interesting having time carved out to work on just me. A lot of people say this before/after/during TT> I have never spent 9 weeks focused on JUST myself and my growth ever before. So, that being said, this is freakin’ awesome! No household worries, no one vying for my priorities. Just me and the yoga and the passion to teach. I want to carry around the passion like a little crown sitting atop my head for 9 weeks. And no, I’m not a princess. I’m just trying to find a great way to keep it all over, inside out, from the bones to the skin, from the fingertips to the toes, inside of me and outside of me passion for the entire point I am going: To share this with the World – from me to those who need it the most.

-Angela