A lengthy, wandering post to kick off LJ 2012
I gave up coffee for many months, and previously for years. I’ve got to say I’ve enjoyed picking the habit back up, particularly in the morning. It takes me way back. (As way back as I can go at this current point in my incarnation). So let’s say it takes me back to LWTC and the Dark Days of DOS. And Basic Electronics. ;)
Rest in Peace, Lee Gray. That guy was a teacher, the kind of teacher that cares more about what the students learn, than their marks in his class. In spite of my inevitable ability to make math errors, he always helped me out with my circuit equations. Can I go back and take your class one more time? I’m afraid not. You’re dead, and I’m 11 years beyond that era in my life. Which - the 1.5 years it took to complete my AAS at the age of 16 while finishing up high school…. Seemed to go on and on because I was so busy all the time, so engaged in technology only, that now it seems like a blink of an eye went by. Just like Teacher Training, 9 weeks of constant immersion, and honestly - having taken both a degree program through regular college, and Bikram’s TT… I can’t exactly deny, they reminded me of a lot of the same thing. My IT folks who went through CSNT with me became my day to day sanity and my only source of social interaction. And when the program was over, and we all went our separate ways, it was like the hours and hours of comradery happened, but faded all too quickly like a flame that loses oxygen and ceases to be burning anymore. One second it’s there, as tangible as the earth and the sky around us… the next minute it’s behind an unseen veil, and all that remains is the energetic connections left behind and people all over the place.
Constantly, they circulate through my thoughts at varying points in my day. Vivid memories… it really does feel the same as the CSNT program, only much more intense on the onset, and more intense on the exit. I guess as CSNT happened without me realizing it - it also faded the same way, because by the end of my program, we were no longer all in the same core classes anymore. I also had to finish up my high school diploma and was suddenly stuck in Glyenna Lee’s class. Ew. After constant treatment and respect from my college instructors, I was back to a high school teacher treating me like some irresponsible child. She really did not like me, I recall this so vividly. I remember one particular instance where I had gotten off of work late one night at Target, after the full day at school - it was pouring outside. I had finished my stupid busy-work packet, 100%. And as I got into the car to drive my hour commute home, this packet fell into a huge puddle of standing water. I tried to ask Glyenna for a second packet, knowing it was due that day - so I could fill it in, because my work was destroyed. She was so angry at me and acted like I had intentionally done this puddle sabotage. She would regularly become confrontational and get about 4 inches from my face. She said I was going to get 0% credit, and no she would not give me another packet. Heh, Priceless memory really. I’d like to go find that old lady and tell her a thing or two.
“Look Lady… my car broke down last week, I found out it was going to cost me more than my last 3 month’s pay, I was already broke from paying for insurance, I commute 2 hours a day and school full time while working nearly 30 hours per week.” (Which, Target was blatantly breaking the law my scheduling me more than 20 hours per week, but I quietly let them do this because I wanted the cash.)
So, one day at 10:15PM before my fucking commute home, my packet falls in the rain, cut me some slack - not like I’m some responsibility shirking HS drop out.
She didn’t see my transcript… a lot of people in my program WERE high school drop outs. I was not.
I just happened to not want to go to school at Sultan High School, after being a student at Eastlake high. The education levels were so different and so were the kids. My parents were kind enough to let me give the degree program at LWTC a shot. I think it is the best thing that could have happened to me. I sacrificed a regular high school experience for something that gave me livelihood and a sense of accomplishment that I never really fully understood until the last few years. I was just doing what you do what you’re in situations that require hard work: Living through it and taking it in stride. I know this post is kinda introspective, maybe all over the place… but I think in order to stay in the next several months, I should do more of this. I know without writing, it is probably like choking out my soul. Wouldn’t it be nice if I committed to doing my best to keep my LJ updated in 2012?
I will probably start filtering a lot more stuff though, because in order to write about half of the stuff on my mind, I am now invoking more and more privacy to my life. Who knew this would happen to me? Robert would be proud of me. He hated my all out 100% non-disclosure. I think it made him pretty angry………… but this isn’t about him.
Point being, there’s a lot going on in my head again. I mean there always is, but this stuff is not the same old shit from the last 4 years re-circulating. And I don’t think I ever really understand things until I write.
I’ve had a lot of stuff I wanted to write lately, and not a good set up it to get the data out. The info out of my head. I guess it doesn’t magically happen… I’ve got to set aside the intention to do it, and once I do - it’s just a matter of habit. We’ll see.
A lot of my thoughts lately are about how I can’t stop talking about TT, the people, the things, what I’m feeling - the teaching, all of this is on the constant fore-front of my mind. I wonder if my people around me are getting a bit sick of the photos, the stories, the everything. (Maybe some of the panic, because let’s face it, being a new Bikram teacher is not exactly a picnic, in spite of the slough of idiots who go on and on about how swimmingly awesome they are).
Gag me, assholes. Maybe it is smooth for some people. But for me, it’s a challenge. I’m not saying I don’t love it intensely, I do. I’m not saying there’s a indescribable joy from the experience of being on the podium. Actually, it still doesn’t feel real, even as I stand up there on the podium with my wireless mic and start the class.
“Let’s begin with pranayama breathing exercise. Good for the lungs and the respiratory system. Breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, using the nose and throat as a passageway, only…”
It doesn’t seem real to me when I see my practice in the mirror as a student, either. Or when people talk to me like I’m a teacher (which, by the way - I am) - or when they compliment me on how beautiful my practice is. To me, I just feel like me. The same me as before. Except now, the more time the passes, the more and more and more and more (sorry, standing separate leg stretching pose quite, forgive me) - Lock your knees, slowly bend forward, and grab your feet from the outside at the heel…. Shit, it’s coming out. As I was saying, the more time the passes, the more I see that there were changes that happened while I was away being so inundated with crazy in the yoga bubble.
For instance, the co workers that normally drive me nuts. Well - I really can put up with them in a different way. I really didn’t believe anything would make this possible for me. I’ve worked with some of these people for yes - 10 years. And they’ve been slowly annoying me in varying levels, for 10 years. Some less. Like only 4 years or so… but really, there’s some kind of zen moments I have where I almost laugh and go about my business in a way that was never possible for me.
I have to also say, I miss Bikram a lot. And I am constantly spewing things out to Jim about my opinion about these things. A lot of people do not like Bikram, as we know. They only think about his “dick” side. How he can be a total asshole. Maybe I just drank too much koolaide, but I sincerely find many of the things he has done and said - to make total and complete sense. And I understand him perhaps in ways that others may not. He likes shock value. I like shock value. I say things just to make people freak out sometimes. He does the same shit. He also says stuff like he sees it. I was basically born doing that, and over the years have scaled back the blunt, rude ways I used to blurt things out. When I was around Bikram and witnessing these mannerisms, it was very familiar to me. The only difference is that he has insane amounts of cash and power - so he can continue to do that to certain people. He unapologetically defies what people think is acceptable. Except, I think a portion of it is truly an act. He’s a Hollywood, Bollywood, obsessor. He loves everything about that shit. And therefore I think to a degree, he loves to do his usual script. It’s just like his classes, his dialogue. Every training he does the same shit. For the last decades... it’s all the same. He has done, said, and offended in the same ways, over and over again. It seems awfully calculated to me. Button pushing, “trying to steal your peace,” sort of guy. When he did it to me directly, I actually just laughed. But he didn’t ask me where I lost my virginity and if it was on the kitchen table because “you’re a weird person, I know you lost it somewhere weird.”
People got really mad when he said that one to somebody in our training………
Can you still do the yoga when some tiny Indian man is being as rude as can be? What can you take from that experience, per se - and apply it to real life? I know Bikram wants everything else outside of training to be a "piece of cake." So he makes things harder in training, just to be a pain in the ass. And some people really, really, really hate that. Especially when they aren't sleeping as much and are physically drained. Needless to say, I still have my weaknesses. Particularly with the ongoing “critiquing” of the teaching. Because I have to pump myself up every time I go teach, and every time I am done. Getting to the end of a class is just as triumphant to me from up top the podium as it is when I am on the floor in front of it. I know my standing series runs 5-7 minutes short, I know I don’t hold the long postures a complete 60 seconds every time. I am a big softie, and when I see my students struggling and working hard, I want to pull them out sooner than later - yes, that’s part of me. No, it’s not perfect, no it’s not ideal, but I’m working on it every day. Although I can’t deny I kinda get a sick pleasure from the collective groan when people come out of Full Locust. There’s something energetic going on in that posture and when people give it a good one, I feel it from the front of the room in a way I can’t quite describe either. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed, in that moment, it feels like nothing could trump it. How peculiar that a room full of hot, sweaty, sometimes cranky, uncomfortable yogis, lifting their arms out to the side, their feet and lower body together, locked out - going up, arms up, arms back - arms in one line with the top of the head…….. how this could be beautiful? What is beautiful about that? I don’t know. Perhaps what is happening as a kaleidoscope of chakras soaring all over the room, energy in motion, just like emotion…
So while the studio owner, who is a sweet, wonderful lady - writes down all my mistakes during mentorship and has no idea that every single time I get more feedback than my brain can handle, causes me to get so down on myself. I can honestly not ever forget the part that makes me want to go back. Makes me want to sacrifice my own practice many nights, for the practice of others.
If I didn’t write it before, my reason for going to training was simply because I wanted to give back in the same way my teachers were able to give to me. Without the practice, I don’t know where I’d be. But I can say this - it healed me in more ways than one, from some very dark places. And my idea of going and becoming a teacher was/is/is to be - about the notion that if I can be a part of taking just one person out of a dark place and setting their course back to where it belongs, that was my intent behind becoming a teacher.
It is easy to forget that when the heart-ache comes back and I see the hole of emptiness and the words that some woman who thinks the minor details (which aren’t even Bikramisms, but occasionally mere preference…) are going to help my teaching.
No. Only practice teaching will help my teaching, I believe. And continual study. And belief in myself.
So when it is easy to forget these driving forces behind my teaching path… I must remember them above all costs.
-Angela