Locking The Knee

“You can mess with the gods, but you can’t mess with the knees.”

This is a classic Bikram quote and I can now say that I understand it completely. This week I was forced to sit out most classes as my knee injury from last Sunday wasn’t getting better. Monday morning I started class and realized that I was in a lot of pain. Both my knees were swollen and irritated so I made the decision to go to the medical clinic up the street from the hotel to get a doctor to take a look. It turns out that I have a pull in the left knee and because I was overcompensating with my right knee I had developed patellar tendinitis. A knee injury is very humbling. I have struggled a lot this week dealing with my fears, anxiety, and uncertainty toward my body, this practice, and teaching Bikram yoga. All the questions of why and how the injury occurred plague my mind and to some extent pollute the amazing experience that I’m currently involved in. This week I again turned to my new found friends for support and perspective. I began to realize that almost everyone I talked to has dealt with injury’s, some worse than mine. They all have beautiful strong yoga practices despite the injury’s. So as I limp forward (temporary) I hope to say that I have learned a lesson. Shit Happens. Deal with it. Do not judge, do not live in fear, just relax because stronger and better days are ahead.

Yoga Class and Posture Clinics – “Yee Haw”
Every training Lisa Ingle from Bikram Yoga San Antonio teaches her “Texas” Bikram yoga class complete with a “yee haw” as we perform a sit up. Being from Texas, I’ve been looking forward to this class. It was wonderful. Lisa has a great teaching style and I think everyone loved her class. Monday’s classes are always somewhat difficult for most everyone and it’s good to have a few light moments where we can let out some of the anxiety and stress of starting another week here in Bikram’s torcher chamber. It was also great to talk to her as I had a chance to catch up with her on the progress of the Texas Yoga Championship marketing materials. Every year I handle the design and marketing of the event and this year she is hosting the competition. Here’s a link to the website I designed for the competition: www.texasyogaasanachampionship.com.

This week one of my friends Kathrine from our group had her studio owner here for a visit. The instructor is from Florida and taught a great class. During the spine strengthening series she called Kathrine up on the podium for an “interview” where Kathrine had to deliver cobra pose. It was amazing, and she did soooo good, totally killed the posture. Kathrine just learned the posture the day before and now she was delivering it with style and grace on an eight foot tall podium to 400 plus trainees and teachers. Kathrine said that we looked beautiful from her view atop the podium.

Lately posture clinics have been hilarious. Everyone is completely worn out from the training and it seems like we’ve been taking a more relaxed approach toward learning the dialogue. I don’t mean that were getting lazy. I mean that by now everyone has now figured out the best way to memorize the dialogue and they now know how much work it takes to memorize and deliver the posture in the clinic. Also, at this point in time, we’ve really gotten a chance to get to know the other folks in our group really well, and all of our unique personalities are starting to come through. That combined with lack of sleep make for some really funny moments in posture clinic. One guy, Chris, delivered the dialogue like a cowboy and had to say “bang” every time he got stuck and couldn’t deliver the words. Some of the funniest moments are when the demonstrators are acting like “real students” in order to create distractions. People have been rolling around in postures, grabbing their legs like they have cramps, and pretty much acting like they are dying. We’re almost through the whole 26 postures and we should be wrapping posture clinics up next week. YAY!

Jon Burras – “Fascia, Fascia, Facia”
Thursday and Friday we had lectures given by Jon Burras aka “The Fascia Guy”. Jon is an author, yoga teacher, wellness consultant, bodyworker, wilderness guide and international lecturer. He talked about healty aging, fitness vs. health, chakras and fascia, fascia, fascia. So what the heck is fascia and why did he talk about it so much? Basically Jon talked about fascia because it’s one of the fundamental tissue in the body that helps facilitate healthy living if you have a good concept of it and are aware of it’s function. Fascia is connective tissue and it can harden over time without proper care of your body. John introduced some great ideas about how he thinks we can age in a more healthy way. Believe it or not, nutrition is at the bottom of the list. Number one on the list is attitude. Jon says your thoughts are responsible for creating your reality and your positive attitude can reduce stress. Pretty cool. Here’s a photo of Jon in action. The Yogi’s on stage represent muscle and the seran wrap around them represents fascia. It was so funny as Jon was talking they were all swaying back and forth and making the whole room crack up.

Manhattan Beach – “Asleep on the Sand”
Saturday was spent at Manhattan beach with a few of my good friends that I’ve met here at training. My friend Michelle is from Orange County California and she has a car here so we all piled in and drove out to the beach. I walked all the way out to the edge of the water and realized I was totally unprepared to spend a day at the beach. So I found a small shop where I got sunglasses, sunscreen, and a towel. I put my towel down, laid down and was fast asleep. It was really nice to breath some fresh ocean air and feel the warm sun on my skin. I usually don’t get out very much during the week and all I see is the inside of the hotel I’m staying in. Here’s a few photos of the trip to the beach:

This entry was posted on Monday, October 31st, 2011 at 2:41 am and is filed under Bikram Yoga Teacher Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.