Day 26: Things that make you go ...hmmmm

This morning, the new nurse that is here for us taught class. She was great – but that class, well, it was decidedly not great. The morning classes overall have been rougher for me, but today was one of those eternal, hot, brutal and just hot classes. In striking contrast, the afternoon was taught by a older fellow named Jim, who has owned a studio in San Diego for 10 years. Over 200 a day take classes there! His class was fantastic, it went so fast, I was shocked when I found it was about 10 minutes over time. I loved it, it was a virtual walk in the park. Now, again, if we could just add together and divide by two, that’d be swell, oh Yoga Gods, should you be listening….

I did my Standing Separate Leg Stretching dialogue which went really well. And again….in striking contrast, I bombed (and I do mean bombed) my Triangle. Now, this was the first posture I didn’t have in my brain from last weekend (lesson learned) and while I was able to do it pretty well later this evening, in the moment, I choked around the ¾ mark. On my second try, that is. On the first try, I had them bending their knee before they turned their “right foot to the right”…that looked funny, I’ll say.

Now, my blog is fairly PC. You all are smart enough to know there is some stuff that goes on here that I’m not about to blog about. Unless you’re here, you just wouldn’t understand. I’m not holding onto giant secrets or anything, but certain things are just…well, sacred, and would/could be easily judged in a way that wasn't representative of the spirit or intent of an action.

That said, tonight for the first time I had a posture clinic with a proctor that was just abrasive and mean-spirited. It was kinda crazy; interestingly, I did my Triangle and didn’t even care because I wasn’t doing it in front of someone whose feedback was going to make or break me. How can I put this? Ok, here it is: Overall here, there is a lot of control (discipline?) lorded over us. We all understand this and get it. It’s like when your parents said, “Jenni, this is for your own good” and as a kid, you didn’t get it – looking back though, you see the value. The joy (?) of being an adult is that now when Craig says, “It’s for your own good” we all see the value even if we don’t like it. We're like a compliant version of a teenager who actually signed up for this kind of structure.

Until tonight, in no way has this control felt like it was about Craig or the staff at all, rather, it's been about helping us be the best yogis and teachers we can be. The proctor tonight was clearly someone who needed power to feel good about self; and putting other people down and acting like “I’m in charge and you have no power” clearly was an…er…power trip. Their reputation preceded them as they apparently made 6 people cry in a row the other night, and wouldn’t let one finish before moving on to another. For example, tonight I was waiting to pee, and was summoned and told “Uh, no. We’re not going to have a party in the bathroom line…” I said, “Um, no party, just me here, waiting alone....to pee.” No questions about the posture were allowed, well, one, but he was given “30 seconds” to ask it. Good Lord! Diane (our hero) would take at least 20 minutes on each posture, and stop to clarify, add and help us with it along the way. We are here to learn, and this is the only time we really get concentrated focus on each posture! Seems odd to give the smack down just to be able to say “we got through “X” number of people, we’re the best proctors ever!” or whatever the power trip was about. It was fine in the end, but the attitude was uncommon for this place, unexpected and I think really disappointing for our group, kinda a morale buster when we are almost ½ way and needing something more along the lines of a morale boost.

Not to worry, nothing like this gets this girl down especially when in the scheme of things, I’m doing so great here!! Here’s your funny for today: When we forget or blank out when we deliver our dialogue, we’re told to keep repeating the last line until we get the next line. One English-as-a-Second-Language woman from Scandinavia got stuck on a line that says, “In other words, both arms-shoulders should be stretching each other, up and down, in opposite directions, like natural human traction.” But she said, “Natural human fraction” and then repeated “Like natural human fraction…. Like natural human fraction…. Like natural human fraction…. Like natural human fraction….” We didn’t’ dare laugh with the mean teacher in the room, and didn’t want to throw our peer off – but it was so funny! She had a good laugh about it in the end and was like, “Oh God, and I kept saying it over and over didn’t I!?!”

Class #39, me with my life-saving Orange Tower'o'Shame filled with it's icy lime goodness; Towels galore; Class #40; and Craig & Jim talking about Triangle pose.