Day 35: Stealing My Sleep (Never Mind My Peace)

As mentioned in my Friday post, we were excused at 4:15 a.m. last night, and were up this morning around 6:45 to get to 8 a.m. class. Oh whatt'da class.

First, we were all delighted when a sweet woman climbed up on the podium - she is the current world champion, and she smiled though the whole class. She was encouraging, nice and supportive. I got moved up in front of the podium, which I figured, "whatever" - I had no idea what kind of practice I would have after 2 hours of sleep. Anyhow, I surprised myself, taking it one posture at a time - I did just fine. I would file it under, "Could'a been so much worse" - I could've been a wreck, Craig could've taught one of his emotionally-challenging drill sergeant classes; heck, I could've had another "accident." So, all in all, ok. It was done in 90-minutes, boom.

There was palpable frustration in the room though - the staff knew it too. One friend said, "I was aiming to do the minimum to look as if I was participating, but secretly I was slacking. I only did postures I wanted to do for ME. F*ck them." Another, who took the same approach of just not working because of being so pissed off, got a demanding senior staff whisper in his ear, "You HAVE to actually participate." The trainee was just pleased no one got punched. Still another pal, a little toughie 20-something, said, "I just said out loud at one point, "This shit is f*cked up." And I had an out-loud
conversation with the teacher that went like this during Standing Head to Knee:"

Teacher: "Lock the knee."
Student: "Kiss my ass."
Teacher: "Lock the knee."
Student: "Kiss my ass."
Teacher: "Lock the knee."
Student: "Kiss my ass."
Teacher: "Lock the knee."
Student: "Kiss my ass."
Teacher: "Lock the knee."
Student: "Kiss my ass."

They tell us to lock our knee a lot... The guy in front of me was down sobbing before we finished the first set of Half Moon...2 hours of sleep, after a full day, and only 4 hours of sleep the night before.

We were all laughing about it at breakfast though (perhaps "funny maniacal" vs. "funny haha"). What are you gonna do? Just roll with it I guess. One commented though, "It's hard to have respect for Bikram when he pulls that kind of thing." No doubt, they are f*cking with us (pardon my mouth, but I only slept 2 hours last night... ;) LOL). It's Week 5 - there is a level of "breaking us" that goes on, and I do think they (the staff) look for the people who are bubbling up, clearly nearing a threshold of a breakdown and target them to some degree. Craig talks about it - the concept that you have to hit the bottom before you can bounce back out of the deep dark place - and they are here to help with that. So, we'll see - as I understand it, Bikram is leaving Wednesday, so it could just be a couple more days this week that are rough in this way...until he returns.

Today I spent at the grassy area adjacent to the beach. From 12 - 5, I listened to my "Best Songs Ever" playlist on my iPod, read some of the Gita, slept maybe an hour total (but rested a lot), had one really nice chat but otherwise really just laid there in the shade, relaxing and resting. I'll be popping an Ambien tonight and tomorrow night though, no hesitation there. This girl needs some sleep! While it's not my primary currency (I do ok with little sleep, for a while anyhow) - if he told us no food for 24 hours I'd quickly display my 2-year-old tantrum, a 15-year-old fit, and well, just cry a lot. We all have our things.

I feel ok all things considered. I apparently look great - this week, 5 different people have made an effort to come to me and say so. Most say I have lost weight, or that my body has changed a lot, or that I just look great, happy, etc. Good stuff, we all need goodness here so I'll take it. I weigh the same (sigh.....) but I am for sure stronger, denser feeling, and that makes me way happy!

Special to existing teachers reading this:
I will concede that we have it good. We have laundry service, no commute, buffet cooked for us, beds made, nice posture clinic rooms (8 of them); only 1 roommate; chairs in the lecture hall. Yes, we have it all. But, we also have one other thing you didn't that you should be glad you did not have: A f*cking DVD player, a big screen and uber-loud speakers. :)

--
Class #53; Me and pal/fellow 14'er Leah; There was a little bbq tonight that we opted to do for dinner the rest are some photos from it. Firewords, s'mores, warm beach breeze...it was lovely! That's Bonnie with the fruit, an Aussie pal who lives in our hallway who Christian met on the flight here. The last one is me hanging out all day by the beach...I actually look relaxed!