Day 52: A little fun in the mix!

Morning class with Ren was really great. He’s a rather high-energy yogi who works at headquarters. We all expected him to be a bit zany, but his energy was perfect for a morning class. I was in a way better row today and had some air flow, which helped!

Afternoon class was good too – an Indian man who has studios in Belgium and Germany taught. Bikram took class, which is always hilarious. First though, the air is always cranked up and it seems the heat is a little more forgiving. He always has a huge “support team” of his friends and staff around him, and he mumbles a lot (loudly) and directs the teacher. Today he complained the savasanas were too short; which is the most ironic thing ever since his 2-minute savasana in the middle rarely hits the 30-second mark! He complained to the point that he started counting out the 20-seconds loudly.

Anyhow, when he gets tired, he starts going around to “help” people. Today he picked up a girl in her full locust pose – she held it, and when he was done, he kinda….threw her down. I don’t think he realized how far off the ground she was. Ouch! My pal Marshall was next to me and couldn’t stop his disbelieving-laughter. The next one was a woman in her floor bow, she too held it, but he gently set her down. At the end, they played “Yoga is Life” song that was a mix of Indian music and techno. Techno Savasana. Hm. And Bikram likes the music uber-loud at the end…it was….something!

Otherwise today, we had the whole group get together for the presentations of the final posture, Spine Twist, by one representative of each group – the rest of the group acted as the “class.” We chose Roy, who could barely speak in the beginning and has come soooooo far! He did an amazing job and has been an inspiration to us all. Lots of us, especially Marshall, helped him over the weekend to be sure he was ready. A lot of people had fun with it, and the whole session was really a kick in the pants. Still, we hoped for a little break between that and class – but no. Off to posture clinic…sigh.

However, today we switched gear to doing mock classes! Now we do 3 postures, both sides, as if we were teaching. They randomly choose the person delivering, and randomly choose the postures you give. I was with Christian’s group – he got chosen! So I ran up there to demonstrate for him. He did the spine strengthening series. Though he himself admitted, “A dialogue review is happening this weekend,” he was quite witty and confident and got us through nicely. Overall the whole posture clinic was super fun and I feel way less scared about my name being called. Really, the whole afternoon appeared to be one in which we were actually “allowed” to have fun, smile and be goofy. Nice change for us!

Bikram talked again tonight. We took bets on when he’d show up, and when he’d let us go, and if there would be a movie. Christian won all 3! Arrival was 9:15, release was around 12:05, and no movie. Phew!