Two week recap!

Hi all,

Time in the yoga bubble exists only relative to how much time you have for hydration and nutrition before your next yoga class multiplied by the square root of how many words you have to memorize before your next posture clinic--unless you're crying, in which case time stands as still as the yogis who are there holding your hand.

It's been two weeks since my last blog post, but it feels like for ever. In the last two weeks I have:

• Delivered the dialogue for postures 9-20 (Triangle Pose to Fixed Firm Pose)
• Passed the Anatomy portion of TT (with an A!)
• For the first time, delivered a posture without having studied the dialogue (Fixed Firm Pose)
• Received another amazing care package from home (thank you Sarah Cargilova!)
• Stood strong through another legendarily hot class - this time without leaving the room or even taking any breaks
• Had an emotional breakdown
• Had a weekend with Mike and Kitty Pooch (a-MAZE-ing!)
• Missed the 4th Annual Bolger Halloween Extravaganza
• Made some alone time
• Been in touch with my home studio about teaching my first class (eeeeeeeeeee!)

These two weeks have been the most challenging so far. Surprisingly, the heat and the yoga are not the biggest challenge nowadays. In fact, the yoga is what keeps me going. It is like the heart of this place--it pumps us in and out and through the TT process. The yoga fuels us for the day, and then again for the night. Just when we're feeling depleted, 400 yogis return to the yoga for oxygen, energy, and love, our fuel for the next push, and then we're off again to conquer the dialogue and defeat the urge to sleep through movies and lectures. I do believe TT would be much more difficult if we had yoga only once per day and not twice. Don't get me wrong though - the yoga here is no picnic. 

The yoga is hard. Everything outside the yoga is just harder. Constant studying, late-night lectures or movies (several starting at midnight or later), eating just-add-water soup out of styrofoam bowls with plastic utensils (while studying), hotel rooms that smell of mossy laundry detergent and feel like the inside of a tent on an cold, dewy morning, always having somewhere to be, and always having someone to be with.

The last two weeks were mentally and emotionally challenging. They actually challenged my determination to be positive. But in the end, the last two weeks also brought the perspective that:

1. What feels like suffering in the yoga room is actually nothing compared to the suffering of those who carry pain and fear with them through their lives, and 
2. Surviving and succeeding in the yoga room is practice for surviving and succeeding in life's real challenges.

The yoga room is a safe place to prove your will, to test your limits, to find your love for yourself, to find forgiveness. And on top of all that, the yoga is good for every organ, bone, ligament, tendon, joint, and cell in the body. (I'm definitely drinking the Cool-aid!)

I'm really jazzed about all that's happened these last two weeks, but I'm exhausted and I think I should get to bed. I'm sure you all understand. And I'm sure I'll make up for it with some lovely face-to-face conversations soon enough.

Sleep tight,
Darci

PS - A few fun pics from the last two weeks:

Mike and me after our Saturday morning class together

Date night - hungry Bikram Yoga Teacher Trainee style!

"Your two legs should look like a perfect upside down L, like Linda"

Backbends + boardwalks = <3