Day Five

Today, my quads feel like when I look at them, they should be black and blue. Apparently that's what happens when you engage in what feels like million wide spread forward folds. They don't even hurt to move, only when touched, like they're massively bruised. It's so strange.

My morning GSP at James' studio was slaughtered by the assistant, Matthew, again. My teacher/mentor James has told me that he's an overcorrector, but still it feels like only me, no matter how nice and patient he is about it. He adjusted my wheel so strongly that my hands came off the ground, my lizard is completely wrong in form, so is my transverse lunge. I have a problem keeping my feet hip distance apart. My hands go to far back lifting into mountain. I don't tuck my arm in revolved side angle. I only got three attempts at handstand, my first one with James was perfect, but Matthew took my third and it was so awful that I had no assisted attempts after that.

This put me in a horrible headspace to assist the group after me. James said I looked like a gangster with my arms crossed (part frustration, part self protection, and part I was still sweaty and freezing cold). But I was given few opportunities to assist, and Matthew snuck in and took one of them from me, and then at a later one, I was the only one he came to correct in the assist. Ego. To. A. Pulp.

James calls him my Kryptonite. But I did hear a comment yesterday about halfway through GSP for him to stop going to me so much. At least I think thats what I heard, especially since it lightened up, a TEENY bit. 

At break I just went to the car, had a little meltdown and the rest of the day just kind of coasted emotionally. Kinda weird for me. 

But it could have been a relation to the fact that sometime Tuesday I popped my rib out again (I'm really not happy with the new frequency of that). I pretty much begged Nates chiro to take me in without the full intake exam (it takes over an hour and I just can't take that time). So I got it fixed, but still, my muscles are constantly warm and open here, so it will be an issue for the rest of the training.

Not to end on a negative note, we did get ice cream cones at lunch. So that was delish!  It was a make your own cone place, and lets just say I should have an adult help me from now on. I should definitely never work at Dairy Queen. 

Next pass at GSP assisting, my personal practice pacing was better, and I was better at all my "habits", but due to where I was in the assisting line, I only assisted one person. The class was always in unassisted poses. 

James always says your true self comes out on the mat in Adamantine, but I have such different personalities on the mat, it's making me feel pschizo!

Bummed that Adamantine will never have weekends, meaning actually getting to a GSP will be far more complicated and rare. 

James is clearly into the concept that Nate and I run studio together, especially since we have exactly what the other doesn't in the skills needed. And you guessed it, I'm the one with charisma :-)

After dinner was a full GSP. Beaten up, full from dinner, to be practice for assisters. Misery. I wanted to puke and my body was in pain. We went through the hardest parts of the sequence at least three times in order for everyone to get their turn. Being the assisters in the second half was much MUCH nicer. And assisting five people all at the same time was actually pretty fun. 

Although I did nail toe roll numerous time while being a piece of meat for assisting!

Back to Day Four: 300hr Yoga Teacher Training

Day Four

Nate set himself up right beside me for GSP. Completely proving that he messes me up, because my practice sucked. I messed up the transition immediately and I couldn't even hear my own breath with his dinosaur breath going.  But then it just went downhill from there. 

Three minutes in, the assistant decided I not only needed a push up lesson, but to downgrade my cobra push-up to plank to down dog, to keeping my knees down. And after the scale this morning, that just put everything into a tail spin. We all know my personal dilemma with push ups; so you can only imagine how that registered into my head alone. My flow was completely killed with frustration. I couldn't figure out my first and second side, I was moved to lizard position before 90 degree pigeon (aka reduced to more remedial), I completely forgot to do King Cobra, and my two passes at wheel weren't even worth breathing through. I only got three passes at handstand (out of eleven), super late in the practice. The last one was decent, but still. Not the greatest 45 minute experience. 

Next session was Yoga Wellness Coaching, which we'd started to learn in the 200hr, but we refreshed it all and how it should lead to GSP (wishing that was realistic for me). This older woman came in to be a guest speaker with James and she just rubbed me the wrong way. Her attitude was just, I'm all for positivity on aging, but there is something to be said about realism. And being prepared for the inevitable negative, I feel, can actually keep you more positive overall. 

Afternoon was GSP assisting and adjusting. At first we rotated partners to learn the assists, and I got Matthew a lot. So not much to assist. 

James called me out on my natural inclination to make Spock fingers when I expand my hand. 

Then we were to partner up to assist the whole sequence after dinner break, Nate assists handstands so he had to partner with an equal level. And before I knew it, I was the only one without a partner, aka I got Matthew again. Before we began, I was warned that he's an overcorrector. And thank god I got the warning, because even with it, I was ready to just completely give up halfway through and start crying in a hidey hole. Still not perfect at the choreography, if I didn't have finger placement correct, I had to do it again, let alone get the poses in the right order. I did almost everything twice, with full assists to everything. And after a full GSP already, and learning the assists, the body's in some turmoil. Nothing I did was good enough. I was far and away the last one done.  I'm pretty sure Nate was ready to punch him I was so upset with the whole thing, but the problem is that there wasn't an ounce of meanness in him. He just wanted everything perfect immediately. And he was patient and nice about it, he just was going to keep telling me what was wrong and have me do it until I was closer. 

When it was time for my turn to practice my assists on him. James whispered that I should "correct the shit out of him". Problem was that he was flawless. Didn't even fake nothing for me to practice adjusting. Granted, I was in such a funk, I just wanted to leave anyway. 

Halfway Point. 300 turns to 400.

I know I have a lot of days to catch up on blogging my 300. But I wrote an email this morning now that I have officially begun the 400 hour this weekend and I realized that its s thought train that I might want to look back on in the future. And I don't keep any other form of journal, and I don't think anyone else really reads this anymore, so I'm putting it out there so I don't lose it and can't go back and see what my crazy brain was thinking...

I'm beginning to wonder if I should start preparing headspace for myself to become a teacher at that many locations, teaching every day and numerous times a day.

But that being said, this week will be a mental tsunami on my future in this, and how and what I want to do. But this is the perfect time to really implement what I want to do with it.  And at the moment I really want to push into private sessions. The word is 70/30 split is what's common for the teacher/studio split. And after this week, he really has me into the, you need to present yourself as worth it, because you are and they need to know that through prices. Especially with the split, my TIME is money. So I think going for $60 (42/18 split) for 45 minutes is how I'm going to go through. That could change by the end of the week though. Thursday there is a hot seat where you sit in the middle and basically hash through every plan of action and idea you have going for, and set actual goals to be conquered (not just to throw away). So we'll see.

The crux is that, had we not just moved. I'm kind of thinking I might be in the beginning contemplations of moving down here.... Which is scary that moving could have been a huge mistake, but also that I actually have a desire to be here? But this mornings group class was glaring, that group class is irradically becoming not my thing. I want the private sessions. I'm really falling for the GSP concept. It's amazing. Both teaching and practicing. The personal progress I've made in a week is more than I've made in over a year there. Which is terrifying. And seeing that just makes me want to provide that for others and get to continue myself. I know I'm far from my own (if ever possible) but without a GSP to attend myself, I'm screwed. Driving to DM on a weekday every few weeks is just so unrealistic, especially if I start teaching that much more. But also when it comes to having to teach a lot and carving out the time I can force myself to practice like that myself without the guidance, is just going to be so hard to fight against my personality traits. 

I'm so long winded today. 

That's a win!

 

I'm way too excited about this progress to not toot my own horn here. And it's only been five days....like freaking magic. Yoga magic.

Day Three: 300 level Yoga Teacher Training

The first morning session was only GSP, and spanned out so it would be scattered. 9:30 was the latest time to come. We got there at 9:05 and were the last ones. And it was packed. Playing follow the leader was out of the question and it was totally going to be a on my own for the first time thing. And only my second time ever doing the second half, and even the first was following Nates practice. Time to see how remedial I am! 

Such a tiny room being so packed, it was HOT. And nowhere near hot yoga hot, but yet I honestly think I sweat more in that 45 minute practice than I normally do in all of teaching. I felt bad for Matthew every time he slid down my arm in assists or adjustments. 

But it went amazingly well. Afterward James definitely said it was my best time (of all my dozen partial attempts). Standing sequence was glitch free other than James trying to slow my pacing. But there's no surprise to me in my own quick movements. 

By the seated series, I had a few pauses on what to do next (more so the transition on how to get there) but soon into it, James comes up in my sun salutation and tells me to go. Meaning handstand. Thrown off guard, it sucked. And so were the rest of the 6-7 attempts through the rest of class. But I just wasn't mentally ready for him to give such a challenge to me on my first solo round out. 

I was the last one done. But other than the comment on being my best one, he mentioned to Matthew that he thinks he's finally "getting me." That he thinks I'm on the verge of coming on to this. Which was amusing since right before, he was out of the room, and I had JUST told Matthew about how of everyone in the class, I probably was the strongest adverse reaction to Adamantine. 

And it's all true. I've been very not a fan, but so much of it was due to the fact that I didn't grasp it. I couldn't get the physical down. And not the pose level themselves. I could practice for life and never attain full form Adamantine, but the mere notion of it all. I think my deal was at first the choreography was somehow put to me in a way completely against how I normally learn, and got me to such a level of confusion that getting me out was going to be a meticulous breakdown and repetitious process. Not including my perfectionism, meaning if I missed a single inhale or exhale or lost myself in a five count, that I had totally screwed the practice. But I think it's coming around, miss a breath, just take another one and keep going....you'd think that wouldn't be so hard to grasp....

The rest of the day was spent going through all the modification of the poses in the sequence, which, in this system, is a LOT of modifications. That's how it's been built, so that nearly every level of physicality is capable. Beginning right at the level after someone should be in physical therapist care.

And after those modifications, we had a refresher course in all the structural and muscular anatomy in all the sequences poses. Joint mobility directions included. The ever popular go around the circle describing the persons pose in the middle of the room :-)

Anatomy sessions always remind me why I could never be a doctor. I have a photographic memory, but HELL NO.

Day Two: Yoga 300 Level Teacher Training.

My hips and butt are killing me from so much sitting on the ground. 

But this morning we started by watching our first half of the class rung through their GSP. It was really interesting to see everyone move through it, I thought it was going to be super boring for an hour, but really it was even more interesting watching all the advanced poses. Seeing Lisas tendencies in handstand falls, and Callie very much struggling with breath to a degree that made it seem like she shouldn't be in those poses. Not helped by the fact that she ALWAYS looked like she was going to cry. 

My turn came. I was to play follow the leader with Nate. The group before us had some people to do that, but after the standing sequence, they stopped following and just redid the standing sequence alone while their leader went on to finish. I assumed thats what I would do too. We get there, I stop, look at James, and he's like, you know the front split sequence, do that too. Ok, we do that even though Im not sure of the breath pattern. Then looked back to James, "Oh just keep following all the way" Well, it would have been nice to be pre prepped at least for a millisecond to see what ANY of the poses were. I was always just slightly behind Nate because I literally had NO IDEA where I was going after that. In side splits I took it super easy knowing I struggle in that one, and in fact James was the one to point out to me my knee issues back in February (stemming from being pigeon toed) Its quite crazy to me that of all the people that I deal with in relation to my physical body, he is the ONLY one to notice my feet and knees, and ALWAYS point it out. Although I sometimes thinks he holds me back being worried about it, when he doesn't need to. In the same way though, I feel like my three passes at wheel today trying to follow Nate were overkill on my low back. OUCH. 

Anyways, by the time I finished the full GSP, I was SOAKED in sweat. I sweat like a boy. Its so weird, because its not that much activity that you feel like you should even be sweating at all. But oh I was. But frankly, this round of GSP felt SOOOO much better than my first few attempts, its kinda crazy. I hope I get one more pass at follow the leader though tomorrow, just for the great count of the second half, now that we spent all morning and all afternoon finishing going through and learning where we should all be at and how to see the different levels of those poses. And thats all we did today, ending early. I think we were all fried though. A good day to end, saturate with all the poses and be able to start tomorrow with a full GSP. 

Yoga 300 level Teacher Training First Night and Full Day.

Day one.

So we have a group of 19. Eight of them were in my training, two were in Nates. Another has a PHD in bio physics and looks exactly like a slightly Asian Conrad. But the moves, and has the body of a Chinese gymnast. Drop back backbend, full front splits, both legs, insane. Most if not all of my favorites from my 200 are here. Lisa, Wendy, Angie. The two from Nates were in the immersion, so I know and like both of them. Tiffany is a hardcore Jewish mom with an EXTREME baby voice. Another girl is there because her boyfriend Matthew is James' assistant. I miss Ann. He looks like a mangled version of the bad guy from the Mummy. He's just a little too eager and worshippy to James. His girlfriend is very bendy, but Nate explained her perfectly, she's like a chihuahua, huge eyes and NO ONE upstairs. 

The first night was an intro into Adamantine and the course. Beginning the constant question of, "Are we going to be allowed to teach this or not?" We have no idea, there's talk of a 30 day, $10,000 course and mentor ship to become authorized, but he speaks to us in specific words that make us feel like a vast majority of us will be teaching it someday. It doesn't add up.

First full day was basically working through all the poses of the sequence. Through the standing series, the opening, and beginning the seated series. Work shopping all the poses, and learning his to adjust other people in them. I'd say 3/4 of the class has a GSP practice already and knows it. The other quarter has never seen it before and is clueless. So I'm at the top of that quarter that I have at least seen the whole thing and attempted it a few times. A d the way he's going about it this time is more my style of understanding, so I'm picking it up a lot easier than last time. But still struggling enough to still be very much in the newbie camp. It also doesn't help that my body is so used to yoga in the heat right now, so doing all the poses completely cold, is sore and painful.

It's getting a little easier to be open to it as I start to get it down (exactly as I expected) but the thought has come to mind. James is very against any cross training. Running is evil. Cardio is the devil, etc. but he spent the first 30 years of his life in EXTREME physical form. Marines then a personal trainer, so his body wants to naturally stay like that. So he can get away with this being his only fitness (along with raw diet). But the rest of us didn't live like that. Our bodies didn't start like that. Getting to that form with only Adamantine would not only be virtually impossible for most, but even more so to maintain. And since hes only three years in, he doesn't have that long term proof yet. So if he honestly disagrees with that it is just in denial, I have no idea.

Fun fact: Christopher Walken was a lion tamer as a youth. 

We got to work on handstands, so that was fun. I'm getting better every time, but without the assist in the GSP setting to work on it, I have no way to continue to get better on a regular basis, making it exponentially harder. Walls don't work.

Speaking of. In one full day, here's the list of things K does wrong that was directly pointed out ;this isn't including everything sequentially)

- Never roll up to standing, doesn't improve back strength

- Upward dog should never be done until cobra is mastered

- Handstands are not to be learned on a wall, you'll never move away from them

Night class was short, not so sweet. It was on ritual. Some really cool readings on living life to the fullest like every moment is your last. But then ended by going through a death visualization. Not such a happy ender

Wanderlust Colorado: Final Day Four!

Starting the day off right! First the gym, then a Bear Claw!

 Elephant journals Waylon Lewis wears very short shorts, but stands at military attention constantly, despite growing up Buddhist.

I feel bad for speakers that have tiny tiny audiences just because if bad timing of sessions.

Is there anyone here who doesn't use a smart phone daily? One. Congratulations. The NSA is annoyed by you.

He's very quick witted, snappy one liners, but total deadpan.

Our shoulders tend to not be where they should be, thanks to laptop nation, Trex nation.

Even after three full days if yoga sessions, I have way too much ADD to learn to meditate properly for an hour.

If there's no more questions, we'll start the transdance portion of this lecture...

Waiting at the Nest is way too warm and cozy and sleepy before entering gong practice.

Circle room setup around crystal bowls and gong with stars projected on the ceiling is so sweet. Until you get cold. And then that's all you concentrate on.

"You're going to get lit up like a Christmas tree"

Heavy breathers annoy me. This is relaxation time, you are not in labor.

I think my throat chakra is blocked, holy vibrations batman.

I'm so zonked out and yogi drunk from gong that Its all I can do to stay awake for Eoinn's class.

Last class on Sunday happened to be Eoun Finn's Big Chill. Named for the easy going, been doing yoga all weekend, lets decompress on a chill level. Well, I understand that was the intention, but his ADD was so strong that he kept spacing off into awesome stories and deep thoughts, HOWEVER, that meant we were holding poses forever. Our muscles were definitely in full quiver the whole practice.

I can't say enough how much I love live music in class, especially a class this packed.

"I want to build an ant shrine" - Eoin Finn

"I wasn't really naked, I had a ski helmet on" -Eoin Finn

Eoin told us about living in the city, and his hammock art installation project. Setting up hammocks downtown, and just letting people lay in them and look up at the sky for 10 minutes, like we all should do. And people just didn't understand the concept. It was so outside of their schema. They wanted to buy them, or thought they should charge for them and then give it to charity. It's like no, the whole point is and only will be, to just relax. 

Granted, despite the actual sequence being troublesome, before we began, he had us start a group massage train. And yeah, it's a normal group building exercise, but at a yoga festival? There is no hesitation or nervousness to touch eachother and really massage! And it was no 30 second and switch either. The person to each side each got a solid five minute muscle manipulation. I wish all social events had this happen :-)

In high lunge or warrior one, Eoin has us lift our arms up in front of us high, "Simba it up!" Or Simba pose. At which point someone in the back burst into naaaaaasavayynnaaaaa! All seriousness was lost.

"I love mirror face. You look like you kinda want to beat yourself up and kinda want to make out with yourself"

Singing Beatles at the end of class with Eoinn almost made me late for Moby acoustic!

Moby, one violin, female vocalist. Acoustic of his own work and cover songs. Perfect way to end the weekend.