Tonight, I feel much better and I have no problems with Montezuma anymore. As a result, and to stop having a post about diarrhea in the blog’s homepage, here is a post about something random (but really great) to compensate the previous post’s too much information. Girls, read this post from start to bottom.
Sometimes, I don’t have any specific thing I want to write about from the training. In those situations, like today, I will just write about whatever random stuff crosses my mind.
Several weeks ago, I discovered a group of people in the Internet that were trying to discover the best baby laugh in the world. They have posted a lot of different videos but there was not clear winner according to them.
After looking at some of the videos, here are my top 3 baby laughs. Please enjoy them!
3rd placed video: ” Please don’t forget to breathe”
2nd placed video: ” Who needs toys when you have a piece of paper”
I knew that sooner or later, I was going to face digestive challenges in Mexico like most of the people in the training. After over 3 weeks of resisting fiercely, my stomach has finally chosen today to complain and wake me up with an unconfortable diarrhea
The legend says that any diarrhea problem caused to a Spaniard in Mexico is due to Montezuma’s spirit who is taking his revenge from the aztec defeat in the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
Anyway, I will spare nasty details. Just to be said, that I was lucky that Alison and others took care of me. Thanks to her, I am know taking (1) anti-diarrhea tablets to calm the stomach, (2) calcium tablets to prevent muscle cramp and (3) tons more of gatorade and electrolytes. Today, the yoga classes were a bit harder than normally to me (especially the ones that include some kind of compression to my stomach). As a funny note, I am now always trying to get my mat close to the door (in case a toilet emergency emerges during my practice of yoga):-)
Shoot!, I really can’t believe I just wrote a post about my diarrhea… this is sooo sad!!!!! Cute girls, don’t read this post please:-)
Anyway, I now feel much better. Let’s see how I wake up tomorrow.
On Saturday, I used my free night to get to Acapulco downtown (it’s around 20 minutes away from the Hotel by car) and go out to the movies. I really needed to get out of the Hotel and see some non-yogi people.
There are 2 things I loved from the Movie Theaters here in Mexico:
(1) They don’t dub the movies to Spanish (only subtitles) you can always watch the version in the original language (in Spain, we dub even the McChicken- called McPollo:-)
(2) There are VIP theaters (I went to one of those), where the seats are amazing confortable leather sofas that can be turned horizontal and with waiters that serve drinks and sushi. They cost like double the normal price but they are definitely worth it.
I watched a french movie called “La Vie en Rose” (it had been in my list for a long time). It tells the life of Edith Piaf, the great french singer from the 30s, 40s and 50s. I loved it. The actress that plays Piaf is amaaazing. I didn’t know Piaf was such a character and had such a sad life (I guess you have to go through hell to reach heaven).
Anyway, it was great to scape from the bootcamp for a couple of hours. Piaf’s music reminds me of Paris and my 2 years there so I got a bit melancholic (juerga friends, miss you all!!!). I have just downloaded 5 Piaf’s songs from i-tunes to continue on my parisian melancholy. In order of how much I like them (in case you want to try Piaf):
In the last couple of weeks, Bikram has been full time with us, giving us daily lectures and leading most of the evening yoga classes. That has given me the opportunity to getting to know him a bit better and creating an initial opinion of him. He has now left for a couple of weeks and will come back in May to stay with us until the end of the training. As a result, now it is a perfect moment to do balance of my experience with him.
Overall, I must confess that I was completely overblown by meeting him in person. As my good friend Nikos would say, I had my expectations really high but Bikram was able to exceeded them by far. He is a very unique person both in the good and bad sides. I have never had so much fun in a lecture as in some of his lectures. Given his extremely big mouth and his wild eccentricity, you either love him or hate him. I personally find him very endearing and one of the most interesting and inspirational people I have ever met. If you have time, please download and watch the video that CBS’ 60 minutes did about Bikram.
Anyway, as a good consultant, I will organize my opinion about Bikram in 3 parts (with 3 bullets each : Things I love from him, things I find funny and things I don’t like that much.
Things I love from Bikram… (1) His vital energy and joie de vivre. I have never met a person with highest energy and joy in live than Bikram. He sleeps only 2-3 hours per day. He thinks that the greatest enemy of humankind is the waste of time and he seems to enjoy every single minute of his existence.
(2) His focus and sense of purpose. His purpose in life is to spread the message of yoga in the world to make it a better place to live. He always has this in mind in everything that he does. And he has been very successful: he has introduced yoga to millions of people, trained thousands of instructors and his franchise has more than 2,000 studios around the world, the largest yoga organization in the world. Not bad, don’t you think?
(3) His ability to say and do whatever he wants without thinking what people will say. He doesn’t give a shit about what people think and does whatever he wants with his life if he thinks is the right thing to do. Read the rest of this entry »
We have already started putting nicknames within the group of friends I am making in the training. I have helped creating some good ones like Ronaldinha, Spice Girl or TinkerBell. I am not extremely excited about the originality of mine: Elmo, the popular puppet from Sesame Street (although he was not present in the Spanish Version).
They chose it for two reasons: (1) some of them have problems pronouncing my beautiful name (and this sounds similar) and (2) I love to eat chocolate cookies with milk (in Spain we don’t have Elmo so I can’t verify that).
Anyway, this Elmo thing reminded me a beautiful video a friend showed me long time ago. In Youtube, there is a video trend of making nasty things to Elmo puppets. This one is a bit different than the rest of videos. It has a weird but touching combination of sadness, beauty and craziness (please play it with the music on).
Given that today is gloomy Sunday, here is the video-present from me to you!
Today I attended a Basic CPR Training. CPR (CardioPulmonary Resucitation) is an emergency medical procedure for a victim of cardiac arrest. If you watch ER, House MD or similar, you know what I am talking about… compressing the chest like crazy to pump blood to the body even if the heart is not working.
The training took a bit more than 3 hours and they showed us different techniques to use in case of chocking, unconcious choking and cardiopulmonar arrest. They also told us what to do in a number of emergencies (seizures, strokes, etc). I surely don’t remember all of them… but I have a nice book.
The thing that shocked me the most is the fact that a CPR procedure breaks all the ribs of the victim (in order to pump the heart effectively). Even more, if the chest compression don’t break the ribs, you are doing something wrong (creepy details, they said that in the first couple of compression you can hear the ribs cracking, then everything goes smoothly:-)
Anyway, I AM CPR CERTIFIED so next time your heart stops, I will be there to break your freaking ribs!!!
Hey guys! This week, things are a bit crazier than last week. Posture clinic has gone up to speed and this is taking all my time, sleep and happiness [just kidding, the happiness is still there]
Physically, I am very tired and sore (as the training progresses, the classes are getting tougher and hotter). However, I just set up an appointment for a 1-hour deep-tissue massage on Sunday so I should be recovered after that;-)
Mentally, I am also tired and looking for the weekend. However, the days are long but not that intense, so I feel less mentally tired than at work.
For those who don’t know yet the mechanics of the posture clinic (it must be most of you as I haven’t explained them yet):
We are covering each of the 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises of the Bikram Series. For each posture, we have an initial lecture and Q&A with the senior teachers to discuss the key challenges of the posture
Then we are divided in 8 groups (40 people each) where each of us has to perform the dialog verbatim (word by word), teaching the posture to a group of (mock) students, in front of the group
Each posture has about a page of dialog that we have to learn by heart. It started taking me 4-5 hours per posture. After improving my memorizing method, now I am bringing the time down and my goal is to spend 2 hours per posture
Since we are covering one posture per day at the current speed, this is bring my sleep time down (although my strategy is to advance as much as possible during the weekend so I can sleep a bit)
The weekend is over and week 3 is about to start. From what I have heard it is going to be one of the most challenging weeks in the training:
(1) On the physical side, I think I am in good shape. My body is a bit sore from all the exercise but I am getting used to the two classes per day and I have found the balance in my nutrition to face the challenge successfully. I am drinking about 6-8 liters of water per day (1.5-2 gallons) that, in addition to my daily intake of Emergen-C (vitamin supplement) and a healthy and rich diet is keeping my body hydrated and full of energy.
(2) Tomorrow we have the first exam on Anatomy (muscular, skeletal and circulatory systems). I have been studying during the weekend and given my geeky nature, I think I am in good shape
(3) This week, we also start full-speed with the posture clinic (where we cover in groups all the poses of the class). We had a bit of posture clinic the first week (to cover half-moon pose) but in the next 4-5 weeks we will cover the other 25 poses (at 1 pose per day). That means that I will have to learn by heart the dialog of each one and perform it in front of the head instructors. A lot of material to learn by heart. Thanks to Otto (the owner of the Studio I practiced in New York), I prepare myself learning some poses in advance but I am sure this is going to be the main cause of my lack of sleep in the next few weeks. Will keep you posted.
As a final remark, I heard that Deepak Chopra may join us for a whole week in the training. For those who don’t know him (I didn’t know him either), he is a world-known authority on the connections between mind and body in the healing processes and the union of Western and Eastern wisdom in these matters. I am very excited since I am always open to meet and learn from world-known authorities
Saturday’s is the only night that we have to go out (since Sunday is the only day we don’t have to wake up early). As a result, tonight we decided to go out of the Resort for the first time since we arrived (apart from our visits to Walmart) and visit Acapulco City.
We had dinner in a nice little seafood restaurant. I had besos de camaron (shrimp empanadas) and Chalupas de Cazon (Baby Shark toasts). Overall, it was good food and good price.
After dinner, German took us to La Quebrada to see the Clavadistas Show (in-divers show, I guess). Apparently, it is the most famous thing in Acapulco. It consist on young kids jumping into the sea from a really high rock just where the waves break. It was AMAAAAZING!!!!
This is where the guys jump into the water (and remember that they jump head first- I am still impressed that there are no accidents or death). You can see a couple of clavadistas climbing the rock:
Fortunately, I was able to record some videos of their jumps. So lucky you, you are going to witness what real action is. I was going to do a couple of jumps myself from the top of the rock but, since I had just had dinner, I didn’t want to have problems with my digestion;-)
The key secret of these guys is that they have to jump into the water when a wave just arrived to the coast so there is enough water depth. If not, the water is too shallow and they would crash into the rocks.
Ok, let’s see them in action. Here is the first video with the jump of one of the smallest kids (around 14-15 years old):
It was not enough to doyoga in a speedo outfit (although a bit longer:-). Sure it was not enough for a straight guy to practice a sport where 80% are women and a lot of the guys are gay. My metrosexuality needed to go a step beyond and expand the type of outfits we should be confortable in.
Bikram says that to be successful in life you have to combine the strength of the bengal tiger with the determination/persistence of the english bulldog. As a first step, we decided to celebrate today the day of the tiger and do our Saturday 8am class in the following outfit…
[to note the starting hints of my 6-pack behind the beer belly]
It goes without saying that this is a turning point in the History of Fashion and the tipping point for the “Tiger Speedo” as the ultimate outfit. I am sure that Tarzan is very proud of us. Anyway, more brave people joined us as you can see in the picture below. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by galbizuri 
Posted by galbizuri 
Posted by galbizuri 
: Things I love from him, things I find funny and things I don’t like that much.
