First Week is Over!!!

We ended the first week on Saturday with a yoga class from 8-10am (good for us!!)

It is amazing how fast this goes and how many things have happened in just a week. Overall the balance is very very positive:

(1) I took 10 yoga classes this week (5 with Bikram, 4 with Rajashree and 1 with Craig) and survived them. (a) I was able to stay always in the room (lots of people had to get out) and (b) I didn’t vomit during class (on average 10 people in each class puked)

(2) I met Bikram and Rajashree (who by the way was Miss India in the 80s) and absolutely loved them. Rajashree is the sweetest person you could ever meet. Bikram has a very special character ( he is too blunt for some people and has a very big ego) but I think he is a genius and I enjoyed and learned a lot from his lectures and classes. 

(3) I attended 6 hours per day of posture clinic and succesfully performed the dialogue of Half-moon pose in front of 300 people.

(4) I didn’t get stomach sick, constipated or diarrhea. Apparently, these three things were very common among my classmates this week (as part of their adaptation to the training).

(5) I met a looot of people from the class. I don’t know if it’s the yoga, the food or just being surrounded by so many women, but I think I am behaving a bit more extroverted than usual. As a result, I got to know and got known by an incredible number of people.

Overall, a very busy week (we had full days from 8:30am to 11:30pm) but very pleasant.

Next week is going to be very hard:

(1) Emy is replacing Rajashree in the morning class. Emy is the most senior teacher in Bikram Yoga. She is 82 years old and, apparently, she is also one of the toughest teachers. If now, I am sore, I think next week I will be unable to move:-)

(2) Other things outside yoga classes get more time-consuming. We start Anatomy classes (a world-known doctor is coming to teach) and the posture clinic is going to accelerate (we are going to be divided in 16 groups instead of having plenary sessions)

(3) Bikram said that, in past trainings, at the end of week 2, half of the people would love to quit the training. No need to know that at the end of the training, everybody is very happy but I would prefer not to be in the half with an existencial crisis next week.

Anyway, I continuously feel great and I am optimistic I won’t break down next week (maybe in the 3rd one:-).

Making New Amigos

In this first week of the training, I have met a gazillion of cool people. So far, I have met and interacted with people from US, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, France, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Norway, Switzerland, Tcheck Republic, Russia, Scotland, Ireland, England, Phillipines, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Thailand, Australia, Fiji Islands, India, China, South Africa, Austria and Texas. It is also confirmed that I am the only Spaniard in the class (lazy spaniards!)

There are 300+ yoga students in this retreat and my expectations are to get to know a high percentage of them (so I have free lodging when I visit them all over the world;-). In the meantime, there is a smaller group of people with whom I have started spending more time. Here is the family picture of a dinner we had on Friday at the Hotel:

 From top to bottom and left to right:

(1) Eliana (Cuba, 31). She has lived in Florida since she was 9. Believe it or not she is happily married an mother of 3.

(2) German (Mexico, 39).

(3) Vicky (Mexico, 32)

(4) Dylan (Australia, 33). He was the first person I met from the training. We flew together from Mexico City to Acapulco.

(5) Manon (Netherlands, 34). She lives in Australia and was the second person I met from the training (waiting for the bus at the Acapulco airport)

(6) Caroline alias “Ronaldinha” (Brazil, 27). She lives in San Francisco and, as it usually happens between portuguese and spanish speakers, she understands perfectly my spanish while I have no freaking idea of her portuguese.

(7) The last person in the picture is this amazingly atractive guy whose arms are the source of the steel used to make battle ships

Ahh, and for those looking for gossip, bad news! all girls in the picture are happily married or boyfriended and all guys are single