My First EarthQuake FisherPrice

Today at 7:45am, I had the first earthquake experience in my life!!! Stay calm, it was nothing dramatic but as all first times, it will stay in my memory.

I was placidly waking up in my big bed (my alarm starts at 7:30am, so I am able to get up at around 8am;-) when I felt a slight shaking of everything. It lasted only a couple of seconds and, with my still sleepy mind, I thought that it was part of my dreams. It was the same sensation you have when you are dreaming that you are falling and then you wake up (have you ever had that dream?).

Anyway, they confirmed in class that it was a REAL earthquake, so for those who think that my trip to Acapulco is not that hard, I want to say that, in addition to tons of yoga and classes (and beach and 5 pools) I have to deal with earthquake and temblors (ok, they are earthquakes that are 0.1 in the Ritcher Scale but anyway;-). I am not earthquake-virgin anymore!!!

That’s the highlight of the day. Apart from that and the typical torture/yoga stuff, we had today Dr. Lilian Glass (the speech therapist that saved Bikram’s voice) who gave a very interesting lecture on (1) how to project our voice and (2) how to use body language and voice to show great confidence. She is a very energetic and engaging woman.

During her 4-hour lecture, she made a hundred of us go up to the stage and interact with her in front of everybody so she could give us personalized feedback on our speech. I went with the already infamous and copyrighted phrase: “Hellooo, my name is Guillermo!! How YOU doin’?” and it worked. She liked it and talked about how attractive the spanish accent is. I still need to find out why my accent works with 50 year old ladies but never with 25 year old hotties (that is my natural segment;-).

So overall, good day here. Having fun and suffering through the yoga classes.

Cheers,

GA

In the middle of week 2

My arrival to Acapulco looks like yesterday but we are already in the middle of Week 2. All this goes really fast. Anyway, I wanted to post a brief update to confirm that I am still alive here.

Overall, this week looks busier and more exhausting than last week. lI don’t know if it’s me, the food or my deprivation of caffeine (no coffee since I arrived) but it is getting more and more difficult to get my ass out of bed in the mornings. I haven’t arrived late to the 8:30am class yet but the last couple of days it has been pretty damn close (arriving late here is punished with a make-up class on Sunday). And it works, I haven’t arrived late to any single class or lecture yet (and for those who know me, that’s pretty impressive!:-). No matter how sore, tired and sleepy I feel, I am still hyper excited, happy and enjoying every single moment of this.

News from this week:

(1) Anatomy classes have started: Dr. T, an old friend of Bikram, is teaching us, all we need to know about bones, muscles and all that crazy stuff. There is an exam on Monday and one the following Monday. We are using a book that looked pretty scary and thick at the beginning. After attending the first few classes and given my geekiness, I am not scared any more about this.

(2) Emy in da house: Emy, the most senior Bikram teacher, is with us this week. She is leading the morning yoga class and giving us some lectures on pain and anatomical dysfunctions in the afternoons. After all the things, I heard last week about her toughness, I was a bit scared of meeting her. But not at all, she is a great teacher, sweet person and I love her. You can’t imagine her clarity of mind and energy for a 82-year-old. She is leaving tomorrow.

Bikram’s Torture Chamber

Bikram Yoga is practiced in a hot room at 110-115 F (40-45 C). The heat not only helps to warm up the muscles/joints and reach greater depth in the postures, but also it helps the body eliminate toxines and build mental discipline.

Here in the training, we have a huge hot room in the hotel that we use twice a day for our session of torture and pain:-). It is an amazing room where 400+people could practice Bikram Yoga.

Welcome to Bikram’s Torture Chamber!!!!

Massage on the Beach

With all the physical exercise that we are doing here, my body is sore all the time. All the people I know that did this training in the past, told me that it is really important to take frequent massages to reduce the soreness of the muscles.

Since I am a very sacrified person and I am always willing to take one for the team, I decided yesterday to go and have a nice massage. I went with Vicky to a small “massagerie” they have on the beach. For 60 minutes the nice lady struck all my muscles and turned me into a deep state of relaxation.

If heaven exists, it definitely has a lot of massages. And in Acapulco, it only costs $25 per hour!

I will definitely repeat this in the near future.

“Relaxed” GA

 

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 😛

Feeling in Acapulco like At Home

Today, I went to the Walmart near the Hotel to do the groceries for the week (my plan is to have enough food in my room so I can have all dinners there.

Little did I know that I was going to find so many food items that I had never seen before outside Spain. It was a very pleasant surprise and it definitely made my day. Now I feel closer to home as I was born and raised surrounded by these items (papa/mama os echo de menos!:-).

Here is what I bought: 

 

(1) Galletas “Marbu Dorada”: Simple butter cookies that were very often my breakfast when I was a kid. You don’t find simple, functional cookies like these ones in the US. Simplicity is the key

(2) Mejillones en Escabeche “Calvo”: Canned mussels in red sauce. Very typical in Spain as a tapa in the Aperitivo time (just before lunch). As a kid, I also used to eat sandwiches of these things

(3) “Flor de Esgueva” Cheese: It was so great to find this cheese!!! It is not a common cheese even in Spain but it is my dad’s favorite so we always have a piece of it at home (yummy!!). However, you have to pay a high price to get it in Mexico (it costs US$60 per kilo!)

(4) Navajas Al Natural “Cabo de Penas”: Navajas is a type of shellfish that I have only seen in Spain and in ChinaTown. It is look and slim and normally it is served grilled with some salt and garlic. It is probably one of my brother’s favorite meals. Here I found them canned

(5)  Aceitunas rellenas de pimiento “La Cibeles”: Stuffed olives are very typical in Spain. However, here I found more variety in the stuffing. In addition to the typical ones in Spain (anchovies, pepper), I have bought some stuffed with spicy chorizo, blue cheese and yellowfin tuna (crazy innit?). Last remark, the brand is “La Cibeles” that is also a greek goddess and the name of the Square in Madrid where Real Madrid’s titles and victories are celebrated (for those of you not very knowledgable about soccer, Real Madrid is the best team ever of the Universe and beyond and also the team of my heart)

Love you all!

Work Out Hard, Eat Hard

As you know, we are doing here 4 hours of intense exercise per day. As a result, we need to replenish as much energy as possible by eating like freaking lyons. Bikram Yoga doesn’t have any food restriction attached to it so we can eat whatever we want (they only things that are not allowed are alcohol or any kind of drug).

In the hotel package, we have included a buffet at lunch that is just freaking sweet (both in quantity and quality). Here is the video of the one we had today (keep in mind that the silver closed containers also have food that you can’t see in the video):

As you may have noticed, it includes an made-to-order Omelette Station and a Taqueria.

As a sample, I ate today for lunch:

(1) A glass of green juice (I really don’t know what it is made of but it tastes great) and a glass of orange-carrot juice (both freshly squeezed)

(2) A toasted bagel with cream cheese, lox and capers (to keep in touch with my inner new yorker)

(3) A taco of chorizo and cheese and one of huitlacoche and cheese (huitlacoche is my main food discovery of the week – thanks John for the hint!- It is black, really tasty and when I asked what was it, they told me it was the mushroom of the corn:-)

(4) 3 sausages with papas

(5) A bowl of fresh cut pineapple

(6) A glass of milk and a small croissant

(7) I also smuggled out of the restaurant a couple of small cereal boxes (Frosties and Chococrispies that I plan to eat in the evening)

Finally, I want to announce that I haven’t drunk caffeine since Sunday and after a couple of sleepy days, I now feel great!

Bon appetit!

Holy Icy Water!!!

I am very happy today because Thursday has been by far my best day here. I didn’t suffer as much during today’s two yoga classes (at 8:30am with Rajashree and at 5pm with Bikram). I am noticing how my body is reacting to the intense training and that makes me very happy.

In addition to my body getting stronger, something else is helping me in the classes… on Wednesday night, I went to the Walmart nearby and bought this amazing orange cooler that keeps my 2 liters of water icy during the whole class. You can’t imagine what a change when you are dying in the hot room and realize that you have nice icy water there to help you (in comparison with the pee-like water that I had to drink before from my bloody waterbottle).

I also bought in Walmart a brand new scale to track my weight during the next 9 weeks (also in the picture). I hadn’t seen an analogic scale for decades so this is a collectors’ piece 🙂 I will post my weight periodically in the blog so I can share with you my transformation from fucking fat cow to impressive slim bull.

This morning I weighted myself and I was 92.7 Kilos (206 pounds). To give you some context about my weight range:

(1) When I was born, I weighted 2.2 Kilos/4.9 pounds (I was born too early)

(2) In my first year of college in 1996 (really fit), I weighted 80 kilos/ 178 pounds

(3) When I finished college in 2002, I weighted around 83 Kilos/ 184 pounds

(4) When I started the MBA in 2004, I weighted around 88 Kilos/ 196 pounds

(5) When I ran the NYC marathon in 2005, I weighted 84 Kilos/ 187 pounds

(6) When I finished the MBA in 2006, I weighted 87 kilos/193 pounds

(7) In November 2007, a year after starting working back, I got my peak ever with 97 kilos/ 216 pounds

(8) When I started my leave of absence in March 2008, I weighted 94 kilos/ 209 pounds

My goal in these 9 weeks is to reverse this trend and go back to my weight in college (80-84 kilos). My goal after the 9 weeks is to maintain that weight.

I will surely eat as much as I need to (I have to post a video of the amazing buffet that we have here) but I hope that 3-5 hours of intense yoga per day will have some impact in my figure. If I was able to lose a kilo per week, I would be 84 kilos by the end of week 9. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Will keep you posted!

Bikram’s six-pack

I have mentioned before how fit Bikram remains (even without taking into account that he is 70 years-old). I imagined that a picture was worth more than 1,000 words. So I took a picture of him when he showed us some exercises to control each of the ab muscles.

And I wish I could take videos of him (it is forbidden in the lectures) so you could also watch his impressive level of energy.

Amazing!!