Half Way Point! 1 more month!

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face...do the thing you think you cannot do." – Eleanor Roosevelt

Aloha! This week in review: With Rajashree in town lecturing, this week flew by! We had less time for Posture Clinic and delivering our dialogue. It was nice to slow up a bit compared to last weeks warp speed Posture Clinic. Yoga classes got a lot hotter! The heat is getting cranked up this week and the next couple of weeks! Aye. People are dropping like flies in class. Laying down, running out of the room to puke, getting carried out with body cramps and dizziness. Gotta eat right and super hydrate during this time in training. We have had 5 weeks of intense double yoga classes a day as well as everything else going on - little sleep, and lectures, studying dialogue. It hit us all this week it seemed. My body is like when are u gonna give me a rest?? We are all super exhausted and Yoga class has been much more difficult to get through. This week has def been my hardest of all in class. I have sat down a bunch in the floor series and my body in the morning classes literally has nothing to give. Evening classes is a little better but its been hard to do a 100% class without laying down a little. Word is they are trying to push us so we know how a beginner feels first time in class. So we will have conpassion and understanding for them. I dont need to be tortured to feel that. I never forgot how hard the first couple months were for me when I discovered Bikram Yoga! Anyway its been a real tough week!

Rajashree told us this morning at class we are all where we should be and doing good at 5 weeks into training. Next week she said we should hit another plato and have more energy and our bodies should adjust to the hotter more humid heat in the room. I hope so! Whenever someone walks into the yoga room you can hear....its so hot in here! Haha. It sounds so funny bcs its suppose to be hot, its Hot Yoga. Craig has gotten this line into our head that he says all the time...Its not hot, your hot! So now you can hear that a lot around the room when people joke about the heat.
Also, we are so desperate for a little bit of relief from the heat when we lay our mats down in the room for class, we look for where the hot spots are to avoid them. Some of the ceiling heaters are angled down and hit directly on some spots. That would be torture to yoga there for 2 hrs, like its not hot enough.

Its amazing how many yogis are tatooed in training! And so many of them are ugly tatoos in my opinion. Although seeing so many cool ones too makes me think about getting another...I doubt I would though. If i did it would be yoga related after this whole experience!

The woman I mentioned that sits in the back of the room and takes yoga with us lately has been back 2-3 times a week! Her name is Joanne. So great to see her trying and practicing with us!

Rajashree's lectures this week were really great! So much to take in on the medical aspect of this yoga. She has such a gentle, relaxing voice I would have to fight to stay awake during the lectures unfortunately. It wasnt that I didnt enjoy learning, my body just shuts down when its out of energy.

So everyday is someones birthday at training. We have all been dying in classes this week dealing with the heat. Teachers choose the very last minute of class right before Savasanah to have everyone sing happy birthday. Its torture. I feel bad bcs I want to celebrate the person but aye cant we sing during lecture, not when we are out of breath and our bodies are about to give in yoga class?

John, a visiting teacher from NY is here for several weeks. He gave us the best laughs during an evening lecture. So many funny funny stories. We all sooo needed it after a rough class! He is the funniest gay man here. Almost felt like a mini comedy show. Ok thats how I pictured it in my head bcs I am desperate for a night out or day away from training. He taught an amazing yoga class and really got my mind off the heat. During yoga one of the things he said which was inspiring was: FAITH. Finally. Allowing. It. To. Happen.

Than theirs the line that always cracks me up...Party Time. Which means its the first water break in class and your allowed to pick up and drink your water. Haha.

So one of the things we do a lotttt here besides yoga, ha, is clapping. We clap a lot and for everything. Clap when people introduce themselves, clap after someone speaks, clap after a yoga class is over, clap when someone stands up to give their dialogue, clap after they finish their dialogue. I have gotten use to it and I think its great to show so much positive energy and support for each other. Craig joked when we go home we are going to look for lines to stand on, look for reasons to clap, try to memorize the ingredients in our morning cereal box. haha. Just bcs we will feel out of our norm. So if you see me clapping when you come back from the bathroom or you had a good sneeze, feel free to knock some sense into me. Haha.

So its Saturday! Yae. Cant believe I am half way through training. Its flying bye. I am def trying to enjoy every minute of it here. After class today we went down to the beach with some other yogis and cooled our sore muscles off in the salty sea water. I walked a little on the beach and increased my sea glass collection. Rather unhappy with my findings so far. Such small pieces of glass in the water here. Jess and I walked over to the mall here. Got some fun souvenirs and gifts for the fam. Still havent found anything really cool for myself just yet. Besides a Hello Kitty long sleeve shirt from the Sanrio Hawaii store here. Yae. Oh and a cool straw bag, some Hawaii stickers. But thats not much. Ha.

Ahh Jess is napping right now. I should catch up on some sleep too. When I wake up tonight I will study some dialogue. I am on to Traingle Pose now! Excited to get to the floor series. Only a few postures away! Those postures are gonna fly by bcs their are so short. I'm excited to paint my toes Banana yellow tonight too while studying! Haha. The little things. I found the absolute perfect shade of yellow I was thinking of at the mall. No worries I will take a picture of my darling hot dog toes when they are complete.

I am rocking the postures now! Gaining so much more confidence delivering them too. Its so exciting to see myself quickly progress and hear the feedback I get. the last posture I gave my voice was really loud and projected. I am thinking to myself, where did that come from? It made me feel more confident! Next I am gonna focus on emphasizing some of the words and commands in the dialogue, also the teachers mentioned I seem like I am stepping back/leaning back a little when I deliver the posture. I think its bcs I am standing so close to the bodies (no extra room to move back) and the bodies are coming at me in the postures. I tried it from the back of the room and the teachers said I did better but will try to focus on that some more too.

Tomorrow morning Jess and a couple of us girls are gonna hike Diamond Head! Im excited to have a change of scenary. Also gonna stop by Bikram Yoga Waikiki bcs I have seen people wearing a bunch of cool tank tops from there. I wanna buy one. Not hitting the beach this week. Too drained from yoga. I have 5 more weeks to get tan so I am not worried! Gonna go take a nice long nap. My body is aching for one! Aloha! * Sarah

Latest pictures from training: http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=295191179627565592/l=266943162/g=4168081/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB