Week 8: The end of dialogue, bloated, tired & cranky.

It's the end of our training as we know it. 

Group 9!!!

I feel bloated, retaining loads of water and be chronically sleep deprived and cranky. I’ve been so self-consumed with my feelings, posture clinics and keeping tabs on my next sign in time that I have forgotten what a sacrifice most of these people have made to be here. Sometimes it can seem like a handful of people came here as a joke or because their parents made them. I must say, the majority of people I have met have left their significant others for nine weeks, left their children and pets at home, relying on others to pick up the slack for 9 weeks. Many have taken out loans order to come, they have asked friends and family for money, have quit their jobs, sold their homes, etc, to do this, all to be able to go out and teach this yoga to the world. 


The entire experience has gotten to the point where it is too difficult for me to write about it here. Experiences are happening at warp speed and it wouldn't make sense if you didn't attend teacher training. 


The one common theme weaved in throughout my posts is that I am not a big fan of criticism – and this of course made me  cranky. Then it occurred to me when I discussed this with my roommate who experienced something similar, that I was looking for approval in the wrong place. I need to be so happy and sure of MYSELF. Take the critique, absorb what I need to objectively, and not think of it as a personal attack of character. Why didn't I come HERE instead of college? Valuable life skills were developed here. 


After next week, all 384 of us will never be together in the same room again. We will go back home, all over the world, and settle back into our routines. However, we will always share a close bond with each other. We laughed, cried, made fools of ourselves for 9 weeks in teeny tiny rooms all for the same goal to share this yoga with others. They will be my friends for life. I may not be best of friends with everyone, but I would bend over backwards for each and every one of them if they ever needed anything from me. 


Those who have not gone through this training may have a tough time understanding how stressful and time consuming it is to learn the dialogue. Up to this point in the training the dialogue has been the main focus.  On any given break, you see people everywhere holding their dialogue. We mumble to ourselves while eating lunch, walking to class, or waiting for the van to pick us up form the grocery store. I have spent each morning practicing with others in random hallways in order to get ready to teach. The dialogue is relentless. At times we have to deliver two postures a day and there is always seemed to be another one, more complicated than the last, lurking around the corner. It is relentless. Even on the weekends, when I am  ‘free’, I cannot fully relax as I know I will be teaching my first class in 2 weeks. I even have "dialogue dreams" which I am told will never end.


I will get my tired, cranky, bloated body into my yoga kit and start week 9.