Glen Ellen, California
It was a powerful week that I spent outside of Austin, Texas. That is about the best way to describe it. Powerful. My commitment to spending a week in total immersion is part of my goal of becoming a yoga instructor. You can read some commentary I wrote about becoming a teacher by clicking here.
It's tough to know where to begin. I'll start by saying that the week consisted of NO COFFEE, and the food was excellent, but only fruits and veggies. I've never gone more than 24 hours without coffee. The impact of no coffee is tough to quantify, because the days were simply packed tight with no chance to start joanzzin for coffee.
The day started with a tight breakfast schedule, and immediacy into the main yoga room (pictured above) for about a half hour of meditation. Meditation is a skill that takes some doing. At first it feels like you might be going insane. Your spine starts to collapse, your butt falls asleep, legs cramp up and on and on. After a few secessions though, you start to learn to kind of detach from the sensations and stop fighting them. Eventually poof! They go away.
Baron Baptise leads the bulk of the activities. Immediately after meditation, we'd discuss as a group what came up during meditation, and then we'd go straight into a 4.5 to 5 hour yoga class. The first day's five hour physical practice was crushing. Just unbelievable. As with the entire week, the students were not informed of what was to unfurl. As that first class proceeded, It became clear I had exerted myself pacing for a standard 90 minute class. After three hours I was struggling huge. So was everyone. Most of the 140 or so yogi's were advanced teachers and practitioners, but the amount of groaning and child posers keeper me inspired. I was not the only one struggling! The heat the heat! Remember this was all happening in a heated room in the Texas heat!
This program is referred to as bootcamp. Military bootcamp is a weeding out process to filter those who may not be cut out for military life. Yoga bootcamp is similar in terms of becoming a teacher. This program was much less about the physical aspect of yoga, and much more concerning the mental aspect. We spent a ton of time doing personal exercises with the class, and partnering up to unearth your authentic self. Toward the end of the week, the "psychotherapy" aspect of the program started to become a little much for me. But, I understand and support the underlying intent behind doing such things. For many, me included the week was a real emotional experience.
I think every girl in the glass, did a serious amount of sobbing. So here is the thing I learned, or I guess more accurately solidified what I already knew. Stress and emotions are stored in the muscles. When we get stressed or upset muscle contraction is what occurs. Emotional energy is literally stored in muscles, but the meaning attached is in the knoggin. Obviously the larger the muscle, the more storage space is available. In the physical practice of yoga, the body is stretched and compressed repeatedly, resulting in vigorous blood flow, tons of sweating and a total flushing of the body. Each person is different. Some have much emotion bound up in the muscles, others not so much. Life circumstances drive this sort of thing. This is why it is not so unusual to have people start to cry for really no apparent reason.
As far as my week of bootcamp, the crying was pretty intense for some due to the intense physical practice stirring things up, but the real stirring occurred in the exercises and group type discussions that were happening. Lots of journaling exercises and soul searching.
A key component of becoming any kind of teacher is the ability to stand in front of a group and be judged. For some this was by far the most difficult aspect of the week. People just were not prepared to stand in front of 100 plus people and discuss deeply personal issues. In the yoga world this type of thing is very important. It is the authentic teacher part.
So I did ball my eyes out, but my emotional release was triggered by laughter. We did a really funny exercise about the contagious nature of laughter. By god it worked! The funny thing is no man, even the gay dudes, didn't stand in front of the class and cry like many many women. But, I think most of the men became hysterical with laughter to the point of tears during this exercise. There is no difference between laughter and crying. Both are mechanisms in the body to release pent up emotion. It was crazy how hard I was laughing, seemingly triggered by nothing but another persons laughter. A room full of 140 people laughing for a good 1/2 hour is pretty funny. Just when things would calm down, and people would come back into a seated meditation position, someone would giggle triggering an explosion of laughter. This went on and on, until finally Baron broke up the class.
Group dynamics is a interesting things. When people come together with a shared culture, in this case yoga, connections are made easily and intensely. Add to this notion, the fact that during class the mat are butted up plum against one another. It brings an entire new thing outside of the norm. All that bending over in someones face really does build camaraderie! I'm pleased 90% of the class was women. Also we did these exercises where you be toe to toe with someone and the game is to stare into each others eye's for a very long time.
So, all that said, it was well worth the money and effort to go to yoga bootcamp. I teach my first class at Red Dragon Yoga Studio in Mill Valley California this coming Tuesday! That grateful for it all!
Austin Texas is a really awesome place. The kid is giving serious consideration to apply for grad school in an institution in Austin to see if maybe I want to relocate to Austin. Here are a couple of pics I took while skulking around with Yael. You can see Yael in the picture above, I've got my hands all over her, for yoga purposes only of course.
Yogi C
It was a powerful week that I spent outside of Austin, Texas. That is about the best way to describe it. Powerful. My commitment to spending a week in total immersion is part of my goal of becoming a yoga instructor. You can read some commentary I wrote about becoming a teacher by clicking here.
 |
| Savasana with 140 Others |
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| These are all Naples Florida Yoga People from BV Yoga with Baron |
The day started with a tight breakfast schedule, and immediacy into the main yoga room (pictured above) for about a half hour of meditation. Meditation is a skill that takes some doing. At first it feels like you might be going insane. Your spine starts to collapse, your butt falls asleep, legs cramp up and on and on. After a few secessions though, you start to learn to kind of detach from the sensations and stop fighting them. Eventually poof! They go away.
Baron Baptise leads the bulk of the activities. Immediately after meditation, we'd discuss as a group what came up during meditation, and then we'd go straight into a 4.5 to 5 hour yoga class. The first day's five hour physical practice was crushing. Just unbelievable. As with the entire week, the students were not informed of what was to unfurl. As that first class proceeded, It became clear I had exerted myself pacing for a standard 90 minute class. After three hours I was struggling huge. So was everyone. Most of the 140 or so yogi's were advanced teachers and practitioners, but the amount of groaning and child posers keeper me inspired. I was not the only one struggling! The heat the heat! Remember this was all happening in a heated room in the Texas heat!
 |
| Sweet Danielle from Texas |
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| The Baptiste Team, Good & Dedicated People |
I think every girl in the glass, did a serious amount of sobbing. So here is the thing I learned, or I guess more accurately solidified what I already knew. Stress and emotions are stored in the muscles. When we get stressed or upset muscle contraction is what occurs. Emotional energy is literally stored in muscles, but the meaning attached is in the knoggin. Obviously the larger the muscle, the more storage space is available. In the physical practice of yoga, the body is stretched and compressed repeatedly, resulting in vigorous blood flow, tons of sweating and a total flushing of the body. Each person is different. Some have much emotion bound up in the muscles, others not so much. Life circumstances drive this sort of thing. This is why it is not so unusual to have people start to cry for really no apparent reason.
As far as my week of bootcamp, the crying was pretty intense for some due to the intense physical practice stirring things up, but the real stirring occurred in the exercises and group type discussions that were happening. Lots of journaling exercises and soul searching.
A key component of becoming any kind of teacher is the ability to stand in front of a group and be judged. For some this was by far the most difficult aspect of the week. People just were not prepared to stand in front of 100 plus people and discuss deeply personal issues. In the yoga world this type of thing is very important. It is the authentic teacher part.
So I did ball my eyes out, but my emotional release was triggered by laughter. We did a really funny exercise about the contagious nature of laughter. By god it worked! The funny thing is no man, even the gay dudes, didn't stand in front of the class and cry like many many women. But, I think most of the men became hysterical with laughter to the point of tears during this exercise. There is no difference between laughter and crying. Both are mechanisms in the body to release pent up emotion. It was crazy how hard I was laughing, seemingly triggered by nothing but another persons laughter. A room full of 140 people laughing for a good 1/2 hour is pretty funny. Just when things would calm down, and people would come back into a seated meditation position, someone would giggle triggering an explosion of laughter. This went on and on, until finally Baron broke up the class.
 |
| The Transformers |
Group dynamics is a interesting things. When people come together with a shared culture, in this case yoga, connections are made easily and intensely. Add to this notion, the fact that during class the mat are butted up plum against one another. It brings an entire new thing outside of the norm. All that bending over in someones face really does build camaraderie! I'm pleased 90% of the class was women. Also we did these exercises where you be toe to toe with someone and the game is to stare into each others eye's for a very long time.
So, all that said, it was well worth the money and effort to go to yoga bootcamp. I teach my first class at Red Dragon Yoga Studio in Mill Valley California this coming Tuesday! That grateful for it all!
 |
| Taken at Red Dragon about a year ago |
Austin Texas is a really awesome place. The kid is giving serious consideration to apply for grad school in an institution in Austin to see if maybe I want to relocate to Austin. Here are a couple of pics I took while skulking around with Yael. You can see Yael in the picture above, I've got my hands all over her, for yoga purposes only of course.
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| Downtown Austin Texas |
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| Austin's Favorite Son SRV |
1 comment:
let your hair grow
dad
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