Today we arrived back at our 10 Euro per night Hotel in downtown Acapulco, training is over and the rainingseason here has just started. Yesterday we even couldn't take a taxi cause the roads were all fludded. No better way to end the 9 weeks of enlightening yoga vibrations in the highly luxureous Fairmont Princes Hotel then to come down and chill a little in the 'normal world'. After all we've been in quite a bubble for a while i realize now, slowly opening my eyes in a totally different country here, strange but true. I've even seen some animals i' didn't see before here now my eyes are off the dialog ;-)
Eventhough the whole training had this double sided experience of time; of endlessly painfull and hard times and at the same time all just being one big, fast momentum, the last couple of weeks were like speeding through a bottle neck even more. I'll just look back on some of the things that happened here before our graduation.
So about two weeks ago Tinus arrived here, causing even more confusion under our fellow yogi's; because all three of us are tall and have little to no hair on the head, people were wondering if they we breeding us somewhere in the hotel. Anyway really nice to have him visiting us, giving the encouragements for the final weeks, and spreading the word of not drinking water during class as we did (some people really were amazed and inspired about it) All in all he was quite proud of all the Dutchies, you could tell. Below you'll find us all in a taxi with Susan after having dinner at ... the 100% natural restaurant, of course.
At the end of that week on friday we had the talent show. This started some years ago spontaneously, and has now made it to a real tradition in the teacher training. Basically the people doing the training are of all ages, background/nationalities and profession. A lot of them sing, dance or play an instrument, and not all that bad either ! The evening totally blew everyone's head off i could say, it was just so wonderful and fun to see all the qualities of the people you've seen half naked, sweating and reciting dialog only for the last 2 months. There was a ballet performed by Claudia en Johannes in which some of the yoga postures we do were woven in, so beautiful and funny to watch i wished there was a video to show. Also Kasper is such an amazingly good singer, that i suggest the students in Amsterdam to ask him to sing for you after class some day, you'll be surprised. (his first class is next wednesday ;'))
By the time the last act was performed, a Bollywood song 'Ohm Shanti Ohm', everyone on stage was dancing, all people singing, Bikram sitting in his chair in the centre with a bat circling over his head ! seriously ! Hard to discribe; magical for sure.
The last week, coming close to finishing the training, the sense of completion was in the air. Although for me, monday took off with something like an emotional throw'up in class, the rest of the week was real nice, intens though but strong. We had classes from Emmy (who came back for graduation), Jason Winn, Craig, Rajashree and Bikram of course; all not the leastest of yoga teachers around ! Also the week before, 22 people for the graduation demonstration were picked out of the 290 around. I happened to be one of them, together with Huub, Ruben, Claudia and Kasper. We made quite an impression i guess, as 4 of the 5 male demonstraters were Dutch. Thumbs up for Bikram Yoga in the Netherlands ! Some people even came up to us, asking what exactly they put in our water over there. To think of it, the Dutch water is pretty good, too much chloride over here.
The slightly minor thing as demonstrators was the fact that we even had to do some more yoga as a training for graduation day, (getting us all in alignment and synchronic order) but it actually was real fun to do! On wednesday we had the chance to get inspired by the advanced series demonstration which was nice to see. The postures i´m allowed to teach right now are the beginners series. There's also the advanced series of postures which look somewhat like this...
Bikram himself also joined the advanced demonstration so we got a chance to see his practice. It was rather funny to see as has style is quite agressive and his postures not outstandingly good, but what can you say; the man has been practicing yoga since the age of four, sleeps 2 hours a day, can live on 1 sandwich for 3 days and still has energy like a newborn child, at the age of 62. Nothing but respect in that sense.
On thursday some pictures were taken with the demontration group as promotion material for the teacher training. Doing yoga underneath the palmtrees with some fresh oceanbreeze in your face, there's nothing like it!
Below you'll see Kasper doing his standing bow on a little stone wall, he got an award for best anatomy test at graduation day; as you might notice in the pictures, his own anatomy is quite good too, no musclefibre left unattended in that body.
Friday the final day was really there !!! The demonstration went well, we listened to some speeches, received our certificate from Bikram and got a chance to take a picture with him, all that formal stuff. Everyone looked beautiful, all dressed up and shining like stars. Only to get wasted that same night at the graduation party. After 9 weeks of intens yoga, 'no kissy kissy, no huggy huggy, no fucky fucky', no alcohol, no drugs, you can image some people just let everything go for a change. It was a great party, sharing the happiness of fulfilling the teacher training with the fellow 290 yogi's who've become close friends during the past 2 months.
The last couple of days we finally had some time to just hang around, eat whenever we're hungry, catch some sleep, enjoying the wonderful surroundings of the hotel we've stayed in.
With a little pain in the heart. Throughout the weeks, the intensity of the program, the yoga and our teachers, slowly allowed everyone to open up, and create this wonderful little loving caring community in a heavenly environnement i've only known from travelagancy's magazines. It's hard too see it disintegrating again this rapidly, as everyone is leaving to teach this yoga all over the world, wherever they came from. I guess at the same time it's one of the most valuable things to take home and share with the rest of the world.
This thursday i'll be flying to San Francisco visiting Mary Jarvis' studio and hopefully teach my first class over there, exciting! I'll try to keep you posted about my experiences over there. During training they told us many times, the circle of teacher training is only to be completed the moment you teach your first class.
