we're halfway there...

week 4 recap:

so much happened in this past week that i almost don't even know where to start. well... let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start - sorry, got lost in the memory of musical theater for a minute. 

sooo... monday morning and it's week 4. at this point we've already done over 30 classes. in the heated dungeon. by now we should ALL be prepared to do a 90 minute class without intermission, without interruption. we should all have the strength and lung capacity to not pass out/puke/feel dizzy or light-headed. we've all been practicing for AT LEAST 6 MONTHS TO EVEN BE HERE, not to mention getting a doctors note medically waiving us from any kind of physical liability. physically, we're all strong, able-bodied adults fully capable of doing 2 90 minute classes in a room heated to 105 degrees. and yet, here it is, monday morning and we have a good number of students standing out postures, laying throughout the class, leaving the room. individually i think we all questioned why this was still happening, as we all know ourselves to be much stronger and capable of much more, but when we voiced our concerns about the heat and humidity in the room the only response we got was, "this is what you signed up for. welcome to teacher training". am on monday was pretty brutal, and many of us were sick.   a nasty cold had reared it's ugly head and when you're in such close proximity with 310 people 16 hours out of the day, its pretty inevitable that it'll spread like wildfire. so monday morning was rough for me, i had to sit out the spine strengthening series (laying on your stomach) because there was so much congestion in my chest that laying on my ribcage and compressing the lungs literally took my breath away. the inability to catch my breath had happened before, but this time i didn't get as frusterated as i had before because i factored in the cold. i didn't lay down, and i didn't leave, but i felt bad because it was the first, and only, class that mike taught. unfortunately it may have looked like i was giving up, but the inability to breath makes me rather anxious, and anxiety makes breathing even more difficult. so i had to do what i could do at that point. 

that night boss was back and it was the hardest/hottest class i've ever experienced. the heat was cranked up and the doors were shut. we were being steamed alive and people were dropping like flies left and right. at one point 4 people walked out of the room almost immediately following each other. it was almost unbelievable because you DONT leave the room when the boss is teaching. its just something you don't do. but they did. they felt that they had to, and honestly, with reason. 3/4 of the way through class, after witnessing so many people walk out, lay down, sit out he got so angry and frustrated with us that he stopped class. to lecture us a little about how we are lazy pieces of shit and how he'll never do another teacher training. that he's wasting his time with us because we can't even give him the kind of respect to not do the things that we've been doing (sitting, laying, leaving). he stopped class and didn't resume. we ended with half-tortoise and were told to reconvene in the lecture hall at 9 o'clock. chris thought that we should finish class, continuing through the finals few postures on our own, but when we tried to move onto camel we were yelled at by a visiting teacher for "not respecting his final wishes and leaving". we had no intention of being disrespectful, if anything we thought we could honor him by finishing the class, but apparently that's not how she took it. 

so we were all really anxious for lecture that night, as far as anyone knew something like that had never happened before. with trepidation we all arrived at the lecture hall, and were told by the teachers to sit quietly in our seats and reflect on the situation. they were more nervous and anxious than we all were, edgy and snapping at the students, walking around on eggshells. nobody knew what to expect. i was ready for a long ass-chewing. if the way he was when he left the room was any indication of what would happen later, i was prepared for a long night in the lecture hall. so it was a huge relief when he strolled into the room and hopped onstage with a smile and said, "why are you looking at me like i'm going to yell at you? you think i'm mad? no, i'm not mad. i'm in a good mood". he then proceeded to explain to us why were aren't pieces of chicken shit (at least not completely). how he went back to his room after leaving the yoga studio and deliberated on the situation. almost 10 people have left the training since we started, one being a former member of the coast guard, another a tri-athlete. everyone that has come to training has to be physically capable and rather at the top of their class. so why, after 3 weeks, are we still dropping like flies? why are we still feeling the need to leave the room? why are people still getting sick, running out of the room to throw up? he called around to long-time colleagues and found his answer. never before has he had a yoga room in the basement of a building. never before has there been a structure of the size and capacity as the one we are practicing in, built to hold so many people, and yet without proper ventilation. no air-circulation, and no air-flow from the outside. there are no windows in the studio, as we are underground. surrounded by mirrors, and florescent lighting overhead, its like being in an institution. for the past 3 weeks we've been practicing in a room that has been getting no direct oxygen. not only is it being pumped full of hot, heated air, but add the 70-100% humidity level of the air (it being rainy season and all), and 350 bodies on top of it... we're slowly suffocating by oxygen deprivation. hence the sickness, the light-headedness, the inability to catch the breath. there literally isn't any air to breathe and we were told, "welcome to training". THANK GOD FOR THE BOSS. none of us would have thought of that. and yet when he made mention of it, it was like a lightbulb going off in everyones heads. a weight being lifted off of everyones shoulders. we all just thought it was ourselves. our own practices. we were beating ourselves up, tearing ourselves apart on the inside because we couldn't make it through class... and it was not our fault. that was not what we paid for, what we came here to accomplish. and nobody, not the teachers, not the boss, himself, knows what we went through in that room for the first 4 weeks. because everyday was a different battle with the heat and humidity. every day there was a different "cool spot" in the room, and every day we were in there twice a day, dreading the next class. i  don't want to dread going into the studio for fear that i won't be able to breathe. again, thank god for the boss. it's being fixed. but a giant round of applause, standing ovation, HUGE pat on the back to all of my fellow trainees - the first 4 weeks were literally hell, but we made it. we're halfway there. and nobody, not the teachers practicing in the back of the room, or the teacher standing on the podium with the vents raining cool air down their heads from above, not trainees before us, or trainees to follow will know what we went through in that basement torture chamber for the first 4 weeks of our training. kudos all.