My Name is Colleen. I AM your Yoga Teacher!

I am sitting at the Vancouver Airport waiting for my connecting flight home to Kelowna.  It is hard to believe that nine weeks of Bikram Teacher Training are finally over!  As I sit here, I am reflecting on the experience and trying to think of what I might share.   I know it will take time to process.   To sum up the experience, I would say that Bikram wants his teachers to be an example of "bullet proof, fire proof, wind proof, water proof, sex proof, money proof, emotion proof..." tough yogis.  He is trying to show us how the discipline of yoga can transform a group of "junk bodies, screw loose brains and lost souls" into true human beings.


The final two weeks of training were extremely difficult for me.  I struggled mentally to stay in the process and not fall in to a negative state of mind.  The days got longer and harder...our final week we were getting only 3-5 hours sleep each night, lectures were long and tedious.  Two nights this week, we were up until 4:30am and as usual expected back in the yoga room by 8:00am.   Our last day of training, Bikram kept us up until 2:30am!  What a way to end the training.  I have to admit that I was slipping.  I was getting more and more tired...more and more ready to go home!  It was hard for me to find even one positive thing to say. 


Thursday we were in lecture from 11:30 am until 6:00pm.  Our last yoga class of training finally started at 7:00pm (2 hours late)  As I walked in the hot room exhausted and frustrated...just wanting it all to be over...I heard a voice calling my name.  If she hadn't called my name, I would have walked right past my friend Claire Cameron who came from Ottawa to surprise me!  Oh, such pure joy!  I was so excited to see a familiar, loving face!  I couldn't believe it...my best friend!  A true, best friend.  As I write this, my eyes are watering with tears of appreciation and love....that someone would come so far to support me in my journey...I am so humbled.


I practiced my final yoga class of Teacher Training along side Claire Cameron and my dear roommate Brittany Milove.  They carried me through the 90 min class and literally, lifted me up in full locust (I wish I had a picture of that!)  Such love and support.  The room was a crazy energy of exhaustion, excitement and anticipation.  Everyone so anxious to complete this last class...95 classes in 9 weeks!  But, that was not the end of training.  A quick shower and back in the lecture hall at 10:30pm for Bikram's final lecture that would go until 2:30am.  Right until the very end he would challenge our beliefs, our limitations, our expectations...always pushing us.


GRADUATION DAY!  YAHOO!

Group 8 - Graduation Day

I don't remember much about graduation day.  I woke up so tired I felt like I had a hangover.  I think I went to coffee with Claire and then got ready for the graduation ceremony.  I remember that I felt like crap.  I was bloated, swollen, puffy, spaced out and cranky....not what I was hoping for my graduation pictures.  It was so great to see everyone dressed in beautiful clothes with happy, smiling faces!

It will take some time to process everything I've learned during the 9 weeks of Teacher Training.  I know that already I miss my fellow trainees...Group 8...the best group in Spring 2011 training; my study partner Emma Hicks; my roommate Brittany Milove and my best friends, lecture support group....Jane Ashton and Katrina Cooke.  

Brittany Milove, my roommate

Emma, a true friend...taking care of my hair

Thank you to everyone who sent loving words of encouragement to me over these past nine weeks.  You could not imagine how those emails helped me during so many difficult times.  




As I head home to Kelowna, I begin a new challenge.  I am packing up my life and moving to Ottawa, Ontario to work for my friend Claire at Bikram Yoga Ottawa.  I will teach my first ever, Bikram Yoga Class there next week.  I'll write again...as I start the next chapter of the journey...life as a new Bikram Yoga Teacher.


With love and gratitude....namaste.


Colleen

Goodbye Radisson LAX