Pre-game Butterflies

As I sit here in the comfortable surroundings of my apartment, I can’t help but wonder what changes are in store for us at the upcoming session of teacher training. The time is drawing near!

Throughout my life I have participated in a variety of athletic competitions and have found that I have always gotten anxious prior to the event. Most competitors will tell you that they feel this is evidence that they are “running on all cylinders” and are ready for whatever is about to face them in their chosen area of expertise. All one can do is honestly prepare the best they can, then visualize the expected results and at some point let go and believe that their preparation will carry them to their desired result.

Now, this is not a competition and I want to share something emailed to me today from one of Bikram’s assistants.

“Congratulations on your acceptance into the Bikram Yoga College of India’s Intensive Teacher Training Program, Class of Spring, 2008 in Acapulco, Mexico. I’m writing this from the property, and it is truly beautiful”.

“All we require is your presence, and a passionate commitment to your own transformation within the next nine weeks. Please enter into our new home with open eyes, open heart and open mind. You have chosen the path of service that leads to the promise of Self-realization, and for this you have my respect. Let yours be the hand that heals and helps, and let your expectations, as unwanted burdens, fall behind as you enter through the door”.

Let your expectations, as unwanted burdens; fall behind you as you enter through the door! Sort of goes against everything I wrote above, doesn’t it? That’s because this is yoga, not football or wrestling or any other organized sport we are familiar with participating in. Our “expectations” hold us back, both in our practice as well as in our lives and create suffering because they prevent us from seeing things as they really are. We create an illusion, like a lightly colored curtain does when it makes the sunshine appear to be a different color as it shines through our window. Pull back the curtain and you reveal the true brilliance and color of the suns rays. This is what we need to do in our everyday lives, pull back the “curtain of expectation” and see things as they really are.

And so it seems as if I’ve encountered one of my first challenges and I haven’t even gotten off of the couch yet! Just like we shouldn’t expect an individual class to go a certain way, or judge it afterwards as a good class or a bad class, I really should have no particular expectations entering this “transformation”. That’s quite a bit easier to write than to actually put into practice. I think we all know this, but just like I did above, we fall back into our familiar habits, our same old routines and this takes us in a direction we really did not intend on going.

I promise not to drone on about yoga philosophy and the like, but I just had this conversation with someone the other day regarding issues sure to pop up at training. I hate that teacher; she/he doesn’t do it like I’m used to. Hey! They’re in “my” spot, that person is touching me, crowding me, staring at me or sweating on me. Why do they insist on telling me to do it this way? I sure look fat compared to so and so! My postures sure do suck compared to plastic man over there. What in God’s name is that odor? Is it coming from me?

Funny thing is, it just dawned on me that these were the same thought and feelings I had when I first started to practice Bikram Yoga. I’ve said every one of them at one time or another and some of them I allowed to throw me off course for a while. I’m hoping that I’ve learned something over the last several years and vow not to allow those same things to derail me again.

Now there’s an interesting thought, it’s going to be like starting over again…