I haven't posted in a few weeks, but I'm still here, still practicing, but very busy. I have a few posts I want to get to in the near future. Just a reminder to everyone that the U.S. national competition is this weekend in L.A. Three people from Vegas will be there competing, two guys and a girl. You can check out usayoga.org for details on the event. Apparently they are going to stream it live on line too, so check it out!
Greg
Showing posts with label Las Vegas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Las Vegas. Show all posts
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
The Road to 500
514 classes (15 advanced) in 500 days.
I shouldn’t even be here. By all accounts I should have been gone a long time ago, broken, dead, jail, you name it. Anywhere but here, and I certainly shouldn’t have recently completed 500 Bikram classes in 484 days. But I am here and I did my 500th class a few weeks ago despite a million reasons why it was impossible.
Long before I ever walked into the Green Valley studio for the first time my journey in this life could have come to an abrupt end. Falling off a cliff, capsizing in a boat, suffering severe burns on my arm, nearly being shot and having guns pointed at my head – all before turning 18. Yet I did survive.
Years later my body starting slowly falling apart, resulting in two dire situations that came to a head slightly before I started Bikram. The first was a situation with my adrenal glands whereby they had almost shut down completely. This led to all kinds of physical problems and a severe lack of energy. The second problem was my back, which had become more and more painful. When I walked into my very first class it was painful to even sit down and I couldn’t do much of anything with the postures. After these problems came up a friend of mine who had been trying to get me to come to Bikram practically dragged me into the studio. I’ve never looked back.
I give you this background not to sound impressive, after all there are people with way more impressive stories about how Bikram saved their life. Rather I’m describing the above to give you a better understanding of why I dedicate so much time to this yoga. I’m grateful every day that I even have the opportunity to come to class, to work on my postures, to improve myself. I don’t take it for granted for one second. I’m not going back to being in pain and having a hard time just getting through the day. I appreciate the fact that I can even do the postures. In the beginning I could barely do anything and in a little more than a year I ended up competing!
There is no turning back for me, and while I’m proud of my 500th class, it’s only the first few steps of this journey.
Greg
Monday, September 27, 2010
Training for Competition
424 classes (8 advanced) in 411 days.
The Nevada competition is fast approaching, and is now less than three weeks away. For over a month now, I've been training for this, along with the various other competitors. Of course, we've had a few people drop out over the past month, but we still have a decent group of people getting ready to compete.
For those unfamiliar with competition, you have three minutes to do seven postures. Five compulsory postures and two optional ones. The five compulsory postures are Standing Head to Knee, Standing Bow Pulling, Floor Bow, Rabbit and Stretching. The two optional postures are basically taken from the advanced series, and there's lots of choices.
Our training consists of various exercises to improve the postures, walk walking (great band bends), practicing each part of Standing Head to Knee, etc. And of course, practicing the routines, over and over again. It definitely takes some getting used to not doing postures in front of a mirror, since we're not going to be looking in a mirror on stage! Then we have various teachers give critiques of the postures. It's amazing to me how many details there are to every posture. You get some idea of this practicing in class all the time, but training really gives you a deeper understanding of the postures and how they're supposed to look.
And yes, I'm nervous! But it's been a fun experience so far, and my practice has certainly improved a lot, even though I'm very sore of late!
Greg
The Nevada competition is fast approaching, and is now less than three weeks away. For over a month now, I've been training for this, along with the various other competitors. Of course, we've had a few people drop out over the past month, but we still have a decent group of people getting ready to compete.
For those unfamiliar with competition, you have three minutes to do seven postures. Five compulsory postures and two optional ones. The five compulsory postures are Standing Head to Knee, Standing Bow Pulling, Floor Bow, Rabbit and Stretching. The two optional postures are basically taken from the advanced series, and there's lots of choices.
Our training consists of various exercises to improve the postures, walk walking (great band bends), practicing each part of Standing Head to Knee, etc. And of course, practicing the routines, over and over again. It definitely takes some getting used to not doing postures in front of a mirror, since we're not going to be looking in a mirror on stage! Then we have various teachers give critiques of the postures. It's amazing to me how many details there are to every posture. You get some idea of this practicing in class all the time, but training really gives you a deeper understanding of the postures and how they're supposed to look.
And yes, I'm nervous! But it's been a fun experience so far, and my practice has certainly improved a lot, even though I'm very sore of late!
Greg
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