Monday, January 11, 2010

Day 11: The Navigator

5pm up at Summerlin with Erica. I've never had her class before. Not sure how long she's been teaching or where she hails from, but she is very good. She has fantastic dialog.
I found myself a bit on autopilot today. My brain, like a small child left to it's own devices was wandering all over the place. For some reason I didn't try to keep it in check. I was actually sort of, well, entertaining myself for lack of a better word. Random thoughts floated by and pieced themselves together into strings of ideas throughout the class. Halfway through I started thinking "gee, she's kind of killing me right now, but I don't mind". Then random thoughts about other classes where I've jokingly said to instructors after class "that was a hard one, you killed us a bit!" Lately they seem to always say "I didn't do it, you kill yourself in there. You're doing all the work." These thoughts are floating through my head as I'm face down on the towel in locust. I chuckled a bit into the towel, then started thinking about how Bikram teachers are really just navigators. We are driving the car, but we have no idea how to get where we are going. The bikram teacher is in the passenger seat, map unfolded, barking out very precise directions. If we don't obey the directions exactly as given, we will stray off course. The teacher, like a GPS unit, will then give us a correction to get us back on course.

4 comments:

  1. You nailed it Michelle. We are our own teachers, they are the guides. I love the GPS analogy!

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  2. I love the analogy! It's like when you see race-cars, they have a driver and the navigator, if the driver doesn't follow the directions they will end up somewhere in the bushes.

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  3. Loving it! Your wandering mind sound a lot like mine lately. The other day we are lying face down, heads turned to the right and there I am looking at the girls fingers next to me. Her fingers were "water logged". So of course there I am thinking...Hmmmm lots of sweating today. I too chuckled at my wandering mind.

    One of our teachers was telling us how a student told her after class how she was "her favorite Bikram Bitch". Funny how some teachers are soft in their approach, yet still motivating. While others are kind of harsh and just as effective.

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  4. I love the analogy. Just like driving with a GPS, I don't have to think about anything in class. I just listen to the words.

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