A day in the life of

Inspired by Jon's update from the CDC, I thought I would share a little bit of my daily existence cross-country in San Diego. For those that don't know, I've been attending the Bikram Yoga Teacher Training. Its fucking crazy.

In so far as general background is concerned, there are 380 of us here (70% female, 30% male, ages ranging from 22-60, approximately 74% heavily tattooed, approximately 75% current AA or NA members), most of whom paid Bikram just under $11,000 dollars to be here. Bikram himself reminds us of that fact almost everyday in class from his dais, usually by yelling when we are in a position of maximum pain, "What you want?! I already won. I sucked your money up like a leach on your ass. Its gone. I eat it up. In&Out Burger. So now you suffer more!"

[380 milling yogis pre-class] [various ass sucking leeches]


The entire training is held in a series of gargantuan tents set up in the parking lot of the Town and Country Resort Hotel. The Town and Country Resort reminds me a lot of decay. In fact, I cannot actually imagine someone voluntarily choosing to stay at the Town and Country for a vacation. So being located in the parking lot is actually a blessing.


[gargantuan well insulated tents]

First class of the day is 8:30am (except Saturday's when it is a half-hour earlier) and yoga-related lectures, posture clinics, public speaking seminars, anatomy lessons, and yoga-therapy courses continue until close to midnight. At midnight, Bikram will usually throw on a mandatory Bollywood movie for us to watch. Bollywood movies are somewhat amazing for their total shittiness and extremely length. In five weeks we have yet to see one that is less than three hours or has even a single character whose entire motivation can't be explained by the soundtrack playing behind them. While never stated, the idea behind watching them is simply to deprive of us of sleep. When they are over, we head to bed to do it all over again.


[my evenings]

Because we have no place (and certainly no time) to cook, my diet consists mostly of raw shit and weird powdered supplements (protein powders, electrolyte powders, sea algae powders). The one exception to that is my ritual glass of sparkling grapefruit juice after the morning class.


[my breakfast on the shelf]

Bikram himself is not very shy or modest ("I created one of the most brilliant sentences ever made in the English language"; "I make Bruce Lee, I bring him to this country"; "I am 220 years old"; "I wrote the script for Superman!"; "I have giant rotating eye of Shiva, I see everything, 1 billion rotations per second"; "I go 72 hours of sex straight, my partner has 47 orgasms. We count!"), BUT is insanely lovable and charismatic nonetheless. Its pretty easy to see how he became a guru. He is also a serious flirt and a great singer, who bursts into couplets of song or poetry spontaneously.


[blurry Bikram] [characteristic garb] [orange lecture chair] [& as available from itunes]

What else? So much else (hospitalizations, hallucinations, heat, heat, heat) and the fact that somehow I am mostly enjoying myself... But I'll save that for beers when I get home. In the meantime, send some prayers, love, & email my way as I continue bending my way toward yogic bliss.

[non-yogic bliss last weekend]