Legian Beach

Training ended Sunday afternoon and I headed straight to Legian Beach! The weather was perfect and there were tons of surfers out in the water. I didn't have time to go myself, but enjoyed watching them.






One of my friends from college, who is currently living in Australia, happened to be traveling in Bali this week. What are the odds? It was super fun to meet up with her for dinner.






Watching my final Bali sunset from the rooftop pool - so beautiful!





My flight home was long but easy - I just slept and watched movies. It was roughly a 5 hr flight to Taipei, an hour layover, and then 11 hrs to Seattle. Both flights were on time and getting through customs was no problem. Marc picked me up at the airport, we grabbed dinner and got home around 8 p.m. I did laundry, repacked, got a few hours of sleep, and then headed back to the airport at 6 a.m. Now I'm in Las Vegas until Saturday for a work conference - Marc came with me and is working from the hotel while I'm at the conference. We arrived Wednesday at 11 a.m. and I gave my first presentation from 3:30-5:30 p.m. It went really well - there were about 200 people in the audience. Today I will attend sessions all day and my second presentation is tomorrow. Hopefully I get good participant evaluations because next fall the conference is in San Diego! Tonight Marc and I are going to see the Cirque du Soliel show Ka.

bitter sweet

It's a happy/sad feeling to leave Bali. There are a lot of things I'm going to miss...and some things I'm happy to leave behind.

I will miss...
The sunshine and warmth, but am grateful to leave the humidity. I'm looking forward to dry clothes and dry hair - everything stays slightly wet here because of the humidity...blech

I will miss the beach/ocean. I was inland most of the trip so I didn't get to swim in the ocean as much as I wanted, but I'm grateful for the days I had!

I will miss the open air yoga room looking out into the jungle...and I am happy to leave the ants and spiders that were constantly crawling all over my yoga mat.

I'm looking forward to my hairdryer, Sonicare toothbrush, cell phone, and fast Internet...wish I could bring home a chef, house keeper, driver and masseuse.

I will miss meditating in the morning, but I'm happy not to sit on the floor anymore. Even after a month, I never got used to it - my legs still went numb every day. ouch.

Waking up at 5:15 for 6 a.m. yoga...well that's a wash because it's my same schedule at home.

I'm already missing all the new friends I made...but I'm looking forward to visiting them all over the world! I can't wait to see all my friends/family at home - I missed everyone so much.

Goodbye for now Bali - I'm sure I will be back someday!

Finish

I can't believe I'm finished with training - this month flew by so fast! Our last couple days of days were nice - on Friday evening we had a ritual at the botanical garden in Ubud. It was beautiful there! We were lucky to have Dave Stringer there with us (a famous Kirtan singer in the yoga world) and Alanna Kaivalya (also a singer and a Jivamukti yoga instructor). Everyone was singing and dancing which was fun - but my favorite part of the night was when we stopped and sat in silence and we could hear all the creatures in the trees around us (frogs, crickets, birds, monkeys, etc.). It was dark so the stars were in the sky along with a bunch of fireflies - so cool! I could have stayed there all night - loved it! As we were leaving, I saw glowing on the ground along the path - they were glow worms! I didn't know they actually existed...I thought they were just made up in cartoons, ha ha.













Saturday we had a "graduation" to receive our certificates, a fancy dinner (we dressed up and they served us dinner on the patio rather than the regular serve-yourself in the dining room), and then a gift exchange. I met such amazing people here, it's sad to leave! I'm excited to see everyone at home though, and now I have people to visit all over the world :)

receiving my certificate:






final dinner w/ my villa-mates:
(from left to right) Sheri, Kim, me, Ross, Ellen, and Anne Marie






Oh - and I almost burnt down the yoga shala on Saturday...that would have been bad! We finished meditation and were about to start our yoga class. I took off my sarong, folded it, and placed it up on the window sill...apparently a little too close to a candle because a minute later Juniper was calling my name and pointing at the smoke. I jumped up and put the flames out which had luckily just started - good thing she noticed! So now I have holes in my sarong...but that's way better than what could have happened.

Fire Dance

I finally got to go see the Balinese dancing! I've been wanting to go for the past couple weeks and plans kept falling through with other people, so Wednesday night I decided to just go by myself. I'm glad I did - it was fantastic!



It's called Kecak Fire & Trance Dance and it told an ancient Hindu story. They didn't use any instruments - instead there were around 50 guys of all ages singing/chanting in rhythmic patterns. They were amazing! I also loved all the costumes and makeup of the dancers.



During the second part of the show, they lit a pile of coconut shells on fire. Then a guy came out in a horse costume and started kicking the fire with his bare feet. Crazy! Sparks were flying everywhere - luckily they put up a short metal wall (about a foot tall) to keep the audience from getting burned.

More pictures

Here are a few more pictures from Sunday

Sunday fun day

Sunday was our last day off from training and it was my favorite so far! Five of us rented a driver for the day and went all over the island.

Our first stop was at a temple that Josh (our chanting teacher) recommended and it was amazing! It was about a 1/4 mile walk off the main road down a bunch of steps. Along the way, there were a lot of locals trying to sell the usual stuff (jewelry, paintings, masks, etc.) but the funniest thing was that they kept trying to sell us sarongs even though we were already wearing them. We knew ahead of time that we had to wear a sarong in order to enter the temple so we were all set, but that didn't stop the vendors from trying to sell us more. Each time I said "no thanks, I already have one" and they said "it's okay, you buy one more." I would have had ended up with 50 of them, lol! The temple grounds were incredible - there were huge (40 foot?) carvings into the stone on the hillside, and there was a stream running through the middle of the area. It's the best temple I've been to on the trip so far.





Next we went to a spice garden called Satria Agrowisata. Well actually they grow more than just spices- they also have fruit, herbs, coffee, tea, and cacao (chocolate plant). We got to watch them make a special kind of coffee called Luwak Coffee. The Luwak is a small animal that loves eating coffee cherries and the beans ferment in their stomachs. The locals then gather the coffee beans that have passed through the Luwak, and roast them into a coffee blend that apparently has "a rich, heavy flavor with hints of carmel or chocolate." I'll take their word for it...none for me thanks...although I enjoyed watching them roast it on the open fire. I opted for the three tea tasting: ginger, lemongrass, and rosella - yum!





After that we drove to see a Volcano - we didn't have time to hike it so we just took pictures from the road. The best way to hike the volcano is to drive there around 3 a.m. and then hire a guide to walk you up so that you get to the top for sunrise. Sounds amazing, but it didn't work with our schedule. It was still beautiful from a distance :)





Our last stop was at the hot-springs which were at the base of the volcano along the lake. Perfect end to a fantastic day!

Threes

Well they say strange things happen in threes:
Yesterday there was a 6.8 earthquake off the coast of Bali. We are inland, so we didn't get the full force here but we felt it strongly for I'm guessing 30-60 seconds (hard to have a sense of time while it was happening). It was actually pretty funny timing-wise because we were right in the middle of a chanting class when the whole building started to shake so we were joking around about our singing moving the earth (gotta love nerdy yoga humor). We were upstairs in a two story building so we went downstairs and then outside...figured we were safer out there in case anything collapsed, but luckily everything was okay. There was a small aftershock a couple hours later but I was taking a nap and didn't notice.

The second random thing happened in the afternoon. Our shala (the room where we have class) has a vaulted ceiling and a couple days ago I noticed a huge lizard up in the rafters. I didn't think much of it at the time, but yesterday it totally pooped from 30 feet up in the air right onto this girl's leg! It happened to be during one of Edward's classes and he didn't realize what was going on so he yelled at her for getting out of the pose, lol! He laughed when he figured it out though :)

This morning we had our last class with Edward - yay, I survived and now we have a new instructor, Kathy. I have to say that even though I didn't like his style, I did learn a few things from him so it was still a good week. Right after class the third thing happened...they surprised us with a beach day!!! I was super excited because I haven't been to the beach since before our training started. It was about an hour and a half drive to get there and they had fresh coconuts waiting for us when we arrived, yum! We spent the afternoon swimming, tanning, and taking pictures in the sand - so much fun!

rough patch

Well I suppose the honeymoon had to come to an end eventually. This has been a rough week - I don't really like the instructor we have right now. His name is Edward and he's this crazy, eccentric, British guy. He's entertaining in a way...kind of like watching Monty Python - you can't understand half of what he says but it's funny none the less. However, I don't like that he mocks us when we do something incorrectly. I know the purpose is to trigger us in order to bring up emotions that we need to deal with, so I guess it's working...but it's not fun.

I tried to just brush it off on Monday but on Tuesday I got pretty upset. I was doing a pose and he came over and got right on my mat in my face and was ridiculing me for doing it incorrectly. I couldn't understand what the problem was though because he wasn't showing me the right way to do it, he was only telling me that it was wrong. Then he gave me a manual adjustment that wrenched my back in a way that hurt...so between the pain and embarrassment I started crying. That only made matters worse because then he yelled at me for not breathing properly, lol! To top it off, this was all being video taped because they are filming segments to put on the web site. Not a good day for me...

I woke up this morning and was pretty crabby so I was kind of lazy in our first class. Then after breakfast I felt better and put more effort into the second class. Luckily we had the afternoon off so I went to town and had a massage & body scrub - just what I needed! We only have three more classes with him so I'll survive...and keep my fingers crossed that I like Kathy better next week.

Anyway - that's all for now. Here are a few more pictures.

weekend

When I get home, having two-day weekends will feel like a luxury compared to only getting one day off a week here! My days off have been exhausting because I want to do as much sight-seeing and activities as possible.

Yesterday a group of twelve of us went to Bali Treetop Adventures which was basically a big ropes course with zip lines - super fun! I have some nice bruises and scrapes from all the ropes & nets but it was totally worth it :)



After that we had the driver take us to a restaurant for lunch. The view was amazing but the food didn't look good so we snapped a few photos and then hit the road again. Here I am with Lauren (left) who lives in Vancouver, B.C., and Hanni (right) from Homer, Alaska.



Next we visited a temple - we couldn't go inside the sacred area but there was a walkway that surrounded it where we could take pictures.



We ended the day back in town with shopping & dinner. Overall a great day! Next Sunday I think I might opt for a beach day...relaxing sounds nice.

Pics part 2

My roommates: Anne Marie (left), Ellen (in green), Sherri (right). Sherri's assignment was to be a dominatrix for the day...she doesn't normally wear loads of makeup and carry a whip, lol!





Juniper, the birthday girl. She is also from Spokane :)





Temple in Ubud

pics part 1

Here are some pics from this week
Chanting class with Josh - today we learned the Sanskrit alphabet.





Our Anusara teacher, Chris - he was fantastic! I'm sad to see him leave but looking forward to meeting our next instructor on Monday.





Practicing handstand with Charlie who is only 19 - so cool that he is going through this training at such a young age. Plus he is here with his older brother and sister - it's fun to see them all together!

week 2

We have three new classes and instructors this week:
1) Yoga of Sound - which is all about learning how to pronounce Sanskrit and then using it in various chants. I really love this class because I feel like I'm back in music school when I learned to sing in German, Italian and French. So fun!
2) Yoga Anatomy - exactly what it sounds like, an anatomy class where we learn the names of different bones/muscles/etc. specifically in relation to different yoga poses.
3) Anusara - this is a style of yoga which I had not practiced before. One of the main reasons I chose this training was because I wanted to get exposed to new techniques/philosophies so this fits right into my goal.

I absolutely love the Anusara teacher - he is a lot like me so I feel right at home with him. He is not the stereotypical earthy, spiritual, calm, etc. teacher - he's loud, energetic, talkative, goofy, etc. He said something yesterday that really hit me - he said that as an instructor, you want to be the same person inside the classroom as you are in the rest of your life. While that sounds like common sense, it was a turning point for me because I've been feeling like I had to develop some sort of yoga persona and be all zen-like when teaching. Now I can stop feeling like I have to act the part and I can just relax and be myself.

Along those lines - this week we were assigned to mentors who gave everyone an "assignment" to help draw out certain qualities in them. For example, my roommate Kim is shy so his assignment was to stand at the door to the classroom and greet everyone who came in with a hug. Mine was "be outrageous." Huh? That could mean anything - I like clear/specific instructions so the first challenge was just to figure out what it meant to me.

I have no fear of speaking, singing or dancing in front of people so I tried to think of something that would make me uncomfortable. Whenever I see people in class wearing just a sports bra and shorts I always think that I could never do that - I'm way too body conscious and would hate feeling like people were looking at me. So that's what I decided to do today - I wore only a sports bra and skirt all day and I'm happy to say I survived. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be which I suppose is kind of the point. I wouldn't go far as to say I enjoyed it, but it was less than torture. I think it was a good exercise for me because it's important to feel comfortable in my own skin because students will be able to sense whether or not I am confident in myself. Here I am...no I didn't get bad tattoos, I drew symbols for peace, love and happiness in marker as a reminder to be lighthearted and fun.





Well this is getting quite long so I'll stop rambling for now...

the river

Yesterday after lunch I went down to the river (on the resort property) and it was beautiful! It's about a 5 minute walk down and 10 minutes back up the ridiculous number of steps - well worth the trip. The water was surprisingly warm - I'm used to the freezing cold rivers in Washington so it was nice to walk straight in without cringing. I sat under a small waterfall and enjoyed the water pounding on my back. I walked down the river a bit and then was unexpectedly swept into the current, oops! The water wasn't very deep and it didn't look like it was moving that fast, but it was definitely powerful.






even the ground is inspiring - there are words and pictures made with stones set into the cement steps



In the evening we had our first true hippy night with Kirtan music by Sparrow (the name of the singer/guitar player), a drummer, and a wooden recorder player. They played a bunch of songs and we all sang/danced along. So much fun!

1 down 3 to go

Well I made it through the first week! Today was our first day off so we were all excited to have some free time. I attended an optional yoga class this morning and then enjoyed a yummy breakfast. I'm falling in love with mangosteen (the dark round ones) and passion fruit (the bright orange ones with seeds inside). I think I'll go through withdrawals when I get home...but I'm not going to think about that yet...






Then I went for a hike with Sherri (from New York but living in Singapore - in the picture below) and Elliette (from Austria but also living in Singapore). We walked about 5 miles along a ridge and then into the rice fields. We had lunch at Sari Organics - they use fruit & veggies from their own organic garden in their restaurant dishes. Yum! We also found a few temples along the way, stopped in an artist studio, went to the market in Ubud, and had a massage.

roommates and poses

I've been enjoying all of my roommates - I definitely lucked out with a good group! It's kind of like being back in the sorority - we have chefs, bus boys, even someone making up our beds every day. Talk about spoiled! The only thing I would really love to do without is all the bugs. It's actually pretty funny because there are ants and spiders crawling around on the ground during class. Surprisingly it really doesn't bother me - it's more of a distraction than an annoyance. However, the mosquitoes in my room have got to go! I tried to be very yoga-like about it since we are studying "ahimsa" (non-violence) but yesterday I just couldn't take it anymore and whacked about 50 of them. Hopefully their friends will stay away now :)

Here is a picture with my roommate, Anne Marie, in the student lounge. I love the traditional wood-carved furniture here - so beautiful! Anne Marie just sold the health food store that she owned in Wales so now she is in the process of figuring out her next venture. She is a total sweetheart!





We had our last class with Simon today - he was fantastic so I'll miss having him here! While I still can't do this...(in case you can't tell, he's balancing on one hand - the one you can't see is raised out in front of him)





I did mange to do this for the first time...yay!