" title="Andrea James Lui"> Andrea James Lui

By Week 7, most have us had settled into the swing of things – found our circle of friends and study buddies, figured out how to pace ourselves in class and nap in the upright position… but Week 8 brought a series of curve balls – the end of posture clinics, the beginning of demo team, and we were about to lose three of our precious own…

JUNE 2 – THE LUI FAMILY
There’s a studio owner here from Vancouver – in Gastown on Commercial Drive. He said we can come and teach, so if we can afford it, we want to come for a while in the fall…

There’s also the most amazing teacher from Bangkok, who’s trying to lure us to her studio right after training… It’s all very tempting, but we have to figure out what we’re doing with regards to opening a studio of our own! Or maybe just win the lottery… or if you know any rich investors, haha…

JUNE 3 – BY LYNBROOK
Hi! Right now we’re set to return midweek after graduation – I think it’s the 24th, but we’re looking at changing our flight to stay until the end of the week, so we can visit Bangkok… Depends how much it would cost, so we’ll keep you posted.
Also, sorry for the delay in response – they’re pushing us pretty hard to get dialogue done this week. Yesterday in posture clinic, while we were delivering Fixed Firm, they randomly got me up to do Triangle… and then Balancing Stick! It went surprisingly well. I kinda just went on autopilot and was as surprised as everyone else when a heap of dialogue poured outta my mouth! One of our teachers was talking about how eventually, each posture becomes like a track on a cd and you can just press play. It was pretty cool! Msg you again soon :)

JUNE 9 – BY LYNBROOK
Hey, sorry we’ve been slow to reply – we just finished spine twist in posture clinic and then watched Bollywood til 3am last night! We’ll reply more thoroughly soon, once we’ve figured out exactly what date we return. Only two weeks to go now…

JUNE 10 – THE LUI FAMILY
We’re still in Thailand. Things are good – we’re in our last two weeks now. Yesterday I was called out of class and all my friends got worried that I was in trouble because just this past weekend, three students and a teacher got kicked out of the training – which was pretty sucky because the teacher owns a studio in Vancouver and had invited us to come and teach… Also, one of his students who got kicked out currently has no home and no money because he spent it all on this training; and the two other girls who got kicked out both have young kids at home… so everyone’s pretty upset about it; and we’re so close to the end. No one’s totally clear about what they did to get kicked out, but there are lots of rumors swirling around – possibly involving island hopping, sex, weed, and ending up in the hospital… they’ve all packed up and gone now.

For me though, they just called me out of class to interview me for a survey – they said they choose a few students in week 8 to ask for honest feedback about what we think of the training, the staff, Bikram & his wife Rajshree, what’s good or bad about the training, what our plans are after the training… They also told me I’m welcome to teach at their headquarters in Los Angeles – I think this is because they’ve marked me down as quite good at delivering the dialogue in posture clinics. We’ve had to learn about 30 pages of dialogue, word for word, explaining how to get in and hold and get out of each yoga posture. For most people here, it’s a struggle to memorize the words; nerve wracking to speak in front of our classmates and teachers; and for some, they don’t speak English well or even at all, so they’re memorizing a new language. It’s pretty amazing. I’m learning little phrases here and there in Thai and Spanish, just to get a little taste of what the ESL students go through and it’s so tough! But they’re doing it…

Anyway, I wasn’t in trouble – I’m not sure if it was a good thing either, just a bit random and they asked me to keep it quiet, aside from telling Steve [and now I’m sharing it on the interweb]. They’re always a bit strangely secret around here… It drives some people nuts, but doesn’t really bother me because I don’t really care what’s going on – I’m just having a good time now!

They also asked if I was a part of their demo team – they started having sessions where we could volunteer to be selected (some people have already been selected and are being forced to join) to demonstrate all the postures at our graduation. But I gather that they’re not just looking for people with strong practice and impressive postures – I think they’re looking for longer term brand ambassadors, who represent a variety of countries. My poor friend from Brantford [who] was so strong when he got here and is now dying in classes, is being forced to join us even though he has to sit out postures in yoga classes and sometimes even leaves to puke… but I suspect they’re pursuing him so strongly because he is genuinely one of the best people here – humble, fun, and friendly… and he looks like a male model.

It takes up about an extra hour every morning after yoga class to participate in the demo team, but now that we’ve delivered all of our dialogue in posture clinics, it’s mentally quite a relief. I’ve started using my extra time to help one of the guys here to learn his dialogue. He went through all the first 25 postures, just kind of making it up as he went along (I’ve kind of always wanted to help him learn) and by luck, our groups were paired up in the end. So I helped him learn the last posture – he learned the whole thing in one day – and he delivered it word for word – so good; his group cheered like crazy! So I’m helping him learn the whole rest of the dialogue in the next two weeks. He even offered to pay me to tutor him, but Steve and I really want him to teach at our studio one day, so he’s a great investment already! Instead, he just buys me smoothies :)

Oh crap! We’ve gotta go to class now…

Bye!

JUNE 13 – BY PENINSULA
Hi! We just had our last Saturday class. This week was massive ups and downs for both me and Steve, but last night was a bit of a turn around for me. This morning’s class was legendary! Probably because it’s the weekend and I’m starting to savour each last as they come and go.
This week was a tough one for me because there are about 25 of us who are learning choreography to demonstrate all the postures at graduation, so right after morning class, we get together and do them all over again. I’ve been struggling to eat enough to sustain the additional energy output, but I think by Thursday, they caught on that half of the people on the floor in class were all on the Demo Team – so they gave us yesterday and this morning off. Also, now that we’re done all of our dialogue in posture clinic, I’ve taken on one of the guys here who’s really struggling to learn verbatim – I chase him everyday and force him to practice with me. Steve & I both did really well in posture clinic and it turns out that sharing our learning techniques is really fruitful and satisfying! But I suppose the real test will be how we do when we’re actually teaching…
So, we are wondering if you have any classes you’d like taught by either of us? I know you got Julie on the schedule ages ago because you make them up pretty far in advance, but I thought we should get in touch and let you know we’re still very much interested in teaching at Mornington.
Hope you’re well! Talk to you soon… :)