Yoga Report

I wake up at 4:00 am and I go for a run. It is pitch black outside and this gives me that little edge to my competitors since I do this when they are asleep. The most difficult part about the fighting is the training, life is very monotonous. Constantly repetitious. This is the first lines from a documentary about Iron Mikes training routines. The REAL truth behind success. I spent winter vacation in the middle of Sweden were the temperature where far below the freezing point and most of the day it is dark. I had Iron Mikes words in my head when I was clearing up the path to our summerhouse were the snow depth was a staggering 80 centimetres. I also brought the tripod and video camera home to see how mobile I am. After rigging some improvisational lighting and putting together some lines I started to record. I noticed my thoughts when I posted these videos on YouTube. With the patience of a little child I kept on updating the youtube page to see if someone commented on it. I got a really strong reaction when a guy told me that I looked like an ugly bald German person in one of my videos. I got mostly positive comments and very high rating so this comment should not bother me but it DID. My greatest fear was to get a comment like this. It affected me deeply and made me think about my expectations. There are many painful moments associated with expectation. I remember building up the courage to approach a girl when I was about 11 years old. I walked up to the girl and asked her for a dance and she turned me down ! In one way it was a success since I overcame my fear and did what I wanted to do but of course I did not see it that way at the time and I walked away sad.

Expectation can also turn into excuses. Oh she said no to me I am sure all the other girls will say the same thing there is no need to even try. It is incredible how many silly thoughts that pops up in my head before I teach a class of yoga or hold a public performance of some sort. DO I have material enough to cover 1,5 hours ? What happens if they do not understand me ? What happens if I forget what to say in the middle of it ? what if my appearance distracts them from the message ? what if they find me really boring ? I can’t hide my head in the sand and forget about these questions but I need to CONFRONT them and maybe I can learn something from them ?

In my my last yoga lecture I surprised myself and talked much more than usual. I used material which came to me in the recording sessions earlier. In the recording sessions I tried to address some question students may have. A book I really recommend if you want to enhance your story telling ability is The Story Factor by Annette Simmons and Doug Lipman.A great  movie inspiration when you want to capture your audience is The Great Debaters. For Debate techniques on a shoestring search for Rhetoric in Wikipedia