Kevin Tiller

Sunday – wanted to go swimming in Cronulla but didn’t fancy getting up too early. Took the dog for a walk, then walked along the beach to Bundeena Markets with the youngest daughter. It was a great day, so decided to go for a stand-up paddle to Jibbon Beach and back. I guess it took about an hour all up. Luckily I can get in, paddle there, surf onto the beach without falling off, then do it in reverse on the way back. Went for a swim afterwards. Cool but nice.

In the evening we went to yoga. Met Kostya Tszyu afterwards, I didn’t think anything of it until I noticed his tell-tale rat-tail or whatever you call it but thought “nah he wouldn’t come to yoga here”. I asked him if it was his first time and he said it was different, so I asked what he normally did thinking that if he said Boxing then it was him (I am much too polite to just ask outright). Anyway some yelled out “It’s Kostya Tszyu you nong!”.

I did the Bikram Advanced class again yesterday, with Dawn and Kody (!) Dawn is clearly great at yoga, and can do anything (she used to do Gymnastics as a kid). We have been going pretty consistently for 4-5 weeks or so. I am still crap at 60% of the poses, but it is a lot different from the Beginner’s series.

Interesting aside, Bikram’s original class was the “advanced” class, but most westerners couldn’t do it, so he made it simpler – hence the beginners’ class.

I am still doing yoga all up 3 times a week (now and again, but rarely I do 4 classes). It’s tough as the classes are 90mins, and byt the time you get their, cool down and go home etc it can sometimes take 3hrs a class! The last 3 weeks with being sick and the older 2 away I have only been 2 classes. With the beginner’s class I am not too bad. I can’t do the tougher ones, but I know the routine well so it “looks like” I am good, but maybe I know enough to fake it. I sometimes get caught when we have different teachers who emphasise different aspects. I reckon that now after almost 1.75 years, that it will take me another 3-5 years before I am good enough to go to teacher training. Do I want to be a teacher ? I might teach a few as confirmation that I started at the bottom and got to a decent standard. Even if I practise for 30 years I will never be that good.

But I do love it so much.

Earlier in the year I planned to do some different yoga style, and figured Ashtanga looked suitable, but I haven’t done that yet – I will stick with trying to be a better “crossfit”er.

Today marked real progress in my yoga studies since I started more than 18months ago (we have been going 2 or 3 times a week very consistently). We managed to score an invite to an Advanced class [photos] – its not taught in any proper lessons anywhere in the world but Bikram is training up some teachers and I am guessing it will become proper lessons. So at the moment its all sort of word of mouth.

To be honest, it was really Dawn that got invited I was just there for the ride. There were only 4 of us, the studio owner Nathan, a teacher Elle, Dawn and me. It takes 2hrs for the 84 poses so it all went pretty quickly. I didn’t quite last the whole class, I felt a bit sick near the end – I think it was because some of the poses were quite hard and quite different from what I had before. I certainly didn’t even attempt the handstand set; never having done a handstand in my life!

Nathan plans to have regular Advanced sessions and I will definitely do it frequently as I think some of the poses will help me in the “beginner” series. Its also good to do something else for a change.