Bikram teacher training is predicated on your ability to recite a particular set of words so that you can be certified as a teacher. You asked for some ideas on how you could best prepare yourself. Here are mine:
Teaching people a yoga class is not a recital, it is a individualized narrative said in the moment to a unique set of students with unique needs. While using the prescribed dialog is the way that Bikram uses to certify you, I do believe you can better prepare yourself so that learning his dialog is even easier, and more importantly makes more sense to you in the process.
Before I went to training, I honestly didn’t realize that I would be asked to just memorize the pages. I thought I would be learning the poses in a different more holistic way. So what I did was listen in class, and even taped a couple of classes with permission from my teachers of course, and I went home and pieced together my own kind of narrative. I literally typed out my own class.
My own pre-work made me understand the poses inside out. I found that a large proportion of people at training got caught up in trying to memorize the exact words and because of it they found it really difficult. They would mostly get stuck and not remember the next line. They weren’t making the connection between the poses and the ‘dialog’. That happens a lot when you try to memorize something without having a ‘hook’ for your memory. What often happens is you start to blurt out your words, get distracted somehow, and then wham, the next word gets lost. You can’t remember that word, you can’t remember the words before because in your memory you have linked everything into one long recital (pose by pose). Find a way to KNOW what you are reciting. When I understood the poses (which is easy when you have the passion!) then memorizing that particular set of words becomes a cinch.
So ...
1 Construct your own class based on what you have been taught, pose by pose
2 Break your poses down into process. For example, how to set-up, how to enter, what to do in the pose, how to release.
3 Only once you have finished your homework, go to the ‘dialog’ and read it. It will be infinitely more easy to learn.
4 Here’s the clincher: If you lose your way while reciting your dialog at training (and most people do at some time or another) you will KNOW where you are at, can pick up with your own words. This flow will keep your mind moving and you will remember the ‘dialog’ words and flow back into them seamlessly.
5 When you leave training you will be a better teacher.
