Saturday, May 19, 2012

Bikram Yoga



Today is the first day off of yoga that I have had since Sunday.  I went to Bikram yoga for five consecutive days after work.  I worked myself deeply but yet I still feel slight pangs of guilt that I didn’t go to yoga today.  Instead I stayed home and cleaned house but I found myself thinking about yoga several times throughout my chores.  I had to work at staying present and focused on my tasks which were important and not thinking about missing today’s Saturday Community Yoga class.  I know full well that I am MORE than entitled to take some time off but somehow it feels as though I am only cheating myself in the end.  The way I feel after doing a yoga class is far better than the way I feel after cleaning house.  Yoga has replaced housecleaning as my preferred method of physical prayer and meditation.  It has become my physical mantra.

I bought my first Amazon Local voucher for yoga classes back in November thinking it would be a good thing to alleviate any holiday stress.  I never got around to using the voucher until January and it just wasn’t a good fit for me.  The studio, although lovely, was further from home than I wanted making it difficult to motivate.  I used what I could of the voucher and was just about done when the next offer from Amazon Local came in – a smaller downtown studio called Yogini’s.  The name sounded fun but this time I decided to do some research and found they were a hatha yoga studio and did the Bikram – hot – yoga that I was interested in trying.  I looked up the schedules and they had a beginning Bikram class at 4:30 which was perfect with my work schedule.  I would be able to hit the place after work.  I looked up Bikram yoga and read what I could about it. I read the schedule and decided it had perfect timing for me after work and I thought the hot aspect sounded awesome after a day in a cold building; air conditioning blasting down on me plus I could get a good 90 minute workout in and be home by 6:15. Almost too good to be true. I was excited about finally having a way to work out on my way home and Yogini’s sounded reasonable if I found I liked them. I decided it sounded like worth a try so I went ahead and bought the voucher for 2 months.   With classes that would work with my schedule downtown I was excited to start taking hot yoga. 

I showed up for my first class unprepared at best.  I showed up all excited and found that I was the only student that night.  I met the owner Kim and her daughters Roz and Ruby.  Roz did the class with me that first night where I stumbled through the poses but enjoyed it.  I found that my mat was useless without a towel because they heat the studio to 104 degrees and increase the humidity as well.  Kim put some essential oils in the humidifier which was terrific.  She was patience as she explained the hatha yoga practice.  Since it was my first time doing hot yoga she gave me a bottle of water on the house but let it be known that the next time it would cost me a buck.  I did the poses the best I could and although I sweat like a mule I felt FANTASTIC afterwards!  I was ready to sign up forever right them but wanted to do the 4:30 Beginning Bikram listed on the schedule on the website.  Kim explained that was a silent Bikram class and that until I knew the poses I should focus on some of the Synergy classes listed until I was familiar with the poses and hot environment.  I thought that sounded reasonable so I started going to the later classes at 6:15 to learn what I could about the practice of hatha yoga.  I bought a used copy of Bikram’s Beginning Yoga Class at Ruby’s suggestion. 

I talked my sister in to going to a month of classes on another voucher since she worked a couple days a week close to the studio.  Her first visit she was surprised and excited to see a picture of Yogananda, on the wall since she’d been reading his books for many years.  She learned that Kim and her family had studied with Yogananda for many years they were a very spiritual group of women.  My sister bought me a copy of “Autobiography of a Yogi” and I read that while she and I would meet for classes a couple days a week and then I would go by myself the other days.  Despite getting home – again – close to 8 pm it was a spiritual awakening for me.  I was inspired by reading about Paramahansana Yogananda and it did help with my understanding of hatha yoga  to learn of his journey in kriya yoga.  His  brother Biksnu Ghosh was the guru of Bikram Choudury so it all had its roots in hatha yoga.  I knew that I had been lead there to practice Bikram yoga and I wanted to take that 4:30 Silent Bikram class!

After her month was over my sister started going to a place close to her home and she encouraged me to go ahead and go to the class at 4:30 since I already knew the poses and it would be fine – I had this.  By the time I got around to telling Kim that I was going to start showing up for that class she had decided to make that a Beginning Bikram class with a Silent Bikram class at 3 as there had been so much demand for a Beginning Bikram class.  She’d been running a lot of different social media coupons and it was working out for her new studio.  More and more students had started coming in the time I had been going so it was fun to watch this local business grow. 

It was also fun to be a part of something greater – a community of other people committed to the practice of hatha yoga.  It felt very strongly spiritual for me as I started learning the poses and by the time I started going to the Bikram classes it started to feel like a personal mantra that I do with my body.  It is a way to renew my body and also my spirit.  To be still, to enter the stillness with intent to heal and practice peace while sweating and using the heat of the studio to go beyond my edge is very fulfilling for on a spiritual level.  Although I am not really excited by the Hindu/Self Realization Fellowship aspect it does have some Zen things that give me a great sense of peace.  The meditational aspect of it and the staying present worked into my Buddhist leaning Unity faith. 

So now it’s a part of my schedule.  I get off work and drive a couple miles down the road to Yogini’s and I do 90 minutes of yoga and sweat like a fool then I come home and change/shower and decide what we should have for dinner.  I wish I could say I have lost a lot of weight but I haven’t.  In Bikram’s book (which is very funny!) he says that your metabolism levels out where it wants to be because the poses have stimulated those glands.  I do see that my arms and legs are firmer.  I do so wish I could say the same about my stomach but I think it’s just something that I will have to live with.  I have the stomach of a 53 year old mother of 2 because I AM a 53 year old mother of 2.  However, I have taken this step as one of many with the intention of in improving my health both physically and spiritually. 

I do love the staff and the studio.  I love the smell, the feel and the light in the building. I love everything about it and even after 2 months of going I still get excited to think about going there after work!  I have met other women there and even took one class next to a man my adult kids had as an elementary school choral music teacher.  It’s been a liberating experience just like the hubby said it would when I first started taking classes at the place that didn’t work out.  He was right.  It’s been a journey of discovery into what works for me to meet the need I have in my life for a practice of yoga.  It took a while but I found a home at Yogini’s.  I signed up for membership and I am enjoying my daily routine of doing my full body mantra. 

Now I just have to figure out a way to let myself have a day off without self-judgments.  I am doing great.  I am doing something.  That is more than most and there are days when showing up is the hardest part of my day but afterwards I am grateful, so grateful, that I was able to do it.  That my body is able to move into these poses and postures that do work on the inside of my body and mind is truly nothing short of miraculous.  I am so grateful for this body which is a vessel for my spirit.  I am also extremely grateful for the spirit that is inside me and everyone, everything else in the Universe.   Yoga is one of many things that make me realize just how vast our knowledge and breadth is. 

We are expansive.  We are but a small part of something bigger but no less important than any other parts.  When I go back to the basics of breath I can see that.  Yoga has taught me that. 




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