On flexiblity

hello!

I am no expert and only a beginner at Bikram. But I am pretty inflexible and have struggled with many different types of yoga over the years with no improvement, a lot of frustration and discouragement. When someone suggested Bikram I though I would give it a go as I happened to be in London and could find a studio.

I’ve only done ten classes and while I still struggle with the head to knee pose you describe, I have really found strides in other areas. For example in trying to touch toes I could only get to halfway down shins with a big strain to back, now I can get to ankles and with softening not straining. Similarly with standing separate leg intense stretching pose I can now reach ankles rather than knees. In camel I have gone from being able to barely move to being able to see the back wall, and Bow from thinking what are they talking about getting my leg up there??? to being able to see the tops of my toes in the mirror.

I read the information about gravity poses, and it makes sense, so yesterday I set my intention to use gravity in class and then realised that that is why where you put your weight is so important. So in standing separate leg intense stretching pose rolling the weight forward onto the toes really helps the body to soften towards the floor (I’m still way off head on the floor but hey!). So now I am going to try the long gravity stretches. Gabrielle also mentioned something on another post called yin yoga and I did a websearch and came up with this http://www.yinyoga.com/ which I am also going to try as it looks as if it will help with knee and hip flexibility.

Lucas (the gravity pose guy) says everyone can be fully flexible if they follow the right regime. He says we all have flexibility but have lost it and points to children as an example. I find this slightly frustrating because I don’t drink coffee, drink lots of water, have always stretched a lot, don’t eat meat, hardly any dairy or wheat products and yet other people who do all of this can walk into a class for the first time and outflex me 😉 So I prefer to think that we all have different physiologies and we all have different potentials, plus what has happened in our lives will have affected our bodies too. A lot of the advice on this site, reflects that.

What can I say? It seems like a lot of yoga is about patience, getting to know your body better and measuring your improvements in tiny tiny steps! As far as flexibility is concerned, I have seen improvements in flexibility, but I do think a combination approach will yield better results, balancing the intensity with some deep long holds too.

all best wishes

Kirsten

I’ve been going to Bikram Yoga since late February. At that time, I couldn’t do Fixed Firm pose. I couldn’t even get my hips to the floor. Heck, I couldn’t even get my hips to sit on my heels in the final breathing pose!!! After 4 classes a week, I can NOW get into full Fixed Firm pose. If that isn’t a reflextion of muscular/tendon/ligament stretching, I don’t know what is!!!
I had really, really tight hamstrings. Now, I can release them with proper technique and when I work them, I FEEL it. And I am more flexible there.
And since “stretching is the object of pulling” (hahaha I hear that every class), it seems that indeed, if you pull, you stretch and if you stretch, your muscles/tendons/ligaments will become longer. Why else stretch?
And even if this isn’t the intended purpose, I sure like it as a side effect!
Kira