pranayama

The entire class is “26 postures and 2 breathing exercises”, so pranayama breathing would be the first breathing exercise, and then Half Moon would be the first “asana” of the class.

-Kristin

The side bend that comes right after the breathing exercise is Half Moon. it includes the bend to both sides, as well as the back bend.

At the end of class is the final breathing exercise, blowing in firm pose.

Of course this is assuming you are doing the typical Bikram class.

If you look at the main forum page, there is a list of all of these, in order. You can see that all the postures have “asana” in the name, and there are breathing exercises at the beginning and end.

Hope that helps!

It sounds like you did just Half Moon (the two side bends with backbend). In the actual class, the next pose (hands to feet) is incorporated into Half Moon as well, so bend to the right, to the left, back bend, then hands to feet. That would technically be two poses (in this series).

Half moon is more challenging than it looks, it is an endurance pose. You could back off the intensity a little (don’t go too deep) at first until you get used to it. The most important thing is making sure you have proper form, breathe, and stick with it. Are you working with a book or video? Gabrielle’s book (now in paperback) would help you with that. I’m concerned that you are in so much pain from that pose alone, so do make sure you research as best you can on how to do each pose properly.

Good luck!

Well of course you try, but focus more on good form now, not depth so much. That will come with time. No one starts out looking like those folks!

I would definitely recommend finding some source where you can learn more about the form and right way to do each posture. This site is a good start, but you will need to keep researching if you aren’t taking a class somewhere and can get instruction. You might even check You Tube by putting in “Bikram” and the pose name, there are some videos of classes doing particular postures. That way you can see the broad variety of people’s abilities and see them in action.