Teacher training

I could be wrong, but I think that if you want to be a Bikram instructor, and ADVERTISE AS SUCH, you MUST do Bikram Teaacher training. I’ve never done it so I cannot say anything about the training. I’ve had excellent teachers and what I also consider to be not so excellent teachers. But they have all done the Bikram training. How you will be as a teacher will depend on what YOU bring to the table.

I have found (maybe it’s just a coincidence) that those teachers who KNOW the dialogue but who do not just repeat it incessantly, who have their own comments to make, which vary (some start saying their own comments/jokes over and over again!)are the best. Those that have been the best for me use the dialogue to set you up, but they’re not fearful of letting you have a quiet savasana, they’re not fearful of interjecting with an observation they have made which is APPLICABLE at the moment they are making it. The dialogue repeaters seem TO ME to be less present, not all of them. BUt most of them. But again, this is not, I suppose, due soley to teacher training. How you teach will depend on who you are. (Perhaps all the people that go to teacher training shouldn’t be teachers in the first place!)

I’ve had excellent teachers who have made really good corrections and then others who just want to correct, and who get in the way of your practice. Again, Bikram, I suppose can’t necessarily teach a person good judgment! Some of the teachers have it; others definitely do not!

I have observed that reading Hot Doctor comments has already helped me, esp. regarding my shoulders and locking out the arms. They always tell you to lock out the arms, lock out the arms, at the expense of what might be going on with your shoulders. I read on the Hot Doctor about relaxing the shoulders and strenghtening the fingers, even if the elbows do not completely lock out (in time, they will: sometimes I find Bikram teachers talk a lot about patience, but many do not actually have patience: they want to SEE, RIGHT THEN AND THERE YOUR ARMS LOCK OUT BECAUSE THEY’VE TOLD YOU TO DO SO! AGAIN THIS DEPENDS ON THE STUDIO and the teacher, his/her personality, and his/her background–not just teacher training). By following Gabrielle’s recommendations and relaxing my shoulders, my elbows actually lock out much better!

I think that you’ll find that you pick up different information in different places, e.g. Standing Bow — I’ve been told by some Bikram teachers–and this does work for me–to kick up hard before ever even going down. Perhaps this is what is meant by the ‘the kick drives movement forward’. But some Bikram teachers do not emphasize this, instead saying that one go forward and kick at the same time, which is a different idea from the kick driving the movement forward. AS one Bikram teacher told me, by kicking first you get more of the bend in your back that you’re looking for. What I have found is that doing that, coupled with holding my extending arm straight, my hand reaching towards my middle eye, as one Bikram teacher put it to me, and my arms as locked out as I can, helps me to establish and maintain balance.

My main point here is that I don’t think you will go Teacher Training, get the answers to ‘the questions’, end of story. You will always get new questions. But more to my point, you will be learning different things from different places– some of the ‘places’ may be your own experience DOING the practice. I think another good place is at the Hot Yoga Doctor.

Namaste and good luck!

Jane

Oh, I thought this was a beautiful post, and I hope it is taken to heart.

Namaste,

Jane

i can appreciate the balanced, thoughtful responses above and share many of the thoughts.

i attended the bikram training myself and had the time of my life. i’ve never been a “true believer” per se, and from a philosophical point of view i tend to take what i like and leave the rest – but i can’t deny how much the yoga practice has added to my life. i considered the training a personal challenge – it’s quite intense – and i was amazed at what i learned about my practice and myself through the crucible of that experience. and as with the practice itself, i see my teaching constantly growing and evolving as i gain new awareness. i feel doubly blessed by having both the yoga practice as well as the “practice” of teaching…

best of luck

chris

People who use the 26 exact poses in the heated room but try to distance themselves from Bikram kind of annoy me.

Well…I come here for ideas from others that practice Bikram but I really don’t GET the distancing of yourselves from Bikram, using the exact same postures in a heated room, but not wanting to associate yourselves with him and his name or so it seems?

As for it annoying me…well, many less things annoy/anger me now that I practice Bikram yoga, but I’m not perfect. What can I say? I just love this man and love what he has given to the world. I guess I just don’t like when people seem to try to slap their names on his “creation”. It seems like a form of plagiarism to me.

dancingj: Yep, we get a tiny amount of “hate mail” (counted on the fingers of one hand in all our years online) usually from the dyed-in-the-wool followers of Bikram, but nothing that doesn’t make us smile! It most often seems to be when any challenge is made about “how” or “why” poses are instructed the way they are, or that somehow, people who contribute to developing hot yoga are thieves (yes, that was the content of one very funny email) – but anyway, that’s not the topic here. The topic is “Teacher training”.

You may be under several misconceptions causing you to contradict your own logic. (I believe there are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to how yoga; business and copyright conjoin, but I’ll save that for another day – it would definitely be off-topic!).

Let’s take a look at this:

Bikram is teaching his own yoga wrong.

God forbid anyone would do that! Or even want to … Hang on … whose yoga? Anyway, jokes aside, maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. For a start, anyone can contribute to another’s “work” – I can write about Shakespeare for example, and I may even show some more effective ways of writing his plays (though not judging by my forum posts … hehe). I don’t see why this is “bizarre” or “turning your back on someone”. (It might be, if they had asked for help and I refused …)

As for yoga … it’s public domain and doesn’t “belong” to anyone. Therefore Bikram is always teaching “his” yoga correctly. What others, including plenty of people frequenting these forums, seem to feel is that there can be alternatives. Some of those alternatives can be clearly superior, if measured by results. Some of them help instructors to teach students how to “get” the pose … and some are just safer. So why not embrace them? To do otherwise is to make a stand for a “flat earth” and that is not a club I wish to belong to. But each to their own …

There is no nine week (or nine month, or nine year) program ANYWHERE that can teach you EVERYTHING about practicing and teaching the yoga, and there are probably some things that can NEVER really be taught. They just have to be understood.

OK – I’m with you here – hopefully we’re all learning. See my point later on below about innovation and evolution of products.

You want to “back up” addicted? *raises eyebrow* From what? A defence for annoyance? Give peace a chance … I found the post to be very non-specific and not in any way constructive to the initial topic asking whether the Bikram teacher training was effective.

And I agree that it is totally bizarre to see how some people train with Bikram, learn everything from him, and then turn their backs on him and start telling their students that Bikram is teaching his own yoga wrong.

I would dispute the “learn everything” part of this concept – especially as you yourself point out that it can take a long time and much study. What this training appears to provide is a method by which attendees can learn to repeat a script that will “teach” a hot yoga class. Variation and debate does not appear to be widely encouraged. Many teachers, let alone students, simply don’t have the resources (time, money, information) to deepen their knowledge, so they rely on mis-information, much of which is propagated by a rote-learned script. Just try looking up “yoga tourniquet effect” on Google and you’ll get a sense of the “pseudo-logic” involved, since the predominance of entries are Bikram yoga related, with no authority sources cited. I’m making a point of this because I believe as an instructor one has an obligation to at least understand some of the science behind the frequently quoted phrases.

As for the freedom to expand upon ideas already popularised, that is a foundational concept of the western world.

Ford didn’t invent the car, he “improved” it and popularised it.

Should I wish, I am totally able to take the Ford concept and better it. One might argue that many car manufacturers are doing just that. It certainly isn’t plagiarism.

I am not allowed to call my version of the car a Ford of course – that would be infringing on intellectual property rights. Nor can I take parts of Ford car manuals and reproduce them as my own – that would be plagiarism.

But perhaps I might be an amazing innovator and make a giant leap for humankind in how I approach bettering Ford’s car and in so doing serve the community.

In our commercial world this is exactly what happens – the better products survive the test of time and get improved along the way. MP3 players were around way before the iPod …

So what is one to do if you want to teach the same series, but disagree with fundamental elements of it. Still call it “Bikram-style yoga”? Seems hypocritical – it would possibly be smarter for all parties to be called or branded “something else”. We certainly don’t try to “claim” this series of yoga as belonging to anyone except the public domain … but anyone is entitled to protect their own intellectual property and promote it if so desired.

Bikram didn’t “invent” yoga, nor the series he has popularised. What he has done extremely well is cultivate a loyal following. The main “issue”, if I have one, is that authentic questions about technique; anatomy; pose modifications; are often brushed away (and hence the reason why this forum is useful). Or that somehow it is impossible for anyone to improve the teaching of the series, or the training of instructors. I find that a shame.

(See next post for remaining thoughts)