worst pose ever invented!

I never feel like I am doing this pose right either!

Hello Ladies!

Finally here to share some ideas. 😉

OK firstly I would:
>> Not be concerned about arms straight or palms together (FOR NOW anyway). The ramifications of you focusing on this will completely throw the rest of your pose out and even make it harder to get your hip alignment. Relax your shoulders first and foremost.
>> With the hip and back issues I would for the moment work on tucking under to a point where you are able to lift the breastbone. This will – in and of itself – allow you to bring a modicum of weight into the heels. The problem at the moment is that with your ‘tidy butt’ 😆 sticking out, the more you bring your weight back into your heels, the more your butt sticks out. Not pretty or comfortable. :cheese:

When you look around the room you’ll see others in a wonderful example. But your pose is wonderful if you can keep your shoulders relaxed and that upright elongated position!
>> As you move to the side, simply focus on alignment. Keep the breath smooth. At the moment please just try to move in a straight line. When the time comes where you hear the hips forward command just ignore it. Work on keeping hips, shoulders, arms, and chest in integrity.

Then, come back and say what you observe so we can move on! I am confident that you can manage to find some better satisfaction in this pose. At the moment there are simply too many destabilizing forces screwing it up for you as you apply distinctions that your body may not quite be ready for!

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

I’m writing to share my experience of challenging the Bikram orthodoxy on the issue of locked elbows in half moon. I practiced at a local studio for a month last summer, which was fine. Then I found hotyogadoctor.com and started practicing at home, which was great! One of the things I learned from you was this technique of relieving neck tension by de-prioritizing locked elbows.

Last week, it got too cold for me to practice at my house, so I returned to the local studio. Clash of the wills ensued! In my first class, the instructor (who is also the studio owner) singled me out to prompt me to lock my elbows in half moon. His tone sounded irritated, like he was angry with me for not working hard enough. I locked them briefly to try to get him off my back, planning to talk to him later.

After class, I told him about you and the theory behind the non-locked elbow. He said that you weren’t practicing true Bikram. Then he launched into a canned lecture (and I do mean lecture: he talked [em]at[/em] me, not [em]with[/em] me. He didn’t seem to listen to my concerns. Instead, he seemed to push the pause button on his lecture, waited for me to finish speaking, and then plowed on with his lecture.). He lectured me for a while about how “the yoga will fix your neck tension, because it fixes everything.” He said the neck tension is part of the yoga. What the heck? Bikram Choudhury wants me to have neck tension? I don’t go around wishing neck tension on him! However, at the end of the lecture, the owner agreed to quit prompting me to lock my elbows.

That agreement to live and let live lasted until. . . the next time I saw him at the studio! (Maybe I should be glad he didn’t call me at home to bug me.) During my first week back in the local studio, I started noticing tension & pain in my neck. I skipped yoga one day to go to the chiropractor, who corrected it in one session. My chiropractor agreed, “Back off the locked elbow.” The next day I returned to the studio. I didn’t lock my elbows. The studio owner pulled me aside after class to lecture me some more on how “the yoga will fix it.” (So much for his agreement to stop bugging me!) I recounted my experience with the chiropractor, explaining that if Bikram was causing a symptom that chiropractic care fixes, then I’m not interested in it. As usual, he appeared not to hear me. “The yoga will fix it, you have to let it fix it.” “Actually, I think the yoga [em]caused[/em] it.” No direct response to that; just more canned lecture.

Then I began getting really angry and anxious. Why did I have to fight so hard to defend my right not to injure myself? Why did I have to sit through all this lecturing? Why wouldn’t this guy listen to what I was saying?

The next time I returned to the studio, I resolved to tell the owner that I was not going to lock my elbows based simply on his say-so, and ask him to either stop bugging me about it or refund the remainder of my prepaid card. So I briefly recapped my experience with my chiropractor, acknowledged that I was not following the Bikram orthodoxy, and asked him if he could live with that. Surprise–he resumed his lecture. This time, he really seemed to be grasping at straws, babbling about how doctors sometimes tell their patients not to do Bikram because they have high blood pressure or other issues. I couldn’t see what that had to do with my specific case. THEN, and this [em]floored[/em] me, he beckoned to D, a student whom I had never seen before. “D here is a doctor,” he said. “Tell him what’s going on with your chiropractor. Let’s see what he thinks.” I turned to D and asked him in a wry, but not rude, tone, “Do you feel like mediating a dispute, or did you just come here to do a yoga class?” I felt so bad for him, with the owner attempting to triangulate him into a conflict. And I felt bad for me: this was not my doctor, he was a stranger—why would I disclose my medical problems to a stranger? And did the owner really think I’d value the opinion of a random doctor more than that of my chiropractor who knows me? It struck me as extremely unprofessional. D looked really uncomfortable, but the studio owner pressed him to talk about neck tension and chiropractic care.

I could see that the owner was not going to allow the conversation to end unless he felt like he had won; I could see that I would have to end it. I told him I had to leave. He said, “You have to do what you think is right. I am just trying to help because you asked my opinion. But I won’t bother you about this anymore. I want to see you get all the benefits, and I know that if you can just work through this tension blah blah blah.” I had two thoughts: 1.) When did I ask his opinion? All I did was state my reasons for not responding to prompts to lock my elbows. Further evidence that this person is not listening to me. 2.) If he’s not going to bother me about this anymore, why did he just resume lecturing me? I interrupted him to tell him I had to leave, and I walked away.

This studio owner seems like an angry narcissist. I feel like I am being used to meet his felt need for a passive audience, his felt need to be right, his felt need for control, and to insulate himself from the anxiety that would come from questioning his rigid and dogmatic mindset. “Your neck is supposed to hurt”—sheesh! I feel like I am back in Catholic school, trying to refute the doctrine of original sin—”you’re [em]supposed[/em] to feel bad because you were just [em]born[/em] bad.” I also feel like the school kids who get ground into burger in “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” from Pink Floyd’s [em]The Wall[/em]. I don’t come to class to feel like a shamed and dehumanized school kid. Gabrielle, I love your emphasis on the principle of nonviolence. I am so glad that there is a humanist hot yoga mentor like you out there.

Hello all of you hot yoga practitioners! I have taught over 8000 Bikram Classes and I did not drink the kool-aide like I notice when people burst out of teacher training and try to be/imitate Bikram….Yes this yoga is amazing and healing and the series is perfect. I also have certifications in Power Flow, Yin Yoga, and study constantly all the beautiful and brilliant yoga out there..I use Hot yoga as my base, my tune-up, my reference point. after all is called “Bikram’s Beginning Yoga class.” I see half moons and it hurts me to watch people over doing it and leaning back into there kidneys to go “past their flexibility.” I see hundreds of bodies a week doing these postures for the sake of performance instead of feeling their bodies, and finding that alignment right to left, front to back. Our studio was once a Bikram studio but we added Yin and some shorter classes at noons and were taken off the Bikram Website. If you visited you would see a near perfect practice with the regulars due to expert instuction by 5 certified Bikram teachers who have degrees in Kinesiology, Sports Medicine, (we have 3 Ph D’s teaching)and all teachers are required to do yoga trainings in other forms for a more intelligent and wholistic approach. Our triangles are amazing at our studio(another posture I see done horrendously when I guest teach at the many Bikram Yoga studios at allI’m invited to all over the United States)…The teachers are often so worried about the dialogue they can’t actually teach, they don’t correct people who are doomed to hurt themselves if not helped …or given some individual instruction. That dogma is not always something that helps people, but I do appreciate the hard line and am considered a “velvet hammer” of a teacher. What I respect about Gabrielle is that she actually makes this series ingenious with her book and her breakdown and her anatomical education! She is a gift to it, and considered “not practicing Bikram Yoga” by the organization? who? She is a certified Bikram teacher, went through the training and took it with respect into her understanding? She is passionate about it!..what a crazy opinion.. She could have contributed to the entire organization immensely, to the teacher training if they weren’t so myopic and rigid. Our studio went from averaging 80 students a day to 350-400 a day now, only afterbeing forced to change the name and made invisable to people seeking Bikram Yoga in our state when they went to Class-Finder on the Bikram website; what a loss for those who practice Bikram because we are here and we have some of the best teachers out there.. Our students take 4 Hot and 2 Yin and 3-4 flow.. a kind of percription for heathy hips and joints, and have grown by leaps and bounds as yoga practitioners. They are encouraged to take a month of Bikram for the foundation and then continue as they introduce other yoga forms. I love Bikram, I love Bikram yoga, I teach it to the T never altering the postures, yet I have an eye, a trained eye to speak to what some can’t get through the dialogue..Everywhere I go, people thank me, and thank me for clearing up some aspects of their practice.. I have 30 yr + studying bodies and yoga… and people… I again commend Gabrielle for giving her gift of her intelligence, and her love of this series… I say when you come across a teacher (who has never moved their body in any other way outside of the 26…):and with control issues, get out..find another studio. I’ve had Bikram teachers invite me teach at their studios… so their teachers can experience a senior teacher…IT takes years to get really good, practice, living… honor your body. It talks to you.. and get to know your own BS as well… Anyway.. that is my two cents. Thanks for this forum Gabrielle..

Ah Half moon can be the most enjoyable! I always say, stretch your heart as far away from your belly button as possible, and bend, continue to do that with the breathing: inhale stretch, exhale bend.. nice long spine and open up the ribs and muscles and kidneys… and vertebra. Make sure the shoulders are exactly lined up, pull one arm with the lower arm for more stretch..good grip is essential. I have really grown to love this posture..

Honestly, I feel if Bikram actually saw and heard the things that are said in his name he might actually take a better look at his own behavior in the hot room. The difference between him and his students behaving this way is that he actually is a master teacher. Ironically, he’d be the first to tell you that if you’ve got recurring pain – then you back off and do the best you can so you can kill yourself another day. I have achilles tendonitis and I kept getting the same stuff from inexperienced teachers telling me the hot room would cure it “blah, blah, blah”. I emailed Raj (Bikram’s wife) who I had taken a workshop with and she wrote back that if it is inflamed to no practice in the hot room for a little while continuing with an icing regimen and then take a hot both then practice at home in a warm room. So there. All you black or white, this way or no way at all teachers out there. There is room for listening to the body and finding your own way. Coincidentally, this injury has been the best thing for my practice. I am learning that locking the knee for my body is more about the quads and inner thighs then hyperextending my already naturally hyperextended knee, back on the heels is not quite as back as it is for everyone else with my sway backed butt, and given my pronation tendencies – leaving my heels a little apart for a while is a good thing for my alignment. All this just for now, because as water wears the rock – one day my body alignment may be different. This is why every day is a new class, a new beginning – and though I hope for changes I don’t expect them.

Ah Half moon can be the most enjoyable! I always say, stretch your heart as far away from your belly button as possible, and bend, continue to do that with the breathing: inhale stretch, exhale bend.. nice long spine and open up the ribs and muscles and kidneys… and vertebra. Make sure the shoulders are exactly lined up, pull one arm with the lower arm for more stretch..good grip is essential. I have really grown to love this posture..

This was also quite helpful – this morning I thought of stretching up and out to open up the vertebra on the inhales rather than just trying to relax over to my side and it felt very good.

Hello all

What a great thread. So enjoyable and thought provoking! It’s interesting the distinction between militaristic and warm and fuzzy. My feeling (and experience) is that there are people out there who believe that you simply can’t have a rocking hard working class without people shouting at you.

Warm and fuzzy can exist with firm, solid, knowledgeable instruction. My experience of many classes in my time is that (and this is not at all true in all cases but just an observation) the louder and militaristic, the more pushy and less technique driven, the less compassionate. As I say – not true in all cases.

I know I have said it before on this forum, but here goes again… Students will work harder and smarter and more happily do their utmost when they trust their teacher is giving them the best instruction and can offer distinctions that are right for them.

How do they build that trust? Because they feel the connection with their own practice. They know it because over repeated classes they have noticed that the corrections and instructions they get allow them to tangibly improve with each little modification or piece of information or something that helps them be present with their own practice.

That teacher doesn’t have to shout and doesn’t have to push or coerce.

Strictness (that you refer to Romy and Connie) is not about the words that are used (but that is what dialog recitalists believe). It’s about the ability to teach with precision. That’s my credo. That’s what I teach. That’s what I will teach those who want to be good teachers (in Costa Rica at Teacher Training).

Despite thinking it is just a knack, knowing how to influence people to work well is embodied in a set of skills that can be taught. It’s not about force. It’s so much more important than simply recognizing who can take the pressure today and who can’t. It’s got to be more respectful than that, because that in itself means making a judgment that I am not prepared to make (of most people at most times). One can’t decide for people. They have to decide for themselves. You as teacher have to be the facilitator.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello All,

Wow! It was quite incredible to read all these posts! Indeed, it is more than great to have people like Gabrielle in this ‘industry’. I too, was planning to go for a Bikram teacher training, simply because I was practising that particular series and it seemed like a logical step. After I did my research on the training and spoke to teachers at the studio, I learned that despite the fact, Bikram’s program is called a ‘teacher training’, one of the many things you will not be taught is how to teach. (Though it is very important to say that obviously not all Bikram teachers are clueless! Quite a few of those teachers I admire and who influence me, went for the BTT! ) I still remember how confused and disappointed I was… Despite my passion and willingness to become a hot yoga teacher, I immediately decided that I wasn’t going to go for that training. I wanted the best but everything I heard about it, assured me that it was not the right thing for me! Not long (a few days in fact) after that I was introduced to Gabrielle’s website, where I saw a video about her program. As I listened to her talk about her training, I KNEW she was offering everything I was after! I think it only took me about 10 minutes to hit the Apply button! And boy am I grateful for making that decision! 🙂

Wombatgirl, your story is eye opening and sadly it is not the one and only of its kind! When I hear stories like yours, I always say to Gabrielle: I wish I could be there just once, when a ‘teacher’ talks like that to a student! … It makes me angry and sad at the same time! With a new generation of teachers though I am confident that more and more studios will open, where people can practice hot yoga and be taught by knowledgable, trustworthy teachers who care and have humility!

Your body does indeed talk to you and among many other things, this is what practising yoga teaches you, body awareness. There is no one out there who can make you to do something that’s causing you pain. And guess what, wonderful and beneficial as it is, yoga does not fix everything! There, I have said it! 🙂

I wish happy, enjoyable and safe practice to each and every single one of you!

Namaste,

Andrea