Robert Scanlon (Webmaster)

Yes I noticed you’ve quit your pipe too …

Hi Kent – and welcome!

I wear “speedo-syle” swimming shorts – in other words, lycra for the cooling and allowing moisture through and as you say, “they hold things in place”.

It’s possible that if your speedos are *very* brief, it may not be considered “the right thing”. We’ve always recommended short-ish shorts-style lycra for both men and women.

I don’t think the bulge has anything to do with it – I would agree some swimming shorts & briefs could show more of an outline than one would desire …. but since you are not strutting around the room … (we hope!!)

As for Bikram wearing one from time to time … I’d ignore that as a bit of an enigma and not a green light to do the same!

Have you asked your instructors/studio or even some other students? Appropriately I mean (as in not “does my bulge offend you?”, but “do you feel these speedos are appropriate for this hot yoga practice?”).

Hope that helps!

Namaste,

Robert

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)

Beautifully put Friea.

Non-judgment (or non-attachment) is a way of life that humanity would greatly benefit from and one that yoga could play its part in, while still achieving some of the ideals expressed by sayno.

🙂

Great discussions … tnx.

Robert

byoga if you continue to spam comment this forum I will have to delete your account and ban further visits, as well as complain to the studio you are “promoting”.

Please restrict your posts to questions or responses to existing members.

Hey Andrew – yes me too, (but not in rabbit – more later) especially if I haven’t practiced in a while (eg couple of weeks). It goes away with a regular practice.

I personally wouldn’t recommended breathing through it – better to release early (or not go too hard in floor bow or rabbit) and stretch out the knotted muscle before it ties itself up more!

Now: Rabbit pose – it sounds to me as if you have some technique in here that needs “adjusting”. You should not have any major tension in your feet – it sounds as if you are deliberately pointing them in an effort to go deeper.

Instead concentrate on pushing your knees into the floor while simultaneously pushing your lower back UP to the ceiling. This should have the effect of you feeling the grip very strongly around your heels.

Finally please check that your arms are straight and shoulders relaxed – the arms are only a link, it’s the hands that do all the work in the grip around the heels. Bent arms could also be causing the foot tension as someone tries to “work the pose”.

Hope that makes sense!

Robert

Hi Bonnie – an NLP Trainer is someone who is accredited to instruct NeuroLinguistic Programming to “Practitioner” and “MasterPractitioner” level and is also accredited to assess and issue certificates to students studying both of those levels.

Not sure if that makes it clearer or more confusing! But if you Google NeuroLinguistic Programming you are sure to find more … 😉

Robert

Surprises when you least expect it

It’s like that isn’t it?

Thanks for the update & inspiration for all Robert!

Bonjour a vous aussi finalspinal (great screen-name!)

I’ve had some big breaks away (2 x 8 month breaks) in my time and it was more mentally difficult getting back into it than physically. (I wrote about this in 2005 actually http://bikram-yoga.blogspot.com/ and we also had an article published here http://www.squidoo.com/bikram-beginner-yoga)

I also suffered weight gain (a ummm bigger than normal tummy), poor diet choices, headaches and my mental tiredness and tendency to exhaust myself with work returning after 3 or 4 months of not practicing (I used to be a 5-6 times a week guy).

The first 3 classes back are usually the worst. I think this is due to the fact that your mind has already learned the series and knows what to do – so it is “easier” to go harder than the normal self-limiting new student who is still learning more than pushing hard.

Solution: Really, really really counsel yourself to back off for your first 10 classes back. It’s not a race! Use epsom salt baths to help any aching muscles and also if you can afford it, YogaBodyNaturals (https://www.hotyogadoctor.com/index.php/site/forum/viewthread/129/) are very helpful as is some electrolyte replenishment if you are going very hard early on while your body re-acclimatises.

You may also experience some disappointment (for example I got the “I used to be able to do ‘x’ and now look at me” self talk).

Solution: Use the mirror to check in with being present rather than making comparisons. Focus ONLY on the breath whenever you find yourself not quite in the moment.

Hope that helps!

Robert

Hi Bonnie – still going well and we still notice it when we forget! Will update again later.

🙂

Hi Salrj – I have definitely “lost weight” from doing Bikram yoga – I put it into quotes because I lost a couple of inches waist-size, but I would know about the actual “weight” as we don’t have scales. Gabrielle & I recommend you throw them away actually!

I’ve also put “size” back on with an absence from yoga – but as soon as I get back into it, it all comes off again when I keep my practice up (and with only minor dietary changes – mainly stopping the chocolate and cookies for a while … ooops!)

@ tamadrums

I don’t think your six-pack will disappear IF you keep up your other training. When Gabrielle finished her training in 2001, her six-pack was the envy of many guys (and seriously awesome!) – but this was 11 classes a week for 9 weeks – not the usual yoga student attendance. So it is possible, but not for most mere mortals who may only practice 3-5 times/week.

For cross-training it can’t be beaten in my view – so if you supplement your Bikram classes with continued abs training, you’ll not only be strong (and have appealing abs), you’ll also be more flexible and balanced.

Cheers!

Robert

People come to expect a more “aggressive” style from a Bikram studio and I found that some of our customers visiting from other towns wanted the boot camp experience, to be yelled at and be somewhat antagonized. And we simply don’t offer that, I don’t need to be antagonized nor do I have the need to antagonize anyone.

Just as we were scratching our heads wondering how to answer this diplomatically, you come along with a far more eloquent answer than I could have … THANK YOU Outward1 for taking the time and stating what we believe too – that there can be a much better way.

(I just partially quoted you for the sake of brevity – I loved the whole post!!)

*with appreciation*

Robert

Hi corinne – welcome to the forum and congratulations on starting your Bikram practice!

The nausea is not uncommon for new students – it IS an intense class and your body will take some time to acclimatise – as much as a month of regular practice (and your mind for that matter!).

May I ask about what you are eating before class? Some foods can still produce nausea even several hours after … once you are into a routine you’ll learn what you can easily eat a couple of hours before class and what you cannot. though this varies from person to person, usually foods that digest fast are the best.

I once had a couple of friends of mine go to their first class (a morning class) and sat out many poses looking somewhat green. I checked in with them after class – they said they enjoyed it, but the cooked breakfast was playing havoc! Ooops.

Are you drinking at all during class? Sometimes students new to the practice can gulp down too much water in between poses and this also can cause nausea, especially in the belly down poses or any inversions & compressions.

In any case, yes generally it will pass – but if it doesn’t do report back here and we’ll do our best to help!

Namaste,

Robert