darzplanetyoga

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..