Gabrielle (The Hot Yoga Doctor)

Hello Christine

You should be so pleased and proud of your own commitment to do 75 mins 5x per week. There is so little difference between the 75- and 90-minute classes. I would not worry for a moment. Even on a purely mathematical level, you are practising yoga for 15 mins more than you would with a 90-min class. And you’re doing it more frequently. On a practical level, 4 times or more per week is a magnificent effort and dedication to your health and wellbeing. It seems to me that you’re fitting in what you can. You could have just done a 30-min class but you went full-tilt and manage regularly 75 minutes! I applaud you!

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello Paul

What yoga are you practising and how often?

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello Mandal

Yoga, to quote a very oft-said phrase, is about listening to your body. When you do a challenge it is your responsibility to look after your wellbeing. Yoga is not about barreling through when your body is complaining, and worse when you feel that you are exacerbating a problem.

That being said, 30-day and 60-day challenges are very doable. Yes, you do need recovery time for your muscles. I always recommend setting realistic rules for yourself such as this: Plan to do 7 classes per week (one each day) but be OK with only 6. Take a day off on any day you feel it’s necessary. Make that day one per each rolling 7-day block at a maximum. If you do feel like a day off, take it, if you don’t, just keep going. If you do take more than one day off in a 7-day period, then restart your challenge another time. No big deal.

There is no point in a challenge if you harm yourself in the process. I have (personally) known people who have managed happily to do a class each day for weeks, months, and even whole years. Remember, it’s about having ecological goals that make you stronger physically, not just mentally. If you can’t make improvements or at least sustain a status quo in your whole system and things get worse, you need to ask yourself why you’re doing it.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello again!

I’m interested to know at what level (altitude) your thermometer is measuring the temperature. We recommend positioning sensors mid-height. If your device is on the floor, and hot air rises then it is possible that the temperatures are higher at head level. That’s why I am enquiring.

I no longer recognise any of the names or faces of anyone at BY London. It’s unfortunate that some businesses, no matter how small or large, develop ‘cultures’ that are not favourable. Many bikram teachers have a collective approach which is not in keeping with the practice of yoga (note for readers to see initial response above for details, if reading this as a standalone comment without reading the context). You can only try to reason and state your case with someone who is sympathetic to the problems you’re having on a personal level, but more importantly, someone who is willing to zoom out to see that the basic precepts are being sacrificed in order to ‘challenge’ students physiologically in a game of survival rather than lead them in a yoga class. Hopefully, you can find some allies and get back to a safe, gratifying and satisfying yoga practice.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello Anandhi

It’s very normal to feel a constriction to the breath during a backbend. It can be harder to physically get air in because of the extension and the effects on the chest, ribs, abdomen. There are many factors that would give different answers to many individuals (including the quality of one’s breathing practice,  experience, capacity and more). But I have a couple of hunches and ideas so let’s start there.

There are major issues with lifting up the arms over the head AND bringing the hands together. For MANY people, they lift arms up and the action of bringing hands together encourages the shoulders to rise up from their functional position of shoulders down and back (flowing down the spine).  You really need to make sure your shoulders are away from the ears at every opportunity. My suggestion is that you raise the arms up, focus on keeping the shoulder blades down and back and the shoulders away from the ears. Try it even without doing a backbend to test this all out. When you bring the hands together, you may notice a couple of things. You may discern the shoulders lifting (even a tiny bit) and the other sign is if you notice that to bring the hands together, the CHIN drops ever so slightly.

If either of these things are happening (even a TINY bit) then your job is to keep the hands apart. Try instead to have the arms vertical, up from the shoulders. Keep those shoulders firmly planted down and back. Your palms can face in if you like. Only ever bring your hands together (or indeed your arms as close) as much as you can always keep the shoulders down away from the ears, AND your chin staying parallel to the floor or neck long.

Here’s a neat trick that you must try: feel the difference between when your arms travel upwards both without and with your hands energised. The secret is to energise the baby finger. There is a connective tissue connection from the baby finger to the shoulder blades that you WILL feel activate when you activated that baby finger as you bring the arms over the head, and approach the hands. Equally, you will feel your down-dogs markedly improve when you press your baby fingers into the ground. So often I only hear teachers indicate that pressure is placed through the thumb and forefingers. Add in the baby finger, switch on this amazing body reflex for this magic.

Let me know if I was on the right track or if it is something else that is preventing you from moving through your backbends with ease.

Summary and an extra point: shoulders down and back. Never let the chin drop forward when you are in a backbend. A chin drop usually means tightness in the shoulders and a shortening of the neck, and that can actually mean your accessory breathing muscles are engaging. Use of accessory breathing muscles means you are moving into sympathetic nervous system reflexes of FFF and your breathing moves into your upper lungs. With a chin drop, your eyes will drop forward too (even if only a tiny bit), instead of looking up and back behind you (in the direction you’re going). All these things conspire to make your backbends hard, tension-filled and difficult to breathe.

Only ever go back as far as those shoulder, chin and eye signs allow! Ah yes! Should be much easier!

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello Juan Two Breathe (!)

Thank you so very much for your kind words. My apologies for not getting back to you… family stuff (which has improved somewhat). You ask an important question. And without delving further (which we will do) it seems you could be experiencing low-grade chronic heat exhaustion. You are in a hot room for somewhere like 28 or 30 hours. How hot is it in there? It’s a good place to start. I will look out for your response. I promise. 😉

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello Jacqueline

Thank you for asking for clarification.

Knee to wrist (left to left first side) is what you do. It does sound like I corrected myself with an instruction of left foot to left wrist. No wonder you’re confused! The second side I say knee to wrist again! So, do knee to wrist both sides.

You will then allow the outside of that leg to lay on the floor, bent, landing with heel crossing the midline of the body. It’s very comfortable for 99% of people when the leg is bent a lot (heel nearer to the right hip on first side).

If you’re after more of a deep stretch, an opening, then you’ll hear me say words to the effect…to increase the stretch, open the angle of the bent leg. The closer your left heel is towards the right hand, the deeper the stretch, and it can also be sore. So, use that resistance as an indication of how far to go. In this class I instruct to simply sit in the pose. However, you can even walk the hands forward and lie on the floor, forehead to floor, arms either outstretched or folded.

The fullest expression of the leg component (which most people will NOT be able to do) is with shin of bent leg square to hips (or front of room or mat) positioned between both hands AND with foot flexed! And on top of that lying down on the floor, without the hip of long leg lifting at all! But that’s just where people head.

You want both hips square to the front. If the hip of the straight leg lifts, then that is definitely a sign that you should bend the leg MORE and bring the heel closer to the hip. If it’s super comfortable, or dare I say, too easy, with leg bent, foot near hip, then just open that leg until you feel a little resistance.

You can see photos of various permutations of this pose by researching Pigeon or Half Pigeon pose.

I truly hope that helps you.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello Julie

Sounds like you have the perfect set-up for a tiny price. Thank you so much for posting this. I am positive it will help many people.

And thank you for the lovely compliment. You made my day.

Oh, you know what would be great to know…I know it’s an infrared heater but…What are the dimensions of your room? (Height included.) Did you do anything special to insulate or enclose the space? Any other hints you think might help others would be awesome. If you did nothing else in particular, then that’s a great answer too. 😀

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Stef

You of course have been avoiding bending over into Standing Head to Knee. But you can do something rather than avoid poses. In this case, stand firm on both engaged legs and bend up one knee (instead of rounding down!) and use interlocked fingers (never interlocked thumbs, just let them do what they do) and hold the knee. Stay standing, standing leg ‘locked’. Allow the weight of the bent leg to create traction in your arms as you stand there, foot relaxed,  chest lifted, shoulders down and back. It’s amazingly therapeutic. Tell me if you need more explanation. It should feel great.

Instead of going into Standing Sep Leg Intense Stretch with a straight back, you should enter with chin to the chest and ROUNDING down, as if it were Sep Leg Head to Knee. By all means step out and then round down (this will protect your back), then, when you’re down to the floor, BEND the legs (do NOT keep them straight, but you must now straighten the back) slide the hands down the back of the calf muscles to get the fingers under the feet from behind or a little out to the side of the heel angling in. Never ever hold the feet from the side of the foot. And now depending on your flexibility you’re either going to look a little like a frog, or your legs will be straight. EITHER WAY your back should be straight. It’s just like Padahastasana but with your legs apart.

If your back is having an issue in Triangle, then don’t step out as far. Work on traction. I have pictures of this in my manual and can explain more. This is why I am asking you to tell me if you have any of my resources.

Do tell me what other poses you are wary of. I could make this post VERY long indeed if I take a shotgun approach and wrote something for every pose but that may be unnecessary. Let me know what other poses require assistance and I will get back to you.

Hope that gets you started.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

PS I posted this a week ago and found it must have hung and not posted.

Hi Stef

Thank you for the excellent detailed information. A busy few hours while I take care on an urgent matter. I’ll be back.

Quick question… just in case I am able to reference my resources… do you happen to own my manual or app or pose tutorials? It may shortcut some explanations.

See you back here soonish

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

That’s a very hypothesis interesting Katherine. Thanks for your input. Hadn’t thought of that one. Would that mean that a very hot shower could cause the same problem? A question I have for you about the inversion factor is how aware of your shoulders and their state of relaxation are you? I notice many students invert and find difficulty in releasing their shoulders especially if it involves grip/traction/pulling.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Robert

I was in Sydney! I should have just continued on to Canberra and caught up! 😀

You are definitely motivated in staying fit and healthy. I am going to “pick apart” your words and ask questions now. Some things will need more investigation. I also need to compare what you’re doing with the techniques in the Hot Yoga MasterClass book. It will be a handy reference to find out specifics of your practice.

Triangle pose. You mention “pushing the hips forward”: This is a classic strict Bikram dialog utterance and is not helpful to the pose. This pose needs firm lower body position which you set up when you step out to the side and bend the leg. You start with hips facing the mirror and once they are set in position, you keep them there. Think instead of hips opening to the side, or hips parallel to the mirror/front. When you tilt the arms and bring upper body into position the legs do not change. The command to now push hips forward often has people rolling the outstretched leg. With this movement the twist in the spine is unwound. Now, for you, you’ll want to make sure the weighting of your feet is optimal in order to distribute the weight effectively through all your joints. For example, check in to your feet next time and see how much of your toes take the weight. (They shouldn’t! But many people shift weight out of their heels which could lift of the floor if they put their minds to it! Some even put so much weight in that foot the other leg takes barely no weight at all. Instead think of driving weight through bent leg heel (where that leg is in delicate balance with the various traction lines you’re creating). An issue I would also like you to pay attention to is how far you’re pushing your knee back with your arm. These are all potential things that could affect your hips. Last thing for now, where exactly on your arm does it touch at the knee in the tilt? Has your aim been to get fingertips between the toes, or create another measurable leg/arm relationship you can relay?

Standing Sep Leg Intense Stretch. You said “Now I can get my hands under my feet, and I really feel it in the glutes.” What were you doing with your hands before you got them under your feet? Where exactly are you placing your hands and in what direction are the fingers pointing?

Standing Sep Leg Head to Knee. Yes that hip stretch is a good one! Can you tell me if you are able to completely square your hips to the ceiling when you are in this pose? Do you always bring hands to prayer in one or both sets?

I’ll wait for your answers to these questions before I start drawing conclusions.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Trefor

What you are describing is in fact unconscionable behavior. It is reckless and dangerous. To heat a room intentionally to such high levels where only 2 people are left standing is a blatant CLUE. How can they not see that a change to the teacher’s approach is what is required, NOT that of the student? If you go to yoga, it is reasonable to expect you can finish any class you start. Taking a break is not an issue, unless it’s because the conditions are not conducive to yoga but more to an ironman competition.

My number one rule for when I teach and what I teach my trainees, is that everyone in the room is SAFE. The temperature is not dangerous at body temp plus a degree or 2 max. The humidity can then be played with to get the right feeling. Yup, the feeling, or perception that you’re in a hot room and being appropriately physiologically challenged. In fact, you can have the temp at 34-35C / 93-95F and boost the humidity to about 60-70% and I guarantee you’ll feel as satisfied as when the room is at body temp and 40-50%.

You’d also be aware of the trigger points where core temperature gets so high that irreversible damage is caused and death could occur. Why risk it? Is that YOGA? I am sure yoga is about being mindful. And ‘mindful’ has to be a 2-way street. In other words, the students must be mindful of what is going on and managing response to instruction, movement, breath, and how they feel. Teachers must be mindful of the environment, the effect of that environment on students, the effect of their words. It’s not good enough to know the ‘dialog’ one must know how to adapt it so that it instructs EVERY person in the class, not just say the words that pertain to those doing what they think is ideal pose (which is actually what the ‘dialog’ does). You have obviously learned classes to the dialog and while I don’t condone parroting the dialog, one can get amazing results when one is taught to break down the intent of every pose and instruct so that every student can employ the correct mechanisms each and every pose, so they actually do get the benefits at EVERY moment. I’ve gone to other public studios for 2 decades and watched countless students miss out on getting taught what would benefit them even more deeply, because the teacher can only teach to the script. People kicking out in Standing Head to Knee because it’s instructed and expected, even when they are not ready and can’t lock out the standing leg or even touch their foot. Or people in PadaHastasana who are locking their legs out and they don’t have the basics covered. The list of similar examples goes on and on. But, enough about all that.

I don’t need to tell you that there must be so many people in those studios who have low grade (or higher) chronic heat exhaustion.

Yet, the really odd thing: If you ask anyone why they go to hot yoga, it’s because of the how they feel after class. All it takes is a tweak of conditions for everyone to feel great in and out of the room, and from beginning to end of class (notwithstanding the vicissitudes of practice!).

Regarding the exact temperature: Bikram NEVER, EVER, ever said it should be a particular temperature. To say it is traditionally 115 is just such a load of BS. He turned the heaters on and that was it. It was a hot room. (We seem to concur on this point.) Then sometime early this century, somebody started touting a figure and shared this idea with Bikram and it’s become some kind of hot yoga lore ever since. The figure bandied around is 105F and 40% humidity. (Notice… that’s not 115! :D)

The whole problem with setting a rigid high level is once people start to practise, the room gets more humid. It’s not unusual to have humidity rise to 70+%. This alters the heat index and voila, more dangerous conditions. I don’t see teachers reducing the temp often. Sometimes they open a window or a door.

What to do?

One thing is to practise and stay focused, follow the cues of the teacher for entry and exit and don’t obviously go ahead of them. And perform a safe practice. You have absolutely no obligation to follow poor instruction especially if it causes you to ignore what your body is telling you. On the contrary, you have to practise what is right for you within the demands and intents of the poses themselves. I do this every time I go to a public studio. I ignore poor instruction and at the same time I am respectful of the teacher. But they also have to show you respect. That is a given in any student-teacher relationship. Following the cues (rather than the minutiae of incorrect instruction) means for the most part, nobody will notice you.

I just have to ask: How can studio owners or teachers be so disrespectful that they can’t engage you in meaningful conversation about this important issue? It seems that the more you say, the more they dig their heels in despite the evidence (which by the way is a very predictably irrational response to arguments. It’s also possible that on some level they are trying to defend themselves against what they could perceive as an accusatory approach).

I would certainly be interested to know more about your approach to them. You said: “I’ve talked with many teachers telling them what they are doing is wrong and dangerous.” It’s very hard to know from those few words if your approach was a little heated (haha) or if you’re the epitome of diplomacy. I have a feeling you’ve had enough and feel unhappy that nobody is listening to you. It’s hard to enter into a negotiation like that.

On fans: They don’t actually cool the room down as much as provide the means for cooling the body down, due to evaporative cooling. (Evap cooling is one of three major ways the body cools itself.) Not having the fans on means no evaporative cooling. That’s ok in lower temperature rooms, but at very high heat index, particularly where HUMIDITY is high, it’s not safe to shut off a major avenue for body cooling. My suggestion would be to have the fans on the lowest setting (at least) and set the fans to summer mode. The increased circulation of air will help manage the real risk of increased core temperatures.

I would love for you to post links or quotes from those studies you mention regarding core temp and bulky folk. Evidence would also indicate people with larger stores of adipose tissue can be at risk of higher core temps. In both cases, the body needs a chance to cool and conditions can still be hot enough for ‘hot yoga’ to feel hot enough and be safe.

I don’t think you’re ranting. You bring up some extremely relevant points and you should be heard. I think you know what’s going on in the room and in your body.

Let me know how you’ve approached those teachers and maybe we can come up with something that they won’t feel threatened by. In my experience, they’re defending their decisions. It’s hard to save face and take a different approach. It takes humility. That applies to both sides of any communication.

Namaste
Gabrielle 😊