outward1

Hi Rebecca,
I think it’s really important for you to find out as much as you can about Bikram yoga, the training, and the financial/time commitments as you can. Everyone’s experience will be different. I went to Bikram training back in 2000. It was a very challenging experience and it showed me discipline and commitment. My teacher at home taught me how to think on my feet, how to make corrections and work with injuries. I learned through experience and years of teaching (10,000 hours of it) how to specialize in working with injuries and refine my techniques. I am still learning.

And as Jane said perfectly…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.

You will invest a large sum of money in Bikram training, that is a fact. If I may, I recommend that you find out all you can about the Bikram franchising business. There is a huge amount of contention about the money grab “franchising” going on right now. Just do a simple Google search. It may affect your decision re. opening a “Bikram Yoga College of India”. There is a real change of focus/direction in the Bikram world and I am saddened to see that this may fracture the community irreparably. There has always been, in my opinion, a lack of support for teachers and studios from Headquarters and this just seems to reinforce that opinion.

Once you start reading what is going on, I encourage you to stay focused on the positive. You have said you want to…have my own healing school with Bikram Yoga. In this world of ours, you are allowed to teach any sequence of poses that you’d like. If you call yourself Bikram Yoga and want to be affiliated with Bikram Yoga then you need to be a part of the Bikram franchise. His name and his marketing materials are copyrighted. You can also complete another teacher training and still open that healing school of yours.

If I can share a story with you, when I started Bikram yoga 12ish years ago I LOVED it. It changed my life. I had never done anything like it. The studio started announcing that Bikram was coming to town. Bikram is coming to town, what’s a Bikram? A man, I had no idea. I didn’t even know there was a man behind it, other than my teacher Jim from New Jersey. Then I started to think about all of the wonderful things that had happened once I started this yoga. I wanted to meet the man who saved my life, who changed MY life. I was so excited. This was big. Then it wasn’t. I went to the seminar and I was greatly disappointed. It wasn’t one of Bikram’s finer seminars. I went home very dejected, Bikram, the man who “saved” me was just a man with faults and gifts just like the rest of us.

I didn’t know how I could go back into class again. Then it occurred to me it was a real blessing that Bikram, the man, didn’t turn out to be someone I really connected with. It was ME who saved and changed my life, by pushing open the door to that stinky studio day after day after day. Why I tell you this is because it will be YOU, who goes in to work each day inspiring people, taking people through a series of poses, be it Bikram’s sequence or another sequence and those people will take it upon themselves to change and affect their own lives. It is a truly wonderful “job”.

I hope this helps some. I think Jane responded to your post more eloquently than I could have. (Well Done:))
Warmly,
Ame

Congratulations on getting started…that is often the hardest part. I am so glad that you feel so good. You’ll now be able to figure out when and how to go and the driving force that keeps you coming back is how good you feel and feel about yourself when you go.

Enjoy the Bliss and keep us posted.
Ame

Hi Feenix,
(Warning, long post.)
Here’s my two krona (do they have a saying like that in Scandinavia?). I encourage you to take a week off every 6 months or so. It really gives your body a rest. I notice our students who take time off for vacations and return are very worried about how horrible they are going to feel and how tight they will be in their first class back. I regularly witness that the opposite is true. Aside from the issues that arise from drinking too many Margaritas or too many glasses of wine on vacation, they find many surprises in their practice. Oftentimes, postures will be more “open”, their hamstrings were less tight, their backbends deeper. I joke that it’s really bad for business, they MUST come every day or they will lose it ALL ;).

I see two factors creating a “better” class at play. One, their body enjoyed the rest and the de-stressing that usually occurs during vacation. Two, they have a limited expectation of their performance during their first class back. Those factors ease the body back in and really help facilitate a more comfortable class.

I am a pitta dosha (pretty much all the way) and I struggled through my first three years of classes really suffering from the heat. I always had to take a knee and rest during class. I always saw my fuschia colored face staring back at me the mirror screaming for help. I tell you that because the heat was never easy for me and truth be told I’d rather practice in a cool room, but it’s not the same yoga. I digress, to make a point. I noticed no perceptible difference in readjusting to the heat after coming back from a break or vacation. I have, however, learned to assess how I am feeling and am able to throttle back a class when I start to feel overwhelmed. That’s what has worked for me.

I read so many posts on this forum re. how often to practice, 100 day challenge, 750 day challenges with doubles on Tuesdays, triples on Thursdays. The best advice I can give is…Find out what works best for you. I knew when I started 11-12 years ago that I needed to do this for the long haul. I know this about myself, if I don’t have some sort of commitment, schedule or rhythm I will lose interest and will quit altogether. Many of my cohorts in the studio practiced singles everyday of the week and doubles often. I felt a little less like a “yogi”. A lot of them have stopped practicing yoga altogether. I let myself feel second tier, but I knew I had to prevent burnout so I stayed with my own pace. When I started yoga I set a schedule of 5x a week for two months (to change your body and your life), ended up keeping that schedule for 6 months. It did change my body and my life and I quit my job, traveled overseas and took 6 classes in a year (yes, you read that correctly). After that my first 3 years, 5-6 days a week. I maybe took 3-4 days off a couple of times a year. I would go on vacation and not practice yoga, unless I felt really compelled. I did teacher training for 2 months, practiced 2x a day Sundays off for 8 or 9? weeks. Finished training, practiced once a week. Returned to practicing 5 days a week. When I opened my yoga studio, I was lucky to get in one class a week for myself for the 1st year. Now, I practice 2-3x a week on a good week.

I have some students who practice 2-3 times a month and have done so for 8 years now. That time line would not work for me. I have students that come to the studio finishing up a 100 day challenge from other studios, saying they are committed to keeping a regular practice and I never see them again. We’re all the same, but also wired a bit differently.

Again, play with your schedule, find out what works best for you. Nothing is permanent. There is no magic number that you hit and the birds sing and the bells ring that will grant you permanent health and happiness and make all classes easy from there. When you hit Full Camel there is no permanent enlightenment or higher power…just you in a different shape, smiling. It is a wonderful path with just you as your traveling partner, that can be both joyous and annoying.

Hopefully, I haven’t gone too far off base with my response. My wish is to share my story with you in order to encourage you to find the pattern, the rhythm, the commitment that works for you. I DO want to hear how you work it all out.:)
Warmly,
Outward1

Hi Bonnie,
You have brought up a good question. One that is asked often, but not always answered clearly. I trained with Bikram back in 2000 and always practiced in Bikram studios before opening my own. We opened as a Bikram Studio and shifted a few years ago to being a Hot Yoga Studio. There were a number of reasons for the shift for us.

A while ago, Bikram was tightening the rein on “Bikram” studios. This was during the time of threatened lawsuits etc. You can research the web for more info. There were no franchises or agreements to sign at that time. He became more and more focused on “strict dialogue”, to the point it was rumored that he was sending around “secret shoppers” to relay back to him whether the teacher stuck with the dialogue. With all due respect to “strict dialogue” lovers out there I joked with my students that they should take me out back and shoot me if I was required to never veer from dialogue. We do follow a dialogue, but it allows for flexibility in the classroom with regards to a dynamic learning process that goes on in the room. I’ve been teaching for 8 years now and would love to do it for ages and and ages. Having the flexibility in the dialogue will keep it fresh for me for years to come.

Another reason is that due to economic reasons we offered other styles of classes at the studio and different class lengths. This is a big NO NO to Bikram. Bikram only wants the 90 minute class, no silent classes, no hour long classes, no 75 minute classes offered at a Bikram Yoga Studio. I do agree with him that it is best to offer one style of yoga and be an expert in that style, we no longer offer other styles and it has been best for our studio and our students. I also agree with his assertion that the 90 minute class is best, hands down. But what if you can’t make a 90 minute class? I think an Hour long class is better than no yoga at all. We offer a Beginning Series, with all of the regular Bikram postures. We have added hip openers and an option for people with current back injuries during the Standing Forehead to Knee. So we have 30 postures in all. We offer different class lengths and have a silent class to music.

Another reason is that the focus of our practice has shifted. Over the years I became less “militant” in my thinking. I am no longer interested in push, push, push…farther, farther, farther. I did all of that for a long while. My body is older now, it has different needs. The practice is such a comfort to me now. I don’t go in to the studio just killing myself. I work hard and with great discipline. And mainly I wanted to have “truth in advertising”. 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. For us, it became a philosophical shift from Bikram to Hot Yoga.

Finally, a large part of the reason for the shift is out of respect for Bikram and the practitioners. If we are not offering the same style, the same 90 minute classes, the same dialogue you would expect from a class at Headquarters then we should change our name from Bikram Yoga Anytown, Earth to Hot Yoga Anytown, Earth :).

So those are some of the reasons we shifted from Bikram to Hot Yoga. I hope this helps. I look forward to hearing other’s experiences as well.
Staying tuned.
Warmly,
Outward1

I am so happy to hear that this worked for you. It sounds like once you took the pressure off yourself to achieve the goals/corrections you were able to go there with out strain. You did a great job meeting your intention, what a wonderful thing to give yourself on so many levels.
I look forward to hearing more of your progress.
Outward1

Hi Feenix,
There seems to be new controversy re. the breathing. I had a student recently return from visiting a studio and they told him to be silent…he’s probably less audible than Gabrielle on the video.

Take a look at Gabrielle’s free breathing video, I think she sums it up beautifully.
It is audible, not singing and vibrating or scratchy, but audible. I continue that “feeling” of the Pranayama breath she describes throughout my own practice. It may not be as “loud”, but it still is audible.
I don’t have a lot of (read: none) experience with Ashtanga breathing, but I will share some classroom experiences.

I am a teacher and I encourage my students to follow the breath. I may even have a student who is struggling with breath to follow the lead of a student near them and tap into their rhythm. Yes, I want them to eventually follow their own breath, but it helps when you are really lost to follow a cadence of breath. The student they are following is not making their breath really loud, it just sounds like white noise (remember Gabrielle has on a microphone in the video, it probably wouldn’t sound really loud if you were practicing next to her in class).

I have had students from other studios come and practice with us who seem to be trying to buzz us out of the room with the loudest breath possible, especially in Pranayama. They are adding noise to the process, it is very contrived. Interestingly enough, they also usually have problems making it through class…regular sitting and taking breaks, though we are up at high altitude :). It doesn’t seem that they can really recover from that challenging breath.

To me, the Pranayama breath is a primer for our class. We step off the street, into the yoga room and tap into our breath. We most likely haven’t had deep diaphragmatic breaths throughout the day and will be needing that throughout our class. We warm up the depth of breath in Pranayama and use that depth throughout class.

The student was clearly “tweeked” by hearing your breath. You may be adding noise to it that isn’t that useful to you in this practice. See how you can manage the same depth of breath you seem to be getting without the roar? of breath.
That being said, the student who decided to chastise you was out of line, IMO. We as yoga teachers and students are teaching breath, you can’t teach breath and tell someone to be silent. And yes, we do teach “silent classes” at our studio, where you can hear people breathe.

It reminds me of one thing I remind my students…
You know you are way over due for a yoga class when you can’t even stand the sound of someone breathing.

And finally, if it truly is a silent class then the student who chastised you should indeed remain silent. 😉

Hope this helps some.
Looking forward to Gabrielle’s thoughts and hearing your response.

warmly,
outward1

Hi Scott,
Aahh, the nose breathing, it is so crazy difficult to do isn’t it. It doesn’t have to be though. I would always bend forward and take open mouth “cheater” breaths when I first started the yoga…I thought the teacher wouldn’t see.
In my opinion, it is sort of “mis-named” nose breathing. Yes, you are breathing through your nose, but you are pulling it in through your throat. I tell students, when I hear that their breath is “sniffy” sounding to feel the breath travel through the divet between their two collar bones. It should sound deep and throaty.
When it is sniffy sounding, it’s like you are breathing through two cocktail straws (miserable), when it is throaty you feel like you have all day to breathe in. So how do you practice this? Go into the bathroom, in front of a mirror. Place your finger in the divet between the two collar bones focus on that area, feel it and see if you can get the breath to pull or throttle through that area. I think that is what your teacher is telling you when they say to breathe deeper. If that doesn’t work, think of this, hollow out or drop your tongue down into the lower part of your mouth then pull the breath via the throat, this should help. Here is an additional note, I hear students stop breathing through their nose and instead make this really really gravelly noise at the back of their nasal passage, that isn’t it either, it’s been described as a very oceanic sound. Try it, let me know if it helps.

And finally, here’s WHY you breathe through your nose…
Hairs in your nasal passages filter out foreign bodies, better for you to help fight off infection. Asian cultures find mouth breathing “a disgusting, filthy habit”. from Science of Breath, by Yogi Ramacharaka

Nose breathing is said to vibrate against your vagus nerve (conveys information about the state of the body’s organs to the Central Nervous System) which is mixed with parasympathetic nerve fibers which is in charge of rest, digest, restore functions of the body. Mouth breathing, on the other hand, is done usually in a state of distress, think of a panting dog. It also engages the Sympathetic Nervous System which is in charge of fight, flight or freeze reactions. When the fight or flight response is engaged physical symptoms occur, rapid heart rate, palpitations, increase in blood pressure, pupil dialation, adrenaline is released. All of those things you DO NOT want to be happening during your yoga class.

Nose breathing helps lower your heart rate faster than mouth breathing.

Mouth breathing makes us hotter and dehydrates us faster.

Nose breathing, when it is oceanic sounding, pulls the breath deep into the bottom lobes of the lungs giving you the feeling of a more expansive, relaxing breath.

Once you get that, I LOVED Gabrielle’s description of the breath in her book, I’ve been using it in my class with great success, it’ll take you even further.

I have professional endurance athletes who report that when they have an opportunity to change to mouth breathing, say climbing a big hill on a bike they are able to do it with more power and endurance than they had ever had before. That makes it pretty compelling to me :).

Can’t wait to hear Gabrielle’s response, I’m sure she has even more.

I was reading your post and wanted to respond/help. I had a few questions for you.

How hot is your studio running…are lots of people sitting down because they
are so exhausted or overheated? Are students and or teachers practicing/encouraging the push, push, push…harder, harder, harder mentality? How is your hydration? Are you taking electrolytes (coconut water is just magic, you can buy it in natural foods stores)?
Are you performing poses to the advanced level?

It’s just that some of your symptoms sound similar to heat stroke or dehydration. I’ve had a studio for 7 years and a practice for 10-11 years. When I first began the practice I was under an incredible amount of stress trading securities for an investment firm. The classes I took during the times of intense stress for me were much hotter and more difficult to accomplish. A few years in to my practice I learned to pull back a bit and not to hit every posture to the maximum. Classes became less about the heat and more about listening to my body. I stopped, for a while, kicking out in standing forehead to knee, trying to hit the standing splits in standing bow, doing toe stand, going higher in spine strengthening series (just went to where I could breathe, deeply). It allowed me to take the pressure off for 90 minutes a day. I think of it now and realize that when stress is being released from the body it doesn’t feel like a big hug. :ohh:

That being said, I have a student who is in her 50s who is really having a hard time in class and getting crankier and crankier with us about the heat…says we must be doing something different (not a thing has changed), that she is perfectly healthy and it’s us. When she practices she is kicking out in standing forehead to knee, kicking up 2 feet plus in half locust (wow), pushing all of her postures to the limit and is just making herself hotter and increasing her suffering. She reports the convulsions, has chills (fever like) and says that she has to sit in the parking lot after class for 45-60 minutes just composing herself to drive home safely. In my opinion, seeing how she is practicing and that she will not back off that she is really doing herself some harm.

So, I don’t discount that there may be some hormonal issues going on (we women have so much to balance out 🙂 ) I just wanted to throw in some other ideas and thoughts about practice. And on a final note, I find it really common for us Hot Yoga practicioners to easily get dehydrated. Water is not enough, we need to regularly use electrolyte replacement…coconut water or emergen-C to replace lost minerals.
I hope this helps, I look forward to hearing how things go with you.