July 2003

It’s been awhile since I last checked in but I’m proud to say that I am still attending the Bikram’s Yoga. I am truly amazed at the results! In the beginning, I worked like crazy trying to push, pull and bend my body into the ‘outrageous’ poses. I even had a monologue scripted to rationalize to my teachers why they should go easy on me in the class! The script went something like this…. Do you know how old I am? I haven’t exercised in a long time. I use to be a heavy smoker! I use to drink alcohol. My back hurts. My knees ache! I couldn’t win. One of the rules in the class is you can’t talk. Thereby, whatever thoughts I had running through my head had to be saved till after the class. But by then, you’re too exhausted to complain and oddly enough …you are simply content to marvel at the fact you’ve made it through another class!

Bikram Choudhury is a ‘modern day trickster’ from another land who probes the mind and body with his pugnacious words of wisdom and humour. Hatha Yoga is thousands of years old and the name comes from the Sanskrit. ‘Ha’ means Sun. ‘Tha’ means moon and ‘yoga’ means union. Bikram’s yoga is based on Hatha Yoga with heat. The room is kept at a temperature of 100 degrees or more and there are 26 postures with two breathing exercises all synchronized to detoxify and realign the body. In his book, ‘Bikram’s Beginning Yoga Class’, he says that regular exercise such as jogging and sports support the circulatory system, which is good, but it is only part of the solution to a healthier and vibrant body. Bikram’s hot yoga maintains not only the circulatory system but the abdominal, spinal, skeletal, respiratory and nervous systems. All these areas need to be adjusted and massaged and exercised.

Bikram believes that everything needs flexibility. He likens this to the way that airplanes, buildings and bridges are built solid yet flexible. He says a car will rattle and fall apart if it isn’t flexible and the human body is much the same. When we are young, our cells are regenerating and restructuring at a phenomenal rate so we don’t feel an urgency to maintain our flexibility. Yet all the while, we could adapt better to the ‘ebb and flow’ of life if we would keep our bodies and minds in state of flexibility. “You are replacing your parts everyday. There is no single part of you now-‘cept the brain that was in you the day you were born. Every other cell you were born with, they died and were replaced by new ones. This will continue all the time you are ‘young’. Old age is when the body has been so neglected that it can no longer replace its parts or when neglect has allowed your organs to become hopeless cases. But if you service yourself religiously like an airplane company, I promise you are never going to go to the junkyard!”

“Doing this yoga you are changing your entire body, from internal organs to bone to skin, head to toe, internally and externally. This means the whole body is functioning properly – which means you have strength, flexibility and balance – which means you are synchronizing mental and physical powers to perfection. When all of this has happened, then, very easily and comfortably you will be a success in anything you set your mind to. And for the first time in this life you will know happiness.”

As my next class begins, I watch the teacher explain how to do the first breathing exercise. She makes it look so simple, so easy. I know that for most of the new students, their first session of trying to breathe will make some of them dizzy and sick which is really just the release of toxins. Their brains will scramble with a litany of excuses as to why they shouldn’t do these ridiculous postures in an over-heated and stuffy room with a teacher that keeps explaining every move in such precise detail! The ego screams, ‘Is this teacher picking on me!’ as the body struggles to keep up. The sweat rolls into your eyes and the instructor says ‘keep your eyes open. Be here. Listen.’ Then one day your brain is calm, your breathing is even and as you bend your head to your knee you hear your ego asking ‘what heat’. You breathe a sigh of relief and in that moment, you realize the feeling of calmness and strength in the posture. You are content. Content enough to just breathe. Your brain asks ‘which toes did you want me to lift and how far do I bend!’

Bikram concludes, “It’s never too late. It’s never too bad. You’re never too old, you’re never too sick to start from scratch once again, to be born once again.”

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