Chicago Trib interview with the man himself

Just discovered this fun interview with Bikram at a Chicago Tribune health blog.  The man is incorrigible!

Q: Why do you call yoga teachers “clowns?”

A: Because they are clowns. Circus clowns. They completely [expletive] up yoga. They crucified hatha yoga in America. There is no yoga called kundalini, power, vinyasa, dog yoga.

We follow 4,400 years of Patanjali’s The Yoga Sutra. There are eight kinds of yoga—karma, hatha, raja, vedanta, bhakti, mantra, jnana and laya. What the hell is vinyasa?

And Iyengar school [which uses props] looks like a Santa Monica sex shop. You don’t need those things to do yoga.

They make so many stupid things here [in America]. I am teaching the exact same postures as my guru [Bishnu Ghosh] taught me.

Hysterical.  Dog yoga.  If Iyengar read this interview, he laughed and laughed.  Bikram is a genius.  If you read the interview, check out the reader comments at the end – he SO gets people where they live.  You know what Bikram’s saying?  “Never let anyone steal your peace, not even me.”

Home & again with the yoga

Hawaii was good.  Understatement?  Maybe.  The weather is perfect:  85 degrees, 75% humidity.  Paradise.  But food was at issue.  I’ve been vegetarian for 20 years, most of what I eat is fresh produce.  That was a lot harder to come by than I expected.  I mean, I realize most food is imported, but I couldn’t get over how easy it was to get a Wendy’s burger and how damned hard it was to get a fresh mango – something that is actually grown right there!  All week, I was jonesing for mango, but no dice.  Anyway, loved the weather & the water.  I snorkeled!  You have to understand, I don’t really swim, so snorkeling is a big whoop. 

But, ironically (or not?), I’m back to blogging yoga today.  Been back to class for a week, after being out a week, and it took a few days to get back to the groove.  But today was wonderful – I took a private class with the studio director, Carrie, and got to spend a whole class just working out my alignment issues.  Heaven!  We got as far as Triangle (3 postures short of the full Standing Series).  To begin with, my stance needed adjustment, which will cascade through the whole series & hopefully relieve the knee and hip pain I’ve been experiencing.  The dialogue (and teaching) insists on ‘toes and heels together’ – in my case, I need to keep my toes slightly separated.  Because my feet turn outward, if my feet are perfectly straight, my knees turn inward, which is NOT what we want – what’s more important is to have the knees straight in the mirror.  Once we’d made that tiny adjustment, I immediately felt more stable, and the locked knees felt almost natural,  rather than something I was working very hard at doing.  What a revelation.  My hips and knees did not feel uncomfortable, for the first time in at least a month, and I was locking my knees without really thinking about it.  Very cool!

My nemesis is Half Moon (the first posture!), so we spent almost half an hour on just the four parts of that posture – I think it will be much stronger & less straining for me now.  We addressed the tightness in my shoulders, lower back, and hamstrings and how the dialogue is really really really for beginners – that once you’ve made a commitment to the practice, and are truly working hard and trying your best, the exhortations to “pull!” and “stretch!” need to be taken with a grain of salt.  It’s funny, because Duffy was making a similar point yesterday.  Carrie basically told me to stop trying so hard and just work with my body to do the fullest expression of each posture that I can do right now.  

Now, with all the focus I’ve had on strengthening my legs, it was gratifying to be told my Awkward pose was beautiful in the first two parts.  And the third part was pretty good, too.  Speechless, I was. 

I won’t go over every single posture.    That would be boring.  To someone other than me.  But, wow, a private class with an experienced teacher is really supportive of one’s practice.  I really feel much more comfortable now with basically ignoring the parts of the dialogue that do not apply to me, and modifying the postures when appropriate.

Aloha-away!

Well, not blogging yoga leaves me with little to share.  Well, I could share things, I’m not always sure *how* to write about the internal dialogue, y’know?

I’m still Bikraming almost daily.  I’ve decided Fridays are my day off.  And maybe the occasional Monday.  But that’s still 5 to 6 days a week which ain’t bad.  I think I’m somewhere around 51 classes in 53 days, not that I’m counting.

Heading off to Hawaii later this week (the Big Island).  Don’t know if I shared this before, but what happened was … I signed up for a seminar in Kona back in May, invited a friend along, set up flights, hotel, car, then the seminar was canceled.  Oops.  Well, I figured, Fuck it, I’ll go anyway, it’s already paid for.  Sure, I could’ve saved myself (some of) the money, canceled or taken a credit on hotel, flight, etc., but by then I really wanted to go to Hawaii!    I’ve never been before, and I may not have a good excuse to find myself on a beach again anytime soon.  But I do think this’ll be my last vacation for a while – no job, living on savings, really need to stay within a budget, not sure where I’ll land in terms of income (or anything else for that matter).

Anyhoo, I’m not QUITE as bikini-ready as I’d hoped to be, but I’m closer than I’ve been since high school, so that’s something to smile about.

Aloha!

45 Day Challenge

45 Days is not an ‘official’ challenge at all.  But 45 classes in 45 days is where I feel complete with the ‘challenge’ aspect of my yoga, at this time.  It’s a good figure.  If I wasn’t going away in a little over a week (creating a 5 day interruption in a potential 60 day challenge), I would have simply continued to 60 days, just to do it. But I seem to be at a point where I’m stronger if I take a day off once a week or so, anyway.  So, I’m happy with my 45 day challenge, and now I’m moving into a regular daily practice with maybe one day off a week.

Here’s the progress I’ve seen:  definitely stronger overall, and my legs LOOK better (not quite as good as I want them to look, but they’re leaner & better defined than when I started).  My focus was on strengthening my legs above all, and that meant I went back the basics, even though I might have seemed like more of a beginner than I really was. 

Basic of all basics:  lock the damned knee.  Any Bikram yogi knows that’s the REAL mantra.  It’s an ego burner – my Standing Bow *seemed* better a year ago, but my knee was never locked, my leg would never have maintained good support – it’s just that I could get a better split with a loose standing leg so it looked prettier.  Oh well, I’m locking the knee now, so it’s slower going, but I can see the result:  I’m building stronger leg muscles, and my splayed-out feet are correcting (my legs are slowly realigning properly).  Physically, I look better than I ever have in my life.  And I look forward to having even leaner legs and a tighter butt as I continue my practice.

I know this daily challenge has jumpstarted my progress.  I’m further along in my practice than I would have been if I’d come back to the yoga after such a long break and only attended 3 to 4 times a week this past 6 weeks.  I’m very happy I committed to a personal challenge. 

Luckily, I’m not a Type A personality.  I can reach an appropriate stopping point, recognize my progress, continue my practice with reasonable breaks, and not feel like a total loser if others do more.  This practice is for me.  I want to be strong, healthy, and flexible – my goals are for me, not anyone else.