“You are never too old, too sick or too late to start again from scratch” – Bikram
I have been practicing yoga for over 5 years now, I think. I haven’t really been counting. I have tried several forms of yoga and hot yoga but never Bikram. There is a studio across from my condo so I really have no excuse. They have a 10 day unlimited pass so I decided to challenge myself to 10 days of Bikram Yoga.
Mat Check. Shorts and Loose Fitting Top Check. Cold Water Check.
I headed into class and ended up in one corner. I hate not knowing where the instructor is going to be as I looked around. Not realizing the whole time that the instructor actually walks around.
According to the Bikram Yoga website, the Bikram Yoga practice “is a twenty-six asana series designed to scientifically warm and stretch muscles, ligaments and tendons, in the order in which they should be stretched.” Be warned it is a 90 minute class. I thought it was only 60 minutes so I wasn’t mentally prepared for the length.
The class starts and ends with a breathing exercise. I personally hated the first exercise as it has you press your neck up and back. But the last exercise helped me focus my practice and work my adominal muscles.
We then moved into a series of poses starting with standing and end with lying and seated poses. By the time we were finished the standing poses I was dying to flop onto the mat. I loved all the poses. My one beef was with the lying poses. We’d lie in savasana which I’m used to only at the end of a class, then we’d flip onto our belly. Then back onto our backs, then back onto our bellies. I was almost ready to yell “Come On Already! Pick A Side Any Side!!!”
All in all I left feeling refreshed. I left feeling like I had had a great yoga practice. I left with a beet red face. I left chugging water for the rest of the day. I left just begging to have a cold shower for an hour after. I left wanting to nap. I will definitely only be doing evening classes for the rest of the week as the 6am classes I had planned on taking would probably leave me sleepy for the remainder of the day.
I love Bikram! By beef was that I thought it would get easier when we finished the standing poses…it did not (at least for me!). Good luck with the 10-day trial, that’s awesome!