Friday, April 16, 2010

Bikram as a Voluntary Practice

Yesterday in the yoga closet I had a pretty amazing practice. I love practicing with Bikram's CD because having the boss cajole you into the standing series postures is something I downright enjoy. Also... I need help and motivation to stay in my standing poses long enough to continue to gain strength.

When I hit the floor I just did not change the CD. I worked with the breath, the dialogue in my mind, and held different postures for different lengths. In many styles of yoga, the goal is really a daily personal practice, where there is no teacher spewing information - it's more about listening to the body and following the breath.

I love Bikram, but if restorative yoga burned as many calories, I'd be there in a heart beat. I adore restorative yoga and a slower pace. You can still work very intensely and deeply with adaptive yoga. So I took that spirit to my floor series yesterday, though I was moving to my maximum in the postures. It was so lovely, sinful, like red velvet cake, to practice Bikram quietly and at my own pace, holding, feeling the breath, stretching, and coming back to rest. How joyful.

I want to note to my friends out there in the Bikram blogosphere that I am going to be generating more non-Bikram specific content on this blog. I hope you stay with me! I want to start chronicling some of my other yoga stuff and health stuff that I do for work and professionally. I'm just all about yoga and want to open access to these wonderful teachings to people who are not yogis yet. Hence outing myself on my blog and joining twitter and all kinds of stuff. I appreciate your support and feedback always.

4 comments:

Juliana said...

Can't wait to hear what you have to say about other forms of yoga! I used to practice Iyengar and thoroughly enjoyed it. In the next little while I would like to take some different classes to see how I feel.
I'll be here reading:)

Unknown said...

Awesome. Glad to have you. Taking other classes is just like a breath of fresh air. Then coming back to Bikram feels so good and comfy too. I still really want to do an ashtanga class. Iyengar is so amazing. I went to the institute in NYC when I lived there and felt such a strong representation of the lineage present in that beautiful space. Light on Yoga is the yoga bible for sure.

Elisa said...

You definitely won't lose me :-) I love your insights. I always get something out of your posts.

Unknown said...

Thanks Yolk! I'm so glad. :)