An Open Letter to a New Student on Their First Class

by Barbora Simek

Dear New Student,

Welcome. Like it or not you are now a part of the Bikram Yoga family. Whether today’s class will become something that is laughed about with friends and never attempted again, a daily routine, an occasional pastime or obsession, your experience today will stay with you forever. This means I have ninety minutes, and ninety minutes only to show you a practice I have dedicated a part of my life, my heart and much of my body to. So listen carefully, because this is important, this can change your life in ways you never thought possible.

I know the room is hot, and the poses are difficult. This is not because we are trying to prove something. This is because these specific elements: the postures, the heat, the mirrors, the style of teaching — are the perfectly combined to heal your body, heart and mind.

I know there are a lot of people. This is not because the studio is interested in a big pay-day. This is because the more we can practice together, the more we can share energy. Your neighbors will help you get through class, inspire you, become your friends and maybe even your future fiance (it’s happened more than once!) So be kind. Be patient. Because the more patient you can be with people here, the more patient you will be with them out there in the world.

I know my voice is loud. This is not because I want to dominate you. My voice is the best tool I have, along with the dialogue (the directions), to help you through your class today. When you feel weak, my voice will be strong to support you. When you are tired my voice will be energetic to help you off the floor. When you are discouraged, I will encourage you. All this is I will do with my volume, my intonation, my words. I want you to hear just how much I care about you and your practice.

Yes, our outfits are small. This is not because we are vain. This is because it is hot and because when you can see your body in the mirror fully, you can more easily make adjustments and learn to appreciate  what you see. Small clothes stay out of our way, so we can focus more on our practice than on adjusting our shorts for triangle. In time, we’ve learned in this room that, contrary to what the world says, every body is beautiful and every body should be appreciated. So we wear short shorts and we LOVE them on us and on each other.

No, New Student, you cannot talk. Not because I want to silence you. I want your voice to fill the halls, the change-rooms and lobby. I want your voice to be one of the many threads that builds the ever-expanding web of our Bikram Yoga community. But in the hot room, I want you to listen. First to me, so that you can do the class safely, but more importantly to yourself. I know you try hard and listen to so many other people all day. Today, you start to learn to listen to yourself: your breath, your heart, your true thoughts. Enjoy that opportunity, don’t waste it by chatting.

You must stay still, New Student. Not because I want to control you. You must stay still so you can let go of all distractions and connect to the vast benefits of this practice. You work hard in your poses to open your body, and when you stay still your cells recover and begin the process of healing. Give your body the chance to heal.

I know sometimes my jokes are not funny. But we do not call this the “torture chamber” because we enjoy your discomfort. I try to make light of how hard this yoga is because we all know that it is hard. Every teacher you will have, including me, has cried here, hurt here, wanted to leave here. So we joke because we understand how hard this is. The fact that we persevere is the one thing that connects us all in the hot room. I want this experience to be at least a little bit fun.

I am not correcting you because I think badly of your effort, New Student. I know you have taken other yoga classes, or your body is aching from your injuries and you have been through a lot in your life. Knowing all of these things makes me want to help you even more. And the best way I know how to help you, is to teach you how to do the postures to the best of your ability. I promise your best is enough. If today, you simply imagine your posture a different way because of a correction, then you are on your way to an improved practice, body and life.

It’s okay to feel emotional. This is a safe space, we’ve all been there. Remember this is a place of healing and sometimes your body hangs on to your emotions even when the mind has released them. Just cry, everyone will think it is sweat anyway.

Come back, New Student. You did well today. Remember the worst class is the one you don’t come to. I can’t wait for you to see how this series can change your life and I am here to help every step of the way.

Love,

Your Bikram Yoga Teacher

Barbara Simek is a writer for the blog Oh My Bikram! This article and photo originally appeared on their blog, where you can other great articles about Bikram Yoga to read! 

Can Anything Steal Your Peace?

By Nicole Deacon

“If anyone can make you angry, upset, take your peace away from you, you are the loser.”  -- Bikram Choudhury

What Bikram?  Come again?  If someone else does something that makes me angry or upset aren’t THEY the jerk?  What do you mean I am the loser?

We cannot control what other people do, say, and feel; but we can control what we do, say, and feel.  When someone does something that makes us upset, it is easy to blame them and easy to think that if they would just do what we want that we would be happy.  There is a great saying, “Resentment is like drinking poison hoping the other person is going to die.”  This is what Bikram is saying.  When we have negative feelings towards someone else, whether they deserve it or not, it is not them that suffers, it is us.  When someone cuts you off in traffic and you get mad… they may never know it… it doesn’t really affect them, but it does affect you.  You could be having the best day of your life, someone cuts you off in traffic or says something mean to you, and then you are having the worst day.

One of the most important lessons I have learned from Bikram is to “let nothing steal your peace away from you.”  That’s one of the reasons this yoga is so great.  You are in a HOT room, with florescent lights, smelly carpet, looking at your imperfect reflection in the mirror, a teacher with a microphone is yelling at you to do more, your mind yelling at you to quit, the person next to you is driving you crazy, and then what…. you find a way to breathe in the chaos.  Despite everything going on around you, you let none of it take away your peace of mind.  It starts in the yoga room for 90 minutes at a time, but then before you know it…. You’re more patient in traffic, kinder to your kids; little things don’t set you off as easily.  Little by little the yoga starts to make its way into your everyday life.

One of my favorite stories is about a mom who had taken a few months break from the yoga.  When she walked in the door after being gone, she looked up at us with this sad face and said, “My kids sent me back to yoga.  They said I was a better mom- more patient, less moody.”

During the Holiday season I find the yoga to be more important than ever.  With added stress and added time with family it is a good test to see…. Can anything or anyone steal my peace?  When I’m not doing class regularly, my answer is YES, so I make it a point to go to yoga.  When I’m done with yoga I feel stronger, more centered, more stable, more peaceful.

Happy Holidays.  May nothing steal your peace away.

Sucking It In To Move Forward

 By Constance Bradley

“Suck it in, Constance!”

If you have practiced in the same class with me, you have probably heard the teacher give me this correction.  Being told to “suck it in” is a frequent correction for me; I hear these words several times in each class.  Before you feel sorry for me, or think that the teacher is picking on me, you should know that I ask every teacher to remind me to “suck it in.”

You see, sucking in my stomach is one of the most difficult parts of class for me.  I find most other parts of class to be somewhat effortless.  Balancing on one leg? No worries.  Backward bending? I’m all over that one.  Sucking in my stomach?  That presents a whole new challenge for me.  “Suck it in,” the teacher tells me; sweat drips down my face, and I engage my core.  “Suck it in,” she tells me again, as I realize I have let my stomach creep outward.  Is it possible for me to find some inner meaning in all of this?  I rationalize anything challenging in class as a yoga gift, and I’m eager to open new presents.   This is why I ask teachers to remind me of my challenge during class.  As for inner meaning, the only thing I can figure is that I have to engage more of my core to properly complete the postures.

As a teacher, I fully realize that engaging more of my core is a technique that will pay dividends in the postures.  I have come to the point in my practice where I realize that proper technique and good alignment are critical to success in the postures.  One of the great masters of technique, Pablo Picasso, wrote, “The more technique you have the less you have to worry about it. The more technique there is, the less there is. ”  This idea resonates for me – I know that when proper technique is mastered, everything else will fall into place naturally.  I want to cultivate a lifelong yoga practice based on precise technique such that I am able to receive all the benefits of the yoga for many years to come.

However -- I will be blatantly honest here-- sucking it in is my own personal torture.  It’s uncomfortable; a technique that does not feel natural to me.  I admit that when I’m having a particularly difficult class, it is tempting to be dismayed when I hear this correction.   It is easy to feel discouraged; sometimes I wonder if I will ever succeed in having this be an effortless part of my practice.

“Suck it in,” the teacher says; sweat drips down my face, and I engage my core.  “Suck it in!” the teacher tells me 30 seconds later.  Once more I engage my core, my body weight shifts, and just like that, I’m deeper into the posture than ever before!  Suddenly, I find more meaning in these words.

Each time I suck it in, I am cultivating habits of proper technique and mindfulness in my practice.  As a student of philosophy, I often think of Aristotle’s central teachings in Nichomachean Ethics,   this notion nicely.  “We are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle claims, “excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”  It’s not difficult for me to see where I have worked to develop other good habits in class, such as stillness in savasana or moderating water consumption.  Through repeated action, I am striving for excellence in my practice; each time I suck it in, I foster good technique and mindfulness despite physical discomfort and emotional travail.

Suck it in. 

Sometimes, it’s what you have to do to get where you want to go. 

The Intangibles

By Niki Hayes

Why do you practice yoga?

Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to be able to touch your toes again? Did your doctor send you here to help with your high blood pressure? Did your chiropractor send you here to help with your bad back? Do you want to lower your stress level?

If you answered yes to any of these - good news, you are on the right track! Yoga will help with all of this. Just know that while you may be doing yoga to heal your knee injury or shrink your waistline, there are also benefits occurring simultaneously that you may not be aware of. Bikram describes these benefits as “the intangibles”.

“Keep in mind that yoga is not reducible to a quantified number of medical benefits. Even as yoga makes measurable changes in your muscles, organs, bones and spine, it's also working on what we call the “subtle anatomy”, renewing and reviving you at the cellular level, invisibly taking care of every atom and molecule. There’s an emotional and psychological aspect to the healing process as well – the mind/body connection. This is soul-stretching, mind-restoring and Spirit-building. The unquantifiable improvements in your quality of life and your attitude toward life make themselves felt in every cell as well. When you’re well, they’re well.”

Be well my friends.

Adversity is a Gift

By Steve Rumpp

Welcome the adversity in your life. Don't go looking for it, or enjoy it- but welcome life’s physical, mental and emotional adversities as they happen, with total mindfulness.  See more clearly than you normally see, breathe more calmly, think more soundly, and be with the adversity in your life.

Your true strength lies within it.

Bikram likes to say, “The darkest place is under the lamp.”  Implied then, is that the brightest place (with the most to learn) is in total darkness.  “The more you suffer, the more you benefit.  If $1 buys 2 apples, then when you suffer more, the same $1 buys 4 apples.”  While we think we’d prefer to go through life without adversity, this proverb implies we would miss an important point were we never to be challenged to work through difficult times.  Conveniently, life is filled with plenty of just such opportunities!

It is in the depth of our challenges that we have the best view of our own life, of our present degree of Self-realization, of a fear we can dissolve in order to live a more fulfilled and happy life.  Just as it is within the stillness of our yoga that our most rare gems are to be found, so it is within our darkest moment that gifts await.

Greet adversity with increased calmness.  Demonstrate to yourself that you can handle anything.  That nothing steals your peace.  Ever. This is what you practice each day you step onto your yoga mat. Practice being faced with challenges and rising above them to find peace under any circumstance.

Learning to discover deeper strength, greater peace and new solutions to old problems from within our most difficult times, also serves as a model for the global response required if we are to meet the adversity facing our planet.  It is within this kind of peace that all of the world's problems will ultimately be dissolved.

Just like there is no such place as 'away' when we think of throwing something there, there is no such time or place called 'later' when it comes to living in right action.  No such thing, just an excuse to avoid ourselves.  Every choice matters, especially during our most difficult times.

How we handle adversity defines our power as individuals.  The seeds we plant through our actions and our thoughts create in turn the life we live.  No deals.  No exceptions.  No way around it.  We deliver ourselves to ourselves in every moment – good and bad.

Care about every little thing as if your life depends upon it.  Your happiness does.  Plant seeds of good in every action and every thought, and watch your life turn into the magic show of bliss and blessings that this life is meant to be.  Practice your yoga, live as a yogi in the fullest expression of detachment doing the right thing.  There is no need and no place for worry.  The universe will provide.

Adversity is also our reminder to be humble.  Say thank you, embrace these moments for the richness they possess and don't miss out on one of the momentary insights they contain.  Your life is about to change for the good.