Jennifer
I just wanted to say how much prenatal yoga helped me achieve the natural, no pain medication, childbirth I wanted. Childbirth was an intense experience--the most intense of my life--but I made it through and am so proud.  I recalled a lot from our class, mostly relaxation techniques, that kept me from panicking during the most intense parts of a
fairly long labor.   I'm happy to talk to anyone who wants a pep talk on a natural birth from someone who's done it recently.

Ann, 38.
Everyday there at least 3 million reasons not to go to yoga. Everyday about 10,000 of the reasons are real, honest-to-goodness reasons-reasons everyone shares: time constraints, work responsibilities, family obligations, the room is hot, the class is long, etc. But, then I remember what those 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises do for me and I go to yoga.

Ask anyone with a regular Bikram yoga practice about their experience and some of the responses will be the same. They have experienced weight loss as well as an increase in strength, flexibility and concentration. They feel better, their skin looks healthier, and they have more energy. For those who come to the practice with aches and pains, those are eased or disappear.

I share these experiences-I have lost a lot of weight, I can now touch my toes and balance on a single, locked-out leg for nearly a minute, and my knee that has bothered me since an injury playing sports in high school feels healthier than I can remember. Every one of these health benefits is worth the cost-both time and money-of the practice.

But for me, the real benefit of a regular Bikram yoga practice is the way it has helped me to create a new relationship with myself-a relationship that brings my mind back into alignment with my body, a relationship that greatly enhances the 22 and 1/2 hours in each day not spent practicing Bikram yoga. Specifically, Bikram yoga has made me feel better about myself-I stand taller and feel more confident. Through Bikram yoga I have learned that with a little determination I can do what at once seemed impossible, or at least highly unlikely. I have learned to blend extremes (i.e., hard work and ease, determination and compassion, exertion and relaxation, etc) and as a result I encounter the world with more humility and humanity. I feel as though everyone in my life has benefited from my practice of Bikram yoga.

All of this is why, no matter how good or real the excuse I can create is, I just pick up my mat and towel and head to the studio for another day's Bikram class. I cannot recommend it highly enough!

* Note: Ann has lost 130 pounds in a little over a year while doing Bikram yoga.

 

Marta, 41.
I am Marta Fox and I am 41 years old. I started Bikram in November '01. I do Bikram about 3 times a week and have added power yoga 1-2 times a week. I've been feeling really good for months now. I used to have digestive problems, mostly pains from being bloated. I have not felt those pains in months. I have had high blood pressure for several years and I was sure I would have to go on medication at my last doctor's visit. I was so happy to find out that my blood pressure is now normal. These are just the physical results that I attribute to yoga. I feel like I'm a calmer person, I don't sweat the small stuff, I appreciate the people and things around me more. I can see myself continuing this lifestyle well into my old age!

 

Anne, 42.
My doctor first told me about Bikram. I have fibromyalgia, and I've had it for about five years. With fibromyalgia, it's like you have arthritis except it's in your muscles instead of your joints. She said, "I think that would really help your muscles because of the heat." I've been coming ever since. That was about three years ago.

The heat threw me in my first class. I've never really liked heat -- I'm one of those weird people that'd rather have 6 inches of snow than 95 degrees. I had to sit down a lot. Early on, I was trying to get myself on the left side of the room so I couldn't see the clock -- because I'm a real type-A personality -- 'Double A" as my husband calls me. I couldn't let myself look at the clock because then I would start thinking of everything I had to do.

When I was walking to my car after the first class I knew I'd be back; I just felt so stretched out. When I got fibromyalgia, I had to stop all the high impact aerobic stuff and so it was really hard to find something that I felt like I got a really good workout but that my body could handle too. And within probably about two weeks I noticed a big change in my energy level, that it had increased and that I was sleeping better at night. It's just been a godsend. (Many fibromyalgia patients sleep great for a couple of hours, but then you wake up at 2 in the morning and you can't get back to sleep because it hurts.) So I think that was what initially kept me coming back. I still have periods where I go through that, but it's a couple of days a month as opposed to all the time. On tired days, I would do what I call "Bikram Lite." So maybe I'd only do every other pose.

So after my second class I bought a ten-pass and then I was trying to come 2 to 3 times a week and I gradually increased it after that. I think until my surgery (bilateral mastectomy, May 2002), I was in an every other day routine. I have four kids, three of them teenagers, I work, my husband works and he travels and it's just hectic. So I love the 6:00 or 6:30 a.m. classes. I can still get to work by 8:30. And once I got into that routine, I found I had more energy and I was a nicer person at home, so it all kind of balanced out. My kids are now like, "Go to yoga! It's okay! You'll be a kinder, gentler mother when you get home!"

What I've noticed a lot lately is how yoga helps me put stuff in perspective and in balance. With everything we've gone through in the last couple of months with our family, me getting cancer..... at first I was freaked. I think I was halfway back to work before I realized what "bilateral" meant. You're just not expecting to hear that. I went home and then the next day I got up early and went to yoga, and I think that was really how I stayed sane. Because I had about three weeks between my diagnosis and the surgery, it kind of helped me come to terms with it. There's something about, you're in class and you're looking at yourself in the mirror and you're scared, and then it was just kind of an epiphany of sorts where it's like, "Yeah, you're supposed to be and that's okay! So don't dwell on it and just get through it." I tend to obsess, so it really helped me to not wig out over it. Even if I didn't get the physical benefits, the stress relief alone just helps you let everything go and not keep it all bottled up. It really helped me keep a sense of humor about this -- how else are you going to look at it?

All the (Bikram) teachers really talk about the deep breathing; it just calms you down and keeps you from getting psyched out. Pranayama (deep breathing), I do that in elevators now before a really stressful meeting to just calm down and get focused. And in fact after my surgery, I woke up in a lot of pain and the doctors are like, "I know it hurts, but take deep breaths." And I thought, "Oh, Pranayama, I can do this! Six seconds in, six seconds out!" So that's what I just kept doing the first couple of weeks and that made such a big difference.

I made tapes of some of the classes and then I listened to them after my surgery. I tried a couple of the stretches as I got further and further along. But mostly I just mentally followed along in my mind which helped keep me in my routine which was really important to me after my surgery, to have some semblance of normalcy. And I was surprised when I went back to class one month after my surgery, because I kind of had it in my head, okay, you're going to be sitting down every other one and I was really surprised at how much I could still do. I showed my physical therapist the little (posture guide) handout and she said, "Oh, this is the best thing you can do!" And I only had to see her twice. That's not typical. I think it's because of the Bikram. So since my surgery I've been trying to go five times a week. I have so much plastic and stuff in weird places, it helps stretch me out so it's much more comfortable.

I think the yoga definitely helped me keep this in perspective. My sister's gone through this also, and we would have conversations and she told me she would let her mind wander and start thinking, "Oh my God, I'm going to die and what's going to happen to my kids and husband...?" All that stuff. She's fine, by the way. And it was weird, I think I had about 20 minutes of that kind of panic and that's it. I would think, "There's no reason to go there yet." We'll go there if we have to, but not yet. I can make up for all this and obsess really, really good later, but until I need to -- I won't go there. Due to my personality, I would have done that if I didn't go to yoga every other day. It's so much easier to stay in the present moment now.

 

Paddy.
After years of dancing, whipping my neck around, rolling on the floor and general misuse of my spine, I then fell down my basement stairs. For 3 years I suffered severe back and neck pain. So much so, that I had to roll from the bed to the floor to stretch my back before I could stand. I had to quit dancing. I became severely depressed and overweight. I felt restless and lost. I just wanted to run away. The first step was chiropractic help. I found out I had degenerative discs and my neck had serious trauma issues, and was completely out of alignment. For a year, I consistently went to the chiropractor and started feeling better. Then I was turned on to Bikram from Teresa Murphy and my friend Lauren. I felt so much better that I began regularly going. I held private classes to spread the word...Soon the chiropractic sessions ended and now I am mostly pain free and am certain that the yoga saved my spine and life. My relationships are better, my self-esteem is better, and Tippi took in this rag doll of a person and transformed me into a Bikram disciple, truly able to practice and preach. I truly believe that it is my therapy, gym and religion all in one.

 

Diana, 50.
I started mid-September 2001. In my first class for about the last 15 minutes I was a whiney baby and I cried, "I'm hottttt! I'm tired! There can't be more!" I got irritated inside and said, "This is just awful! We need to be done!" But the tired only lasted that one class. Very soon after that, I was walking out of that room and it's like you're on a high, you're on a drug, you're on a mountaintop -- it's like "WHOO-HOOO!"

I'd done lots of yoga before, but this was different because of the heat. My body loves heat. Now I come five times a week. Sometimes after class I feel euphoric, sometimes I just feel a little bit better than I did when I went in, and if I am tight because I'm depressed, at least I feel normal when I walk out -- so I'm always better off and I always have more energy afterwards. In the process of getting strong, I've had some pain adjustments. Maybe in the beginning I brought it on myself because I tended to be too competitive and work a little too hard. That's another lesson that I've learned. I've worked through several injuries and the way I worked through it in my mind was that it was a restructuring process.

As far as body changes, my skin is no longer dry at all. And that may not sound like much to most people but when you've always had dry skin and then you no longer have it, it's fabulous. But the most wonderful thing that I see, I have lifted weights for twenty years, and I've found that yoga builds more tone and balances muscle groups much faster and far more effectively. And without injuries. My own particular structure had really weak inner thigh muscles, and those have gotten really strong and are more balanced with the outer thighs. And I have a butt now! And I used to do 20 minutes a day of glute exercises two or three times a week! Which was a complete waste of time!

To me the breathing is less a physical thing than a spiritual one, because what I learned from it was how to be present, how to quiet the mind, how to make the most of the moment, really doing what you're doing and get the benefit out of it. When I used to lift weights I'd watch TV, my mind would be everywhere else.

I consider all these things so far more superficial -- by far the most important thing I got is self-awareness. I'd come in and be harrumphing because I didn't have my exact space that I had located as my favorite space, or I didn't have my favorite teacher or there was somebody next to me who was making noises I didn't want to hear, and through being aware of all that crap that's going on inside my head and having it be so in my face and process it and work through it -- NOW I don't care what space I get, I don't care what teacher it is, I don't care who's next to me -- I'm just damned grateful I'm in class! So I want to apologize to all those people in yoga class that I had nasty thoughts about and then it turned out to be all about me!

I've had some of the biggest ah-ha moments in my life in final relaxation or on the way home after yoga class. For example, a couple of weeks ago I was struggling with some parenting issues with my 19 year old. I was all worried about, "Oh, she's not doing this and she's not doing that and if only I had done this..." And on the way home I just got this voice that said, "That's her life destiny to deal with, not yours ... And you've done the best job that you could do." But I think it's the really getting present for an extended period of time that opens the channels for your own inner wisdom or God or.... alien beings to come through or whatever. And it just calmed me down and I just stopped being in fear about that issue. And that's any yoga, not just Bikram, but for me Bikram has an edge that other types haven't had. You can carry that with you out into the world. To me, yoga's about learning things about yourself and about life through the experience of the postures and carrying those lessons out into your life.

 

Karin.
I had tests performed before and after my Bikram Challenge.
Before the challenge, my body composition was 24.6% fat which is normal (24-25% for women). After, it was 23.4%.

I was also tested for VO2 Max, which is defined as the maximal rate at which oxygen can be consumed. Higher rates mean more endurance. Beginning rate was 39.6%, and after was 48.2%. The tech that tested me wanted to know what I did for aerobic conditioning -- running, cycling? He could not believe yoga could produce such effective results. Cool!

 

Randy, 52.
October of 2001, I started coming to class. I was studying with (yoga teacher) Kelly Holcombe and she suggested I come. I think she saw I enjoyed really pushing myself and getting out there a little further and she thought I could challenge myself a little more with Bikram.

My first class? Oh, it was really hard! It was the heat, the breath work -- I hadn't caught on to the breath work as much and so I was pretty overwhelmed the first time. I was very conservative in the postures and at the end of class all I could do was just lie there for the longest time! Maybe I was dehydrated when I started. This is odd, but I just felt tingly all over my body in an unusual way. It wasn't good or bad -- it was just unusual. I never did figure out what that was. And the next time I came there was a little bit of that but I felt a lot more energy at the next class, which was about two days later.

I really liked the way the class was put together; I liked the sequence being the same every time I came back. I practice now five or six times a week. I make the early class (6:30 a.m.) work for me. It's really so healthy for me, I can't see NOT doing it.

(Last) December, I committed to doing the Bikram Challenge which was like a huge decision for me at that time, that "I'm GOING to do this.... five days a week!" So what I got out of it, emotionally, (is that) Bikram's been really healthy for overcoming depression. Initially when I started doing yoga, there was depression, and as it started lifting then I started getting into feeling a lot of buried grief and anger, a lot of that. There were times when I would cry after class and just like really let go of it. And I just don't feel that way any more. It's gone! Every once in a while I'll still feel some grief or sadness, and it just seems like doing the yoga just helps me feel in touch with, 'Okay, so that's what I'm feeling today and I accept that today." I accept where I am in the yoga and I accept how I feel, that's okay too. I'm really not my feelings anyway, right? And some of that was able to happen because the environment (of the studio) creates a freeing, spacious energy for people to be who they are. The energy is so nice that you don't feel inhibited.

It's caused me to be able to be a lot more focused and confident. On a spiritual level, I think I'm finding more joy in my life; being more comfortable with who I am and how who I am fits in with... oh, the planet, kind of!

The more and more I do yoga, the more it becomes a moving meditation. Initially, it was like, "Oh, I have to do this pose and I have to get so far" and now it's more I like to focus on the postures with the breath work and then being absolutely totally present with what's going on. So I think that's what's really been beneficial, sort of a mind expansion, spiritual growth. Physically I've overcome a chronic back problem and I've gained a lot of flexibility and strength all over my body. I cycle too, but I don't ride in the winter. So when I resumed in the spring this year -- it was like I had never stopped!

The most difficult part of this process for me is learning to become comfortable in my own skin and be where I am today with yoga, and be happy with that, and grateful! Really, just gratitude that this is where I'm at and it's a great place to be.

And one last thing; There's a gratitude I'd like to express to Tippi and Steve for making the Bikram available for us because it's really wonderful -- it feels like a gift they've given the community.

 

Lori, 41.
I celebrated a year of coming to Bikram in June and I just bought my second annual pass. I came with my friend Clare. We are both fitness buffs and she knew I was into taking care of myself and she suggested I try it. She did wonderful the first class, she did every single pose and here I was hoppin' around in the back row! (Laughs) I had such muscle built up in my legs from running that was an obstacle at first. And I have balance problems because of fibromyalgia. I was diagnosed with that at 38, the same time I was diagnosed with early menopause. I wanted to come for flexibility reasons and I had a lot of anxiety from my illnesses, worrying about myself and what was going on in my body, and I had heard it could be calming.

For five years I was running 10 miles a day seven days a week, beating my body up. I was dealing lot of stress. I had just lost my brother to suicide and a dear friend of mine who was like a second father, I had watched him die of cancer. So that was my way of handling the situation but it was the wrong way. That's probably why I became ill, with all that stress and the physical stress on top of it.

I knew yoga was going to be helpful even after the first class -- I could giggle at myself because I couldn't do the poses. I guess I'm a type A personality too, and I was determined to come back and get it right at some point, maybe not tomorrow. The heat and the humidity were very fatiguing to me. I was a little sore then next day -- of course my friend I came with wasn't sore at all! But she kept coming so I kept coming. About a month into it I knew this was something I wanted to continue so that's when I bought my first annual pass.

With the fibromyalgia --it's also called muscular rheumatism -- you have muscle pain throughout the body and it's fatigue and it's insomnia and a whole bunch of other things. I don't have the overall muscle pain anymore. I will occasionally have flare-ups, but the teachers are all great at helping me with alternate poses, or I just take it easy. I know some people I've talked to have been able to get off medications they've been taking, and that is not something I've been able to do, but my doctor has also indicated whatever I'm doing I should keep doing because it's obviously working with the medication I take. I think medicine can complement yoga as yoga complements medicine. So if you have fibromyalgia, take heart! I go to a rhematologist and she's a specialist, and she has one other patient that's like me. She says the rest are in bed or don't do anything. So don't give up and stay in that bed! There are days it's a struggle, sure. But I don't wake up and say, "Oh, I'm tired." I wake up and say, "It's time to get up." It's just the irony; here I live my life trying to be healthy, beat my body up and thought I was doing the best thing possible and I got sick and that's the only thing that stopped me from doing that. If I wouldn't have gotten sick, I wouldn't have found yoga, so in a way, fibromyalgia is a blessing in my life! I would have just kept charging down that line.

Because of the lack of sleep that we get, my attention span was really short prior to coming to yoga, and my mental processing wasn't what it used to be, I wasn't as articulate. So I have noticed much more mental clarity. The changes I've seen in myself have been more inward, though my flexibility has improved and my balance is better. I don't have the anxiety that I used to have. For me it's just an inner calmness and more of an appreciation for life. I've slowed down some, I don't run anymore. I'm not as competitive, I don't worry about when I'm going to hit that "finish line" or perfect that pose. If I don't get it right one day, tomorrow is another day to try. I have much more patience with myself in the yoga poses and with everything in general. My teenage daughter has really noticed that (laughs).

It's a life-changing experience. And I've put up with quite a bit of flack from my family about coming to yoga, because they thought it was a cult and they were really suspicious of it. My husband was great and my daughter, but it was like my parents who are older and some of my siblings that are really pro-religion and felt like this would conflict. What would I say to people who might worry about that kind of thing? It's not a cult! (Laughs) It can enrich your religious experience with your God. It's really deepened my faith. It's slowed me down enough to really think about that and look at that. Before you're just running the rat race of life and now you take time to smell the roses and to look around. I love the people I've met here, I must say that too. They are such interesting people and it's enlightened me there as well, socially. We're all supportive of each other. Of course we have different backgrounds but we all come together united on one thing and it's really neat.

 

Cece, 39.
I started Bikram mainly because I've had a huge weight problem all my life. I started coming October 8, 2001. I had just finished yet again losing more weight, and really thought for the first time I might be trying to understand my body and respect it a little bit more. I've always had extreme problems respecting my body, I mean extreme. I've done that for a long time and I'm ashamed that it's taken up so much energy and time in my spirit and my soul and the loved ones around me have had to put up with this.

I realize now that our bodies are SO individual and guess what? We all have to respect who we are and you're not going to get to know it if you're going to blow it off and hate your body. All these negative things, of course it will break you down.

I am understanding (my body) now and appreciating it. Gaining all that weight was not particularly pleasant, but it was something I had to do to get better. I had never intended to do that! But it has been and will remain.... it's been an imprint on me, this yoga, this experience of yoga in order to appreciate me and the people around me, to understand humans!

The changes I've seen in myself have been simple, but just because something is simple doesn't mean that it's easy. At first it was a honeymoon, I was like "Oh my God, this is so wonderful, love it love it love it!" Then you realize what a novice you are in the whole world of yoga because there is so much to learn and so much to do. But I am more patient with my body and myself. My muscle tone has never been anything like this! It was amazing. People kept saying, "Cece, your body has changed so much!" Some friends of mine had seen me when I was about 50 pounds thinner than I am now. But they saw me at a wedding after I started yoga and they kept saying, "You look the best I've ever seen you!" And I was like, thanks! So at this stage I don't get all excited. My point is, I didn't get some huge thrill out of their reaction. Like (teacher) Theresa (Murphy) always says, "It is what it is." Yoga is saying 'I don't have to have an answer'.

Yoga, it's a freedom, it's an integrity-builder, it's peacefulness, but that doesn't mean that's what you have all the time; it just means that you are getting there. You have a respect, an understanding of what it may mean to have these things, to live with them daily. I am still so much a beginner and I still have that excitement about it, and I hope to God I retain it, and I really think I will.

In my short, short year of practicing yoga I have had classes in three other cities, I have never come close to having a teacher anything like the ones in Omaha. Okay, I might be prejudiced but I honestly can say Bikram Yoga Omaha is an excellent, excellent place. I love the people and I love all my instructors very much, all of you. I love the way you all love the yoga and you're open to all of us as different people. You just have such respect for the yoga and in turn yoga has respect for us. I truly have counted my blessings that I have run into this place. I feel connected through Bikram.

 

Louise, 42.
I have had back problems since my early 20's, and for a number of years I have had friends and acquaintances tell me, "Oh, you ought to try yoga." My only background with yoga was when I was a teenager and there was a woman then who was on a TV program with a long braid. (Lilias, Yoga and You.) So I used to do it after school, I remember. And since then I never did at all.

In my early 20's I had the first flare-up of back problems related to a disc that eventually herniated about 15 years ago. I had numbness down the leg and everything. So I'd been in and out of physical therapy whenever it flared up and they'd given me some very basic exercises, which are loosely based on yoga, but I didn't realize that then. When we moved to Omaha just a year ago, I'd been thinking again maybe I should take this up for my back. Then we went on a trip to Mexico in January and we stayed at a Club Med and there happened to be a yoga class there and I went two or three times. I thought to myself when I got back to Omaha I would look and find somewhere to go. So I basically just looked at the Yellow Pages and saw (the Bikram studio) was convenient to where I lived. I immediately liked the heated room that seemed to be an asset to stretching muscles. So I liked it and I've been coming for 8 months.

As far as my back, I wish I could say I'm absolutely pain free, but I'm close to it. There's been a major improvement. It's much better than it has been for a long time, and it can tolerate a lot more. Knock wood, it hasn't flared up on me so that I've been in considerable pain since I started, so on the whole I feel a lot stronger and more flexible. But the funny thing is, that's a physical spin off but really one of the things I was looking for was a place that would be somewhere to meditate with others and this seems to have kind of had a double benefit. I do remember my first or second class, and I said to Theresa who was teaching that rather than looking at it from just the physical point of view, I was really interested in enhancing what I consider my prayer life and so it looked to me like this was going to be a good avenue for that. I did come consciously thinking that I not only wanted to do this for physical benefits, but also for spiritual ones. I think it's a very good complement to my faith, if you will.

I think, as Theresa often says in our class, it's about getting out of your head and into your heart. Before we moved here there was a place where I would go and sit and meditate with others. I always found it difficult to sit for a half an hour and not be uncomfortable -- I didn't have the strength. So I guess that's why yogis do this in the first place, to develop the ability to sit for long periods. I also find one of the things about focusing on your breath and getting out of your thoughts, by being forced into these postures you have to really concentrate on what you are doing physically and by virtue of doing that it's going to help you let go of your thoughts.

I'm not very disciplined about meditation. I have noticed at home, there are all kinds of distractions with kids and noise. And when I go to the church, sometimes I will focus on not praying with words of images but just focusing on the silence. But again, for long periods, it's here that it happens for me and being with the others. I thought of it again the other day in the power yoga class, and I thought This is really neat, it's like a sisterhood, because it's usually a group of women, and it's a really neat kind of community that gathers together to honor that which is deep in ourselves in an unspoken way.

I see this whole journey of our life is continuously evolving and sometimes it's hard to see changes in yourself and maybe as you say, someone else might recognize it and say something. But I would hope for the most part (since beginning yoga) I can take a more contemplative view of things and not be rattled by the trivial concerns and irritations of day to day living, and let them roll off like water off a duck's back so you have kind of a wider, broader view of things. In some ways of the two styles of yoga, I find that in some ways I prefer the power yoga style overall. There seems to be more of a time devoted to the beginning and the end with the Om's -- in Bikram you begin with the breathing and end with the savasana, which I guess are the same thing in a sense. Theresa uses the sound of the bowl, which is a tradition in Zen meditation anyway, and it's so appropriate -- it has the effect of really grounding you and opening your heart and mind to listening, kind of drawing you deeper. Yoga forces you to slow down and from the reading that I've done, there seems to be a long tradition whether it's Zen Buddhism or a Christian monastic community of prayerful meditation which really goes against the grain of our society, which is about doing and gaining things. This is the opposite; it's about being and losing things.

 

Jen
My husband never quite understood what I got out of Bikram yoga, although he's been supportive of my "habit," which began about nine months ago. I've always been more traditional in my athletic activities, loyal to weight training coupled with aerobic exercise. For the last two years-since we moved to Nebraska--I have been almost sedentary. I discovered Bikram yoga last April, and I have been pleased by how fit I feel, particularly at the core, and I attend only once or twice a week.

One day in January, my husband and I decided to ski Highland Bowl at Aspen Highlands. Skiers and boarders take off their gear at 11,675 feet and hike an additional 800 vertical feet, carrying their gear. I had done this before, but had always been much more active than I am currently; Bikram is my only regular exercise. So, I was a bit nervous as we took off our skis and began the long hike up the rim of the bowl.

The wind was blowing as strong as I've ever felt it and I had to strap my poles around my wrists to keep them from blowing away. A few times the wind knocked me off balance, and I steadied myself with my poles. The hike is steep and narrow and consists of lodging one boot in the footprint of the person in front of you. The air was thin and I knew I might have trouble breathing. To quiet my own concerns, I decided to use a few things I learned in yoga.

First, I regulated my breathing. I took long, six-count breaths in and out through my nose. Second, remembering the words of one of my yoga teachers, "be mindful of where you are today," I paced myself. In the past, I had felt both competitive with the other skiers, and self-conscious of my abilities, because there are only a handful of spots where the trail is wide enough to pass. Who wants to be the betty holding up the line?! This time, I focused on my task, and stopped only once. Just after the "point of no return"-skiers could not cut across the bowl on this day, so once we'd hiked a third of the way up, we had to continue all the way up and over before dropping in--I paused to look back. The next skier was fifteen yards behind me.

When I reached the summit I felt fantastic. My lungs felt fine, my legs felt strong. The wind was really whipping over the ridge, so I did as I saw others doing, and lay down to put my gear back on. My husband commented on how cleanly we summited. I knew what he was thinking: "And all she does for exercise is that yoga…"
It was, without a doubt, some of the most fantastic skiing I've ever experienced. Yet the entire experience was even more delightful than expected, because I felt much more competent about the hike up than I had in the past. I have Bikram yoga to thank for that. Bikram provides my body with the strength to accomplish such things, and my mind with the ability to create the calm needed to guide my body. Namaste!

 

Lisa

I just wanted to share with you that Leo and Claire are having a wonderful experience in your class. The other night they held a yoga class for Mom and Dad. They took quite a bit of time setting up their room and even had us sign in and wore special stickers (very official). We walked the tightrope, flew like superman, rolled like a ball and breathed like an elephant! Leo then led a nice cloud relaxation. Of course my husband being the kapha he is, almost fell asleep!! It was neat and you are having a wonderful impact on them. Thank you for what you do!