Category Archives: Bikram

Yoga News Alert: New Yoga Studio Coming Soon to Richmond Beach

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Yesterday evening, my mom and I went to Richmond Beach for a walk after dinner. As I closed my car door in the upper parking lot of the Saltwater Park, ready to take the wooden stairs down to the beach, I saw, sitting off to the side of the sidewalk, by a tall shrub, a guy sitting on a rock staring off into the Olympic Mountains.

Immediately, I was drawn to the composition of this image; all the elements are there: blood-orange sun setting, mystical-looking mountain peaks, glistening blue ocean, contemplating man. You get the idea. It was one of those pictures you might see on calendars at Barnes and Noble, or on inspirational posters corporate HR people hang up to compensate for the decidedly non-inspiring ubiquitous gray cubicles.

I approached the guy, blurting out, “Do you want a picture taken?” He turned around, studying my mom and me for a moment. “No thank you,” he said, and then followed up, “Do you live around here?” “Just up the hill,” said I.

As if it was the answer he wanted to hear, right on cue, he handed us a flyer, “I’m opening a yoga studio here. You should check it out.” I scanned the yellow flyer in my hand, and thought out loud, “This is really weird. I teach yoga.”

And that’s how I met Glenn Tousignant, who’s opening a new studio in Richmond Beach, a neighborhood in the city of Shoreline, aptly named Richmond Beach Yoga.

My mom taking a picture of the sunset at Richmond Beach Park

This morning I met up with Glenn at the Richmond Beach Park again. We threw a frisbee around and talked about things, mostly yoga and meditation things (shocking, I know). Then after Glenn had had enough of running after my left-handed, embarrassing excuses for frisbee throws, we headed about a mile up the hill, where he showed me the studio space.

I always get a kick out of seeing when things are being built. It’s some sort of egotistical satisfaction of having an insider look at something that’s still coming into existence–unknown to the world–like a reporter getting the first scoop.

I looked at the floor covered in butcher paper and blue painter’s tape, imagining the bamboo hardwood floor underneath. I looked at the ceiling with wires running across, thinking of the decorative light fixtures that will shine down.

Glenn’s business partner is Angeline Johnston, whom I’ve actually met at LakeView Yoga in Bothell, and am happy to find out that she’s currently going through the 500-hour teacher training at Pacific Yoga with Theresa Elliott and Kathryn Payne, where I graduated from.

I have a feeling that these two will put together a great schedule for the Shoreline, North Seattle, and Richmond Beach community. Glenn’s already talking about having daily sits, Restorative Yoga, and he did not kick me out when I mentioned Alignment, so hooray!

“You know what’s crazy, we haven’t even known each other for even 24 hours,” I said to Glenn after he told me about his journey to here, a quaint beach town suburb (he’s from the East Coast, a city boy, etc.). However, he said something that makes me feel confident that Richmond Beach is in good hands.

While we were running around on the buff of the Beach Park, throwing a circular piece of white plastic in the air, talking about yoga styles and all their idiosyncrasy (or syncrazy), Glenn said, “You do yoga to ultimately sit, right. So eventually you just do enough for maintenance [to sit]. Yoga as an addiction is valid.” To that I say, hallelujah, brother.

So, if you live, work, go to school in this part of town, or just passing by, do check out Richmond Beach Yoga when it opens at the end of this month. It’s on 8th NW & Richmond Beach Road, and buses 301, 304, and 348 stop right in front of the parking lot.

I live less than a mile away from the studio, and if Glenn is cool with me not talking about the “English Bulldog determination and Bengal Tiger strength”, but rather stuff like, “Drawing up the inner corner of the outer eyes of the armpit chest”, you might see me show up as a sub from time to time as well.

I’m reminded that just last week, Bizeebee founder Poornima Vijayashanker tweeted about this Wall Street Journal article: Study: Yoga and Pilates Studios Poised for More Growth

If you’re looking to stretch your entrepreneurial muscles, starting up a yoga or Pilates studio may still be a safe bet, despite a profusion of them around the country.

Revenue for this niche is expected to increase over the next five years in the U.S. by an average annual rate of 5.0% to $8.3 billion, according to a report released Tuesday from consumer-research firm IBISWorld.

With that, I wish Glenn, Angeline, and Richmond Beach Yoga lots of success.

Richmond Beach Yoga under construction

Whatever Serves You Right

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I was catching up with my friend Grant, who’s also been coming to my classes at Village Green Yoga in Issaquah for the past year or so. He sheepishly looked at me and said, “I have to confess something. There was a Groupon for one month of hot yoga near my house. It was super cheap, so I bought it.” He looked at my face for a reaction and followed up quickly, “But I’m not gonna continue. It’s like an accident waiting to happen in there.”

I laughed, “My god, I thought you hurt a small cuddly animal or something.” I had been pretty vocal about hot yoga, so I think I know why Grant felt like he had to “confess” to me.

But, and this is a big but (now that I’ve made a big butt of myself for hot yoga fans out there), I also believe that there’s a time and place for everything. I told Grant, “Hey, as long as you’re getting something good out of it, then the yoga has done its job.”

I remember a homework from my 200-hr teacher training, where we were asked to think about what we want or expect from yoga, and then reflect on whether our current practice supported that. We don’t all want the same things in life, so it certainly follows that we don’t all want the same from the practice of our own choosing.

Often times, we have no idea why people do what they do. Let’s say you’ve been wanting to work out before work for as long as you can remember, but have never had the discipline, will power, or sleeping habits to do so. If there’s a yoga studio nearby offering classes at 5am. Well, regardless of your style preference, it may be that you sign up to have someone hold you accountable so you can create that habit.

Yoga classes serve different purposes for different people. Maybe someone is in hot yoga because it is just so friggin’ cold and miserable in Seattle right now. Or, maybe someone just really needs some structure and something predictable in their life, and the format gives them that. And of course there’s also the obvious reason that they just really love the style, the school, the teacher, the studio, the community, etc.

I am reminded of a post I wrote almost two years ago titled “Do What Feeds You“, where Stacy Lawson, the owner of Red Square Yoga, told me “I gotta do what feeds me, not what eats me up.” As long as we understand the pros and cons of whatever we’re doing, and we choose our actions deliberately, that is all we can do.

The Value of Yoga and What We Are Willing to Pay For

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The week before last week, something came through my inbox that made me cringe for about 10 seconds. It was a deal from LivingSocial, the wildly popular site where you can get one wickedly awesome deal daily. The deal was for 20 sessions of Bikram yoga for $20 at a Bikram Yoga studio in Shoreline, a couple blocks away from where I live.

The Value of (Almost) Free Yoga

Something about this made me feel uncomfortable. Though I don’t know all the reasons that the feelings and sensations came up that way, I do know that I’ve been struggling with the issue of the value, or the perception of value, of yoga for a while. In my 500-hour teacher training, we had a session on the Business of Yoga where we talked extensively about the pros and cons of offering free yoga classes. One thing I walked away with was, there are different types of “free” yoga, and before jumping in and offering any kind of discount, we as yoga teachers need to be clear on what we are giving and receiving.

I know that we all value things differently, and how people spend their money is none of my business. I admit, though, that I’ve always find it funny that someone would say they can’t afford to pay for yoga, and yet would be happy to spend money on a frappuccino in the morning, another in the afternoon, and then a cocktail or two after work. And then you’d hear about them spending loads of money on diet pills and detox powder. It’s funny how our minds work in relation to things we deem as worthy of our hard-earned money.

In any case, I let that uncomfortable feeling go. You just cannot investigate every single feeling of unease in the world indiscriminately, and I felt like this was one battle I didn’t need to pick and get worked up over.

The Value of Public Transportation

A few days later, I misplaced my Orca card, which is a public transportation pass for buses and trains around the Puget Sound. I was really bummed that I didn’t get to use it when I needed it, and even more bummed that I had to now pay extra for the bus. For the first few times, I would try to plead with the bus driver to let me ride for free, since technically I already paid with my card, I just didn’t have it with me.

Then, it occurred to me that I was a hypocrite.

If you live in this area, you *know* that the traffic we have is atrocious. I myself take the bus partly out of what I call the Green Guilt, and party to preserve my stress and blood pressure level. It is an understatement to say that we *all* hate traffic and would love to do away with it all. And yet, we are not always willing to walk the talk and help make it better.

As a region, we debate about money to death and some of us get very upset about paying more taxes to fund better public transportation options. As a proponent of public transportation I will readily admit that I choose to drive to certain places because our bus system simply does not meet my needs. You would think that I would be willing to pay more to change that. But no, I was haggling with bus drivers over the fact that I didn’t want to pay an extra two dollars and fifty cents, and then I would get off the bus and pay the same amount for a tea bag that’s been marked up a gazillion percent.

I thought about how silly I was, that on the one hand, I want people to see that value of yoga classes, that what you pay is what you get, and on the other hand, I was being so petty about putting more money in a system that I use everyday. This thought made me laugh at myself while sitting on the bus one afternoon.

The Value of Accessibility

This whole analogy may not be the best one out there. I may have drawn some parallels that may be more like crooked lines at best. I know there’s a whole complicated issue of government subsidy and taxes, etc. It doesn’t matter. My point here is, I’m starting to see that yoga, like everything else, has a perceived value in people’s mind, and I would not do myself, my students, and my colleagues, any service by doing things that would devalue it.

My friend David Tolmie (hi Dave!) said that public transportation should be accessible to all, as should yoga, and I tend to agree. So the question is, how do we make it so that something is accessible, and yet still valuable? There has to be an equal exchange of energy. I am willing to pay a lot of money, over and over again, for yoga training, and I know many other teachers do too. How do we turn around and charge $12, $15, $18 for a class of yoga when someone else is willing to charge $1? What do you think?

I should also mention that as soon as I came to my mini epiphany mentioned above, I was happy to pay for the bus, and even extra when I didn’t have exact change. This past weekend, I found my Orca card. :)

Cat money

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall – Using Mirrors in Yoga

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Lately, I’ve been out and about with the Christmas and New Years Festivities, catching up with friends, reflecting on the old days, planning, hoping, dreaming for the days ahead.

One thing that would undoubtedly come up in the conversation is yoga. “How’s yoga going?”, is a popular question. “Do you teach hot yoga?”, is another popular question. When I emphatically answer no, I would almost always get the follow up question, “What do you think about it?”. Those who’ve heard my stance on hot yoga would even introduce me to a friend, “Meet Lisa, she does a lot of hot yoga.”, “Meet Nikki, she hates hot yoga.”

Um… nice to meet you? (There’s no better way to start a relationship on the right foot than for someone to be told that you “hate” what they spend a lot of time doing.)

Last night at a New Year’s Eve party, I found myself in a conversation with a friend’s fiancée and another friend’s girlfriend about hot yoga, and specifically the use of mirrors. Talking to a friend’s Significant Other whom you do not know very well is actually not that different from being on a first date. You don’t want to talk about anything too confrontational unless you want to make the conversation really short and create some bad blood.

Clearly, I did not observe this rule. Lucky for me, they offered me different perspectives but were also open-minded and nice enough to hear me out on mine, because they both did Tae Kwon Do and could have easily taken me out, and no amount of advanced Pranayama training could have saved me. :)

(As a note of clarity I’m using Hot Yoga and Bikram Yoga interchangeably but always referring to the Bikram style hot yoga where the mirror is in the front of the class.)

A Mirror is A Pneumatic Tool

I’ll start by regurgitating something of a mantra at Taj Yoga, where I study with teacher Theresa Elliott and teach intro to yoga. From the About Us page of the Taj Yoga site:

“Yoga is a pneumatic tool”, states yoga master BKS Iyengar. “It can be used for good, it can be used to harm.” The benefits of yoga for people of all walks of life are innumerable. However, as yoga has proliferated, yoga-related injuries have risen at an alarming rate.

And mister Iyengar said in his book, Light on Yoga:

“Pneumatic tools can cut through the hardest rock. In Pranayama the yogi uses his lungs as pneumatic tools. If they are not used properly, they destroy both the tool and the person using it.”

A mirror is such a pneumatic tool.

The Eye of the Beholder

“What’s wrong with mirrors?”, my new girl friends asked quizzically. It is not that there’s anything “wrong” with mirrors. From my experience, here’s what I’ve seen with mirrors (cheap jokes are the only kinds I’ve got :) ):

A mirror can be used to adjust for alignment. This is a Good Thing for practicing yoga asana. The mirror is a powerful tool to give us feedback on our postures. However, we can very easily slip into self-criticism mode and use the mirror to find flaws, real or imagined ones. In an image-driven and competitive world like ours, it’s a lucky person who has managed to avoid any and all insecurity stemmed from messages of popular culture.

If we were to use the mirror for alignment, that would assume that we know what to check for, which a long-time practitioner would be qualified to do. However, a person brand spankin’ new to yoga does not have the luxury of knowing where the arms and legs go. In this case, the only thing they can do is to imitate others in class and do things that may or may not be appropriate for their body at that specific time.

In addition, experienced practitioners over time will cultivate a certain sense of proprioception and bodysense so that their practice brings them *in* their bodies, and the need to continuously stare in a mirror for the whole duration of the practice would diminish, similar to dancing. A dancer may practice in front of a mirror, but does not need, or use one when the piece is learned.

Naked as We Come – On Self Acceptance

In a hot yoga class, most people are not wearing very much clothes (and the guys are going, woohoo!). You could say that this is the first step towards self acceptance, to see ourselves as exactly who we are without any covering (this is what practitioners of Naked Yoga are motivated by). I am totally open to the possibility that someone somewhere out there is so rock solidly sure of themselves that they could stare at themselves for 90 minutes in the mirror in their bikinis, embracing every inch of their body and all their imperfections.

It is also just as likely that seeing their own body, and then other, perhaps skinnier, younger, more limber bodies in that same mirror will push someone to an even less healthy relationship with themselves. I’ve lost count of the amount of times in a Bikram yoga class that I sized up the class to see who was better or worse than me. I could not wait until my favorite poses were called, so I could show everyone how “good” I was. Of course, I may have looked impressive, but I was merely creating potential injuries in the weak parts of my body.

I can’t remember during the times I did hot yoga (and it was a loong time) if I ever came to any kind of self-acceptance and peace of mind, but I definitely did have more of an urge to be the best, rather than becoming one with anything or anybody.

The Softer Side of Sears… I Mean, Mirrors

Having said all that, I will point out that I’m only speaking from my own personal experience, and my opinion is inevitably flawed and skewed and biased. I will stress this again and again and again. I believe that there’s always a time and a place for everything in life. There is not one prescription, no matter how potent.

Mirrors are just mirrors, it is what we choose to see that can serve us or harm us. They can be an awesome tool for alignment work. But to see, to really see into ourselves, like, in the Avatar movie sense of *see*, to me, they have every bit of potential to hinder as much as they help.

In the spirit of the New Year, here’s to more “I See You”, Avatar style. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a greeting that acknowledges more than just our face and outer appearance. It’s a greeting to something bigger and deeper inside, perhaps not unlike Namaste.

funny-pictures-cat-sees-himself-in-mirror

Announcing the First Ever Sit-off, a Meditation Competition

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Gentle blog readers of Yoga with Nikki Chau, can you hear it? The grumbling, the rumbling, the bottled-up shakti shakin’, the face-off of the century (so far) in the yoga world: is yoga a sport? Can it be competed? Can it be in the Summer Olympics? Hell, why not in the Winter Olympics too?

In the left corner, we have those who just might pass out from the kumbhaka in their chest, their eyes have found a permanent place in the back of the head, not as a result of an Advanced Variation of Simhasana, but because of the thought that yoga would be portrayed as no more than a parade of limber bodies in speedos vying to have the best assana.

In the right corner, we have those who say, “What’s wrong with competition?” “History is full of competition!” (Never mind that it is also full of misdirected ego.) “Competition is healthy!” “It exposes people to yoga!” (Possible exposures may include “balls like atom bombs, two of them, 100 megatons each.“)

Gloves up, ladies and gentlemen.

Now, it is a perfectly legitimate thing to ask, “WHO.CARES?” Do we not have bigger matsyasana to fry, like, oh, unemployment, war, famine, poverty, clean water, people going rogue, dirty dishes in the sink, laundry, just to name a few? Why, yes! We do! But considering that here in America we seem to have an affinity towards First World Problems, like The First Lady’s sleeveless arms and whether or not The President should swat a fly. Anything and everything can stir up “intense national debates” (also known as Controversy Sells), and yoga is certainly not exempt.

To debate the merits, or lack thereof, of yoga competitions, we would need all night and a couple bottles of wine, and we’re not here to do that. (But in the spirit of Live and Let Live, let’s raise a glass to everyone.)

We are here, however, to sit. It is kind of the point, isn’t it? And if yoga can be competed, it follows that meditation can be too. So, without further ado, I hereby announce The First Ever Sit-Off. I say first ever because I’m unaware of any such event, outside of Tricycle Magazine’s Commit to Sit challenge. And everyone knows a challenge does not expose people to meditation, it doesn’t lead to “inspiring millions of youngsters who wouldn’t otherwise cross this otherwise esoteric, difficult path.”

The Rules of the Sit-Off

What. The Sit-Off is a competition to see who can meditate the best! Judging will be based on:

  • How long you can sit without scratching your nose, as PETA unleashes hordes of deadly flies in the room
  • How long you can go without thinking about checking your Facebook or Twitter
  • How many times you label random thoughts that has nothing to do with what you’re doing right now, like, “Twilight is totally playing off a girl’s fantasy of having two hot and handsome yet gentle and sensitive men fighting over her.”
  • How long you can practice loving-kindness while playing Cotton Eyed Joe on repeat, and repeat, and repeat…

When. 28 days from today, Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 to Monday December 21, 2009. Why? Because I recently turned 28, and conveniently enough, Tricycle’s Commit to Sit is also 28 days. And it seems like Hollywood likes the number 28, so after the commercial success of Enlighten Up, maybe someone will do a documentary on the Sit-off. Hey, you can be a Meditation star! Plus, I like palindromes like 12/21.

Who. Do you want an excuse for sitting around and doing nothing? Do you want to tell relatives at Thanksgiving dinner that you’re training for a competition? “Have you ever wondered if there was more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?” If so, comment and say, “I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is.”

Why. So we can bring meditation to the masses, of course! And it takes a competition, people!

Prize. Soon, Meditation will be an Olympics sport, and you will have had your training during this Sit-Off, (and many others to come as this catches on) and you’ll win Olympics Medals! (You’re welcome).

Now, this'll be a straight sit-off, old school rules. First model sits; second model duplicates, then elaborates. Okay, boys - let's go to work!

Now, this'll be a straight sit-off, old school rules. First model sits; second model duplicates, then elaborates. Okay, boys - let's go to work!

Seattle Yoga News – Breathe Hot Yoga Slated to Open in South Lake Union

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A couple weeks ago, I joked that “it’s gettin’ hot in hurr” when I wrote about Be Luminous, a new yoga studio opening in the Whole Foods complex in Denny Triangle in downtown Seattle. Little did I know how heated it really was going to be.

This afternoon I was talking to my friend Eric over at The Puget News and got the scoop that yet another yoga studio will be opening a mere block away from Be Luminous, called Breathe Hot Yoga. One would assume that the studios will not step on each other’s toes *too* much, since one’s Baptiste, and the other is Bikram. However, Urban Yoga Spa down the street and all their clinical white walls will be losing the monopoly on the downtown Seattle yoga scene. (Okay, those of you rolling your eyes, stop before you lose them in the back of your head :) )

It was interesting for me to find out that one of the brainchildren behind Breathe Hot Yoga turns out to be Ross Yearsley, who, before he was a software engineer, danced as a principal dancer with Pacific Northwest Ballet. He also graduated one year before me from the same program at the UW Information School. And at one point a couple years back, we both had our hands in then Seattle startup Blue Dot, which is now Faves.

Anyhow, the plot thickens as I learned that Breathe Hot Yoga plans to use only half the space for hot yoga, and the other half for functional training and other movement classes. Perhaps something like, yoga for newbies, or yoga techniques? Stay tuned, downtown Seattle. In the meantime, whether you’re getting your Chaturanga pants or English bulldog determination ready, remember Bikram Choudhury’s words of wisdom: ”Don’t throw up on the carpet, it’s new.”

Yoga studios in downtown Seattle

Yoga studios in downtown Seattle

10 Things Your Yoga Instructor *Will* Tell You, Part I

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I recently read an article titled 10 Things Your Yoga Instructor Won’t Tell You from Smart Money Mag, and naturally have a thing or two to say. (Let’s forget for a moment the blind cowboy “buy now” advice, and that not everyone heeds their words, but I digress big time.)

(Caution, long post ahead, brew some tea :) )

Long road ahead

Long road ahead

1. “I just started doing yoga myself!”

The problem is that there’s no real standard for how much teacher training is required of instructors, so almost anyone can lead a yoga class. Yes, there are plenty of certification programs around, but they run the gamut from thorough training—like that offered at the Advanced Studies Program at the Yoga Room in Berkeley, Calif., which requires 500 hours of classwork covering such subjects as philosophy and anatomy—to mere weekend workshops.

How, then, to avoid un- or underqualified instructors? Check with the Yoga Alliance, a national education and support organization. Although joining the group is voluntary and many perfectly good teachers haven’t signed up for its instructor registry, you can check to see if yours has at least attended a YA-approved program, which must require a minimum of 200 hours of teacher training

First off, Hallelujah! Since yoga is “so hot right now”, more and more of us are foraying into teaching. It’s right on the money (har) to call out the lack of standard in yoga teacher training, which then leads to a wide array of qualified teacher. Let me be super clear that I’m totally onboard with the Twainian philosophy of not letting schooling interfere with education. Could a teacher *with* a certificate lead someone to harm? Yup! Could a teacher *without* a certificate offer a great yoga class? Absolutely. The issue of certification and experience versus education is complex and deserves its own post, or even book, so I won’t go into it here.

I want to focus on the fact that since there are no “real” standards, and the implications for yoga teachers and students.

1) If you are contemplating becoming a yoga teacher, do a lot of research on training programs since they are not created equal. It may be more expensive, it may take more time, but because we are working with people’s emotional, mental, and physical states, in my humble opinion, it is more than worth it. In fact, if teaching yoga turns out to be your calling, I bet that you will end up doing many, many trainings for the rest of your life. (You can read up on my experience of finding a quality yoga teacher training program)

2) If you are a yoga student, just like you would check out your car mechanic, realtor, physical therapist, it follows that you’d want to check out your yoga teacher as well. As Smart Money mentioned, you can check out if your teacher received any certification by *either* checking out if they are listed in the Yoga Alliance registry *or* if the school they graduated from is registered as a certified teaching program.

The minimum is a 200-hour (pdf) level standard set by the Yoga Alliance, and subsequently a 500-hour (pdf) level. In some styles of yoga, you merely need to go to a weekend training or a boot camp. In contrast, in traditions like Iyengar or Anusara, there is a different certification process, which require the teacher many years of studying, practicing *and* teaching in the classroom. (The issue of why some teachers don’t register with the Yoga Alliance is political and financial-based, but here’s more on choosing a yoga teacher.)

As a side note, Donald Moyer, the Founding Director of the Yoga Room mentioned above will be in Seattle at Two Dog Yoga in two weeks! I’ll be there, and say hi if you see me!

2. “Sure, we have mats you can borrow—how about a case of athlete’s foot, too?”

Though some facilities do try to wash or disinfect their mats regularly, most don’t get sprayed on both sides… With 30 people sweating for 90 minutes, the room’s a petri dish. Our advice: Spend the $20 on your own mat—or go without.

If you get your own mat, and if turns out to cost more than $20, it might be worth it. “It’s just a mat, what’s the big deal?” You might say. I spend a lot of time on yoga mats, and mats to me is like Bentleys to Bikram Choudhury, so I’ve sampled quite a few of them. I will say that from a safety and injury standpoint (not brand name, status symbol, aesthetic, etc.), be sure to look for a mat that’s sticky enough, and has enough padding, especially if you just started out. Slipping and sliding on your mat distracts you from learning other things.

Okay, I don’t normally endorse anything, but I’m going to break my rule slightly here. Um… okay, maybe not publicly. Email me, and I’ll tell you the pros and cons of the mats I’ve tried, and my favorite (which may or may not be yours).

3. “You’re not ready for this class . . .”

Yoga classes tend to be rated by level of expertise—typically beginner, intermediate, and advanced. But if you say you’re ready for an advanced class, chances are no one at the sign-in desk will question you. It’s not a bad idea to call the studio ahead of time and ask them which class is most appropriate. And be honest about your abilities. After all, you won’t learn much if you’re in over your head and become too discouraged to continue.

Once during a training, Judith Lasater asked, “Do you guys want to know a secret to getting your students to try something?” Our ears perked up with anticipation, as she mischievously smiled, “Tell them this is the advanced version.” We broke out in chuckles, realizing a certain truth in her joke.

For a very long time, I had it in my head that I was much more “advanced” than I really was. I came to a level 2-3 Iyengar intensive thinking I was more 3 than 2, and after one month, realized that I was more like 0. I wasn’t necessarily overconfident or full of myself. I had made the classic mistake of equating time = experience. I had spent soo much time doing yoga, what reason was there to think that I was a beginner? The thing is, I was in classes where there was little time alloted for instruction and correction. I was mostly going from one pose to the next, without really thinking about where I was going.

I believe this stems from our desire to get a “good workout” from yoga, to burn calories and to sweat. This too, deserves its own post, so I’ll direct you to something I wrote about the Yoga Teacher Dilemma, and leave this topic at that for now.

4. “. . . and you could really hurt yourself.”

Some yoga poses are universally acknowledged to be risky—in particular, inversions such as shoulder stands and headstands. Since they cause blood to rush to the head and can raise blood pressure, these poses are potentially dangerous for anyone being treated for glaucoma or chronic headaches, or anyone who’s recently had a stroke; they’re also not recommended for anyone who’s more than 30 pounds overweight, since they compress the vertebrae in the neck. Good yoga instructors will caution a class before going into inversions and will keep a careful eye out for anyone doing the pose improperly.

Ah, yes, my favorite: pain and injuries. If your yoga teacher won’t say it, I will, loud and clear, “Yoga doesn’t have to hurt. But it can, has, does, and will.” If we can hurt ourselves getting out of bed, picking up a kitten, then we can certainly hurt ourselves in yoga. No one is immune to pain, and no activity is exempt as a source of pain.

And yet, and yet, I’ve seen teachers too zealous and hasty with putting students in poses like headstand and handstand. I remember a time when I went through rounds and rounds of chaturanga with elbows wide as Shaquille O’Neal’s coat hanger, inflaming my wrist and shoulders. I can’t recount how many times I was told to “push and push and push” in a camel pose when all I was doing was dumping in my lumbar and sacroiliac.

I’m pretty sure people have hurt themselves or gotten hurt in a yoga class for a long time, but this is becoming more and more at the forefront of our collective consciousness, notably with the most recent lawsuit against Richard Freeman’s studio in Boulder. As students, there is no surefire guarantee to safeguard ourselves against any kind of pain. The teacher may be top-notch in the field, we can take every pre-caution possible, and one day, some mysterious pain will still show up. It is part of having a human body that’s subject to breakdown and eventual disintegration.

Knowing this, the awareness of pain is perhaps our most trusted ally. Being aware of our body’s susceptibility to injuries and the inevitable pain that comes keeps us vigilant. When I climb on a rock wall, being off the ground constantly reminds me that I can fall. That acknowledgement doesn’t stop me from falling, but it reduces the chances of me seriously injuring myself.

This could hurt you more than it hurts me

This could hurt you more than it hurts me

To be continued, with other riveting things your yoga instructor will or won’t tell you :)

Seattle Yoga News – Theft at Seattle Hot Yoga Studios

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Seattle is getting colder, gloomier by the hour, and the rain has come back to resume its throne. In addition to pumpkin-spiced lattes by the fire and hibernating, a warm or even hot yoga studio sounds incredibly enticing to a lot of us, like a cat being drawn to a pile of warm laundry.

It’s perhaps recognizing this trend that a couple thieves are making their rounds to Seattle hot yoga studios, where people trustingly leave their personal belongings out in the open. I’ve been told that the guy (and it’s been males so far) would complain of dizziness and not feeling well, totally common in hot yoga, and leave the room.

Once outside, while the unsuspecting students are working on their Japanese ham sandwich or English bulldog determination, the thief is free to roam through unattended purses and wallets in the lobby or changing rooms.

The silver lining in this is a lot of studio owners are calling and alerting each other, and descriptions of the thieves are being shared, so I believe studios are taking measures to prevent any further incidents. Forewarned is forearmed, and consider yourself forewarned if your belongings are out of sight at your yoga studio, hot or not.

We are all one does not mean my dinner, or bank account, is yours for the taking

We are all one does not mean my dinner, or bank account, is yours for the taking

The Pitfalls of a Health and Spiritual Quest

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There are some things you can’t avoid, no matter how hard you try, like the alarm going off on Monday mornings, the saga of Jon and Kate plus 8, and the James Arthur Ray’s sweat lodge incident. I so very much actively ignored it, but it confronted me, so here are some of my thoughts and reflections on it.

This past Saturday, I taught my Yoga for Newbies class in the morning, spent the afternoon in Jean Massimo’s Deepening Anusara Knowledge workshop, and then another good 3 hours getting mentored in the art of teaching. By the time I came back to my boyfriend’s place, I fell down on the couch like a sack of potatoes and had just enough energy left to say “Feed me”.

The TV was on, and I was in that state where you could stare at whatever moving image and it wouldn’t matter. My boyfriend was doing that stereotypical boy thing of channel surfing every other minute, UW Huskies game, commercial, flip, baseball, flip, news, flip. He stopped at some special report on That Sweat Lodge Story. Some news crew went in the sweat lodge and tried to see what it’s like. “That must be like the yoga class you took me to!”, my boyfriend said.

Yes, it’s true, to my chagrin, I not only did Bikram yoga for some time, but I also recruited my friends and family along once or twice. For me, it was such a good thing at the time, so surely, it would be nothing short of amazing for them too. Looking back, I cringe just remembering what they were going through. My boyfriend was so miserable mopping up his sweat everywhere, and his lower back hurt for weeks afterwards. My brother was just lying on the mat, short of breath and suffering because he couldn’t leave the room. I don’t think he’s forgiven me since.

I don’t necessarily want to talk about my mistakes in yoga and in life in this post, however. There isn’t enough time or space for that. I also don’t intend to bad-mouth hot or Bikram yoga, though I will say that most of the personal accounts here come from those classes. These stories are mentioned because they are relevant and anecdotal to illustrate my point.

What I *do* want to talk about is the psychology of how presumably intelligent, spiritual-seeking, healthy-lifestyle oriented people could get ourselves in destructive and deathly situations.

A disclaimer first: I don’t know all the fine details of what happened in the sweat lodge. I have tried to stay away from the mainstream media “analysis” as much as possible, and I am not claiming to know what happened in this particular situation. I’ve never read or seen The Secret. Until a couple days ago Arthur James Ray’s existence was completely unknown to me. I further don’t know anything about the use of a sweat lodge in Native American culture, and I’m not writing about any aspect of that in any shape or form.

Phew. Okay, got that out of the way :)

The Mental Training Allure

So there I was, watching this reporter checking out life in the sweatlodge, thinking to myself, *how* did this happen? Why would someone put themselves in that situation? It’s really easy for us to think of those people in the sweat lodge as gullible and dismiss their action as stupid or dumb. I can even imagine someone somewhere out there saying, “I would never do that, and they got what they deserved”.

And yet, it was so eerie for me to think back of all the times when I was exhausted, dehydrated, lying on the floor gasping for air in a 105 degree room with 10, 20, 30 other people in a hot yoga class, either because I wasn’t allowed to leave, or because I was “strongly encouraged” to stay. I remember being told something along the line of “training yourself to stay tough mentally”.

Well, who wouldn’t want to be stronger mentally, physically, spiritually (whatever that means)? To achieve this, we put ourselves in the hands of these “professionals” or “gurus” who promise a better version of ourselves, and we are willing to do whatever it takes. We so badly want it to work, and sometimes our desire is so strong that it overrides our built-in internal “oh shit” alarm. In a high temperature with so much adrenaline going, we can no longer differentiate between “Ok team, let’s suck it up!” and “Danger danger! Eject eject!”.

The Need to Prove Oneself, and the Need for Approval

Of all the times that I wanted to puke or pass out in my Bikram yoga classes, I could have very well got up and left. Yes, the room may have been locked. Yes, the teacher wanted me to stay on my mat. But if I really wanted to, I could have made a big scene, and I’m sure I could have left on my own free will. And yet, I stayed. Why?

Some part of me probably thought it was good for me, but more than that, I wanted to prove something, to myself and to others, that I can do it. I didn’t want to look like a wuss, that “I couldn’t handle it”. (I’m willing to bet this is how a lot of guys who come with their wives or girlfriends feel as well, but it’s also well known that men and women have different levels of heat tolerance). I wanted to gain the respect of the other students in class and the approval of the instructors. And you know what? I *paid* for this, I’m not leaving!

Come to think about it, it wasn’t really about the determination to do something, it was more about the determination to show something. Furthermore, the heat was cranked up so high that my ability to receive strong and true feedback from the body and mind was gone. I remember distinctly one particular Hot and Power studio so scorching hot that even the floor burnt to the touch and desensitized all feelings in my skin. Psychologically, I could have said yes to anything, and I trusted that I was in the hands of people who knew what they were doing.

The Misguided Notion of  ”Tough Love”

No matter how crazy our world may seem, a big part of me believes in the inherent goodness of the humankind, and in my hot yoga classes, I believe that my teachers were trying to use their power for good, not evil. I believe that they earnestly believed they’re doing the right thing, that they’re helping others achieve better health and happiness. I’m willing to bet that they were not standing there thinking, “Haha, I can’t believe all these suckers paid me to sweat in misery.” (Well, you *never* know, but the chances are low).

So, in the same vein of how I convinced my brother and boyfriend to try hot yoga, there are teachers out there with a strong conviction of the benefits of being in such an environment. “It is soooo good for you”, they’d say. It detoxes (nevermind the how and what), it cleanses, it makes you tough and disciplined, it cures all that ails you, that’s a small price to pay for spending 90 minutes sweating profusely. Besides, you’ll get used to it.

And lucky for me, I did get used to the heat, but just because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should do it. There are many others whose heat tolerance and health conditions are just not compatible with such intensity, and if they have the need to prove that they could, and if someone, especially some “expert” to whom they paid a lot of money, says they should, well… we’re gathering ingredients for a potential disaster.

Who to Blame?

We live in a litigious society, and I’m pretty sure a lot of the lawyers and private investigators out there are rolling up their sleeves ready for some action in the Blame Game. All sides will have their story to tell.

The truth is, in order to grow, in order to change, it’s commonly accepted that sometimes we need to employ some very strong measures. It’s the Chinese medicine strategy: bitter drugs are good for you. We all need a certain amount of tough love to discipline us, to whip us in shape, and it’s hard and uncomfortable. I have no doubt that many have benefited from the sweat lodges and hot yoga.

And yet, all medicine will kill at a certain dosage. One man’s cure may very well be another’s poison. So, how do we know which is which?Who can we trust to guide us?

I don’t know the answer. I’m still trying to figure that out, along with many other life’s questions. All I know is, if and when my “oh shit” alarm goes off, my only hope is I will not question it, not for any glory, not for any guru.

Oh noes! Do not want!

Oh noes! Do not want!

Seattle Yoga News – One Less Bikram Studio On the East Side

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I used to work on the Microsoft campus in Issaquah (18.5 miles East of downtown Seattle on I-90), and often made mad dashes to Hot Yoga of Issaquah to do yoga by 5:15pm. I still remember sweating like crazy even *before* I got in the heated room with the summer sun beating down on my car as I tried to get through traffic to make it to class on time.

I’ve since stopped doing Bikram, my project in Issaquah ended, and I haven’t been back to the studio for over a year. During my research on the “State of the Union” of yoga in Seattle, I checked out the web site, and saw some changes on the schedule. Instead of Hot Yoga, there were Hot Hatha Yoga and Hot Freestyle Yoga, and I couldn’t tell if they are fancy alternative names for Bikram yoga, or if they are something different altogether.

Recently I just got a confirmation through the yoga grape vine that the hot yoga classes are, in fact, different. There is no more Hot aka Bikram yoga at Hot Yoga of Issaquah.

(Conspiracy Theory Corner: is there a trend brewing?)