Bikram Yoga 60-Day Challenge

DISCLAIMER: This is a long post. I know it. Settle in, have some tea, put on some nice music, and enjoy.

It has occurred to me that I have not blogged nearly enough about Bikram yoga. This is dubbed "the original hot yoga" and one 90-minute session is comprised of 26 postures and two breathing exercises in a room heated to 105 degrees at 40-60% humidity. It's intense, to say the least. But the results are astonishing.

Not just for losing weight or getting in shape. That's not the half of it. This practice changes your mind, changes your health, changes your life. Not only have I learned about myself, I have begun to change the way I view myself. I would have told you before that I am not a dedicated person, I am not responsible and I don't follow through. I back out or renegotiate when things get hard. But I am reminded that by simply showing up to put myself through a very uncomfortable workout--knowing that it will be uncomfortable, and yet knowing that it is for my health and wellness--I am in fact dedicated, responsible, and tough.

I've learned how my mind reacts to humidity, heat, thirst, pain, distraction, and an increased heart rate. Some days I am in better control of this mind and some days it totally takes over. Yesterday I had what I describe to be a "panic day" where my mind interprets my fast-beating heart as a crisis and makes me stop and pant and focus on the heat and want water every two minutes. Depending on the teacher, the energy in the room, and the energy I bring with me, I can have an amazing class where I focus only on myself, go deeper into the postures, and make exciting improvements. Those days make up for all the panic days, I-ate-too-much days, and I-don't-want-to-be-here days.

I'll get back to the 60-day Challenge part as mentioned in my title. Bikram affirms that I can change my life by taking 60 classes in 60 days. I believe him. When I took my first Bikram class I did so knowing that I would do my own 30-day challenge. I practiced every day for 31 days. The results were huge. I dropped about 6 pounds which doesn't seem like much, but I was toning up at the same time. I was down nearly two pants sizes and feeling really great about the way I looked. I learned to breathe and relaxing and to LET GO. My muscle pain that would come from having played various sports was gone. I knew at the end of my 31 days I could never go without this practice.

I would have done a 60-day challenge right then except I went home to Alaska, which does not have a certified Bikram studio. In the fall, classes interfered with my studio's schedule. After hearing that there would be a studio-wide 60-day challenge starting the new year, I decided to do it. I arranged my class schedule so that I could practice everyday (this means I attend 7:00 am Organic Chemistry so I can practice at 9:00 am).

I am currently on day 18 of said challenge. I have to make up for two days that I skipped while house hunting in Seattle, which means I have two times I must go twice in one day ("do a double"). So far I am a little discouraged because my results have not been as rapid as when I first started. This is expected, however. When I first started, my body rid itself of all its toxins and I improved my postures quickly. It was easy to tell that I was improving, too. I grabbed my foot! I locked my knee! I did all the postures! It is harder to see improvement now that I am far beyond these points.

Additionally, I have learned to do the postures *correctly* which, often, means starting from square one and taking longer to improve. This is not to say I have not improved. The following is a list of postures and my progress with them. Refer here for a picture of each posture.

Pranayama deep breathing: Hard not to think about anything and everything. Some people breathe obnoxiously. I can get my elbows up pretty high.

Half moon pose with hands to feet pose: I struggle with half moon, love the back bend (I can start to see the floor behind me), and can nearly lock out in hands to feet pose.

Awkward: working on getting low enough. Struggling with balancing high on my toes.

Eagle: Having a hard time holding the whole time unless I'm super concentrating. My quads start to shake and I come out. Working on getting feet, knees, ankles, hands all in one line.

Standing head to knee: Can kick out sometimes for a few seconds. Mostly just standing with my leg locked, trying to distribute the weight equally all over my standing foot, while holding my other foot.

Standing bow pulling: My new nemesis. Used to be my favorite until I re-examined my technique. I have to really put a lot of energy into this one, make sure to lock my knee, really stretch my hand up and forward, and keep my chin glued to my shoulder. I can come down so that my chest is parallel to the floor but I must now work on holding it there.

Balancing stick: This really takes all of my bengal tiger strength and bulldog determination. Without it, forget it.

Standing separate leg stretching: My favorite, for the wonderful stretch it provides. Sometimes it irritates and pulls on my left pinky toe's little muscles if I don't massage them beforehand. I can really pull and touch or nearly touch my forehead to the floor on most occasions when I'm really trying. I can keep my knees locked the entire time.

Triangle: Once my ultimate nemesis, now we are better friends. I can do this posture pretty well on my left side but my right side needs work. I am starting to be able to bend that leg to make a 90 degree angle but my hips just don't like it! I don't breathe and my mind easily says "ok that's enough of that" and I quit. But I never skip out and I always set up each side and at least try.

Standing separate leg head to knee: A favorite. I am know focusing on bringing my hands back into prayer, really tucking my chin, and pushing down on my knee. I realized yesterday that this was a posture that I really could work to improve, as it's been stagnant for a while.

Tree stand: focusing more on keeping my standing leg locked. My hips resist any improvement in this one.

Toe stand: coming along. I've really been working on sitting on the ball of my left foot instead of letting it roll out to the side, like it wants. I have great focus in this one and can now often come up exact opposite and even hold my foot at the top until instructed to release.

Savasana: I'm pretty good at savasana although I have to say i get a bit wipey sometimes. I hate when the sweat gets in my ears because it clogs them up like on an airplane and lasts for hours.

Wind removing: I have to work to feel this.

Cobra: I have to work to feel this. I've been having trouble breathing.

Locust: I have to really squeeze my butt to bring my leg up. I have to use tremendous energy to bring both of my legs locked, keep them together, and keep my knees locked.

Full locust: I did great in this one when I came up with my legs a little bit apart and then put them together. Now that I've focused on keeping them together while lifting them, it's much harder. I can't breathe as well, either.

Bow: My In-My-Head posture. I can do great, wondrous, miraculous things in this posture if I so choose. I focus first on feeling it in my back which makes me feel it in my butt; I focus on keeping my legs closer together than is comfortable so that they are nearly 6-inches apart, and lo-and-behold at the end I can lift them up so high that I get giddy. My goal is for praise in that posture, even though that's silly to rely on someone else's action to achieve my own satisfaction.

Fixed firm: I like this one. Working on really feeling it in my spine.

Half-tortoise: I can tell if my shoulder is bothering me in this one. Working on keeping my hips on my heels the entire way down.

Camel: Another favorite. It bothered me for a while when I was starting back up because, though you wouldn't necessarily think it, it takes a great amount of quad strength to do and my quads were running out of energy then. But now that has seemed to pass and I concentrate on really feeling it in my shoulder (an AMAZING stretch for my left pec muscle that is troubling me currently) and in my hip flexors. I tighten my butt and work on looking for my mat.

Rabbit: Most days it's great, some days it causes PANIC!! Working on really feeling it in my spine, and keeping my head tucked so I don't have to move my knees right and left, right and left to my forehead.

Head to knee pose and stretching pose: My current favorite; my focus posture. This is because I have made great progress in it and it's exciting. With one leg out I can always lock my knee and when I choose to have enough energy, I can lift my heel off the ground. I'm starting to do this earlier in the posture to keep it there longer. With two heels together, I can always lock my knees and lift my heels up way off the ground and I can nearly touch my elbows to the ground. My biggest challenge in this one is that if my knuckles rub together at all they will crack and bleed excruciatingly painfully so I have to keep my thumbs wrapped around them which separates my feet slightly more than I would like.

Spine twist: I have good form and can twist farther than ever before. Working on reaching farther to my thigh and getting a better grip on my knee.

Blowing in firm: I can blow pretty hard. ha. I get distracted by other people's breathing, especially when they just blow in and out of their cheeks and they look like fishes or they convulse their whole upper chest and struggle and get off beat.

Final savasana: I drink my water like I haven't had any for years. I need to meditate better and not let my mind wander.



If you're still reading this, I hope you enjoyed an intimate look at my practice. Perhaps my struggles will help you with your practice. You can also read about my fellow yogi, Laura, and her practice here. Thanks for reading and I encourage your comments!


Namaste.

My life as it is, currently.

It's about time I make a few updates.

I've been doing Bikram yoga for 7 months and am currently on day 18 of my 60-day challenge. I will be following this post with a more in-depth post on this matter.

As a New Year's Resolution I am doing a 365 photo challenge--a photo everyday for the entire year. So far I am loving it and I am thankful that I can use my iPhone to both take and upload most of my photos. I am posting these photos through facebook but may consider adding them to flickr, for which I just signed up.

Yesterday marked the first day of my last semester at community college, my sixth year of undergrad. It's going to be a rough one, with Organic Chemistry II causing me a lot of strife. Physics II will be challenging but I love my teacher and I have a great friend in that class. I am auditing Fundamental Biochemistry to get an introduction to what I assume to be very challenging material. That class begins this afternoon.

Nick and I are planning our move to Seattle this June, and we are hoping that the stars will align, enabling us to live in a wonderful house. More on this will come later when we know for sure what will happen. See more on our family blog.

I am starting to get back in to triathlon training. I haven't touched my bike since this summer. I waited for the weather to get cool enough to not melt and have been busy since. It is also inconvenient that Arizona is such a dodgy place that I must drive to what I feel is a safe location to bike. My cyclist friend said that a few months ago while biking he got a full beer can thrown at his head by a passing vehicle. That is not okay with me. I am planning on purchasing an indoor trainer that will allow me to bike everyday without sacrificing an hour to drive to and from safer roads.

That's about it for now. Have a beautiful day!

Old Year, New Year

Though I had been meaning to post more frequently while up here in AK but time has just slipped by. Which is strange to say, as I have continued to be relatively inactive here. It has been relaxing, yes, but I had many things on my checklist to do here that didn't get done. I had wanted to go sledding from day one and not until two days ago were sleds purchased (to be fair, the whole town was pretty much out of sleds). We were going to sled yesterday, but it rained. Ick. I had also wanted to go to Alyeska, since I haven't snowboarded in at least two years. I had wanted to go cross-country skiing, and rock climbing, and workout every day. Instead, we let the dark Alaskan winter mornings lure us to stay in our warm beds until past 9:30 and then we would watch episodes of ER for at least two more hours before considering getting up, which narrowed the active hours of the day significantly.

That's not to say I didn't do things. I got to have lunch with my wonderful long-time friend, Kim Morris, at Organic Oasis. We walked her dogs on the lake to my house and chatted about her iPad, medicine and hard-knock life in Arizona. We went Christmas shopping at REI where we scored big for loved ones. We got to see the lunar eclipse. We went to the museum and enjoyed the Andy Warhol exhibit and the new Imaginarium. I started my triathlon training at the Alaska Club. We had dinner and played dominoes with Laura and Elliot and I got to take photos of them another day. Nick and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary at the same amazing bed and breakfast where we spent our wedding night.

So it's not as if we just sat around the ENTIRE two weeks we were here. But there was a lot of lounging, especially after Christmas, and apparently I get a little stir-crazy.

New Years Eve was... well, not perfect, but it turned out pretty great. Traditionally, Nick and I join friends for a night of games and drinks but this year everyone seemed to have other plans--except for us. So we decided to go to the Indigo Girls concert at Bear Tooth. I knew they were an old group, and that the only song I owned was because Jim and Andy sang it on The Office, but Nick didn't know this. We also didn't anticipate that there wouldn't be any seating for the four hour show. So, surrounded by 40- and 50-somethings, we decided to ditch it and forfeit our $50 tickets. We spent the rest of the night at my parents' house playing a dice game called Farkle. We almost missed midnight, jumping in at the 5-second countdown. We watched the fireworks go off all over Anchorage from my living room window. It was a wonderful way to start the New Year.

In honor of this past year, here is my year in review:

January: Began 2010 in Las Vegas as newlyweds on our honeymoon. Started my second semester of prerequisite courses at Paradise Valley Community College (A&P II, Microbiology, and Chemistry I)

February: Signed up for my first 5K and started running with intention.

March: Went on "second honeymoon" cruise to Mexico. Tried veganism for a week, then two, then a month...

April: Returned to Minnesota to visit friends

May: Moved to the Glendale apartment, was visited by Laura, and discovered Bikram Yoga

June: Took Chemistry II in 8 weeks. Completed 31 continuous days of Bikram Yoga and fell in love. Also, after reading Eating Animals, decided that veganism was the right thing to do for my body, the environment, and the animals.

July: Spent several weeks in Alaska, photographed my first wedding!

August: Began my second year of prerequisites (Organic Chemistry I, Physics I)

September: Bought my road bike to train for triathlons (have since been too hot or too afraid of Arizona people who apparently will throw things like beer cans at your head). Applied to Bastyr University.

October: Got an interview for Bastyr University. Turned 24!

November: Interviewed at Bastyr and got accepted! Spent Thanksgiving in Oklahoma

December: First wedding anniversary, and all the aforementioned events :)

Best wishes for you, your loved ones, and the earth in 2011.