Bikram 2.0

So today I did a practice in my friend's living room.  I had a Bikram Yoga video up with a interactive aspect for all 26 poses.  It was hot in there; my friend didn't have the A/C on and I rode my bike to his house before the session and was already dying from the heat.  It was cool, the video did not speak besides telling you to switch positions.  I enjoyed that because it forced me to try harder to stay focused throughout the whole thing.  I found that, the "warmup'" we did in class was still difficult and that the whole session, felt more like a workout this time as I was putting forth my best effort.  I think that as we learn more about yoga's history in class and the introduction of physical culture, that idea can definitely be found within this practice.  As someone who studies how the body can be pushed and has a foot in the sport of bodybuilding, I can see how this Yoga has connection to the sport by the way my body felt afterwards. My body had a similar feel to that of after a lifting workout.  The idea behind yoga empowering you is interesting.  I think that it does empower you, in the sense that it gives you a better sense of your spatial environment and body control, as well as superior concentration skills and focus.  The practice so far is testing, but then again I've only done this style now. 

Bikram Yoga

Going into Bikram yoga, I didn’t know what to expect as I had never heard of this type of

yoga before. The instructor was 70 years old with 20 years of experience. It was very cool to

see how she stuck with Bikram yoga and was still able to perform all of the poses with ease. The

warm up was difficult for me, I sweat the most during this time. I found that this type of yoga

required a lot of balance to perform the poses. The balance required gave me more perspective

on how to control my body in order to stay balanced and maintain the poses. There was also a

lot of stretching involved. I found that I am a lot more flexible than I thought and I was able to

do all the poses. By testing my flexibility level, I realized that it can only get better and better by

continuing to practice. Normally, if it had been actual hot yoga, I would have been sweating a lot and got tired really fast.  However, the room was a bit toasty, and this helped me get into certain exercises and stretches easier than it would have been in a room temperature studio. The heat helped to relax my muscles, so they functioned better during all the poses. The heat also provided another challenge during the workout and I always am looking to challenge my body and push it to the fullest extent. I think the movements and heat combined helped to relieve the pain that I had been feeling in my lower back for quite some time. I’ve had many past injuries from playing football, which was really hard on my body. More recently, I’ve had a lower back pain that wouldn’t go away no matter what I did to try and remedy it. While practicing Bikram yoga, my back cracked during one of the poses and I felt much better. I continued to stretch this portion of my back throughout the practice and it helped to make it better and today it is like I never had the pain in the first place.