You know you’re a true bikram yogini when: (Including tips for new people)

·    Your car smells like the local indoor netball courts (good excuse on the nights you don’t want to be designated driver)

·    All your conversations somehow end up being about bikram yoga and the millions and trillions of benefits that come from it; therefore you try and force EVERYONE you know to do it because You BELIEVE Bikram Yoga is the answer to any mental and physical problem.

·    Your significant other thinks you love yoga more than them and as a result is totally convinced that your into some freaky cult shit, that is until you finally drag them along because you love them so much  you cant wait to see their face after their first backbend

·     You develop habits. A hint to those just starting out, whatever you do, don’t EVER mess with the regulars. You can tell these people by their rituals and routine. They arrive extra early to ensure their “spot” in the room and get protective of it. You’ll notice if you’re in their spot because they will sit there and look at you till you move or place their mat so close to yours you end up moving due to discomfort of their body so close to yours. Tip: the spot slightly to the left of the stage that gets a perfect balance of the fresh flow of air that comes from both the front and back door… yeah don’t go there or come prepared to fight. Similar to this, never place your mat directly in front of someone, especially if they got there before you. They will Lose…their…shit…

·    You’re no longer bothered by people being so close to you.  Basically it is almost certain you will be all up and close with complete random people. Like, in ways that, if you got that close to a stranger outside the yoga room you would start throwing punches.

·     Sweat no longer bothers you. It’s smelly and it’s everywhere even in the most inconvenient places like our eyes and nose. For example when you take that big step in triangle and your foot lands perfectly in the middle of the huge sweat patch left by the person next to you and the only thing bothering you is how you’d rather not bounce 2 or 3 times to get deeper in the posture.. Yep that’s how you know. Tip: During class sweat presents itself in abundance, if you try and wipe it, yes it comes back. It may come as a surprise to some that the sweat will not stay neatly within the rectangle that is your own mat and towel.

·    You treat the random strands of hair on your body like they actually came from your body. When you finally make it down to your mat after a standing series you notice not one, but two hairs stuck to your arm, stomach and/or chest and your pretty sure that those brown hairs didn’t come from your blonde hair however you leave them there like you grew them yourself because your not going to give up precious savasna time.

·    You don’t care at all that your basically one item of clothing away from being naked in a room full of strangers. Infact you wouldn’t have it any other way. Tip: it gets to the point that when you bump into other yogis outside the yoga room you don’t recognize them because they are wearing clothing.

·     Outside the yoga room you see someone bend down over and your immediate response is  “move your hips several times, left and right left and right to make sure your lower back is nice and loose comfortable easy flexible, keep your neck relaxed. Or if your in James class “ move like your on the float at the mardi gra” Whatever works J

·    Instead of doing your uni work that you’ve had all week you spend your time writing blogs about bikram yoga

·    Finally you mourn the days you can’t go to yoga; however you know the times of the classes so well that you look at the time and think “If I were practicing I would be in triangle, at the top of the mountain. although no need to worry, no doubt you'll do a double tomorrow to make up for it

NAMASTE

40 Days of Yoga

So my new excuse for doing ridiculous amounts of yoga is Lent. During Lent, many of the faithful commit to fasting or giving up certain types of luxuries for 40 days as a form of penitence. I figured since I wanted to do my part, and usually that involves giving up chocolate that this year i would try a different approach. That approach is to do 40 classes in 40 days of Bikram Yoga. I guess you would say that, thats not giving up anything at all and that yoga is a luxury. However my view is that I am giving up the luxury of being content in life and taking it that step further to constantly challenge myself, which i view to be the very point of Lent- A challenge of life and struggle .I feel that during this period of Lent and to do a 4o day challenge is fitting because Yoga has taught me that beautiful people will struggle and fake people will run away from their challenges.

On Valentines day i completed a 15 day challenge (looks like I am festive challenger) which has given me confidence in completing another challenge. During my recent 15 day challenge i was shown corrections in some of my postures in particular triangle and standing bow, i took these directions on board and immediately could tell the different in my alignment and felt that alignment correct other postures. During this period my mind purely focused on aligned yoga and took away the engery i used on trying to get deeper in my postures towards making them right. Even though through a spectators view it may not have looked liked it, but i was doing the best yoga I had ever done before. Lucky for me yoga IS NOT a spectators sport :).


 I am now onto day 8 in my new challenge and have been feeling frustrated during class mainly due to a sore knee. For example during class last night, the teacher opened the door to let the lovely cool rain air in, I had unfortunately positioned myself so that i was not in the passage way of this air. The whole time the door was open i stared at the girl directly infront of the door bathing in the cool air repeating in my head I HATE YOU I HATE YOU. I didnt even know the poor girl and i dont actually hate her. Although the point I am trying to make is, this event made me realize how much a distracted mind can affect your yoga, and these challenges are an agent in initiating the maturaity to be able to accept and let go.

I am confident that with patience and drinking shit loads of water it wont take me long to get back to where i was, besides i have 32 days left.

Second, third, fourth, fifth, 100, 200

The next day I decided to return to this strange yoga that I had endured yesterday. ( I still didn't trust it). This time I was to have a male teacher who happened to own the studio his name was James, he went on to describe himself as the yoga terrorist in a black singlet. Funnily enough he was wearing a black singlet but he didn't seem so terrorizing? I was put of more by the big framed photo of a man wearing tiny tiger skin short shorts, sitting on some sort of a tiger skin rug- this was in fact Bikram Chodhury the founder of bikram yoga.

My second class was a lot harder than my first, basically because I knew what was coming and had created expectations for myself, unfortunately another trait of mine is impatience, so considering this was my second class I should know how to do all the postures correctly?... Wrong.. Looking back now I couldn't have been more wrong.

I was snapped back into reality in a posture called standing head to knee. The photo I have added is the right way to do standing knee. During my second class I couldn't even balance on one leg, and once I did get some sort of a balance it would last for around 3 seconds. I thought to myself how the hell am I ever going to be able to do that shit?

I could see why James had referred to himself as a terrorist, because he would not shut up. It's about a million degrees, all I can think about is how I wish I lived in the north pole at this point in time and your telling me lift my leg higher? This was not relaxing in the slightest. During my first class I discovered that every so often the teachers will open the doors to cool the room down a bit, so as you could guess I placed my mat exactly in front of the door so I could bathe in the cool air whenever the opportunity would present itself. This meant that on that special occasion James would walk right past me to open the door. What's so bad about that you ask? You know those people who are really passionate about what they are saying, and usually they will tend to use hand movements whilst explaining something? Yep thats James, there's nothing wrong with that in fact I do it a lot myself however James managed to flick his sweat all over me every-time he walked past to open the door. Who's so smart now? Wasn't bad enough i was covered in my own sweat, I was flicked with his too- now the terrorizing comment made sense..

Even though it felt like this class went for a lot longer, James' rambling funnily enough put some things in perspective for me, i could see why people practice this yoga, I also discovered during this class that bikram yoga Is a personal practice, there was no use comparing yourself against others and it definitely was not something you can conquer, there's always that challenge to go further. Why I fell in love with this yoga in this class was because that challenge to go further is set by you, measured by you, the success of your practice is not measured against others and it is only you who can make yourself better.

Although I was still unsure about this eagle business, you really think my toes are going to slide around my calf muscle?

I managed to go 9 days out of my 10 day introductory class and could already see major improvements, with this motivation I would continue to practice this strange yoga, it was the start of something very special