Bikram Yoga Decatur

Here's a cute story...

Yoga the new craze at Santa Cruz High; class filled beyond capacity

For a class with double the usual number of students, the gym is surprisingly silent. Chatter between students is rare as they try to hold poses like downward dog: hands and feet on the mat, spine straight, butt high in the air.

After instructing the students to lie stomach-down on their mats, Andrews announces that airplane pose is next.

"Yes!" says a student under his breath.

The flat bodies struggle to lift their shoulders, spread their arms and hover their legs off the mat, teetering on their midsections. Some wobble as if preparing for a crash landing. Others, like 16 year-old Carrie Powers, freeze the pose with an enviable grace.

"South African prisoners embrace yoga"

Mrs Khoosal says she has seen a change in the prisoners in just the seven days since she first met them.

"They thought it was an Indian thing, and heckled us, but by the end I could feel they weren't just doing it for the certificate."

The yoga technique she teaches can control emotions, she says.

"When we are angry we breath a certain way and when we are sad we breath another.

"If you can control the breathing, you can therefore control the emotion."

The inmates weren't the only ones who were sceptical.

"When I first heard about it I thought: 'How can that help?'" Anita Hanekom, head of Social Services at the prison told the BBC.

"But now I've seen it can work."

Raj Bhavsar is an alternate on the US Olympic Gymnastics team and he's been chosen to replace Paul Hamm who had to pull out due to an injury. The NBC schedule has been hard to find so I'm not sure but I think he's competing tonight. Here's an inspiring video that was made before he was selected to compete.

update - Congratulations to the team for winning a bronze medal.

It's been a while since Bikram has done an interview so if you haven't got an opinion about the man this new one, with the Chicago Tribune in advance of his workshop there next weekend, should help. There's not much he hasn't said before including the usual reference to "American circus yoga" but aside from saying there is "no crime" in India the shock-inducing rhetoric is minimal. My favorite quote is his response when asked why he's so strict with his teachers,

In India we say an empty barn is much better than one full of naughty cows. I control my kingdom like a gangster.

I guess I should start calling him 'Don' instead of 'Boss.'

Talking with "hot" yoga founder Bikram Choudhury

The 630 muscles in my body have turned to jelly, enough sweat is pouring off my skin to fill Lake Lanier, and my heart, which could earn guest work in a Poe story at this point, is about to explode.

Everyone else is chanting "Ommmmmmm" or "Namaste." But the only mantra racing through my head is four monosyllabic words: Must! Get! To! Door!

The article is in The Emory Wheel but the guy must not have attended our studio which is directly across the street from Emory's Clairmont Campus... we don't chant and our clientele look more like your typical omnivore. The rest of it sounds about right for a first time Bikram Yoga experience but don't worry -- the first class is always the hardest.

When you read it, look carefully the illustration.

Someone alerted me to the MSNBC article, Moved to tears: Workouts and waterworks. It's not specifically about Bikram Yoga but I've had my own emotional moments in class and I've witnessed first hand the emotional release that can occur during practice for many people. It's why our mission statement begins, "To provide a safe and supportive environment...". The articles talks about some of the reasons why such strong feelings can sometimes arise during movement work.

"We use our bodies to physically tense up against pain or negative experiences," says Karol Ward, a therapist in private practice in New York City. "Then someone is in a movement class... and that emotion can come to the surface," she says.

...

In the field of "body psychotherapy," Ward and other therapists maintain that the body holds on to feelings, even if it seems the mind has dealt with them. "So if a person has the opportunity to relax that area, whatever has been held there can come to the surface," Ward says. "The body wants to complete the emotional experience."

Moved to tears: Workouts and waterworks