On a picture-perfect Saturday afternoon, some forty people pursued perfection, me among them. The event was “Posture Clinic,” a discussion and practicum on the 26 poses in the Bikram series.
Led by the studio’s two owners, the program began by soliciting stories from participants about why they had sought out and fell in love with Bikram yoga. One came in to improve focus, another to lose weight. A marathon runner said it “transformed” her body and improved her times. One participant said, “I’m fifty but I feel forty, and all my arthritis is gone.” Jen Lobo, one of the owners, said that after her first class, she felt “outside my body, like I was light.” We heard a prism of stories.
Donna Rubin, the other co-owner, discussed Bikram’s aphorism that “If you try the right way, you get 100 percent of the benefit.” The way to make progress in the poses, she explained, is to do them carefully, attending to their details and priorities.
Then the program turned to just that. We heard about the poses in depth. We learned, for example, that the most important aspect of the breathing exercise is lengthening the breath to the full six seconds; elbows touching is not important. Participants demonstrated poses they excelled at and those they couldn’t fathom, receiving detailed comments either way. We got general tips on how to practice: if you are working around a limitation in a pose, use one repetition to practice what you have and the second to try to improve. We were given pens and a rubric on which to take notes. We enjoyed one-on-one attention from the many teachers in the room, who used hands-on corrections to improve form. I loved explaining my various confusions and getting personal answers.
Then we had regular class. The teacher said he enjoyed the room full of “hard-core practitioners.” Indeed, every person kicked out in the second standing-head-to-knee, which he said was a first for him. We were all just so motivated, looking for perfection. The studio plans to offer the program twice a year now.
Namaste,
Yoga Lily
