Okay, I am going to brag: The other day, college boys were struck into silence when I climbed wet out of the pond onto the dock. How old am I? Old enough to be their . . . old enough so that if I were to say I am 39 years old, you would be [...]
Tag archive for "Bikram yoga"
Breathe
I am finally learning how to breathe. Time was, during the lung-opening warm-up, I gasped when I tried to squeeze out every last molecule of air. I choked when waiting to inhale, then got dizzy when I finally managed to. Sometimes still, I weave and waver as I breathe, and must tense my thighs to [...]
Just Ten Seconds
“Balancing stick is a ten-second pose. You can do anything for just ten seconds.” I laughed the first time I heard a teacher say this, and even now that I’ve heard it hundreds of times, I still sometimes laugh. Even if it’s only just for ten seconds, can I really do anything? Sing like Aretha [...]
Playing Favorites
I have my favorite poses, as do many yogis. Usually it’s a fancy one–camel or toe-stand, standing-bow or spine-twisting. What makes a favorite? Anything, really: the entrance to the pose, sensations while holding it, how challenging or cool it seems, even the way it looks. After the bliss of camel became reliable, my favorite was [...]
Put the Horse Before the Cart
People are sometimes embarrassed or frustrated when they “can’t do the posture.” But the point is not to do the posture but to let the posture do you. Practice is not about a “perfect” posture. It is about your own body and improving your own body by improving the posture, working carefully toward its full [...]
Yoga Minus One
Turning a doorknob hurt. That’s how debilitated my right arm was. So I did my yoga without it. Throughout, I thought of the musician’s tool, Music Minus One, which is a recording of a piece of music that is missing one instrument. It gives the practicing musician perfect accompaniment with which to practice. My right [...]
Don't Throw It Away, Postcards From The Heat
Don’t Throw It Away
“Don’t throw it away,” say the weight-lifters. Lifting is only part of the job. That 500-lb. barbell should be lowered slowly to get optimum bang for the muscular buck. This maxim is also true in yoga. The pose itself is only part of the practice. Getting in and out of it comprise another. In half-tortoise, [...]
Cleaner than Cleaner than Clean, Postcards From The Heat
Cleaner than Cleaner than Clean
“Yoga glow” only begins to describe the distinctive lustre of skin polished by habitual Bikram practice. A paleface like me develops a peaches-and-cream complexion. Mediterranean skin has the rich sheen of olives. Pacific-rim skin has the translucence of mango, and the darkest African skin has the radiance of onyx, or chocolates still warm in the [...]
My Why, Postcards From The Heat
My Why
Now, and its imperatives for practice: I am frail so strive for strength. I am tense so seek peace. I live in New York City so scavenge for quiet. I am alive so indulge in living. I am aging so seek meaning. I have children so make energy to fuel them. I fear the rigid [...]
Call and Response, Postcards From The Heat
Call and Response
Call and response is a common form of prayer, resounding in limestone synagogues and clapboard churches. There’s no religion in a Bikram studio, though a new student may pray for class to end pronto, or one who overindulged in ice cream or vodka might beg a higher power to smash a window. But call and [...]
Only in New York
I often practice on West 72nd Street, home to half a dozen studios. Swing a cat on the subway platform, you’ll hit a yoga mat. Swing a mat on the platform, no one will look twice. I’m just guessing about that; I haven’t tried it. The route to this studio has unique New York quirks, [...]
‘T’is a puzzlement
Every pose is a puzzle, like one of those sets of bent segments that nestle this way and that to make a smooth cube or cool car. I love assembling the parts of a pose: one day more strength here, more stretch there another, a new torque of the hip–I strive to make the ancient [...]
When I Did My 30 Day Challenge
When I Did My 30 Day Challenge
I recently practiced for 30 days in a row, partly for the weird fun of it and partly to try to heal my knee. A teacher had shilled her daily practice as the magic that ended her torn-meniscus issues. It worked for me too: For the first time, I can do tree, get tush to [...]
Sunday Morning In The Studio
Some Sundays I drive in to the city for a 7:00 a.m. class, which may seem crazy but has its charms. For one thing, the streets are empty— no cars, no people. It’s quiet and eerie, like a country road or an enchanted palace. For another, I can park my clunker right in front of [...]
Sparkle!
After I practice in the mornings, I fix myself parmesan-dusted eggs, bacon, buttered toast, and fierce coffee with hot milk. No more new-age rations for this glowing lotus: My body craves robust fare, far better fuel for the studio’s heat. I also down juice by the quart and coconut water from a frozen mug. In the [...]
Got Back Up? Love Camel
I love camel but have kept that secret. Most people dislike or even fear this backward bend. Most teachers dwell on its anxieties and aftershocks, but one teacher uses the word “euphoric.” For me, it is. I love being upside down, my head swinging free, neck elongating, brain re-orienting. The gentle dizzy of a long backbend [...]
Knock Yourself Out
The hands-down most profound gift of Bikram Yoga? It’s exhausting, and exhausted people are not plagued by nervous insomnia. Mr. B may discourse endlessly on how this arduous practice develops equanimity, fortitude, and all that jazz. But it ain’t so hifalutin. A daily 90 minutes of hot hard work, and I am simply too tired [...]
Bikram Yoga NYC opened its doors in August 1999 and became Manhattan's first Bikram Yoga Studio! Owners Donna Rubin and Jennifer Lobo had both been avid practitioners of Bikram Yoga in other cities and knew that no city needed Bikram Yoga more than New York! Check out our Locations and Schedules here.
Our blogger, Yoga Lily has been practicing intensively in our studios for more than two years. She was inspired to begin this blog by the myriad benefits the yoga brings her. Yoga Lily lives in Manhattan with her two daughters, an oversized German Shepherd, and a Russian Blue cat.
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