Bikram Yoga Tips from a Long-Timer

Well, I don't think I've written in at least a year, but I'd like to start it up again, as writing is a big part of my life these days, and so is yoga. As anyone who's read back on these posts would know, im no stranger to other styles of yoga - I've been practicing different forms for about 11 years now, and the fiery B style on and off for close to 9. Wow. Really? Yes.

I'm typing this from the couch, where I lay with my lower back placed carefully upon a gel cold pack. I say this because icing my back has been the single most effective remedy for easing soreness and progressing with back-bending and flexibility that I've discovered thus far!

 I've only known about this for the past half year or so, and at first I kept forgetting to do it, especially as I go through periods where my back doesn't really bother me. I also have an aversion to cold in general and actually have a bit of a heating bag/pad addiction - so I told myself for a while that my back had previously been feeling awesome and amazing for mysterious OTHER reasons, like magic. 

But a fellow yogi I trust saw me doing the hot cold shower method (also really great: just run the shower as cold as you can stand for 10 seconds, then go back to hot for 20, back and forth several times until you feel you've had enough) at the studio one day after class and told me I wouldn't believe what a difference icing my back would make.

She was right! It really works.

I'd really like to believe that the yoga alone would make the body get progressively better and better without any additional intervention, but the truth of the matter is that I went 24 years, until early adulthood, doing relatively little in the way of exercise besides walking, and then I dove in head first at the deep end with exercise - yoga, Pilates, running, swimming, cycling, Pilates, even a bit of strength training and boot camp style stuff (the latter being where and how I injured my back). I will never know what it would feel like being very active at this age of is been doing it all my life, but who knows - some people seem to do more harm than good in their youth. In any case, all of this reforming of the body does become something you sometimes really feel, (as in I feel STIFF AND OH BY THE WAY AM I WALKING Funny?) -- anyway, sometimes it don't feel so great, and seeing as I started all this on the name of feeling great, I'm always seeking better.

But anyway, yes: the icing helps very much. I highly recommend it.

Other ways to support the body in its beautiful transformation, especially if doing tons of Bikram yoga, that I've discovered over the past 8 or 9 years:

Fluids: Spring water is amazing. So is continuous diluted coconut water (helps with chronic dehydration) - to drink the whole serving all in one go is a nice treat sometimes, but I hardly ever do that anymore. Instead I just keep filling up my water bottle almost to the brim and then top it off with the coco - I put just enough so I can taste it. I find this helps me to feel really re-hydrated, (particularly if I've had any alcohol. In other words, I've spent almost as much on coconut water as I have on presents this Christmas season! Sorry, it's not cheap.)

I also love kombucha tea, herb tea, and turmeric/ginger/garlic/cinnamon "tea" (super duper healthy hot drink you boil for about 20 minutes - it tastes much better than it sounds), and lemon water. 

I also drink those electrolyte packets of I've really sweat a lot, and I make my own electrolyte water with citrus, salt and sugar. Salty soups like pho and miso are also great for Bikram yogis. After all this time I really can't stress enough that hydration is absolutely vital, and if you're practicing a lot, plain water doesn't always cut it- I think simply because you lose so much water during practice that it's hard for your body to keep up. When I feel myself getting dehydrated, (and not just in the moment, I mean chronically), my practice as well as my overall sense of wellbeing truly starts to suffer. 

I've been told I drink too much, actually, and sometimes when I see how little others drink, I find it a bit disturbing. But I've tried drinking less and I just don't feel as well. I'm still trying to figure out amounts. But let's put it this way: if you've ever worried you drank so much you're going to die like the lady in the radio competition, rest assured because I've actually drunk as much as her and I'm pretty sure I'm still around. (But don't drink that much, please!) 

Longer Savasanas- to be more specific, longer final savasanas. I am admittedly the type to grumble about how much time this yoga can take out of your day - well it's for that reason, then, that I give myself the gift of a few extra minutes (or 10-15, even) to relax and recover after the 90 minute bikram yoga class. I deserve it after all the sacrifice. What's another 5 or 10 minutes - they can freaking wait, whoever they are. I used to be able to rush out of there like a Tasmanian devil and into the showers, on to the next item on the agenda, without a second thought - I guess I still feel I have to on some busy days, but by and large I really feel the need to rest in savasana for a good while and then go about getting showered and ready post-class in a calm, present manner. It makes a difference. 

Protein- I used to eat any old food after class - sweets, chips, pasta, you name it. Now I try to be very careful about getting some protein in as soon as I can after doing any yoga or workout, as I've read extensively that this also helps repair your muscles. I am not always eating meat, so I find that vegetarian protein (like bars, shakes, nuts, beans, etc) is just as effective. (I hope.) This also helps control the ravenous hunger that can prevent Bikram yogis (that are working so hard on getting fit) from shedding the extra pounds they'd rather not be dealing with in the physical postures, not to mention cute outfits. Remember: it's so, so easy to consume hundreds of calories in mindless snacking, (the kind of stuff like a handful of nuts or crackers that you wouldn't even remember to include in a food journal), and this will prevent weight loss. It can even cause weight gain, even while doing the yoga on a near daily basis! (Oh yes, it has happened to me, champion snacker that I am).

Well, that's enough for my first blog post back. I have tons more useful tips and observations coming soon, though!

NB: if by any chance you are reading this in hopes of gathering up motivation to get back to class, close this screen right now and grab your gear. 

You won't regret it.

Go!

Challenger

I started yet another challenge yesterday, which makes today Day 2. I hadn't been to Bikram yoga in just over a week when I went into class last night. I didn't feel like going. I felt like lying in bed feeling depressed, but a little voice told me something good would come of it if I dragged myself up and out into the car. And good came! I saw posters for a challenge starting, which means a good deal on a one month package, even if a person doesn't necessarily intend to do a challenge. But I do. It's the right thing for me to do now.
Not having been to class in a while, but instead quite active with another style of yoga, I was truly in top form last night and today. This can only firm up my longstanding notion that something I am doing in class is aggravating a condition. I want to do this yoga for life. I may be past my prime in some sense, but I am still young, and I do still want to better my bodily condition, my shape, and further increase my strength and flexibility, even as I age. But my injury inhibits my progress, the depth into which I can physically go into the postures. My mental focus & concentration, awareness of my body, and my dedication to the practice, have all progressed beautifully.
What I'm basically saying is I want to do Standing-Head-to-Knee!!! I still look like a beginner on some days. I've got to heal up!
So, the mystery continues. I read some very good advice about strengthening the abdominals as a compliment to one's yoga practice - actually, as a necessary component, to protect the back. My abs are still too weak, I've realized. So, forget any kind of extreme cardio or worrying about silly things like calorie counting and five extra pounds. My goal is abs strengthening, hip opening, hamstring stretching, and back HEALING!

Thoughts on Healing

I was looking at a scar on my knee today, from when I skinned it this past summer after I fell down in the gravel while hiking. It was a big, gaping wound, and it took a long time to heal. In fact, it even hurt to kneel as recently as a month or two ago. The scar is still quite pronounced, but after applying pure vitamin e oil to it every night for the past few weeks, I've actually noticed an improvement, thankfully. I don't remember the last time I skinned my knee prior to this - it was probably over 20 years ago!

But anyway, I got to thinking about the body's ability to heal, and the difference in our perception between disease and injury. One of the lessons Bikram himself took with him as a yoga teacher was that terrible injuries, such as shattering one's knee, as he did in a weightlifting accident, can be healed through the correct application of yoga. His doctors told him he might never walk again, but his knee did heal. Similarly, we hear many stories of injuries being healed, or at least the healing process being greatly sped up and enhanced through yoga and other sustaining practices and exercises.

But even without any outside influence, cream, treatment, therapy, or exercise, our bodies do have the genetic instructions to heal on their own - without this mechanism, we would never have made it to where we are today. If I cut myself, and then proceed to live my life as though nothing ever happened, the wound will naturally close up and disappear. If I break a rib, the broken pieces will eventually fuse again, even without a cast. 

In the case of injury, it's clear what has gone wrong, and what it will take to fix it. If I keep poking at an open wound, it's going to interfere with the healing process, or even stop it. My body will keep trying to heal, but my actions do have the power to overtake the mechanism.

In the case of disease, we often don't know what the cause is, or figure there could be multiple causes. Some diseases have a clear cause. For instance, many of the students I teach from polluted regions of the world, such as mega-cities in Brazil and Taiwan, suffer from asthma. Within a couple of weeks of being in Canada, their symptoms frequently disappear completely. So we can see quite clearly that there was a definite cause in their disease, and once it was removed, the condition dissolved. With heart disease, it's clear that diet and lifestyle are huge contributing factors. As with injury, once a person changes what they eat and starts moving their body, reversal of this type of disease comes quickly. Even doctors agree that as long as a person is truly committed to change, heart disease needn't be a death sentence. On the other hand, continuing with the same food and sedentary habits that led to the condition of heart disease is like poking an open wound; it interferes with the healing process, and actually, quite often, stops it, and pushes the person to death. In the same way, when my students go back to their smog-ridden cities, their asthma returns immediately.

As we're all aware, there are hundreds, even thousands, of names for diseases out there, and much of the time, doctors and patients alike don't have any clue what the cause is. Maybe it's genetics. Maybe it's stress. Maybe it's just a part of getting old. Armed with this surrendering to the general consensus that cause can be classified in the realm of life's grand mysteries, doctors get busy working on methods of relieving the symptoms. This is an oversimplification, yes, but I can't help but think that this is the essence of Western medicine. Very rarely do we hear medical experts compare healing in the case of an injury to healing in the case of a disease. But as I become more and more health-minded, I see a deep and important connection between the two, and I just can't accept that we are so quick to dismiss the possibility of figuring out what the causes of many or even all diseases are, and getting busy eliminating them! I can't imagine that anything could be more important to a sick person than figuring out why they are sick, and what to do about it. 

It might sound silly, but to me, medicine is actually kind of ridiculous - even natural medicine. It's a quick fix. Of course it has its place, its use. Yes, it saves lives and improves quality of life, and all of that. No doubt about it. But how many people and how many of their doctors take a step back and say, "wait a minute. Wait one minute right here. Everything in this entire universe that exists has a cause, and therefore, your disease also has a cause. Let's figure out what it is!" Many people turn to yoga as an alternative or complement even to natural medicine, and that is good, but there is a sense in which I think that yoga is a form of medicine that, for some people, is only relieving the symptoms. Yoga - when it works - is more ideal, because of the lack of side effects, as well as the additional benefit of being a very effective stress management tool. However, I have come to believe that the vast majority of illnesses we see in our species have emotional disturbance at their root. In one person, this might manifest as Fibromyalgia, while in another, it may be kidney stones. In some patients, treating the symptoms is enough for a long and fulfilling life, while in others, no medication or treatment known to Western medicine can do a thing for them. Whatever the case may be, as soon as the health begins to dip, we really need to ask ourselves the honest question, "Why?" There is always an answer, and in isolating it, I truly believe that we can allow our bodies to heal a disease the same as we can a broken bone. On the flipside, merely treating the symptoms is like deliberately keeping a wound open. It interferes with our bodies natural process.

I have a new room!

Do you enjoy exercising in your room with the door closed, where no one can bother you? I do! I really do.

But for most of my life I have not been able to do this because the many (many) various bedrooms I have inhabited over the years have been too cramped to enjoy it and spread out properly. The living room is always an option, of course, but with roommates and family and partners milling about asking you where a spare lightbulb might be found or inquiring as to why you didn't replace the toilet paper roll, or perhaps just standing there and staring at you in the middle of your routine, their mouth agape, is kind of a buzz kill to say the least.

Anyway, for the past two months I had been in a particularly small room, in the basement of an old house, with a low ceiling. I couldn't even do a sun salutation because my arms hit the ceiling at about the wrist. So annoying. In fact, I really got to the point that I could not stand it, and if I can help it I will never again live in a place with a low ceiling. Didn't know I didn't like it. Now I know for sure.

But anyway, I'm really happy now because this past weekend I moved to a new room, and it is the biggest room I have ever inhabited in my entire history of being. Up until a few hours ago, there were boxes all over the place so I couldn't properly appreciate the vastness I have going on here, but I really cracked the whip on myself when I got home from work, and now the dust has settled. My oh my, it's a big and spacious room. I absolutely love it!

I celebrated by doing a two hour exercise routine, mainly consisting of Pilates and yoga. I know that might not sound all that exciting. But for me, it was pure heaven! It's all mine. Having a bit of space to oneself on this (actually not crowded at all) planet is a real luxury, a big source of pleasure. The older I get the more I realize that I have a strong dislike for small, and especially cramped spaces. I can't think that many people would say they love 'em, but I don't think I was in touch with myself enough to realize that in the past. No wonder I've never been attracted to the world's mega-cities. That being said, I do live in quite a big city with extraordinarily expensive real estate. I need to move out to the country, I really do.

I really look forward to exploring what kind of movement I can achieve in such a space.

Today is one of my favourite days of the year: the day we turn the clocks back and get an extra hour of sleep! Really I should be a little down about it, as this marks the season of waking up and leaving for work in pitch-black darkness, amid the frigid rain and wind, but I'm truly a sucker for more sleep. And that one hour just feels so valuable, like we cheated time a wee bit.
This morning I woke up at about 8:30 (really 9:30) to a bright, beaming sun, after having had a long night's sound sleep. I'd had a busy few days and went to bed rather late last night, but I slept the perfect amount. I was expecting horrible weather, but today was just gorgeous!

I have made the commitment to focus ALL the mental energy I habitually use towards worrying and endlessly reviewing what I dislike about my life, and how various events, circumstances and situations all tie in as proof of what I dislike the most, on feeling great. I'm really going to use this month to put my money where my mouth is and use every technique I've ever learned to raise my own personal level of satisfaction in life. What could be more important?
Last week I cleansed my body. This month I cleanse my mind.

Healing to Heal

I should begin by mentioning that I haven't even been to Bikram yoga in over a week! I don't do Bikram while on a cleanse - it's just too much. Mind you, my cleanse has been over for a few days now! I have been moving a lot of boxes, though, that's for sure. I just helped two friends move, and changed rooms within the same house myself. And I am involved in another school of yoga which has a physical aspect. I can't even remember the last time I did Pilates! I had been riding my bike daily up until a few days ago, but recently the weather has taken a sharp turn for the bone cold damp; very wet, and riding a bike through that kind of thickness can be a buzz kill. Anyway, I'm eager to get back to Bikram's and explore other types of exercise now that I have a nice big room again.

A friend and I were having a conversation this afternoon about the concept of needing to heal oneself before being in a position to heal and/or help another. This seems to be the basic philosophy of certain spiritual schools of thought. We see in social work and medicine, however, that often the person in a position of authority is often in just as bad shape as those he or she is trying to help, which can be troublesome when one contemplates what one might term 'the ideal'. However, that's not to say an overweight doctor with heart issues can't care for his patients satisfactorily. Indeed, he can.

My friend expressed concern that it is often being on something of a troubled state that gets people interested in other people and THEIR problems, and in this way a person that doesn't have their shit completely together might make for a better helper. Balanced, stable, fully realized human beings, on the other hand, potentially lose that drive to really get their hands dirty in the quest to make a difference in peoples' lives.

This got me thinking about a small section I read recently in Shakti Gawain's "Creative Visualization." In it, she writes, "...human nature is basically loving, and so most of us will not allow ourselves to have what we want as long as we believe that we might be depriving others in order to do so."

First of all, what a breath of fresh air it is to think about our species in such a positive light. I honestly feel that it has been beaten into us that the lot of us are intrinsically selfish, self-serving, thoughtless, entitled, greedy, etc and on and on about how awful we are to ourselves, each other, the planet, and even the universe if you get to the level of vibes!

But that's not the point. The point is, the idea that sometimes we feel that if we got the life we truly wanted, the one we almost don't even dare dream about it's so sacred, that would somehow have a detrimental effect on everyone else.

I must admit that on a deep, subconscious level, this belief or something like it exists in me, even though in my waking conscious state I would deny that a person need limit themselves in any way.

2 tennis balls...

Underneath my bum. That's what I'm going to lie on top of here for about 10 minutes. Apparently they kill, but alao end up feeling amazing. We'll see. Report to come!

Burnout

I used to think that selfishness was one of the worst qualities a person could have. I would put myself out to no end trying to please everyone, and going above and beyond what was expected, even when it was totally unnecessary, was a standard I held not only for myself, but for the other people in my life, too. Now I think that understanding how & why to be selfish is perhaps the most vital lesson a person gets in this lifetime.
Who on earth decided it was ever right to put someone else's needs before one's own? I agree that sometimes this is a kind and appropriate course of action, but not as a rule. And certainly not as a defining role in any relationship. Only after a thorough evaluation of a given situation. The same goes for doing anything - anything at all - solely because someone else wants you to, and not because you yourself want to, and have decided as a free agent that you really think it's the right thing for you to do. If this other person is your boss, well, that's another story. But when you are free to choose, and you choose what you don't want, in the name of pleasing a loved one, or because you feel obligated for any reason, or because you fear some other negative consequence of your action, well, that's a much trickier & riskier endeavour than I'd ever previously imagined.
Why? Because it leads to burnout. I threw that word around the same as everyone else until my cousin, a clinical social worker, defined it for me in technical terms, saying that when you burn yourself out in a relationship, or the other person burns you out, or the situation burns you out through no one's fault, directly, you reach a state where it is impossible for you to care. To me, that's very serious business, and I have always felt guilty as hell about having negative thoughts about people or not wanting to see them. But upon reflection, I do believe that when you reach this state of burnout, there's literally nothing you can do to remedy it. You must remove yourself from the situation, and hopefully only temporarily. Otherwise you'll find yourself in a ceaseless state of stress and distress, terminally dissatisfied with your life as well as your relationships. This is how people live their entire lives, and I think that learning the right way to be selfish, to understand the sheer necessity of putting your own needs first to the exclusion of major players in your life (as in "you are not meeting my needs in this relationship - shape up or SHIP OUT"), is the only way out of this mess.
One of (many) reasons I'm reluctant to join the cast of motherhood is because I feel it's often a one-way ticket to burnout. I don't think it has to be that way, but in a society where the middle class cannot afford nannies (or anything, actually), and women must work as well as be primary childrearers, and are often isolated from their friends, peers, and key family members, I would have to say that burnout is the norm.
This is not to say all moms (and dads) stop caring about their children: of course not. Though some do. But care in other areas, such as care about one's own role as person on this planet separate from relationship, care about the world, care about the appearance, care about one's own basic human needs -- many, many things take a backseat, sometimes permanently. We call this "growing up". We call this real life. I call it insidious.
When I figure out a solution to this conundrum (and I'm sure that every parent I know living their own version of burnout would love nothing more than to give me really good advice on this issue despite the fact that they're the living example of what I've just described in general terms), I will consider being a little less selfish with my life!

The Mirror Technique and Others

I have just ended a period of five days of cleansing. I realize a lot of people have a negative opinion about fasts and cleanses. Well, that's their business.
But one might consider that for health & spiritual reasons, fasting has been practiced for thousands of years, throughout different traditions. Can one really state that there could not possibly be any benefit?

More than anything else, this experience had me questioning my relationship to food. It is one thing to try to appreciate food, to try to realize that using food as a comfort and replacement for emotional fulfillment is in some sense an abuse, and to try to stop it. However, to fast is to know these things. So much clarity can be gained through the temporary elimination of food.

Focus

Focusing the mind was something I hardly even paid attention to in the early stages. I mean, in the early early stages, going into the most basic of postures and balances was so challenging for me that I couldn't help but not let my mind wander! I really had to concentrate very hard on doing everything even remotely right. But once I sorta got the hang of it, yoga became a place where I could think long and hard about basically everything: what I was doing in school, the ups and downs of my various relationships, what I happened to be worried about, some event that had happened that day or recently that was still bugging me -- etc. etc.
I was semi-aware somewhere in the back pf my mind that attempting to control the random thoughts that flash in and out at lightning speed might be a good idea. But sometimes when it comes to things you know you're not supposed to do, there's that one thing that you decide early on that you are going to do despite it all. (I am an expert at this at work. I suppose that somehow it has lodged into my belief system that certain rules simply don't apply to me! This calls for further reflection.) Anyway, that's how I long regarded the advice to leave cares and concerns at the door : I wasn't leaving my cares or concerns anywhere! In fact, I was going to use this 70 or 90 minute block of time to focus randomly and often from a negative angle on each and every one of them!

These days, I have come to realize, much as I stated yesterday that worrying is the worst thing I can do for my health, that nothing exhausts me more thoroughly than the monkey mind. For this reason, and a few others, I am growing a slow, steasy appreciation and respect for the cultivation of stillness of the mind. Focus. Concentration, the emptying of thoughts. Letting go.

It's a work in progress! More on this tpoic tomorrow, as well as a cool technique for improving concentration.