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The Inferno Pt. 2-Day Ten at Bikram Yoga Harlem

Posted by scalesonfire on July 22, 2011
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Focus hard on the heat, or anything else, and you'll never have a good class

What was that about focus?  Well, this day was hotter than the day before, and the teacher, Derek Staranowski was one I hadn’t taken before.  I let myself be burdened with distractions, most too petty to discuss here, and if anything is stealing your peace or draining your focus, whether you think it’s good or bad, it’s unnecessary, and destroys your yoga.  Lately, I’ve been pretty good at destroying my own yoga, and on this day, a bonafide triple-digit temperature day, I ruined my own practice.

What I’m about to explain to you is a recipe for yoga disaster: I woke up in a poor mood, tired, and unhappy about the rest of my day after yoga.  I rushed down a coconut water and had to hurry to make my bus.  I got almost no regular water until I was at the studio but I’d worked up a pretty decent sweat.  Then the feeling that I’d forgotten something at home materialized (literally) when I realized that I didn’t bring a new set of clothes.  The twenty minutes before class were spent working hard to wash out the wet, bagged and positively funky getup from the previous day’s class.  Then I couldn’t decide on how strong I was feeling, and if it was a front, middle, or back row sort of day.  I decided to choose the front row and took my spot between two young ladies.  I left the room so I wouldn’t be completely drenched at the start of class and returned to find my mat right next to some big hairy dude who’d squeezed in between me and the young woman on my left (if you practice Bikram Yoga regularly, you know that if you’re not comfortable with the person on your left, you should change your spot).  Now, I know that this yoga is about releasing mental blocks, but I’m not one for huge guys in my mirror space (fat men in the hot room are also notorious heavy breathers, and that sort of thing from your neighbor can be quite annoying).  I far more enjoy a smiling, pretty face on either side of me. I’ve still got too much western heterosexual in me, and maybe a little Benny Hill.  All of this was a recipe for disaster, not because any of these things or people were out to ruin my class, but more because I allowed them the ability to do so.

So I had a bad class, not because it was hot, not because there was a sweaty, hairy man breathing on me after the first of each posture in the floor series, not because of the new teacher and new teaching style.  It was because I set myself up for a bad class.  My standing series was satisfactory, using muscle memory and overall strength, and my floor series was poor, mainly because I hadn’t applied any focus during the standing series.  I usually leave these classes where I struggle and sit out postures thinking that I need to better condition my body, but after hours of contemplation and removal from the extreme heat, I surmise that it’s all about focus.  Really, nothing should negatively or positively impact my yoga, no matter the type.  My inability to mark feelings, reactions, expectations, and mental comforts as extras in life has carried over into to yoga, and only a big bowl of focus will help me overcome it.

Yoga Hell Pt.2 with Danielle Rothman-Day Nine at Bikram Yoga Harlem

Posted by scalesonfire on July 22, 2011
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"Attention students, final savasana is over, the next class needs the room."

Danielle Rothman is the most unique yoga teacher I’ve ever seen.  If you love teachers who are soft-spoken, gentle, passive, and say things it sounds like they read on a Lululemon bag, then Ms. Rothman is not your teacher.   She’s got a voice that’s startling for a yoga teacher, and sounds like the voice of some lady yelling at her husband out of a Crown Heights tenement window and not a stoned California girl.   She’s not into create a great vibe.   Her jokes are off-color.   She regularly gives the impression that she’s saying the exact thing on her mind.   I’m also yet to mention that from conversations with her, the heat itself is her main reason for teaching and loving hot yoga.   She likes the room so hot that Satan would have to strip in her class to be comfortable.   I’ve taken classes next to her where as soon as the teacher opened the door she barked that it was cold.   She’s been all over me for a year for skipping her class at 10am on Wednesday, so I made it a point this week to get there and shut her up.

The only problem is that the temperature was going to approach one hundred degrees, so it was either brave Ms. Rothman’s windows-closed and door-closed torture chamber at 10am or muster up all the courage I had to brave the 12:30pm class at the apex of the heat.   Neither sounded appealing that morning when I woke up, and I’d already known that my legs tend to quit on hot days.   By the time the floor series arrived, I was hot, standing in a ridiculous pool of sweat (the Bikram world calls this a “juicy” class), and surprised that I’d made it an hour without a hiccup.   Then my legs stopped working.   The worst part of knowing a teacher is having to answer questions after class as to why you struggled and sat so much.   I’ve always felt that the hardest part of an athletes job is answering to the media after games where they’ve failed.   I commend guys who come out and say “they were better than us today,” or “they beat us,” or “we can’t play that way and expect to win.”   It takes a real pro to muster the composure to say those things.   Well imagine if the media knew every struggle and excuse you might give, and you were still equally as exhausted and frustrated with your own performance.   In those situations I generally don’t have the composure to say “the yoga kicked my ass today,” or “I was incredibly disappointed in my own focus.”   But as it happens, when I’ve struggled in a class, these are the things I take away from those classes later that evening.

In reality, I should be able to perform this yoga at the center of the earth wearing a parka.  I’ve taken this challenge with the intention of building a seamless and granite-strong focus that I want to apply to other elements of my life.  It will take conquering every teacher and temperature out there to do it, and failure should be an option I shun with great readiness.

Making Adjustments Work for Me-Day Eight at BIkram Yoga Harlem

Posted by scalesonfire on July 19, 2011
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No matter what your goal may be, adjustments are essential to success. You can't spell adjustment without baseball's king of plate adjustments: DJ

Just in time for mid-week, extreme heat has returned to New York City as if Spring is a season for the weekend.  My schedule while doing Bikram Yoga is much like a college student’s.  I rarely know which day of the week it is, or what the weather will bring, but I know when class is.  So I was shocked when I saw this week’s five-day forecast and it looked like a roster of defensive linemen (that’s all nineties if you forgot what football is).  Seriously, the hot room is always hot, and that’s the only temperature I’ve been concerning myself with, especially if I leave right away and my body never gets to cool down.  But the heat is back outside, and this week, a week into a daily Bikram Yoga practice, I’m far more prepared.

Erik Cummings taught this day’s class, and it was a serious change of pace, literally, from Miss Megan, although I was beginning to like Miss Megan’s style of teaching.  Differences in teaching styles may seem subtle if apparent at all to inexperienced practitioners, but they’re prevalent to those who practice regularly, and as important as it is to take different teachers, it’s equally as important to take teachers two and three and four times consecutively so that one teacher may monitor your improvements or struggles.  One constant I receive from the teachers at this studio is a strange understanding of my struggles-when I’m having a rough time, they mostly leave me alone.  It’s not because they see my body and trust that I’m in good enough shape to complete the class.  It’s not because they’re apprehensive about helping students get through class.  It’s not even because they’ve seen me excel at the yoga before.  It’s two reasons-I keep my body quiet when I’m sitting a posture out and I’m generally working hard for the yoga.  When students approach any yoga with a respect for the practice, teachers feel less of a need to coddle them.  When they’re not only struggling but reacting to their struggles, reacting to the heat, reacting to the dizziness, reacting to others, and most importantly disregarding stillness and breath, two hallmarks of yoga, then teachers have no choice but to focus attention on them.  The last thing a yogi should want is attention.

Unless of course they are one small step away from perfecting a posture and they don’t know.  For me, this sort of correction came during “bow” pose during the floor series.  I was rolling forward too much and not allowing my upper body to lift-a classic case of being literal with the dialogue (“roll forward onto the soft part of your belly” echoes in my head every time I set up for the posture).  It’s one of my greatest joys in class to make adjustments, and it gives me more pleasure to learn about the yoga I’m practicing than to actually practice it.  Rather than to simply be praised for executing a posture well, I’d rather do a posture, get a correction, and be praised for making the adjustments in the second set.  That’s how you work hard in the hot room.

The Inferno, Part I-Day Two at Bikram Yoga Harlem

Posted by scalesonfire on July 1, 2011
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Will someone turn off that radiator?

Ok I get it, the room gets hot.  I’ve always known it, and it’s the first thing every Bikram Yoga teacher usually says to new students.  My tolerance for the heat in the hot room has rarely ever been in question, but seven miles of running Monday evening, a rough and humid class Tuesday at 10am, and a ninety-degree, doubly humid day Wednesday made for a disastrous Wednesday class at 12:30pm.  Now this was my usual class.  I’ve been a fair-weather Bikram Yogi for three months or so, dropping in once a week for the Wednesday donation class at Bikram Yoga Harlem because of the reasonable price (suggested donation is $10), and the way it fits so cleanly into my schedule.  Because I’m usually there once a week I can destroy the yoga.  I’m strong enough to not only execute the postures, but do it in the front row right along with the teachers and the die-hards.  On this day, hell day, the day the earth stood still directly under the sun, it was not a day to set up in the front row.  Although one thing that Bikram Yoga makes a person is stubborn about their abilities.

It’s even more difficult to be told ‘no,’ even when I’m saying it to myself, so the little bit of fatigue I was feeling wasn’t going to deter me from the front row.  I’d taken this class too many times, it’s always crowded, and everyone who isn’t in the front row just absolutely disrespects the yoga-lots of movement, lots of reactions to the heat, lots of huffing and puffing.  The last time I didn’t set up in the front row at 12:30 pm a Wednesday some fat guy next to me made so many sound effects I thought I was practicing next to Biz Markie or the black guy from the ‘Police Academy’ movies.  I can’t practice next to reactive people because reacting simply shows your disrespect for the surrendering element of yoga.  Yoga classes are THE place to be when you’re ready to eliminate reaction.

But on this day, I struggled with every posture past “awkward pose,” and as the hardcore Bikramites know, that’s like ten minutes into class. Everyone but my neighbor in the front row, certified teacher and heat sadist, Danielle Rothman, sat at least once in the class, and there were a good forty-five people in the room.  I spent most of the class flat on my back, staring at the ceiling, forcing my lungs to expand to take in the thick and humid air even when they wouldn’t.

I don’t remember much of the class, mostly because my struggles that day came with a haze that at times muted voices and and caused my inner DJ to spin my record slowly.  I do remember sweating more than I ever have in a class.  I’m talking about puddles, rivers, and nothing Lululemon thought about when they made ‘The Mat’ and claimed it managed moisture.  I felt like I’d been drained of all the water in my body by the final breathing exercise (which I could barely sit up to do) and I couldn’t imagine staying in that hot room for savasana, so I got up after that day’s teacher, Jon Stewart’s closing to sprawl on my mat in the lobby to sweat more.

How I took a shower and dressed myself is anyone’s guess.  I don’t remember much and I especially don’t remember having my eyes open for much of it.  It took me until that night to realize (after two gallons of water and one bathroom trip) that I was dehydrated.  The next day, the teacher Mr. Stewart asked me if I was alright, something I never want to happen.  He’s not used to seeing me struggle in class at all, and didn’t get to speak to me during my walking unconsciousness after class. That night was a night of rest and fluids, of air conditioning and pasta, and by the time the next day came, I was ready to tackle another class.

A little about the studio:

Bikram Yoga Harlem is owned by Adam Roper and Erik Cummings, two experienced Bikram Yoga teachers.  More importantly though, they are running a beautiful and spacious (for Bikram Yoga) second-floor studio on 145th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway in New York City.  For a style of yoga mired by a really corporate feel in some places, and a cultish feel in others, this is the ideal place to try Bikram Yoga and actually continue practicing.  They offer reasonable rates, a friendly atmosphere, and teachers who are all dedicated to helping students progress properly through each stage of their practice.

Setting My Intention-Day One at Bikram Yoga Harlem

Posted by scalesonfire on June 30, 2011
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Ahhhh, the road to glory is paved with bricks of focus, and if other animals can focus to live, then so can I

Sometimes the things you want out of life prove to be a lot more difficult than you expected.  Personally, I’ve got a dream of training ultra-hard year-round.  That includes at least four miles of running, a yoga class or program, and a strength workout every day.  Three hundred and sixty-five days of sweat. When I dream about the future, that’s who I am and how I live, and why not?  I’m pretty conditioned in each practice. I can have thirty-mile running weeks, I can do push-ups and sit-ups like a maniac, and to this point, Bikram Yoga is easy enough for me to complete every day and use to enhance the other things.

So recently I had the bright idea that I could use a month of Bikram Yoga to aid in my 5k training, and took my first class of my thirty day block a week before the race and a day after seven miles of heavy training.  The result?  An egregious miscalculation of the sort of physical condition I’m in.

You usually know right away in a Bikram Yoga class when something isn’t right.  I won’t say that I was fatigued as much as I felt minor paralysis from the sternum down, and what wasn’t numb was sore.  That day’s  teacher, Nadia Lehmejian is one of those sympathetic teachers who likes everyone moving at the same pace and will help someone out by opening a door or a window to make that happen.  Only the heat wasn’t bothering me, every joint in my body was.  In “half tortoise” Ms. Lehmejian said to stretch the intercostal muscles, and I’d swear mine were made of paper, ripping, and would spill the contents of my lungs onto my mat and towel.  I hadn’t sat out postures in months, but I also hadn’t practiced on consecutive days in months.  The class wasn’t a washout by any means, but I was too sore and tight to completely lose myself in the yoga, executing postures in one pace and in one rhythm.

As much as my hips and ribs felt battered, my knees felt great, and by great one would need to understand that my feet are flat, I run, I have the world’s tightest hamstrings for a fit man, and my knees hurt all the time, except when I quit running for two months.  The only thing that has ever fixed the pain is yoga, and only if I do it every day I’m alive. Understand the need for so many different sorts of activity?  I can’t run without yoga, and if I can’t run, I can’t be who I want to be. Who do you want to be? How many things will it take to accomplish it? How many more will it take to maintain it?  The one thing I love about extended periods of training is that there are always so many questions to ask and so much data to collect.  If you don’t do that while you train, you never get to reassert your purposes.  My first ever Bikram Yoga teacher began the class by saying “set your intention,”  and I’ve brought that moment with me everywhere since, now I’ll have to test that intention daily.

 

A little about the studio:

Bikram Yoga Harlem is owned by Adam Roper and Erik Cummings, two experienced Bikram Yoga teachers.  More importantly though, they are running a beautiful and spacious (for Bikram Yoga) second-floor studio on 145th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway in New York City.  For a style of yoga mired by a really corporate feel in some places, and a cultish feel in others, this is the ideal place to try Bikram Yoga and actually continue practicing.  They offer reasonable rates, a friendly atmosphere, and teachers who are all dedicated to helping students progress properly through each stage of their practice.

The Comfort of Control

Posted by scalesonfire on September 28, 2009
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If you’re a regular yoga practitioner, you’ve heard the phrase “there should be discomfort, but you shouldn’t be uncomfortable,” and that’s the way it should be for most exercise. It’s true that in yoga, unlike any other type of exercise, there is a greater emphasis on creating discomfort, but that’s only because exercise and training are about embracing and conquering discomfort so that it is no longer unbearable. You should though, before you exercise, or make any movement during exercise, get comfortable.

Make sure your clothes fit. Tight clothes and loose clothes are both restrictive. Fitted clothes function much more properly. They should fit differently from street clothes, and it’s usually a bad idea to exercise in old street clothes that don’t fit or are out of style. Exercise is like any health action, and it’s as important as the things you put inside your body to be healthier. You wouldn’t put old or generic things into an internal process, so why treat the external any differently? Wear clothes that fit, dress properly for the weather and the exercise, and look clean and neat, your movements will copy that neatness.
That though, should be the extent of your comfort. You should be creating discomfort at all times, and because you should be externally comfortable, this is much easier. The trick to handling discomfort is being comfortable. Relaxing your face will help you with those last few squats, slowing and deepening your breath will help you do more push-ups than yesterday. I usually tell my clients that if they were able to step out of their bodies and see themselves, if they’d want to see themselves struggling? The answer is usually an emphatic “No!” Control is the key to comfort, and exercise has a great deal to do with sustained control, and less to do with sustained strength.
Find out how many squats you can do in one minute. Place your feet flat on the ground at shoulder-width, raise your hands to the sky and look straight up. Keep your arms up and bend your knees to a right angle, keeping your eye focus up and your back perpendicular to the ground. Blast up out of that position back to standing and that is one. To to take this number once a week, trying to get more in your minute, it’s a good test of your overall fitness. As always, focus so you can increase that fitness.