Hell-Bent on Bikram Yoga

Last week I picked up a book for a pound from a charity shop. It (the book not the shop) was called ‘Hell-Bent’. It’s by an American guy (Benjamin Lorr) and tells of his introduction to and journey through Bikram Yoga.

Now I must admit that prior to reading this book I knew little of Bikram Yoga, aside from the fact that it is the hot room yoga. Yoga performed in a sauna like environment whereby the heated up muscles can be stretched further so that flexibility might be increased. I’d also heard about how the person behind Bikram Yoga (a contemporary Indian guy by the name of Bikram Choudhury) had copyrighted his style of yoga so that nobody could teach a hot room yoga class without a qualification gained through his organisation. That was about as much as I knew.

I now realise just what a slick and popular phenomena this Bikram Yoga is. In the book Lorr leads us through the first class he attends, feeling overweight and sluggish; through the nine week teacher training experience he undertakes having been bitten by the hot room bug; through competitive yoga competition; and finally to a conclusion of Bikram Choudhury and his particular interpretation of yoga.

Instinctively, prior to my reading of the book and based upon the little I knew, I felt myself to be largely in opposition to the ideals of Bikram Yoga. So was my opinion changed by way of reading Benjamin Lorr’s book? Alas no, it was not. Indeed now armed with further knowledge and understanding of this style of yoga, I wonder whether it should really be deemed yoga at all. Hot room gymnastics perhaps?

Bikram Yoga doesn’t appear to pay heed to any of the greater teachings of yoga beyond the physical. It is yoga directly targeted at the Western mindset; no pain, no gain! No doubt it might be said by the Bikram community that the discipline and courage to endure a 90 minute class in 108 degrees is in itself yoga. So too then a cricketer standing facing a 90 mph delivery in the heat of the Mumbai sun. Though it may be that the cricketer is less likely to injure himself in the process. Lorr reports of people collapsing in class, even suffering seizures. Allied to this is the danger of over-stretching muscles,ligaments and tendons in such an artificially induced environment. Lorr tells of the ever present pains and strains among Bikram practitioners who carry these injuries with some sense of honour. Almost as though Bikram Yoga is some kind of battlefield!

Finally to the man himself; Mr Bikram Choudhury. A dodgy character indeed. Hardly an aspirational yogi. Unless that is you regard sexism, racism, bullying and overt materialism to be the traits of an enlightened spirit. Former teachers and students tell of a vain and insecure man who insists that students memorise a script and teach classes using that script. His script; his words. In order to gain the teaching qualification, students have to teach a 90 minute class word perfect and the script is never to be diverted from. Nor is the sequence of postures within a class to be meddled with or added to. Bikram Yoga is 26 postures in a particular sequence and to mess with the law of Bikram is to possibly lose your license to teach hot room yoga. Undoubtedly it is to incur the wrath of Mr Choudhury!

I highly recommend ‘Hell-Bent’. It is an easy and engaging read. An intriguing insight into a yoga that though I understand, I do not feel any real kinship with. No doubt it is a good workout. Certainly you would leave a class feeling as though you had accomplished something. However, yoga to my mind, and certainly to the minds of those from millennia past, is more than simply an aerobic sweat drenched competition. Indeed that is the absolute antithesis of what yoga is! Isn’t it??

My yoga

So here goes with the first post of this new yoga blog.  Erm…what to say?  Well how’s about I lay down for you my take on yoga and its benefits?

I first got into yoga about twenty or so years ago.  I saw a book in a shop window, ‘Teach yourself Yoga’ and was intrigued.  I’d long had a fascination for the East through watching martial arts stuff growing up in the 70’s.  My hero had been Hong Kong Phooey.  Bruce Lee had nothing on that Kung Fu canine. In fact many within martial arts circles will say that Bruce Lee knew damn well that Hong Kong would take him down big style if they were ever to have a showdown. Further to that many believe that the stress imbued by this knowledge may have been what led Lee to suffer a fatal heart attack at the age of 32.  Who knows? But anyhow I saw this book and did recall having seen some yoga on television, again sometime in the 1970’s.  It seemed kind of mystical and for some reason at that point in my life struck a chord.  Perhaps I was seeking some escape from that which I saw around me?  It seems likely.  Certainly I was disillusioned with what I saw around me and indeed at that which was seemingly expected of me; doing some mundane work for the next five decades and living in the town I had grown up in.  Yoga seemed an escape.  Certainly a healthier escape than the avenues of escape offered by drink or drugs.  So I bought the book.  And so began a journey.  The journey.

You see from my perspective all of life is yoga.  Or rather we are all seeking a yogic state.  That is we are seeking a life of serenity and balance.  A life free of the slings and arrows, the strikes and gutters, the swings and roundabouts and numerous other metaphors of misfortune.  But of course that life does not exist.  Buddha said it “life is suffering”.  It is an inevitable consequence of our existence.  So given that truth the question becomes how to approach life.  How to accept it and ride this wave of consciousness wisely and with compassion.  The answer lies in yoga.

The yoga of popular perception, the bending and stretching (known in the trade as asana) is but the foundation for thrusting toward the higher reaches of yoga.  Originally Hatha Yoga (the bending and stretching known in the trade as asana – I hope you are paying attention!) was merely a means of preparing the body to be able to sit for hours of meditation.  It was merely a warming up for the main event.  And the main event is nothing less than attaining a cosmic connection to the far reaches of the seemingly infinite universe from our miniscule seemingly finite physical form.

The word yoga means union, and so it is that in Hatha Yoga we first of all seek to unite our body and mind.  These are increasingly out of synch in this noisy 24/7 world and yoga is more necessary today than it ever has been.  We are literally driving ourselves crazy.  We engage with everything except ourselves; i-phones’ i-pads, i-pods.  Everything but the I.  And that is not healthy.  And it certainly is not wise.  If life is a one way ticket and this is the one and only time that you will experience consciousness within this physical plane then what on earth are you doing wasting your time staring at a screen and engaging with virtual ‘friends’?  Who are you?  Isn’t that the more vital question, rather than what did my friends, friends friend have for lunch? Yoga is about bringing it all home to you.  Engaging with yourself.  With your Self.  Mindfully aware of where you are in each moment of your life.  Understanding how you work.

So my take on yoga is this; the physical yoga (Hatha Yoga in the parlance of our trade…Still paying attention I hope?) is hugely beneficial, firstly as it keeps the body flexible as we age. I believe the loss of flexibility is the most debilitating aspect of the aging process. If we can attain or retain the flexibility and motion of our younger selves then we are set for a less restricted later life. Secondly there is the breath. In yoga breath is called the bridge between the body and mind. Mindfulness, awareness, concentration upon the breath is key to achieving that union of body and mind that will lead to feelings of togetherness and tranquility in a world that seems to be at odds with both these states. Without oxygen we die. With a limited intake of oxygen we limit the potential for our body and mind to operate to its maximum. With a full breath taken in a relaxed state we maximise the nourishment of that most vital of nutrients. We may have to compromise on the quality or the quantity of the food we consume (for economic reasons perhaps) but for now at least air, oxygen is free. Don’t limit yourselves! Finally there is the quieting of the mind, the monkey mind as it is sometimes called. This errant primate leaps here, there, first glimpsed on one branch then in the blink of an eye moves on to another, chattering wildly as it does so. Until eventually all becomes a blur and it misses its intended target and crashes to the ground. Our minds are more scattered than they have ever been. Never has there been such external distraction leading us away from ourselves. The answer will never lie in the material world. Certainly you can distract yourself in it and indeed have fun in it, but it does not ultimately (ironically in fact) contain anything of substance. Finally at some point you will be confronted with yourself. And that finally is what yoga is. It is a time to commune with yourself, or indeed your Self. It goes far beyond a once a week yoga class. If you are a human being reading this then yoga is for you. If you are a dolphin reading this then…WOW!

As I said at the beginning of this piece, all of life is yoga, and all of us yogis…even if we don’t yet know it.