Reading a Book, Sipping Lemonade, by the River
“Facial expression relaxed; breathing normal, like you’re sitting under tree reading a book, sipping lemonade by the river,” states Senior Bikram Yoga Instructor, Michael Harris. Michael spent the weekend here teaching two Master Classes giving us students and teachers additional insight and corrections on many of our poses. It was so impactful that I’d like to share with you some of what we learned.
Bikram yoga can be looked at as an aggressive form of yoga. After all, the teacher energetically recites proper dialog to the entire class and doesn’t do a single pose. Add in the heat and the humidity and you’ve created more intensity to an already “full bodied” type of class. However, what can’t be missed even with this intensity, is access to the breath. Labored breath, short choppy breaths, and certainly holding the breath, aren’tgoing to create the asana (or pose) you’re aspiring to execute. Asana itself is known to mean a specific position of the body which channelizes prana (or breath). So what Michael emphasized as he began his first Master Class was this concept of relaxing the central nervous system during your practice using the breath. His analogy of “breathing normal like you’re sitting under tree…” was used often throughout the class to reinforce that breath is the priority. Try it next time you take class. It’s a beautiful depiction really, for instance when you are stretching in Half Moon, pushing your hips beyond your flexibility, remember to breathe as normally as if you are “…sipping lemonade by the river.”
Pranayama Breathing. Locking the knee, and those important and frequent 10 fingered grips starts here! In your two sets of pranayama breathing be sure to keep that foundation strong with locked out legs. Suck in that stomach on both inhale AND exhale. In other words, use and exercise those lungs. After all, they are the machine that accesses your ever important breath. Press your knuckles against your chin when you exhale and begin to work your thyroid and parathyroid glands.
Half Moon Posture. Here is where we start to energize the spine. All of us teachers comment on how backward bending heals the spine. It does! The dialog says bring your arms back immediately. Members, use the weight of those arms to carry out that ever important backward bend.
Awkward Posture. The second part in particular will give your toes, ankles and small bones and ligaments a good stretch so they can relax in other postures to come.
Teachers will encourage you to use your core strength in many of the poses. But how many of us think about relaxing the toes? Keep those toes relaxed in Standing Head to Knee, Standing Bow, Balancing Stick, and Separate Leg Stretching Forehead to Knee. And oh yes, are you breathing as if you are “sitting under tree, reading a book, sipping lemonade by the river?”
Michael’s classes were a good reminder that it’s the little things that can make such a big impact on our practice. Relax your forehead; relax your wrists (in fact, in all postures keep those wrists straight and relaxed); relax your neck and of course, breathe.
Michael is a good friend of mine. He was a big part of my teacher training close to 10 years ago. Of course he has a story, he actually has quite a few stories (hope you are smiling as you read this Michael) about his own health being in serious jeopardy and what this yoga has done for him. Michael isn’t one to walk around telling his story, he’s the one still doing the work since 1993. He is of course happy to share with anyone the significant information about Bikram he’s learned along the way. If you missed him this year, no worries, he’ll be back next year.
Bandhas. In Bikram Yoga, we don’t talk much about bandhas, which are energy locks in the body that help to manipulate or redirect the energy flow to overcome disturbances or areas of energy stagnation or resistance in other areas of the body.The term comes from India and their water harvesting methods, diverting water with the use of “bandhas,”so as to redirect the water to be used in times of drought. Michael made mention of this term and how our poses stimulate bandha activity. For instance, in Eagle pose, with all the squeezing in the upper body and the lower body (affecting 14 major joints in the body) this activates bandhas in the body which seal energy flow and then redirects this energy to places that are disturbed or blocked.
Sit-ups. Michael wants you to think about using the abdominal area and diaphragm to push air out of the lower lungs in particular. This effects biochemistry of the blood eliminating carbon that comes into the lungs. The sit up can expel these carbon chemicals. Make sure you suck the belly in and double blast that air out!
“That was the warm up, now the yoga begins.” Michael too, as many teachers state, reinforce this message that the yoga begins with the poses done on the floor. All our hard work prior to this part helps to warm up or condition the body to get to the heart of the matter, the spine. Even your forehead to knee pose is a warm up to the amount of stretching, contracting you will do in the floor series.
It was great to see so many students comfortable asking Michael questions about their personal struggles and circumstance when performing a pose. Many of the answers revolved around this short phrase, “anatomy is your destiny.” He continued, “know when you are going too far and when you’ve got room to push. Ask yourself, is it a stretching sensation or a strain? If it’s the latter, then back off a bit.”
Savasana. What makes Bikram Yoga so different from any other yoga or sport is the savasana. “It’s what you pay for,” states Michael. In class, we do 14-16 savasanas. That’s the piece that makes this Hatha Yoga and not gymnastics. Doing the posture to your maximum expression within your limits today; breathing normal (sitting under a tree, reading a book, sipping lemonade by the river); and then completely relaxing (savasana), which is where and when the body begins to heal and restore itself and defines Hatha Yoga. Michael suggested that we come two minutes early before class starts and stay at least two minutes after class to deepen the experience of a relaxed central nervous system.
In the last four weeks, BYSJ has welcomed over 400 new students to the yoga, thanks to our Groupon special and our “10 for $20 challenge.” I admire all of you, as it takes courage on many levels to start, and a huge commitment to keep it going. Bikram’s most famous quote seen just about everywhere is “never too sick, never too old, never too late to start from scratch once again.” The yoga really isn’t hard. It’s just that it requires attention on one challenging component – YOU! That can be scary, and also in today’s world, it can be your very last priority – to take care of yourself. Michael ended the Master Classes by inviting each of us to take a moment, sit up after final savasana, and thank ourselves for coming and offer gratitude to whatever our life reflects. From my perspective, everyone I’ve come across in my 12+ years of taking and teaching yoga will say how grateful they are that they started yoga. “I love my yoga,” is a phrase often heard amongst students. A good translation for “I love myself.”
