Bikram Practice is Still Yoga Practice

Historical Posting. Originally written on February 17, 2010.
This particular post was written near the beginning of my initial foray beyond Bikram's Yoga. I was in a yoga teacher training program, and I was trying to explain to all of the other non-Bikram trainees why it was that I did Bikram's Yoga. Things have shifted since then, but I think it's important to  truthfully see where I've come from.

So, I’ve been practicing Bikram’s yoga for almost seven years. I’ve really enjoyed it. It has acted as a core to my practice, as a springboard to other practices and as the roots for an enduring personal passion of all things “yoga”.  It has provided me with a community of like-minded practitioners and wealth of new friendships. It has hurt me on a few occasions. And I most certainly have grown as a person because of it. I’ve met Bikram, practiced with him, his wife and his most senior teachers, read his books, and immersed myself in the odd world-wide cult of personality that surrounds the man. I’ve even participated in “yoga competitions” for goodness sake! I’ve seen other people pushing themselves in ways that are clearly hurtful and well beyond their limits. I’ve seen people completely transformed through their dedication to the practice. I’ve seen great teachers and appallingly bad teachers, and noticed the effect that these have had on other people. I’ve taken it all in, and I’ve stuck with it for a very long time. Am I just an idiot, or is there something of merit here?

Me and Bikram, July 2009, Palm Desert

Looking at the practice from the outside in – never mind all of the negative press – it seems to be almost anti-yoga. Teachers have a set dialogue and are told to insist on no (or very few) modifications or adjustments. It’s “my way or the highway” according to Bikram.  So here’s the dynamic: the quirky words and phrasing of an egomaniacal Indian yogi, embodied in a teacher that has received nine weeks of intensive 24*7 training (brainwashing), a hot room, a bunch of mirrors, and a bunch of flabby, self-centred North Americans with unruly egos gazing at their glorious selves in the mirrors! It is one of the purest forms of entertainment that I have ever seen!

Yet all I can talk about, in the end, is me and my experience. My practice has become a 90-minute moving meditation ... every moment is an integral part of the whole. I have found the strength to transcend the chatter, the bad press, the type “A” egos, the heat ... all of it ... and go deep within. This translates very well off of the mat as I re-enter the day-to-day world of chatter, negativity, selfishness, distraction and decay that is our contemporary lifestyle.

What’s my message? In the end, a yoga practice is a personal practice. However and wherever you find it, it may be inexplicable to others, but hey, if it works for you, that’s all that matters! Bikram’s works for me.