Sunday, October 21, 2012

Bikram Yoga Harvard Square


Victoria Ellis                                                                                                                        Ellis 1
Professor Douglass
Yoga: Theory, Culture, and Practice
22 October 2012
Bikram Yoga Harvard Square
            Bikram Yoga Boston is a growing yoga center with two locations in Boston and one in Cambridge.  I attended a Bikram Yoga class at the Bikram Yoga Harvard Square location.  This center is dedicated to helping people find and continue their Bikram Yoga practice.  They believe that this practice not only gets people physically fit, but also releases new types of energies.  Bikram Yoga Harvard Square and all of its other locations are the only certified and affiliated Bikram Yoga schools in the area.  This ensures that all aspects of ones Bikram Yoga experience there will be of the highest standards and meet all the requirements to be affiliated with the Bikram’s Yoga College of India (Bikram Yoga Boston).     
            Bikram Yoga Boston admits that all Bikram studios are not alike so they rely on a warm, welcoming atmosphere to appeal to all people.  Their three studios are set up in a modern way to create an open environment.  My instructor, Meredith Bowen, definitely made me feel welcome as I came for my first time alone.  She is always looking for new challenges and took Bikram Yoga as one of them.  She was a competitive roller skater for most of her life and has suffered from many injuries, one being chronic back pain.  She claims that practicing Bikram Yoga regularly cured her chronic pain and no longer needed to see a chiropractor for it.  Bikram Yoga changed her life.  It only took one class for her to become hooked.  After three years of practicing Bikram Yoga quit her job at
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Corporate America to become a Bikram Yoga instructor.  She truly stands by this yoga and believes that practicing it to the best of ones ability is beneficial to all.  It healed her body and changed her life so much that her mission is now to create the same feeling she felt for others (Bikram Yoga Boston).
            The style of Bikram Yoga stemmed from the Hatha Yoga practice.  Hatha Yoga is one of the more common types of yoga practiced today in America.  This practice incorporates asana, poses, and pranayama, breathing exercises, to connect the mind and body.  Bikram Choudhury created his own type of yoga based of the basics of Hatha Yoga.  Bikram Yoga is a structured system of yoga consisting of 26 poses and 2 breathing exercises lasting for 90 minutes in a heated environment. 
Choudhury was born in 1946 in Calcutta, India and naturally began practicing yoga at the age of three.  He quickly excelled and by the time he was eleven, he was the youngest contestant to win the national India Yoga Competition (Bikram Yoga Boston).  When a weightlifting accident badly injured his knee, Choudhury was left crippled at the age of twenty.  He retired from the sport and sought help from his original yoga teacher, Bishnu Ghosh.  After only six months of yoga with Ghosh not only could he walk again, he was healed.  This is how and when the Bikram Yoga style begun.
Choudhury began to teach others his new form of healing yoga.  In 1973, he travelled to America and his form of yoga was an instant craze.  He came to find that
even in a country so advanced in medicine and technology there were still so many people in pain and unhappy, especially compared to his homeland.  “Statistically the

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United States makes up only about five percent of the world’s population, but its people seem to complain more than the rest of the world combined!” (Choudhury X).  He thought that this crisis went further than just physical ailments and were connected to mental and spiritual disturbances.  In order to heal physically, people need to be healed mentally and spiritually as well, and this is what he began teaching people.  People become hooked on Bikram Yoga because is results in long-term happiness of the mind, body, and soul.  Choudhury heals thousands of people at his Los Angeles center with his techniques and still travels the world teaching his ways to others. 
I chose to delve into the Bikram style of yoga because of my chronic knee pain that I have.  Fourteen months ago I shattered part of my kneecap resulting in missing bone and cartilage on the inside of my knee joint.  This causes me to have pain doing simple, everyday movements like walking up and down stairs, running, squatting, and jumping.  My knee now cannot handle nearly as much pressure as a normal knee can.  Bikram Yoga intrigued me because Choudhury healed his horrible knee injury with this practice. 
Unfortunately, this injury also caused a series of other issues with my muscles, tendons, back, and mental attitude as I was trying to rehabilitate.  When I participate in my Lesley Yoga class, these ailments tend to flare up during and continue after the practice.  I understand that they key to yoga is to do the poses to the best of my ability, I still seem to end up in pain lasting up to days after.  Being that I am a beginner at yoga I am still trying to understand how it works for my body.  I figured that the heat used in

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Bikram Yoga could only help my aching body and possibly allow me to be able to get deeper into the poses without pain. 
As I was searching for a Bikram Yoga studio, I stumbled upon the website for Bikram Yoga Harvard Square which appealed to me.  The website was very professional and clear to understand.  I could instantly tell that this place was legitimate.  There were clearly labeled tabs that directed me to all the information I needed to know.  There was also a clear list of studio policies and general information that I should be aware of.  I wanted to make sure I was going to an established studio to get the correct experience.
Also, they have many time slots available daily for Bikram Yoga, which fit into my busy schedule.  They offered yoga mat rentals, which made me feel that this place was open to first-timers, like myself.  I also liked that there was no pre-registration or prerequisites that I had to do.  The price was also within my budget which surprised me considering how professional the website appeared.  Lastly, the location was within walking distance of my dorm.  The Bikram Yoga Harvard Square website made me very excited to try Bikram Yoga for the first time. 
Upon my arrival, my instructor Meredith Bowen greeted me with a welcoming smile.  She instantly knew that I was new to this studio and immediately wanted to know a little bit about myself.  I explained the situation with my knee and she told me that Bikram Yoga targets people with chronic pain like myself.  Even more excited, I went into the locker room to get ready for the session. 
I did not realize how structured Bikram Yoga was until I tried it myself.  I began realizing it once I got into the locker room.  Every shelf and cabinet had a
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label; even the inside of the bathroom stall door had little reminders on it.  There was a place for shoes, towels, and ones belongings.  I understood this as a way for everyone to get into the same mind set.  This technique also makes first-timers feel welcome and because they do not need to ask anyone around to understand how the studio operates.  This allows everyone to feel comfortable and not hesitant or awkward to ask questions.  The theme of friendship was also all over this studio.  The locker room was filled with women who had a smile on their face.  In the bathroom there were boxes of Q-tips, tissues, and tampons available free of charge, for all to use.  The session had not even started and I felt very relaxed and ready to learn. 
The Bikram Yoga studio was one large room covered in mirrors.  There were about twenty-five people in my session.  I noticed a pretty equal number of men and women in my class.  Most of the women were wearing little tight shorts with matching sports bras, while the men wore athletic shorts.  Everyone in the studio looked experienced in some type of yoga.  Based off the body language and clothing the people were wearing I noticed that a majority of the people were at least middle class.  They looked like they had money, but not in a flashy way.
When the class began, I was surprised to see how people of all sizes and ages were able to perform.  There was one very old, slim man who seemed very in tune with his body.  He modified some of the poses to be compatible with his body but was still able to participate in every pose, which was amazing to me.  Not many elderly people are able to do yoga, let alone Bikram Yoga.  It was clear that he was mentally engaged and still getting the effects of Bikram Yoga without going as deep into the poses as others. 
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There were some women in the session that had curvy bodies, but were more flexible than the more athletic looking people.  I quickly had to change my mindset and tell myself that just because someone looks athletic does not mean that he or she is a yoga master.  Body type does not reflect ones yoga abilities because the body is not the only thing that is involved. 
I was not expecting the way Meredith taught the class.  She had a headset wirelessly connected to speakers in the studio that projected her voice.  For most of the session she stood on a box in the front and center of the class telling the class the poses but not showing us them.  At first I was put off by this style.  I initially felt that she should be showing us all of the poses because that is how all of the other yoga classes I have taken have been.  It did not take me long to realize that she knows what she is doing and does not need to show us the poses because all of the mirrors allow everyone to see what everyone else is doing, if we do not understand a pose.  After the class I realized that this technique allows people to listen to their body more and do as much as they feel comfortable, instead of trying to mimic the teacher because she is obviously going to be better at it. 
During the session, there were a few breathing techniques that involved harsh, quick movements that I was not expecting.  We laid on the ground in a straight line and in order to get all of the air out of our lungs, she asked us to quickly force our upper bodies up and bend over our legs to touch our toes as we breathed out.  The process started by her saying 5-4-3-2-1 and then she would loudly clap once signifying us to bend forward.  We repeated this multiple times in between
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poses and it seemed unlike the typical traditions of yoga: being calm, relaxed, and slow movements.  This breathing exercise made me feel a lot of blood rushing to my head and I was not able to do it as quickly as some other people around me. 
My mind set was rather positive the entire time.  I tried to not let the heat get to me.  I simply ignored it but right as the heat was beginning to agitate me, she announced that we were doing the final meditation and then we were done.  I could not believe that I was able to make it almost the whole way without the heat becoming a major threat.  After the class was over, I felt extremely awake.  I stepped out of the studio immediately into the heart of Harvard Square.  All of my senses seemed very heightened with all of the cars, lights, sounds, and people around me.  However, as I was walking through the dark parts of Harvard Square at night, I was oddly nervous of the people around me.  One person was jogging passed me and it frightened me.  I blame that feeling on my adrenaline and heart rate being elevated. 
There were only a couple poses I could not do during the session, not because of the heat, but simply my knee could not handle the pressure.  I was very proud of my mind, body, and soul for being able to stick through the entire session because I typically do not do well with heat.  The next day I was pleased to notice that my lower back was not sore like it usually is after yoga sessions.  My knee also did not feel as though it had been over worked.  After just one session, I definitely felt a temporary increase in my circulation.  Blood circulation is one of the best things I can do for my knee at this point.  Constantly getting ‘old blood’ out of my knee and ‘new blood’ in help my pain tremendously.  Usually how I have to do that is ice for 20 minutes off for 1 hour and
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repeat as many times as necessary.  It is very interesting to me that Bikram Yoga created that same feeling for me.  I am going to remember Bikram Yoga as an effective tool for healing and recommend it for others.  I would continue Bikram Yoga now if my schedule was not so unstable and if I had enough money for monthly memberships.  Someday I hope I will get to a part in my life where I can make Bikram Yoga a custom for me. 

















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Work Cited
"Bikram Yoga Boston Back Bay, Financial District & Bikram Yoga Harvard Square." Bikram Yoga Boston Back Bay, Financial District & Bikram Yoga Harvard Square. Bikram Yoga Boston, n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. <http://bikramyogaboston.com/>.
Choudhury, Bikram. Bikram Yoga. New York: Harper Collins, 2007. Google Books. Web. 19 Oct. 2012. <http://books.google.com/books?hl=en>.

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