Tuesday 23 January 2007

Bikram


Bikram

Bikram Yoga (Bikram Parmar) is a style of yoga developed by Bikram Choudhury. Bikram yoga is done in a room heated to 105°F (40.5°C) and accompanied by specific dialogue. People of all levels, ages and body types usually practice together with a teacher acting as a guide, taking the class through the ninety-minute series. Bikram's Beginning Yoga Class consists of a sequence of 26 yoga postures (or asana) and two breathing exercises. Source - Wikipedea.com


Ever since I took Shiny Ruby's Yoga Workshop last year I have wanted to get more involved in Yoga. But have done nothing. I read Mary's & Philippa's posts when the positive messages of what yoga has done for them jump off the page and think to myself "I need to get into that". And have done nothing. But having done nothing - and not doing anything in the future are two completely different things. Sometimes it takes a different twist to make me propel into action.

It was whilst reading Shiny Ruby's blog the other day I started jumping from link to link and ended up reading all about Bikram Yoga. It sounded fascinating. I even Googled for local classes and ended up reading more and more about Yoga. One of the things I read really resonated with me and I think uncovered a reason why I had held off jumping in again. When I did the workshop I loved it, but I injured myself. My body was obviously not yet ready to do a full class and I did not hear the messages it was giving me during the class so I kept going. I was not in pain during the class but in the days that followed my body certainly told me it wasn't ready. So when I read that a good way to start is to learn a couple of poses at a time, practice them, make sure you can move smoothly from one to the next and then add the next pose in. And so on until you can do a full series for a great workout for an hour or more. Ahhh the old lightbulb moment.

So many times I put off doing things - not just yoga - but debt reduction, savings, cleaning the house, exercise, weight loss, anything - because all I see is the big picture and I get myself so overwhelmed before I even start that I end up not doing anything at all and the problems escalate. I need to slow myself down. I need to take a deep breath and just accept that the smaller steps I take will eventually lead to the big picture. That the snowball effect that I know will help pay off my debt (thanks for that again Stella :D) will also work in other areas.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean about slowing down and take a deep breath and accept the smaller steps.

I get so angry that I am not losing it fast enough and that others can lose it faster than me but in reality that is all I can do and I am doing the right thing and I am losing it and trying to keep it off. That is all we can expect my friend and in the long run we are the winners because we are looking after ourselves.

Love CM

shinyruby2 said...

heya! i'm so glad you got this book and i hope it gives you some inspiration.... and glad you are back to yoga... slow and steady babe. good luck xx

Mary said...

I know it's a cliche but how true is it when they say, "patience is a virtue". I get myself in a tizz when I can't do something straight away also but slowly learning I don't need to be perfect. Bloody virgos, we need to chill :-)