About Bikram Yoga
How Yoga works.
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Bikram's Beginning Yoga Class
is a twenty-six asana series designed to scientifically warm and stretch muscles, ligaments and tendons, in the order in which they should be stretched.
Bikram Yoga's twenty-six posture exercises systematically move fresh, oxygenated blood to one hundred percent of your body, to each organ and fiber, restoring all systems to healthy working order, just as Nature intended. Proper weight, muscle tone, vibrant good health, and a sense of well-being will automatically follow.
Your Progress:
How quickly you progress will depend entirely on you -- upon your natural ability to a small extent, but mostly upon the time and effort you give to Yoga. It will have little to do with how "perfectly" you can do the poses.
Few of us ever do the poses "perfectly". Instead, it will have to do with how well you understand what you are trying to accomplish in each pose, how you try to accomplish your goal, and how supple your muscles and joints have become in comparison to the point at which you began. In Yoga there is no standard of comparison except yourself. To be 'Perfect' in Yoga is to do the best you can do.
Bikram teaches you not only the ideal pose - how you will eventually be able to do it - but also the reality - telling you what problems you will have as you try to do the pose, what clues will help you make rapid progress, and where you might be tempted to "cheat," thus depriving yourself of the benefit of doing the pose properly. Bikram explains to you, in his inimitable humorous and informative way, how his scientifically designed series of twenty-six poses will enhance mind and body, relax, strengthen, reshape, and heal all of you in 90 minutes.
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How Yoga Works.
Yoga helps you to create symmetry in the body.
Yoga works by extension and compression of the body...
When you stretch one side of the body you compress the other side so extension and compression are happening in every posture.
When you stretch a part of the body you stretch not only the muscle, tendons and ligaments but also the veins and arteries. You put stress on the bone which makes it stronger. Stretching causes the blood to build up in the veins and arteries surrounding an organ, muscle, gland, etc.
The heart then pumps harder to push the blood through these constrictions. Thus there is a back up of blood. After 20 seconds the blood volume and pressure has reached it's maximum-then the release of the rush of blood creates cleansing and revitalization of the organs, glands, etc. At the same time the arteries and veins are being flushed.
Compression works by squeezing the blood out of the area being compressed for specific time releasing toxic material into the blood to be released out of the body through sweat or breath.
Then the release of posture forces blood back into the area flushing it with fresh oxygenated blood.
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Pranayama Breathing Prana means life force in sanscrit.
Pranayama breathing is meant to distribute fresh O2 throughout all the systems in the body and release CO2 and other toxic gasses
through the exhale to balance to blood gasses. Pranayama breathing expands the size of the lungs and rib cage making them more useful.
Pranayama breathing helps to calm the nervous system and gives you energy.
Pranayama breathing exercise opens the shoulders, spine, rib cage heart and lungs and diaphragm.
(The surface area of the lungs is equal to the size of the yoga room.)
No forced breathing in BIkram Yoga.
Only breathing through the nose with the mouth closed except in the 2 breathing exercises we do at the beginning and end of the practice.
Breathing is the only system in the body that you can control or let work on it's own.
Therefore breathing is the yogic connection of the mind and body.
Breathing keeps you here/now.
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Things to think about:
Perfection in yoga is doing the best you can do for that day and accepting that was your practice for the day.
Nothing more/nothing less.
It doesn't matter how well you do the posture, only that you try the RIGHT WAY through the instruction of your teacher.
There is nothing in this class that will harm or injure you if you follow instructions carefully.
Fear is the biggest obstacle you must overcome.
You have to open your heart, mind, soul, eyes and ears-all your senses to gain an understanding of your life.
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