Bikram yoga, a full body workout from the inside out, "head to toe/bones to skin," is magnetically attractive to a culture where body image is equated with love, fame, and even happiness. People are flocking to the hot room by the thousands. Bikram's 26 Asana series answers our quest for physical beauty and health.
But like any yoga practice, there is more to hot yoga than meets the eye. Bikram's Asana series originates from a spiritual lineage whose ultimate goal is self-realization. Promoted as a workout, your 90 minutes of sweat, breath, and stretch sculpt a razor sharp mind and a burgeoning spiritual self.
"My duty in this life is simply this: to break down walls between people and nations, men and women, east and west," Bikram says. Taught by his guru Bishnu Ghosh, Bikram Choudhury successfully healed himself from a dramatic injury that crushed his legs and threatened to leave him bound to a wheelchair the rest of his life. As a public figure, Bikram now turns up the heat on our accepted truths, unveiling our own power to heal broken bodies and minds.
WHY HOT?
Practicing yoga in a ferociously heated/humidified room facilitates deeper stretch, detox, mental strength, and healing, for all levels. Thousands of hot yoga practitioners are a testament to how it changes lives both physically and spiritually, inspiring people to use yoga as doorway into themselves.
HOT YOGA INNOVATORS HEAT UP THE WEST
Many of today's Western hot yoga innovators individualize Bikram's traditional 26 Asana series; blending lineages to create hot yoga hybrids. Hot yoga continues to grow in this fertile soil, using the common denominator of heat to satiate our craving for detox.
The hottest innovator is Baron Baptiste, who heated up Ashtanga yoga and dance techniques to create the flowing 'Power Vinyasa Yoga.' Jimmy Barkan, creator of the Barkan Method, extends heat into a fluid sequence that varies from class to class. Gabrielle Raiz (a.k.a. The Hot Yoga Doctor), utilizes her anatomy expertise to refine posture alignment.
Each of these hot innovators runs teacher training sessions in their specific method of heat plus yoga, cooking up new yoga forms everywhere.
As teachers, studio owners, and yogis, you are also making a vital contribution to modern yoga culture - whether carrying on a lineage or trying new ideas. Perhaps you have adapted a yoga series to suit your students, your community, your personal goals, or your business. Your innovations not only affect your studio and your students, but the future of yoga in the Western world - let's keep the trend growing positively!
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