Today March 18, 2016 is special for me. I completed 1000 Bikram yoga classes in 1000 days.
On the internet I learned a couple of people have achieved this milestone, one in Boston and one in New York city. There may be more.
Not everyone has the opportunity like I did to keep going day after day due to work or family or other situations. For some, Bikram yoga is expensive compared to joining a gym.
As I look back, I persisted in spite of a few occasions when I felt so dizzy and light headed and nearly fainted. Once, I did throw up and faint and was taken to emergency. I knew that occasion was caused due to dehydration and doctors found nothing. But such things scare the family members.
People ask me why do I keep going day after day. The amount of commitment is enormous. I get up at 4 AM so I have enough time to hydrate before my 6 AM class. I go to bed at 8:30 PM so I can get up at 4 AM. If the studio closes for snow, I do double on another day to make up. If I have to travel I research beforehand all the Bikram yoga places and manage to go for the class every day I am in a different city. I make sure my yoga laundry is done several times every week. There is no excuse. All of this should get done no matter what.
People ask me whether I am seeing any benefits and how I feel. Let me first address how I feel.
Before the class I am looking eagerly forward to the class. Bikram yoga is hard, hard, hard. In the beginning when I started I would be so tired right at the start with pranayama itself and every posture was hard. Gradually the level of difficulty reduced but it took almost two years. Now, I am confident I can complete all 26 postures without breaks. I still find some postures very hard. I cannot say I am enjoying the postures yet. I hope I reach a stage when I can completely relax during the postures.
I was not very flexible when I started Bikram three years ago. At that time I was 60 years old. Now I am 63 years old. I feel my flexibility still is the same. But, I have become stronger, much stronger and can hold the postures. At my age, I don't intend to do the yoga to show off. There are three or four asanas in which my expression is limited. I don't mind. I don't overextend in those postures. I feel it is much more important to do less but more frequently than attempt to do a lot, cause injury and miss several days of yoga. I focus on what I do well and continue doing well. With those three or four difficult ones, I still try to move out of my comfort zone but by so little each day that I have like ten year goal to achieve some decent level in them. I basically modulate my everyday practice in such a way coming to the class the following day is enjoyable.
Now, talking about benefits. It is difficult to say much about benefits confidently because that requires to you know what the status would be if you did not do Bikram yoga. So, whatever I say has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Without Bikram yoga I think I would have suffered some age related decline. Specifically, I would have experienced arthritis. Now I feel it is trying to meekly express itself but daily yoga tamps its down. I used to get frequent colds before yoga. I don't remember when I had the last bout of cold. My legs, thighs, arms are so strong, I have no problem climbing stairs or carrying many bags of groceries or shoveling snow. I do have a condition. It is my BP. Without yoga I think I would have had serious BP problem and related issues such as kidney disease. Yoga has not eliminated this problem but is keeping it in control without medication. I think over years I have begun to experience another facet of Bikram yoga benefit. That is its meditative effect. Initially it is physical. It remains so for years and years for most people. But the challenge is to elevate it to moving meditation. I am able to reach this for short periods of time during yoga. This is helping me enormously. Things don't bother me much these days.
There is another benefit. It is a community, a family. I see the same people several times a week. Just seeing them, smiling, exchanging a few words will have so much positive social and mental impact which is hard to measure. There is no class distinction or anything like that at all. I don't know what education they have, what jobs they do, how much money they earn, or anything like that. It is pure human to human relationship.
There are other side benefits. I eat well. Salad every day, plenty of vegetables and fruits. I make everyday ginger drink. Basically, I boil grated ginger in water for a couple of minutes, pour it into a huge jug of water and squeeze a big lime into it. I drink about 80 oz. of this drink every day, mostly before yoga. We hardly go to restaurants, may be once a month. I sleep well, at least 9 hours a day. I take naps if I can afford. If I did this ritual without yoga it would benefit me still. But I DO this for yoga. If I didn't do yoga every day, I am not sure whether I would follow such rigor and discipline.
On the internet I learned a couple of people have achieved this milestone, one in Boston and one in New York city. There may be more.
Not everyone has the opportunity like I did to keep going day after day due to work or family or other situations. For some, Bikram yoga is expensive compared to joining a gym.
As I look back, I persisted in spite of a few occasions when I felt so dizzy and light headed and nearly fainted. Once, I did throw up and faint and was taken to emergency. I knew that occasion was caused due to dehydration and doctors found nothing. But such things scare the family members.
People ask me why do I keep going day after day. The amount of commitment is enormous. I get up at 4 AM so I have enough time to hydrate before my 6 AM class. I go to bed at 8:30 PM so I can get up at 4 AM. If the studio closes for snow, I do double on another day to make up. If I have to travel I research beforehand all the Bikram yoga places and manage to go for the class every day I am in a different city. I make sure my yoga laundry is done several times every week. There is no excuse. All of this should get done no matter what.
People ask me whether I am seeing any benefits and how I feel. Let me first address how I feel.
Before the class I am looking eagerly forward to the class. Bikram yoga is hard, hard, hard. In the beginning when I started I would be so tired right at the start with pranayama itself and every posture was hard. Gradually the level of difficulty reduced but it took almost two years. Now, I am confident I can complete all 26 postures without breaks. I still find some postures very hard. I cannot say I am enjoying the postures yet. I hope I reach a stage when I can completely relax during the postures.
I was not very flexible when I started Bikram three years ago. At that time I was 60 years old. Now I am 63 years old. I feel my flexibility still is the same. But, I have become stronger, much stronger and can hold the postures. At my age, I don't intend to do the yoga to show off. There are three or four asanas in which my expression is limited. I don't mind. I don't overextend in those postures. I feel it is much more important to do less but more frequently than attempt to do a lot, cause injury and miss several days of yoga. I focus on what I do well and continue doing well. With those three or four difficult ones, I still try to move out of my comfort zone but by so little each day that I have like ten year goal to achieve some decent level in them. I basically modulate my everyday practice in such a way coming to the class the following day is enjoyable.
Now, talking about benefits. It is difficult to say much about benefits confidently because that requires to you know what the status would be if you did not do Bikram yoga. So, whatever I say has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Without Bikram yoga I think I would have suffered some age related decline. Specifically, I would have experienced arthritis. Now I feel it is trying to meekly express itself but daily yoga tamps its down. I used to get frequent colds before yoga. I don't remember when I had the last bout of cold. My legs, thighs, arms are so strong, I have no problem climbing stairs or carrying many bags of groceries or shoveling snow. I do have a condition. It is my BP. Without yoga I think I would have had serious BP problem and related issues such as kidney disease. Yoga has not eliminated this problem but is keeping it in control without medication. I think over years I have begun to experience another facet of Bikram yoga benefit. That is its meditative effect. Initially it is physical. It remains so for years and years for most people. But the challenge is to elevate it to moving meditation. I am able to reach this for short periods of time during yoga. This is helping me enormously. Things don't bother me much these days.
There is another benefit. It is a community, a family. I see the same people several times a week. Just seeing them, smiling, exchanging a few words will have so much positive social and mental impact which is hard to measure. There is no class distinction or anything like that at all. I don't know what education they have, what jobs they do, how much money they earn, or anything like that. It is pure human to human relationship.
There are other side benefits. I eat well. Salad every day, plenty of vegetables and fruits. I make everyday ginger drink. Basically, I boil grated ginger in water for a couple of minutes, pour it into a huge jug of water and squeeze a big lime into it. I drink about 80 oz. of this drink every day, mostly before yoga. We hardly go to restaurants, may be once a month. I sleep well, at least 9 hours a day. I take naps if I can afford. If I did this ritual without yoga it would benefit me still. But I DO this for yoga. If I didn't do yoga every day, I am not sure whether I would follow such rigor and discipline.
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