What to do about Bikram

I visited a non-Bikram Yoga class today. The teacher spoke in soft tones while chants flowed from a CD and water gurgled from a fountain. A blue banner proclaiming Peace hung near a palm-shaped Japanese fan. The floor was imitation bamboo. We moved slowly from one posture (asana) to the next in the comfortably cool room. The teacher gave alternate asanas to a man whose arm was in a brace, and she inquired frequently about my knee. At the end, she led us in a five-minute meditation during which I giggled as I thought about the Bikram class that was being held a few blocks away.

There, the temperature was 105°, and the walls were blank except for floor to ceiling mirrors. The industrial carpet was striped so students could place their mats in even rows. The teacher stood on a platform as she unceremoniously led her students through 90 minutes of memorized instructions. She told them not to leave the room—not for water, not to use the bathroom, and certainly not to escape the brutal heat. She told them that misery was good. If they were like me, they constantly asked themselves whether they were sufficiently dizzy to justify lying quietly on their mats for the next asana. They hoped to god they would be able to survive the session without passing out and, when it was finally over, they had pounding headaches. With difficulty, they made their way to their cars and wondered if they could drive safely.

I missed my Bikram class today. I missed the clarity of memorized instructions as today’s teacher struggled to tell her right from her class’s right. I missed its pace and austerity, and I knew that if the room weren’t so damned hot that it would have my loyalty. I continually struggle over whether to ever set foot inside a Bikram studio again. It is easy to say, “Listen to your body,” but bodies prefer the status quo. I could do things today that I knew I couldn’t have done had I not put in a week in the Bikram heat. What is best for my body? I really don’t know. I do know that I would like for Yoga to be something to enjoy rather than to simply survive.

A certain disillusionment creeps in

The Bikram who started Bikram Yoga put together 26 Hatha yoga postures, taught them in a hot room, wrote a book about it, and had his lawyers send cease and desist orders to anyone who used similar methods without paying him a $5,500 licensing fee plus a franchise fee. A group of California Yoga teachers formed a group called Open Yoga Source Unity and sued Bikram. In 2005, the Open Source teachers secretly cut a deal that benefited them but didn’t help other instructors. Now, other Yoga teachers are copyrighting their methods.

During my web surfing, I also learned that Yoga Journal runs feature articles on celebrities along with plush Yoga vacation options. It formerly refused to accept ads for events other than the ones it sponsored. I was naïve in thinking that millennia old Yoga, a practice that owes it existence to shared teachings and cooperation, was at least one area of human endeavor that had escaped cutthroat competition.

None of this means that Yoga does not offer significant benefits, but I was immensely saddened to be reminded that there is absolutely no pathway to goodness. It is entirely conceivable that a person who has never read a book on philosophy or embraced a spiritual practice can still be a thousand times wiser and more compassionate than the most respected philosopher or devotee.

I have already offended one of the leaders in my Wiccan class, and he refuses to acknowledge my apology. What does this tell me about Wicca? What do Islamic terrorists tell me about Islam? I suppose there are many good and wise Wiccans just as there are many good and wise Moslems, but sometimes it seems that the worst people are the very ones who embrace a given practice with their whole hearts.

Open house

Peggy and I went to an open house today at Phil Conner’s. Most of his guests were from the Eagles or VFW, and they appeared poor both in money and education. Such people lack pretense, and I sympathize with how little power they have in our supposed democracy.

I focused most of my attention on a man named Ray who said he first trained with the ski corps during World War II but was then sent to jungle school. Both schools were in Colorado, and he never fought on skis or in a jungle. Instead, he was part of the Normandy invasion, fought his way across Europe, and then served in postwar Japan. As soon as I heard the word Normandy, I began to cry. Conscious of the fact that I was at a party, and grateful for my sunglasses, I hid my sorrow as best I could. Ray was hit in the face by shrapnel, and came away with fewer teeth, bad hearing, and a Purple Heart. He gave his Purple Heart to his daughter, so his son bought him a replacement off Ebay for two dollars.

I left Phil’s in time for my second Yoga class. I thought I might be better able to pace myself, but I was too tired going into it to last over an hour, although I did avoid the cardinal sin of leaving the room. My repose allowed me to observe that not even the experienced students did every exercise.

I left too spacey to drive, and sat on a bench until I cooled off. When I finally cranked the van, I forgot that it will only go into gear when my foot is on the brake. After much frustration, my head cleared enough to leave.

I get my third shot of Synvisc tomorrow at 1:00, which means that I will have to attend the 9:00 Yoga class. Thirteen hours between classes doesn’t seem like enough, but I don’t want to miss a day. I hesitate to say that my knee feels better after only two sessions, but it is definitely not worse. Only my back feels overtaxed despite my efforts to protect it.

Bikram

I signed up for a month of Bikram Yoga yesterday (at $15 for one class or $30 for thirty classes, I couldn’t resist). An unbelievably energetic teacher named Meadow led us through ninety minutes of vigorous exercises in a 105° room. Sweat did not run in rivulets from the twenty students; it descended in sheets that formed puddles and spilled over the sides of their mats. Three of us were first-timers, the other two seemingly young and fit, yet one of them left after thirty minutes, and the other took frequent breaks. I was hell-bent on sticking it out, but I became so dizzy near the end that I had to rest for short periods. The teacher complimented me on not leaving the room.

No one spoke either before or after class. I assumed they were either anticipating the misery or recovering from it. I looked at how young and beautiful they were, and I knew that, in the absence of desperation, I would not be there. As I biked home, I had trouble staying oriented, and I thought I must be ill. Then I realized that I was just sleepy.

The older I get, the more I find that young people are my doctors and, in this case, my teachers. I am tenacious in my belief that authority figures should be older than I, but, alas, the only way to avoid taking orders from my juniors is to never try anything new—and certainly to never get sick. Yet, there is a positive aspect to how I think about authority figures as I age. Namely, I sometimes refuse to follow their instructions. Yesterday, Meadow kept yelling things like, “Bend your back toward the wall; bend it farther, farther, farther than you ever thought possible,” and I reflected that she wouldn’t be the one with the crushed disk.

I took a class at a regular Yoga studio the day before. The group was small, intimate, and philosophical. I would have signed up for a month, but most of their classes happen before I get out of bed. By contrast, Bikram is factory Yoga. They have classes all day long, all around the globe, and they never talk philosophy. Yet, I am convinced they can help me unless I push myself too far. The extreme heat is supposed to prevent this. It is also said to relieve the body of toxins. If this is true, their carpet must contain hundreds of pounds of noxious bouillon crystals.

It is 1:00 a.m., and I am still drained, yet I look forward to going back this afternoon, maybe because I think it will be easier, or maybe because I can’t believe it was really that hard. I was the only one who laughed during class. I kept looking at the misery around me, and thinking about how we were all paying good money for it. The absurdity tickled me, and I giggled repeatedly.

As I left the building, a man on the sidewalk was screaming obscenities at a woman, and she at him. Another man and another woman had been doing the same thing when I entered. Continuing on, I passed a bike tire locked to a post, the rest of the bike stolen. I usaully avoid downtown and its desperate people.

Eugene was very different when I moved here twenty years ago. I never felt fear then. I saw it the way the Oregon Trail settlers saw it—as the Promised Land. The town and I have both changed. It is growing from a big town into a bonafide city that doesn’t spend nearly enough on law enforcement, and I am growing into something that I am not sure about, but something ever better.

Yesterday, as I walked the sidewalk to a hopefully safer place where I had locked my own bike, I looked at the many desperate people, and I knew that none of them would bother me. Sweat was pouring from me in such abundance in the cool air that I looked as if I was dying from something that could be contagious.