Spiral Tulip

I always find parallels between my yoga practice and the other things I'm working on in my life. Yesterday, back at Bikram yoga, I was very creaky, slow, and a bit frustrated with how much better I "used to be." (I've been dealing with some chronic pain in my hip and shoulder and haven't figured it out and it's very frustrating to me!) 

Anyway, it made me realize--I'm currently working on building an online course about re-connecting to your creativity. One of the things I talk about there is that our creativity "muscles" can atrophy if we don't use them, and it can be daunting to get back into the swim of things. If we are rusty or don't have a routine or if we feel bad about our failings, it's hard to even start. 

I’ve been practicing yoga (and writing about that practice) for seven years now. 

For the past two years, I’ve been managing an injury in my hip while seeking healing. I’ve tried various modalities, including acupuncture, Rolfing, massage, modifying my postures, walking, and talking to my regular doctors. The next step may be an MRI, but that’s not the point of this blog entry.

Instead I want to talk about my decision to take some time off from my regular Bikram practice and how that decision impacted my (triumphant!) return to the hot room this week.

Last fall, I was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the intensity of the Bikram practice. Bikram stresses a lot of very yang concepts with a very intense “dialogue” of instruction, such as, “Lock the knee, lock the knee, one more chance lock the knee.” When I was a beginner, I worked very hard to follow the dialogue to the letter, a task made even more difficult by the fact that many of the postures are “not available” to me because I have very tight hamstrings and lower back.

At that time, our teachers were very urgent about the need for us to follow Bikram Choudhury’s teachings as closely as possible. Another example: there was pressure to get into Savasana between the floor postures quickly so that we could get full benefit from this short rest between active effort. I have written in previous entries about how challenging the emphasis on speedy transitions is for me. I am a self-identified turtle in a yoga world of deer and rabbits, which is why I don’t enjoy Vinyasa Flow classes or other classes that favor a fluid movement between quick postures. I take a lot of time to get in an out of postures, and I took even more time when I was 30 pounds heavier.

In my injured state, the urgency to pull harder, move faster, and be hotter started to overwhelm me.

So, I decided to spend this past fall experimenting with a shorter, more moderate class offered at the community college where I teach. My hope was that I would be able to find different postures that might strengthen areas of my body that weren’t getting activated in Bikram, thereby taking pressure off the inflamed, stressed hip. I also hoped I would find a more organic way to incorporate yoga into my daily life--not even factoring in travel time, Bikram requires a 90 minute commitment plus a shower, due to the copious sweat generated in the hot room.

I won’t spend a long time writing about the Pi-Yo (pilates-yoga fusion) class I took, but I will say that the teacher, Christine Manning, put a lot of focus and attention on doing what felt good to our own bodies. This message resonated with me--after all, I’ve long been a fan of Adriene Mishler’s “Find What Feels Good” approach to movement.

Christine also created a space in which pacing was slow and deliberate. Perhaps most importantly, she did not simply tolerate a student’s own modifications; instead she rewarded us with praise whenever we made choices to sit out a posture or modify in a way that trusted our own limitations.

I am happy to say I will be returning to Christine’s class again this term, because I really value the healing, nurturing practice she fosters. However, I did not find a cure for my aching hip in the class, and I started to notice that I was aching more in other parts of my body in the same way I used to ache prior to starting my Bikram practice seven years ago. So, as of this week, I’m back at Bikram too.

But I’ve changed. This week, I’m making the conscious choice to move even more slowly than before.

My Rolfer, Jake Liebman (I’m back at Rolfing too), suggested I focus on quality movement instead of depth in the posture. I’ve heard similar suggestions before from him and from from my Bikram instructors, but sometimes, you hear something you’ve heard a hundred times before and suddenly it takes on new meaning. Today, instead of looking for depth, I focused on lifting up out of my hips and extending down into the earth. I thought about my root chakra and the way winter is a time to really slow down and let the “sap” move slowly and deliberately. I could feel my imaginary roots sinking into the earth and the mula bandha engaging to protect my hip. I could feel my body finding new ways to move--ways that eliminated the pain if I was willing to take the time to slow down.

It’s unusual to not follow the dialogue exactly or to move at your own pace in Bikram. For years, we were told to move together to create a better energy in the room, and there was a feeling that if you couldn’t, you were breaking the rules. I’m a rule follower, so I took pride in matching the pacing of the group, and I berated myself when I couldn’t. But I’m embracing the idea that this is my practice and that not listening to my body is a mistake.

This worries my teachers, by the way, especially if I haven’t had a chance to remind them of my injury before class. It’s not normal to deviate or modify in Bikram. My teachers come over to find out what’s going on. Often. I tell them I’m injured, and they either offer a suggestion to help me or leave me alone. I am self-conscious about this still, but the good news about yoga is that the practice will teach me not to be.

That’s the benefit of a dedicated practice over time; I’ve seen so many kinds of growth, and I’ve had so many different teachers. And I’ve seen the Bikram world begin to “find what feels good” too. Many studios, including mine, seem to be embracing the freedom that came from Bikram Choudhury’s ignominious departure from the United States after being accused of sexual assault and rape by many of his students. The teachers are now less hardline about the dialogue, and while Bikram practice is still codified and rigid, the kinder, gentler Bikram practice really opens up the possibility that I will be able to continue healing my body through the Bikram postures, which I have come to value and understand on a deep and personal level.