Orientation

Today this journey starts in earnest. We are scheduled to meet the “guru” (Bikram Choudhury) at 10:00 for a lecture as well as to begin dialogue training and review. We were introduced to the entire teaching staff yesterday as well as the first single gathering of all of the trainees in a lecture hall that would match any college facility in it’s beauty and capacity. For any previous attendees, you will be “glad” to know that we apparently will no longer be sitting on a floor wet with the sweat of an entire class saturating our shorts, but on chairs so graciously provided by the hotel in our new setting! We were also informed that the dialogue training would be held in a number of additional meeting rooms where we still may be sitting on the floor, but that the yoga room will be used exclusively for practice! The facility is “state of the art”!

Bikram spoke for about 2 hours upon his introduction and was, as advertised, “quite colorful”. While I’m positive I would never wear some of the outfits he struts around in, there’s no doubt that this yoga has the ability to change your life regardless of what your malady is. He likes to drop names and tell stories about those that he has helped with his methods. Your initial reaction is to dismiss them as stories from a flamboyant entrepreneur or Hollywood movie type or snake oil salesman, but when one of those individuals that he has helped stands in front of you and confirms what is being said, it’s difficult to ignore. Of course, you don’t need much of a testimonial when you stop and think about the progress each and every one of us has made on a personal level while practicing and while there are many variations of the “success story”, everyone who has practiced this yoga over a period of time has one of their own!

One of those “success stories” was here today. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar spoke in front of the class for about 15-20 minutes talking about how Bikram Yoga extended his career for what Kareem believes to be about 7 years. He said he started practicing Bikram Yoga after he was ready to retire, but then suddenly faced some difficulties in life (his house burned down and he also had a financial manager who evidently made some unwise decisions with his portfolio) and felt he needed to continue to play professional basketball. It was kind of cool to have him practice yoga with us on Tuesday! His son apparently has been practicing since he was about 5 years old. The word is he has a beautiful practice and wanted to come down as well but has some sort of testing going on back in the states where he is attending college to be a doctor.

They wasted little time getting people up in front of the room to start reciting their first posture in front of Bikram. Everyone who is “performing” stands on a stage in front of the entire group of 300 people with 5 demonstrators assisting and they actually go through the posture as you recite the dialogue. Bikram is sitting in a giant chair on the floor directly off the stage, front and center critiquing each person’s attempt. The first people were great! Very smooth and obviously well polished. I’m sure that’s going to change, as we only were able to get through about 20 people. They say it takes a week or so to get through everyone and Bikram insists on listening to everyone’s first posture. I think I’ll “volunteer” after a few more people go in front of me.

We also took our first class yesterday. The room was not as hot as I had expected it to be. Bikram said about 95 degrees, but I don’t know if I buy that. The humidity is extremely high down here and the sweat just pours out of my body. Even with the temperature that low, a number of people faded rather quickly! Bikram teaches a powerful class and of course it’s different than what you are used to in cadence, as well as the length of time different postures are held. I felt pretty good both during as well as after class and slept like a rock. I was actually surprised how good I felt the following morning! We’ll see just how long that lasts. We start 2 a days today and I’m sure it will start to have an affect!

As I just stated, the humidity is very high here and nothing dries very well. I imagine it’s going to be similar to when I was in high school and we had to redress for the second football practice of 2 a days with damp clothing. Now there’s something to look forward to!