Lately I have been practicing yoga and really enjoy it. I’m not doing it necessarily to lose weight, it just feels good for my body and I can feel myself gaining strength and flexibility. I have taken two beginners classes to learn about yoga and how to perform the postures correctly. I have taken Hatha beginners and Ashtanga beginners (I took this one twice) in addition to trying regular classes. I thoroughly enjoy it and love the teachers and the fact that they will give you personal attention, tell you what you are doing wrong, what the benefit of each posture is and what can happen if you do it wrong. I have been practicing at Yoga Yoga in Austin at the South Lamar and Westgate locations.
I just recently tried Bikram yoga and thoroughly HATED it. The instruction was awful, the practice is horrible. It goes against everything that I have envisioned yoga to be about. I did a search on Bikram yoga after taking this class and found a few disturbing facts.
First…Bikram yoga was “invented” in 1973. Real yoga has been around for thousands of years and the practice and teaching has been handed down over generations to make sure it’s taught correctly.
Second….Bikram “stole” poses and claimed them to be his own and has even sued other yoga studios for using “his” postures. And he brags about his money, possessions, and women and taunts his students while he teaches. Here are a couple of excerpts I found.
“Bikram Choudury is controversial because he selected 26 postures from a 4000 year old Indian yogic tradition and copyrighted them. Historically yoga has been taught free or by donation. The asanas are not considered to be "owned" by any one human until this particular case. He has sued many people for performing "his" yoga poses. Bikram's behavior is also decidedly unyogic-- he taunts students, make fun of those who cannot do all the poses, curses and yells in class, and brags about his money, women and his possessions while teaching.” - Wikipedia
"That being said, Bikram Yoga is a hellish torture test, designed by people for whom I can only guess, want to feel as much public pain and discomfort as possible" – From a guy who loves yoga and all the benefits of yoga
Here is one of my favorites because it talks about Ashtanga which I absolutely love! It’s a great workout and you are constantly moving and building strength to eventually be able to do the full postures. One day, I may write a blog about Ashtanga because that is a true workout:
"Bikram yoga is NOT good for you. It forces your body by using heat into postures that it is not ready for and can have long lasting, damaging effects. The only reason it feels like its good for you is because you feel exhausted, drained and defeated. This style gives yoga a bad name. Bikram yoga is limited to 26 poses. They are the same every time! There exists 100s of yoga poses that target different muscle groups and when using them in variety is the only way to get a total body workout. Please, do the research! Bikram is taking advantage of yoga’s good name and claim to medical benefits and not following through.I am a certified hatha yoga instructor and experimented with bikram for a year until finally injuring by lower back. I know many others who have been injured and never seemed to get any stronger, thinner, or more balanced. If you are looking for a workout, try ashtanga–if you’re looking relief from: stress, anxiety, depression, hypertension, sciatica; try any other form of yoga!! If you like the heat, which was my favorite part, try heated vinyasa flow. Your body and mind will thank you!"
Here a few of the reasons why I hated Bikram:
They do not teach proper ways to perform the postures and how it benefits your body and if you do it wrong, how it can hurt your body
They stress over and over again, “Lock your knees, lock your knees, lock your knees.” In every yoga class I have taken, it’s been stressed over and over again how dangerous it is to lock your knees and that your leg should always be “engaged” meaning not locked. It should be “active.” Your leg can be straight but never locked, thus keeping it engaged and active. Some of the postures they put you in with locked legs feels like you can seriously injure yourself and I’ve read several posting of bikram students tearing their meniscus in practicing bikram yoga. Gee, I wonder why?
Backbending: Most backbend postures are meant to bend your upper back and make your upper back more flexible and to remove the stress from your lower back. Most people’s lower backs are already pretty flexible and the key to back bending is to evenly distribute you’re the “bend” throughout your back. In bikram, the teacher says “if this hurts your back, you are doing good.” This is not the good kind of hurt either. This is the serious injury type of hurt. Upward dog (or cobra) is not supposed to be used to make your lower back more flexible but instead to get you to focus on bending your upper back.
Your head should never just hang backwards but bikram has several poses where you do this. In every yoga class I have taken, the neck is considered part of your spine and you always want to attempt to keep your spine in some sort of line (except when back bending). If you are hanging your head all the way back, you are stressing out that part of your neck because of the weight of your head. And this is not “neutral spine.” My neck actually hurts so bad today from all of this.
Forward Bending: The bikram instructor, when doing seated forward bends did not explain the proper way to sit (which is high on your “sit bones”). Sitting upright properly is very difficult but it removes the curve for your lower back which most people have naturally when sitting all day. We normally sit back our tailbones which causes your lower back to curve out. Then when doing the forward bend, if you start sitting wrong, you will bend wrong and will get no benefit. Also, she stressed, “The most important this is that your head touch your knee.” Really lady? How does that benefit anything? First, you will have several people do one of two things: Strain and push their hamstrings so hard that they tear a muscle or hunch over so their head touches their knee. Again, with forward bending, you want to bed from your hips w/out rounding your back excessively and keeping a neutral spine and keeping your chest up to enable that. More often than not, when done properly, your head will not touch your knee unless you have really worked on this for a long time and become that flexible which is the ultimate goal.
Bikram yoga just throws you into these very difficult and advanced poses. There is no gradual process or modified versions if one cannot perform a particular pose. Yoga is something that is difficult and needs to be worked towards to do full postures. Not everyone is built the same and for these instructors to try and get you to push your body to do something you are not ready for is really bad. Sure, we can all do what we want and can do but they teach no proper ways on anything. It’s horrible.
The only benefits I got out of bikram yoga was that I can fully appreciate now the true benefits of yoga from a practice that has been passed down for centuries from the true yoga classes I have taken before trying bikram. That….and I like to sweat so that was good. Bikram is really no different than sitting in a sauna and stretching your body til you injure yourself. People who pay the obscene amounts of money that bikram costs are crazy. All yoga is expensive but I will gladly pay Yoga Yoga their prices because I know I will be getting great instruction from teachers who are qualified and know what they are talking about. These bikram instructors can’t even do half the practice. They just stand up there and drill you like you are in bootcamp but do nothing. At Yoga Yoga, the instructors will physically show you what the pose should look like and modified versions and can show what the wrong way of doing it is and show how it would hurt you. It makes me fully appreciate everything they have ever showed me and further my beliefs in what they are saying.
