Here is a picture of our class from December's training with Tony Sanchez. Tony is in the second row, middle. I am in the back row near the middle in the white shirt. Ida is in the back row, fourth from the right in the grey long sleeve shirt. The photo was taken by Alan, a trainee who is also a photographer. His website is here.
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The heat used in Bikram's class (105 degrees F) is the subject of a lot of passionate discourse both for and against. I practiced regularly in the heat for 3 years. For the past 6 months I have also been practicing at room temperature, usually between 60-80 degrees F. Based on my experience in both situations and what I have learned from listening and reading, here are my thoughts about the heat. It has pros and cons. But the strange part is that many of what people consider to be benefits of the heat are either untrue or actually detrimental.
PRO - Burn more calories and lose more weight I have been in Bikram classes where the teacher claims that you can burn up to 800 calories in a 90 minute class. Luckily, the Bikram Yoga College of India recently sponsored a study where they hooked up a bunch of yogis to monitors while they practiced. They measured metabolic rate, heart rate and core temperature over the course of the class, so we have a pretty clear idea of what is happening to the body. According to the study, women burn about 330 calories during a Bikram class. Men burn about 460. The difference between men and women is mostly due to body size. The other issue, weight loss, is a tricky one. As I just mentioned, a class in the heat doesn't burn nearly the calories that some claim it does. The main way to lose weight in the heat is through water loss. Water is very heavy, and we can sweat out 2-4 pounds of water throughout a class. Sadly this loss is very bad for you because it is dehydration. Also, the weight goes right back in when you drink enough water to hydrate your body, which I hope you do. PRO - Reduced warm up time In a super heated room, the warm up gets cut down to Breathing, Half Moon Series, Chair and Eagle. 15-20 minutes. Even the Triangle series (Triangle and Standing Separate Legs Forehead to Knee), which in Ghosh's original sequencing goes right after Half Moon, gets moved later in the class to act more as therapeutic and less as a warm up. Our muscles get good and warm in that short 15-20 minutes. Incredible. The heat practically eliminates the need to do postures to warm the body. In 90 minutes we can do a good amount of therapeutic postures, from Wind Removing all the way to the end. When I practice at room temperature it takes 60-90 minutes to get my body sufficiently warm. As far as I can tell, this is the greatest advantage of the hot room. PRO/CON - Warm muscles are more flexible Yes, it's true that we can stretch farther in the hot room. Our muscles loosen significantly, but this is as bad as it is good. The hyper loose muscles allow us to overstretch and strain our muscles. We can't feel the usual neurological feedback from the muscles when they are tight or at the edge of their comfort zone, so we push them farther than we would in normal circumstances. We can strain the muscles and, even worse, we can strain the connective tissue. Our tendons and ligaments. Tiny tears in our connective tissues don't heal nearly as fast as our muscles, so if we practice in the hot room on a regular basis we can generate real damage in the tissues. This can lead to torn ligaments and loose joints, both things that take a very long time to heal if ever. PRO/CON - Lots of sweat When we practice asana in a hot room we sweat like crazy. The supposed benefits are twofold. 1)Your body sweats out toxins, making the extreme sweat a purifying process for your entire body. 2)Your skin gets clean and exfoliated from all the sweat. All the gunk and grime and dead skin washes right off, like scrubbing every inch of your skin from the inside out. The problem with perceived benefit #1, that we sweat out toxins, is that it has no foundation in biology. Our sweat is made up of water and electrolytes for the singular purpose of cooling the body. There is a fraction of a percent of anything that might be considered a toxin in our sweat. Medically speaking, our body eliminates toxins through excretion (urine and feces) and to a lesser extent exhalation. So we don't actually sweat out any toxins, just water. And that raises a significant Con with practicing in the heat - dehydration. The hot and humid room actually short circuits our body's natural cooling mechanism, so we hemorrhage water. Sweating is designed to cool us by evaporating from our skin, taking large amounts of heat with it. When the air is humid, our sweat cannot evaporate effectively, so we cannot cool. Our body keeps sweating more and more in hopes that it will help. It flows out of us in vast quantities as our bodies try to regulate their temperature. So at the end of a practice in a hot room, we are likely to be severely dehydrated even if we started the practice at optimal hydration. CON - Heat Stroke Heat stroke and heat exhaustion are so common in the hot room that teachers act like it is normal behavior. "We are ridding ourselves of toxins," they say. "Stay in the room no matter what." Cramping, lightheadedness, headache, nausea and vomiting are all signs of heat exhaustion. And it gets worse when a person is dehydrated. I have seen all of these symptoms and experienced most of them myself while practicing in the hot room. The recommended treatment for heat exhaustion is immediate cooling through air, ice packs or cold water, which goes directly against the usual refrain of "stay in the room." If we are feeling lightheaded or nauseous we should leave immediately and cool our bodies. In conclusion, I think the heat does more potential harm than good. The greatest advantage I see to the heat is that it saves time by warming the muscles externally. The possible dangers include strained connective tissue, loose joints, dehydration and heat stroke (which causes brain damage). A lot of intermediate and advanced postures seem inaccessible. A great example is Lotus. Once we can do Lotus there are loads of advanced postures that become available: Spider, Fish, Cock. Not to mention Lotus inversions like Headstand, Tiger and Handstand.
But how does one approach Lotus? It seems like one of those postures that you've either got it or you don't. And it is very easy to force yourself into Lotus before you're ready and injure your knees. There are several Lotus preparation postures in the Ghosh series. I will save those for another post. The most effective and safest Lotus prep posture is Tree Pose. There are a few important aspects of Tree to focus on to improve your progress toward Lotus. Hopefully you balance is sufficient that you don't have to spend much energy to keep from falling over. When you put you foot on your upper thigh (in Half Lotus Tree), bring it as high as you comfortably can. Then, as you use your leg muscles to push your bent leg down and back don't let your foot slip down your thigh at all! It is very important to create a stretch on your inner hip and leg. It will feel cranky and tight in your hip and inner thigh, so go to a point that is stretching but not painful. Stay here and let your body open. Keep your hips even and your back upright. As you progress with this, pull your foot up higher on your thigh as you set up the pose. This will increase the rotation in your hip and the stretch on your inner leg. Then start to pull your foot closer to your midline, heel closer to your belly button. Again, when your leg pushes down and back, don't let your foot slip down! It will want to but you have to pull up on it with your hand to prevent it from moving. Eventually your foot should be in the crease between your leg and pelvis, so when you bend into Toe Stand or Short Man your foot and bent leg don't move at all. Practice Tree pose a lot. Do several sets, not just the one or two that are common in Bikram's class. I usually do 5 sets of Tree before moving on. This way your hip rotation will open and the Lotus will become available. And once you can do the Lotus, many advanced postures become accessible. With the strength training I have been doing, I have been worried that my flexibility will decrease. And I have no desire to be stiff, no matter how strong may get.
But surprisingly I have found my flexibility improved. I have some soreness from the strength exercises, but it is muscle soreness that still stretches easily. And oddly, I feel I can stretch even further and with greater relaxation, possibly from improved balance in my joints or more strength on the complimentary side of the stretch. Maybe it is as simple as progress. I hope it continues. Today has been a day of strength training and meditation. I haven't done any asana practice, even though some of the strength exercises are either similar or identical to certain postures.
I have been doing exercises to improve the strength of my shoulders and upper back and hips and hamstrings. It is remarkable to me how few asanas focus on the strength of the hamstrings. My exercises include squats, crawls, walking while carrying weights, foam rolling and a dynamic one-legged sort of bridge pose. I can already feel the improved strength in my joints. I didn't realize how unstable they were, but they feel so much stronger now after only a few sessions. The other part of today was meditation. I focused on the pure and fearless part of myself, the part that is unshakable and still. I am trying to be with that part of myself, quieting my mental ideas of who I am and who I want to be. Hoping that with stillness and quiet that I will eventually be able to hear the voice of my true self. It feels strange to write that down, but there is certainly a discrepancy between who I think I am and who I am. Trying to find the latter, a complicated prospect. The "Practice" posts are about progress and learning. The pictures and analysis of my own practice help me find areas that need improvement. The toughest part of Dancer Pose is not the pose itself but the hand grip that enables the proper shoulder rotation. Perhaps I will do an entry about that in the future. Once I figured out how to do the grip properly (this is the same as in Floor Pigeon with the foot on the head), the pose was suddenly accessible. I have to use a towel for grip because I have had issues with my foot slipping out of my hand, and that's not good. With such an extreme backbend, to lose the foot and fling out of the pose is dangerous for the back. So a solid grip is really important.
After seeing these pictures, it is clear that I need to pull my upper leg closer to the splits. My upper body should come down more to allow for the leg to go up. When my Right Leg is up (top set of pictures), the leg is a little higher, my torso a little lower, and my back bent more. This is something I need to improve on my Left Leg Up side. Actually I need to improve it on both sides. The "Practice" posts are about progress and learning. The pictures and analysis of my own practice help me find areas that need improvement. Anyone who has practiced some of this pose knows it can be tough to assess your own progress while trying to bend your body and turn your face to the floor. The first thing that is different from regular Camel is that Full Camel is unsupported, so no hands on the lower back or hips. Quite the contrary really. Hands come in front of the legs, eventually the knees like a bowstring.
Once I can see my toes behind me, I stretch my arms over my head to grab onto them. I lower my head until it touches the floor. My elbows come to the floor, weight on the elbows not the head. Then I slowly walk my hands toward my ankles and my head into the bowl of my feet. Once my head is on my feet and my hands gripping my ankles, I stay here and breathe. It is an intense front side stretch, especially in the upper torso for me. I have to improve the arch in my upper thoracic spine. You can see in the pictures that the area between my sternum and throat is not bending much. |
This journal honors my ongoing experience with the practice, study and teaching of yoga.
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