Count on breaking a sweat when practicing Bikram Yoga. The 26-posture series developed by Bikram Choudhury is taught at a piping 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) and 40% humidity. Choudhury affectionately calls his own studio "Bikram’s Torture Chamber." Still, the heat actually helps loosen muscles for intense stretching and protects against injury.

The series evolved from Choudhury’s own experience with a weight-lifting injury. Doctors said he wouldn’t walk again, but he refused to hear it. Instead he returned to his childhood teacher, Shree Bishnu Charan Ghosh, for six months of yoga therapy. When Choudhury completely recovered, Ghosh encouraged him to open yoga schools of his own.

Choudhury designed his signature series to sequentially stretch and contract the total body in 90 minutes. The practice, taught in Bikram Yoga studios worldwide, makes the physical and spiritual benefits of hatha yoga accessible to beginners, but also promises to challenge more advanced students.

Bikram Yoga exploits the "tourniquet effect." After an opening pranayama breathing exercise, the sequence unfolds into 24 poses handpicked for stretching, balancing, and creating pressure. Each posture specifically stretches the body to prepare it for the next one. The series closes with a detoxifying breathing exercise.

The patented Bikram Yoga routine is rooted in Patanjali’s tradition of the Yoga Sutras. Choudhury does not claim these classical poses are his inventions. Instead he emphasizes the order in which the postures are strung together as his method’s distinguishing feature.

Rather than demonstrating each asana, Bikram Yoga teachers guide their students with their words. Verbal instructions and adjustments help each student find her pose. Studios offer mirrored walls to encourage physical and spiritual awareness of one’s practice.

Though new students may find sauna temperatures stifling, drinking more water throughout the day can help these feelings fade. Concentrating on normal breathing even while fighting through a posture alleviates nausea. It is not unusual to feel exhausted after the first few classes, but regular practice awakens reserves of energy.

It’s common to inadvertently memorize the basic series, but there’s still much to learn from repetition. Micro-adjustments can further improve familiar poses. Rather than jump ahead in anticipation, the trick is to synchronize movements with the teacher’s instructions. Every posture becomes an opportunity to engage with a beginner’s mind.

Practice draws the student into their inner life and fosters mental calmness. Choudhury breaks it down into the five aspects of mind: Faith, Self-control, Determination, Concentration, and Patience. A dedicated physical practice helps the student build self-esteem and cultivate strength of mind in turn.

Bikram Yoga both energizes and calms the mind-body. After powering through a killer back bend, you cherish every second in the resting pose that follows, even if it only lasts for a breath and a half. Other times you may teeter out of a balancing pose into an unsuspecting neighbor. If you can laugh it off, the rejuvenating benefits of this cleansing practice will keep you coming back to take the heat. 

It was about 11:40 A.M. on July 29, 2008. The students of the Gentle/Therapeutic class were resting on their backs in the final relaxation pose, called shavasana, the Corpse Pose. In this pose, the body surrenders and relaxes completely while the breath and mind stay alert and engaged. As the teacher I led a focus for the relaxation the breath. We had spent the previous hour with attention to the rib cage and mid-back in various gentle asanas (poses).

I sat on my mat, speaking softly, when I felt a gentle movement of the floor. Could it be a delivery truck? In several seconds the movement became a rolling and I knew another earthquake had shifted the plates and faults of Mother Earth.

In a calm voice I said, “Earthquake. Focus on your breath and remain calm and tranquil.” Needless to say, the energy in the room changed as the sensations of the rolling earth came into everyone’s consciousness. Most of the students stayed lying on the floor. Several sat up. One sprung up in alarm.

The rolling ceased and there was a little more shaking. Everyone found their seat again. Again I reminded the students to stay focused on the breath. As we calmed, I suggested we bring palms together in anjali mudra, the prayer position. We offered up gratitude that we hadn’t been hurt, the studio was intact and we had a great story to tell about the meeting of Earthquake and Shavasana.

“I can’t do yoga; I’m not flexible.”  Because yoga, like so much else in our culture, is portrayed by and for our children and grandchildren, we believe we are not capable of receiving yoga’s myriad benefits. I’m here to bust that myth!

I came to yoga in my 40s, hardly fit or flexible. I was the oldest student. I fell in love instantly, and knew I wanted to share this remarkable practice with people my age. Right after I completed teacher training, I fell ill with what tuned out to be a genetic blood disorder. I used yoga to aid my year-long recovery. From my personal experience I became an expert on the remarkable healing, enlivening, and inspiring gifts of yoga.

I discovered that all yoga practices could be adapted and modified to suit the needs of each individual. If that were not so, yoga would not have survived its 5000 year-old history. Each of us has inherent capacities that blossom with yoga practice. Most of the standing poses can be modified to suit any limitations. They can often be practiced using a chair or wall for support. The seated poses, usually practiced on the floor, are easily modified to a chair. Even back bends can be adapted to a chair. There is even a specific practice to loosen all the joints and help with the easing of joint pain—maybe even preventing it.

In the West yoga means standing on your head or being a pretzel. Rarely do we think of the energetic practices of yoga that are most appropriate for the middle years and beyond. In addition to the physical postures, there are meditation and concentration practices that benefit those of us who are in what the yoga tradition calls the third stage of life, the stage of wisdom. This is the time of our lives when we have the opportunity to pass on the knowledge we have gained over decades of experience. Yoga practice helps make that possible.

There are yoga therapists and yoga teachers who specialize in adapted yoga for people in their middle years and beyond. Find one who can help you live a vibrant life no matter what your condition or age. Yoga practice will become in integral part of your life, one you won’t be able to live without. And that’s not a myth—it’s the truth.

Lauren Cahn has an editorial in the Huffington Post entitled "Namaste . . . Bitches."  It’s hysterical and satirical, and one of the most enjoyable yoga articles I have read in months.  Cahn’s humor moves from the true-to-life to the slightly absurd, and the entire time reminds us that yoginis and yogis are always human.  Even the most diligent and inspired practitioners make mistakes and encounter difficulties. 

We see articles illustrating these same points all the time, but Cahn does so in a way that genuinely reminds us not to take ourselves so seriously.  Yes, we aspire to live a yogic life.  Yes, we slip up.  But that should not be a cause for shame or embarrassment.  We need to correct our behavior, learn from those mistakes, but also laugh at ourselves.

Denver, CO – July 4, 2008 – Yoga Month 09.2008, a national awareness campaign to inspire a healthy and informed lifestyle, kicks off the Democratic National Convention in Denver with a nonpartisan yoga health festival and benefit concert.  Yoga master Seane Corn and music sensation Justin Nozuka will headline events.

The Yoga Health Foundation, a 501 c (3) nonprofit organization, will officially launch Yoga Month, a national awareness campaign to inspire a healthy and informed lifestyle, in Denver on the eve of the Democratic National Convention (DNC).  On August 24 and 25, the Yoga Health Foundation and OmPass, a yoga and health resource company, will produce the Yoga Month Denver Health Festival at the City Park in the Minsuk Cho Architectural Pavilion for Public Discourse.   The festival is nonpartisan and will be presented by the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee and the City of Denver Office of Cultural Affairs.    

The floating, futuristic Pavilion will house world renowned yoga experts, green and holistic vendors, celebrated medical practitioners and health-conscious politicians during a yoga festival geared toward cultivating awareness, inspiration and an action plan for conquering the health care crisis engulfing the country.   Yoga masters Seane Corn, Hemalayaa and Hala Khouri will team up with music sensation Justin Nozuka to raise national consciousness about health care and the inexpensive and holistic options available to prevent and treat a myriad of illnesses.

The Yoga Month Denver Health Festival will be the first of ten festivals implemented in celebration of Yoga Month by the Yoga Health Foundation.  Additional yoga health festivals will take place in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, New York, Austin, Chicago, Boston, Miami and Vancouver.  Proceeds generated by Yoga Month activities will benefit Youth Health Alliance, a charity that provides free yoga inspired enrichment classes to underserved youth and the families that support them.

The Yoga Health Foundation is a 501 c (3) nonprofit located in Los Angeles, CA.  The Yoga Month 09.2008 health initiative is the first of its kind and seeks to bring the benefits of yoga to underserved communities.   The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion designated September as National Yoga Month and lists Yoga Month as an official health observance on Healthfinder.gov.  For more information, please visit www.yogamonth.org or contact Vera at 818-762-4767.

My introduction to yoga was in a basement classroom at a community college. I was so impressed by the girl in headstand I began to seek out studios. The first studio I went to was a Bikram studio. Then I found Ashtanga.  I spent the next three years in love with the physical benefits of yoga. Power yoga, Vinyasa flow, Anusara and whatever level 2/3+ class I could find was where I put my mat. I had no interest in slowing down. I used to come to class five minutes late and leave five minutes early so I could miss the “breathing” and the “savasana.”