I printed out the 26 poses for Bikram yoga yesterday, and spent about 40 minutes practicing the poses, with 6 ujjayi breaths per pose per side. I used David Swenson’s Ashtanga Yoga: The Practice Manual for insight into some of the poses, but he doesn’t use all of the Bikram poses in his primary and intermediate series. I used pictures from another website to get additional info about some of the poses.
By about the third pose I was starting to get hot, so I can just imagine how it will be in a studio that’s heated to 104 degrees! I like the series, and it was interesting to discover some new poses I’ve never tried before. Toe stand pose, the culmination of the standing part of the series, was particularly challenging, both because of the balancing and because of the pressure squeezing my knees. I was a little worried afterwards that I might have overdone it, but the knees seem okay this morning.
Tonight is the Bikram class with my workmates. The class is 90 minutes, so we’ll probably be in each pose longer than 6 breaths. Plus there might be variations within the poses. I’m interested to see how the transitions flow. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Thanks to my friends and family who have pledged 50 cents or a dollar a day for the 30-day Reach Out Challenge. If you haven’t done so and would like to sponsor me to raise money for Yoga Outreach, you can use the online donation link. Or phone me at 604.251.6337 or send an email to kyrempel@gmail.com. Thanks!