I have a love-hate relationship with Bikram yoga. I love the heat, I love how it makes me all bendy and flexy, and I love how I am able to mold myself into positions I normally wouldn't deem fathomable. It's shocking how good it feels to practice in a room that has the equivalent temperature of a sauna, but trust me, its incredibly cleansing. Watching the beads of sweat drip off me onto my yogitoes towel below, makes me one happy gal. Afterwards, you feel like you had a facial, lost 5 lbs, and took a few shots of tequila. Sounds fun, no?
I dislike Bikram (hate is a strong word) because the studios are usually bright, you are usually staring at yourself in a mirror, and the instructors are, well, very stern. Yeah, stern, that's it. Ok, I'm not going to candycoat it - they like to yell at you. At least this has been my experience. While other forms of yoga will encourage you to "listen to your body" and "do the best you can", Bikram is a bit more in your face. I've been to classes where I wouldn't be surprised if the instructor pulled out a ruler and hit ya on the back of the hand, nun-style, if you didn't go deep enough. But there are many people out there that love this style of practice, and to each their own.
With all that said, I do like "Hot Hatha Yoga" or "Hot Yoga" classes. These classes tend to use the 26 traditional poses of the Bikram series as a foundation but build on them and add other poses that complement and expand the practice. And best of all they are generally more relaxed (this doesn't mean easy). I went to Alice Senko's Heated class at Samara yoga studio for my day 14 and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Alice is animated, energetic and you could tell how much she loves being an instructor. Being a newbie to her class, she made the effort to ask my name in the beginning of class and I was pleased when she didn't forget it (nice touch). She also has endearing quirks like saying "sof-ten" with the hard T sound and my fave "lit-trally", instead of "literally", like Rob Lowe's character on Parks and Recreation. [Sidenote - Watch Parks and Rec. You will not be disappointed.] The sequence was challenging, and by the end, I looked like a crazy lady with frizzed out hair and was dripping with sweat (think jumping into a pool with all your clothes on). But I was a happy lunatic, no doubt about that.
Day 14 overall: Got deeper into Hanumansana (full split), which I am stoked about (gotta love that heat). This hot yoga class reminded me of the days I would regularly take/teach hot yoga in NJ. Good old days.
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