30 Day Challenge COMPLETE: Part 2

Floor Series Tips and Improvements

Savasana.  Tip: become absolutely still even if you are not perfectly aligned or have an itch.  No fidgeting no matter what.  Improvement: I am now able to sink into the stillness.  I’m still working on my wandering monkey mind, though.

Wind Removing.  I haven’t made much improvement with this one to date.  This is one of the harder poses for me, especially getting both arms wrapped around both knees.  I guess each person has their own individual strengths and weaknesses, no matter how strange they seem.

Sit Up.  Tip: Keep your feet flexed on the ground, your arms in line with your ears, and your stomach sucked in.  Improvement: I’m working on keeping my stomach in on all the forward bend poses.

Cobra.  Tip: keep your knees together, butt squeezed, legs tight.  Tightening your lower body will give your upper body more lift.

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30 Day Challenge COMPLETE: Part 1

30 Day Challenge: COMPLETE.

So, now that my 30 days of Bikram yoga classes is complete, I wanted to do a synopsis of the little hints I discovered about each pose that helped me improve.  These tips come from various teachers, from Bikram Choudhury’s book Bikram’s Beginning Yoga Class, and sometimes even from parts of the dialogue that I finally understood.

First, the best thing about the challenge is that with doing yoga so often, you end up improving so much faster.  If I learn to keep my hips down or redistribute the weight in my foot for a certain pose, I have seven days that week to practice it.  Also, the flexibility and strength in class improves so much faster than a typical 3-day a week approach.

Improvements and Tips

Pranayama Deep Breathing.  Tip: push your chin with your hands as you exhale and hands with your chin as you inhale.  Improvement: my elbows go up farther (I started off pretty sad and now I’m average).

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It’s Not the Double that Hurts

On day 20 of my 30-Day Challenge, I decided to do a double.  Back to back yoga classes.  3 solid hours of Bikram.

Why?  Two reasons: 1. I wanted to bank some time so I could take time off later and 2. it seemed like a right of passage that I should go through.  So many blog post I have read romanticize the double; it seemed like the next level in pushing myself, and self-challenge is the core of Bikram.

And you know what?  I kicked butt in both classes.  It was a great, albeit 4-hour long, yoga day.  I learned new things from each teacher and pushed my hardest in each pose.  I got tips on how to avoid a lop-sided bow pose, and I finally got my second knee locked “upside down L like Linda” in Standing Head to Knee.

The problem was in the class on the day following the double. 

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Not a New Years Resolution: Bikram 30 Day Challenge

Just how awesome is Bikram yoga?  I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, but I like to push myself so I decided to take the leap and sign up for the 30 Day Challenge – 30 classes in 30 days – at my yoga studio.

I have been doing some form of yoga on and off for the last ten years, but my current Bikram stint is the most frequently and consistently I have ever practiced. After 2 ½ months of regularly sweating in class three times a week, I’ve seen some of the benefits firsthand.  It is an excellent mechanism for coping with stress, and I have certainly noticed improved flexibility and balance.

But, the biggest benefit, in my opinion, is the increase in body confidence. 

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