Hot Yoga Is Hot!

Yoga is hot.  Hot yoga is even hotter. 

As people look for ways to become healthier, happier, more relaxed, and fit, yoga studios are popping up and packing them in.

A regular yoga practice has been shown to have many physical benefits, including improved flexibility, strength, muscle tone, balance, joint health and pain prevention, in addition to mental advantages including increased clarity and reduced stress and anxiety.

Hot yoga is practiced in a heated room allowing for even greater flexibility, healing, and reduced risk of injury. Think of the analogy of a sword. Cold, it’s rigid and inflexible, but heated, it becomes pliable, something with which you can work.

While having all the benefits of regular yoga, hot yoga can be a calorie-burning, challenging workout which complements other forms of fitness.  For this reason, it has gained popularity with Olympic, professional, and college athletes and mere mortals (like me.)  But hot yoga can also be a relaxing hour of delicious stretching.  You determine the intensity.  A class can be whatever your body needs it to be that day.

At Revolution Hot Yoga, our studio, warmed for class, features cutting-edge radiant, infrared heaters which can be controlled independently allowing for heat zones.  Infrared doesn’t heat the air, but warms bodies allowing participants to choose their temperature comfort level depending on their distance from the heater.  Infrared also decreases the risk of mold and mildew, a persistent problem for hot yoga studios, and the facility is equipped with a state-of-the-art air filtration system.  So, no funky smell.

The studio offers 35 classes weekly; including lunch time hour and weekend morning Restorative classes.  All classes are open to everyone and can be customized to meet the level of the individual, whether beginner or advanced.  With over twenty years of combined teaching experience, our instructors have earned their sweat and know their stuff.

Revolution Hot Yoga is the joint effort of five individuals passionate about hot yoga whose lives have all been transformed individually in one way or the other by yoga.  Personally, a hot yoga practice helped me recover from a brain injury, pull out of depression, get in the best shape of my life, fortify my immune system, and become part of a supportive yoga family.  I haven’t even had a cold in the six years I’ve been practicing. 

We invite you to discover the healthy, invigorating, fun, and easy practice of hot yoga in a clean, safe, and encouraging environment.  All fitness levels welcome.  Be part of the revolution!

Go to Revolution Hot Yoga website

There's Always More

My yoga practice is three years old which makes me a newbie compared to some, I guess.  But I feel like yoga has been trying to come into my life for a long time.  Decades ago, a friend told me she was going to open a hot yoga studio.  I remember saying to myself,  "I didn't think she was one of THOSE hippies."

About five years ago, a friend tried to get me to go to yoga with them saying that it would help me "de-stress."  I told them, "I don't have time to take an hour to sit still and meditate!"  It amazes me that now I find the time regularly to fit in an open eyed meditation of more than an hour regularly, and my day doesn't seem complete without it!

I finally found my way to a "gentle introduction to yoga" class and liked it.  After a couple of months, I started thinking that there had to be something more.  So, I tried a Bikram hot yoga class.  And boy, was there more!  It took a while to adjust to the heat and the intensity of the ninety minutes, but I thought I had found what I was looking for.

About a year ago, after practicing Bikram for two years, I went to a local hot yoga studio while visiting friends.  I didn't really expect it to be anything different than what I was used to.  Same story - different book.  But, after pranayama breathing, my brain heard something new, "Swan dive forward..."  It was one of those aha moments you hear about.  Ninety minutes later, I felt liberated and invigorated.  I'd ventured into a whole new world of yoga and didn't even know I was looking for one.  I'd once again, discovered more.

I started doing yoga because I wanted to lose weight and to help a chronic lower back problem. While both of these were accomplished early on, yoga became about so much more than that.  The focus on my breath, an awareness of my body, and the meditation of the practice became my favorite parts.  I love the feeling of accomplishment I have at the end of class.  I'm exhausted, trying to manage my breathing and bring my heart rate back to normal knowing that I held my Warrior II a little bit longer with my thigh a little closer to parallel and my left hip a little lower than in my last practice.

My involvement with Revolution Hot Yoga (RHY) was an evolution in and of itself.  You know sometimes in life, you just are where you're supposed to be at the right time to find what you need to find.  Rebecca (Jordan Turner) was like a sun pulling all of her planets into orbit with her.  I'm happy to be in the RHY solar system!  We have an awesome team at RHY with the common objective of creating a supportive community in which we can grow and share anchored by our common love of yoga.

My decision to become a yoga instructor was a natural next step for me.  I've always enjoyed sharing my favorite things with others: first as a craft teacher, then as a business owner, where I was continually educating and mentoring a sales staff, and then as a cooking instructor.  I love to learn and share what I learn with others.

Completing Barkan Teacher training just as the studio opened in September of this past year was THE MOST demanding accomplishment of my adult life.  While becoming a yoga teacher has been both satisfying and fulfilling, it has also been terrifying.  I'm still finding my voice, but I'm past the "OMG!  I can't do this. What am I going to say next?" phase, thank goodness.

Just this past week, I was at my other job assisting a woman, and she gave me the "don't I know you?" look and said "Aren't you my yoga teacher?"  I smiled and replied, "Why yes, I am!"  That was the first time I'd heard that.  It felt great.  It felt like more.

A picture of me just wasn’t saying a whole lot.  And it had to say, “there's always more.” Then it came to me: I have never felt so accomplished and sure that there IS so much more than at this moment. These are my fellow Barkan Yoga teacher trainees, and our two mentors Claudine and Renee (who picked us up, pushed us, nurtured us ... and seemed to give us exactly what we needed at the exact moment that we were about to run or collapse.  Thank you both so much.) We have just finished our final yoga practice and are a couple of hours from our official graduation…exhaustion, exhilaration, accomplishment, hope, the bonds of friendship .  You can see it all on our faces.  ...oh, by the way , that’s me in the middle, in the back peeking over. 

Robert Bonham,  yoga teacher

Namaste.

My Road To Yoga

Who are you and why are you writing this?

My name is Rebecca Jordan-Turner, and I am the president of Revolution Hot Yoga, Inc., and the Studio Director, Lead Teacher and Manager of Teachers and Programs.  This is the (very abridged!) story of my yoga life, history, career and future and a glimpse of why Revolution Hot Yoga came to be.

How did you get introduced to yoga?

I was very lucky to be introduced to yoga at the time I was.  I was living in New York City, where I had gone to become a “rich and famous fashion designer.”  When that didn’t pan out so well, I found myself as a broke and struggling waitress, office temp, and freelance seamstress with a burgeoning drinking problem.  I was directionless in my life and about to hit a very ugly rock bottom when I received what I can only describe as Divine Guidance directing me to leave New York City, urgently.  It was the summer of 2001, and I left the city right before the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center.  I moved from New York back to Raleigh, where my parents lived, and I had no idea what I would do when I got there.  I asked for further guidance from the Source that had told me to leave, and the wisdom I was given was to simply, “find a yoga studio, become a work study, go to teacher training.”  I had never really done yoga before, although I had heard about it and attended a few classes sporadically with friends, so this was a completely out-of-the-blue concept, and a total one eighty for my life.  So on September 19, 2001, I took my first hot yoga class in Raleigh, was hooked, and my life has never been the same since.

How did you decide to become a yoga teacher, and what was your path to teaching?

As soon as I completed my first class, on the mat in final savasana, I knew that I had finally found my calling.  I had already been given the idea to go to teacher training, so as soon as class was over, I went home, got on the computer and started to research training.  I went back to the studio the next day and offered my services as a work-study and told them I wanted to be a teacher.  (Over twelve years later, I can honestly say that I’m the only person I’ve ever met who said that after their first class!)  I spent the next 6 months living and breathing yoga, practicing almost every day, but with no idea how I would actually get to teacher training; it was one of my first experiences with living purely in faith.  On March 24, 2002, the studio owner called out of the blue and said, “Babe – you still want to go to training?  It starts in a week.  We’ll send you.”  So I packed my bags and went to California for a nine week teacher training program.  I graduated on June 1, 2002, and I’ve been teaching ever since.

What has your teaching career been like?

Teaching hot yoga has been the greatest blessing I’ve ever been given.  I’ve met some of the most amazing people, seen the most incredible transformations and learned so much.  Teacher training gave me the tools to get started, but the process of learning to teach and learning about yoga has only continued and gotten richer and more rewarding every year.  I’ve been able to teach in many different studios around the country and even got to go to Singapore for six months to teach there.  My life as a yoga teacher hasn’t always been easy, and it certainly hasn’t been a straight and narrow path, but every time I get to go into the hot room and witness and guide practice, I know I’m in the right place doing the right thing.

How did your career lead you to open RHY?

My explorations in practicing and teaching guided me to develop a new hot yoga series based on the classic 26+2 series I had been teaching.  It was what I needed for my own body, and in response to challenges, injuries and weaknesses I was seeing repeatedly in my students.  I knew I needed a place to teach and practice this, and then my friend (and now partner) Jane Cable came to me with the idea to open a studio like this in Greensboro, and thus Revolution Hot Yoga was born! 

What is your vision for RHY in the future?

We want RHY to be a place that is warm and welcoming, clean and beautiful, and to offer practices that suit all ages and abilities.  That’s why we have classes ranging from Restorative to our “advanced” Practice Club.  We want to meet our students where they are in their body, mind, and spirit, and love, nurture, and support them with good information and instruction so they can grow.

What is your life like now?

Thanks to hot yoga, my life is completely different than it was 12 years ago.  I’m a happy, budding entrepreneur with a beautiful new yoga studio and the best business partners imaginable.  I love my new hometown of Greensboro and all of the great friends I’ve made here.  After years of searching, I’m finally home here.  I was blessed to finally meet and marry the love of my life and we have a beautiful home and the 2 cutest dogs on the planet.  Every day is a gift and I’m so grateful to have gone through this journey to get here!

Rebecca Jordan-Turner

Go to Revolution Hot Yoga website

Fuel For My Fire

Ten years ago, I used to be an avid runner.  I was in the gym cross training and saw that they were offering yoga classes and took one soon after. I don't remember it being any particular style, just your generic beginner yoga, but I really enjoyed it and found it so relaxing.

A fellow runner told me about Bikram yoga. The first time I went to a class, I was so intimidated by the fogged up windows and packed lobby that I never even got out of the car.  The next time I went, I was able to talk myself into actually going inside and taking the class.  Little did I know then that it would change my life.  During my first class, I thought, "Oh my gosh. It's hot in here, and this is hard!"  But, I loved how relaxed and stretched out my body felt when I was finished.  I remember wishing that I had tried it WAY earlier.

In the beginning, my practice was all about just surviving in the hot room for ninety minutes, and I counted the time until the class was over.  My practice has grown over the years to become focused, fun, and adventurous.  At Revolution Hot Yoga, I'm enjoying learning new ways of approaching the same yoga I've been doing for a decade and new ways of sharing it as a teacher. It's like fresh air has been breathed into my practice.

I've come to feel that my practice IS my body, if you know what I mean.  Yoga allows me to stay in tune with my body and use it to it's full potential.  It's my connection to it.  In addition to increasing my strength and flexibility, yoga keeps me feeling healthy and balanced.  I carry the lessons I learn in the yoga room out into the world with me into every aspect of my life.  Yoga isn't JUST a practice to me, it's a way of life.  My biggest challenge is to not let all of life's "other stuff" get in the way of my practice.

Yoga has helped me find balance in my life.  My friends and family could tell a big difference when I started doing yoga in my lowered stress rate and overall well being.  There were times when I was asked, "Don't you want to go to yoga tonight?" I NEED yoga in my life.

Rebecca (Jordan-Turner, lead teacher at Revolution Hot Yoga) was one of my first teachers, and I went to teacher training two years after my first class.  I love being an instructor and enjoy seeing the way yoga changes other's lives for the better.  I don't teach yoga because I think I'm good at it.  I teach because I want to help people live happy, healthy, and balanced lives.  Teaching hot yoga is the fuel for my fire, my passion!

I started Revolution Hot Yoga with the other owners because I wanted to offer a place for anyone to practice yoga in a healthy, healing, nurturing, nonjudgmental, clean, fun, safe, and knowledgeable environment. I feel blessed to do what I do for a living and share the joy with those who are open to it.

This is Jane Cable's, co-owner of RHY, yoga story.

Got to RHY website