Yoga Is A Pretty Amazing Way To Be Good To Yourself

I was first introduced to hot yoga in 2005 at the age of 19 and sought the practice with hopes of gaining some kind of clarity during a particularly brutal stretch of hard living. Because I used alcohol as my solution to anxiety, depression, and stress (as well as to just cope with being a human) from the ages of 16-24, I had countless instances of realizing that the medicine didn't work. I perpetually wanted to become a healthier, happier person. 

My first Bikram yoga class was at a studio near my hometown in Long Island, and I recall instantly loving the powerfully cathartic experience of doing this ridiculously strenuous exercise in an unbelievably hot room.  In the few classes I took at this studio (always had trouble sticking with things), I got a sense of the emotional transformation possible through yoga that stayed with me. The owner of the studio, a fiery, direct and unfiltered redhead, would urge us to open our hearts in Camel and dump all “toxic, emotional garbage” out through our forehead and onto the mat during Rabbit. 

As someone who was constantly consumed with a negative and caustic internal dialogue, I felt an immediate connection to a practice encouraging a mind-body connection to deal with strong emotions. With a regular practice, I have consistently found that I'm better equipped to deal with any emotional discomfort through the preparation of dealing with physical challenges in the hot room, sweating alongside other yogis who no doubt are fighting their own battles.  

I finally established and have continued to stick with a consistent hot yoga practice beginning in November of 2011, at another Bikram studio in Greensboro at about the same time Rebecca (Jordan-Turner) began teaching. I had been sober for more than a year and decided to sign up for an intro week at the studio because I was feeling lethargic, unhappy, and like something was missing. In those early days, I gravitated toward Rebecca’s classes because I was attracted to the attentive, insightful, and affirming voice she always brought to her classes.

Although my life had become considerably less chaotic, I was still stressed out and struggling with this negative internal dialogue, which I summarize as “something wrong, not enough.” I was also diagnosed with ADD at this time and found that without a meditation practice, I was floundering in my sophomore year at Guilford College due to my inability to focus on difficult tasks for any sustained length of time, as good work requires concentration and mine was entirely diffuse. Yoga has served as a moving meditation that is very effective in working with my scattered neurophysiology. I would say that simply wanting to feel good is what got me in the door of the yoga studio, and the gradual unfolding of physical, cognitive, and spiritual growth has kept me coming back. 

I would summarize these as follows: 

· Physical: I had broken my right tibia and fibula a year prior to beginning hot yoga. My surgeon told me that I'd never have full range of motion in the joint and some permanent discomfort was to be expected. However in less than a year, I had almost equal range of motion in both ankles.  I’m sure yoga gets nearly all the credit for this. An injury that used to constantly ache is now rarely even thought about. Additionally, I commute only by bike and ride about 6,000 miles/yr. and love how yoga is the expansive yin to the contracting yang of endless biking. The greatly increased flexibility in my legs/hips and un-hunching of my spine allow me to enjoy human-powered transport rather than seeing it as a hardship.

· Cognitive: As mentioned, I was basically getting my ass handed to me in college as a result of unaddressed adult ADD. I don't take medication and think yoga has been a powerful tool in dealing with this neurological difference, which is clearly evidenced by my dramatically improved academic performance since beginning my practice.  The concentration and determination available to me when poised and present in Standing Bow has practical applications when mindfulness is required, whether I’m solving a calculus problem, actually listening to a lecture on some incomprehensibly abstract concept, or writing and re-writing a graduate school admissions essay. I also managed to crash my bike into a parked car in January, so it’s not perma-Zen.

·  Spiritual: Yoga makes me want to be a nicer person. A strong narrative in my past has been playing the “angry young man.”  Because I tend to take myself far too seriously, yoga has been a great place for me to find play for the sake of play within the community of overwhelmingly kind, funny, and generous yogis at RHY. If I seem to be scowling during Standing Head to Knee or Standing Bow, I’m really having a great time, I promise!

At this point I think I’m supposed to give some kind of testimonial for Revolution Hot Yoga. This is hard to do without sounding like an overzealous Yogavangelist. After a six month break from having Rebecca as a teacher, I heard rumors that she was teaching privately out of her house. Contacting her, I agreed to be a work-study for her tiny home studio that was the embryo of RHY.  I'd always loved her Bikram classes, but having essentially semi-private lessons in a space where she was completely free to design and adjust a class that was responsive to students' needs was a revelation to me of the next level of yoga. She and every one of the teachers at RHY bring this personalized attention and rigorous intuition to every class.

In the past few months, I have particularly come to love the Vinyasa classes (Level II and Practice Club), where the sequences are so fluid and demanding of mental focus and bodily awareness that my internal volume gets dialed way down and class can feel like a continuous succession of chances to see yourself and the world freshly as it is. Dozing off into autopilot, I found myself becoming bored with the rote Bikram dialogue after my beginner’s enthusiasm wore off.  I'm deeply engaged in the RHY series because it is designed and taught with a real grounding in awareness – or, in other words, actually seeing what the hell is going on around you. 

The practice I have developed at RHY has been essential in my process of learning to tap into the intelligence and compassion that I believe animates all of us. I have come to see a very real heart-mind connection in the hot room that I feel fortunate to be able to apply outside of the studio in my life.  As I treat myself so do I treat the world, and yoga is a pretty amazing way to be good to your self. 

This is Mike-on-a-bike (as we like to call him) Shaljian's yoga story.

Go to RHY website