Yoga Is A Regular Ego Adjustment

I first tried yoga back in the 1970s in high school when a buddy and I heard about a class that was being offered and tried it. The class met once a week and was in a church basement. The instructor, a young Indian man, wore traditional Indian clothing, which was always orange, and a turban.  So, I would guess that he was a recent immigrant.. He always joked, "How do you know I have ears?  You've never seen them.  I could be like a snake."

I still have the handouts he gave us.  The papers, titled "Shankar Yoga Society," tell about the history, science, and awakening of the Kundalini.  The classes were around three hours long and started with breathing exercises, moved into postures, and ended with a meditation, but we kept focused on the breathe during the entire class.

For many years after, I think I kept an awareness of yoga, even though I didn't formally practice.  My earlier exposure to the practice helped me with breath and body awareness during my years as an actor.

I first tried hot yoga a few years ago after finishing grad school.  I went to Bikram a couple times and then to Hot Yoga Therapy in Kernersville.  Although I liked the sweating and the challenge of hot yoga, I got bored with the lack of instruction.  However, I started dating and later married a hot yoga teacher, Rebecca Jordan-Turner.  So, I became a regular practitioner at Revolution Hot Yoga.  I believe in her passion and enjoy the workout and sense of community of the studio.

When I started hot yoga, I was going to the gym routinely, but couldn't seem to lose a bit of fat around my gut. Once I started practicing regularly, that was gone within a couple months. Since hot yoga, my diet has gotten better, I drink a lot more water, and my flexibility has increased.  

I'm certainly much older than when I first tried yoga which requires that I be very forgiving of my knees.  Since practicing regularly, I have observed that my body can be quite different on a day to day basis.  I try to listen, adapt, and not expect to be able to do what I did yesterday.

As a children's librarian, I have to stay limber.  I'm constantly scanning low shelves, lifting books, walking, and sitting on the floor or kneeling.  It's important that I'm able to match the energy of my patrons and get them excited about books, and I find yoga keeps me young!

The hardest part of hot yoga, for me is getting to the studio.  Once I'm in the room I'm good to go.  It can be difficult to get there on days I don't want to go.  I still get frustrated when I see a newcomer be able to do postures that I can't manage yet, but I know that's just my ego.  So yoga gives me a regular ego adjustment as well.

This is Pete Turner doing his "balancing stick with a book" pose.

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Yoga Is All About Focus

When I was a teenager, I printed the instructions for a sun salutation series off of the internet, followed them every morning, and have been practicing yoga ever since.  While in high school and college, I practiced on my own, then sought out classes. I first experienced a Bikram studio when visiting a friend in Boston in 2009. 

From the start, I enjoyed hot yoga and was pretty amazed that my body was capable of producing so much sweat.  I always thought the Bikram dialogue was a little strange with all of the metaphors about Japanese Ham Sandwiches and Bengal Tigers.  They cracked me up.  I still don't know what "grab your arms each other" means.

Yoga has really helped me to cultivate a sense of patience and focus, both of which have proven crucial over the past six years in my life as a full-time graduate student. Through hot yoga, I've learned to get comfortable with my discomfort which I find applies to so much of life, but especially the stamina required for graduate-level coursework and research.

A lot of my school work, at this point, is dedicated to honing a research area that will produce a dissertation project.  I spend most of my time working independently, learning complex theories, and figuring out what they mean for my own work. I think there's overlap in the focus yoga and research require because both are about exploring your abilities and their limits, as well as being okay with being uncomfortable. 

Yoga has helped me feel grounded in the abilities I do have while appreciating that I also have lots of room to grow. Through yoga, I've learned how to harness my mental effort so that I can spend hours thinking about or exploring one subject without getting distracted or going off on tangents. 

The thing that I like most about hot yoga is that it requires my entire mental focus.  The thing I like least about hot yoga is that it requires my entire mental focus. :)

As a funny aside, the mental focus and physical stamina that I gained through my hot yoga practice convinced me I could sit for longer tattoos. I'm pretty creeped out by needles, but I just recently sat for a six hour tattoo.  I think my being able to endure that directly relates to learning to be comfortably uncomfortable on the mat!

I feel like I'm always learning new things through yoga, and I particularly appreciate the mind/body connection that it engenders. Lately, I've been trying to use my practice to think about the emotional aspects of my life I want to nurture, such as patience, generosity, and resilience. There have been times when I've thought of yoga as more of a physical workout, but more and more I'm shifting away from that to think of it as a holistically helpful practice. 

I met Rebecca (Jordan-Turner) when she was teaching at the Bikram studio in Greensboro and really enjoyed her teaching style there.  I was excited to support her independent studio  (Revolution Hot Yoga - RHY) because I've always felt that franchised yoga was ethically questionable.

I appreciate that RHY houses a diverse range of teaching styles under the common philosophy of being really body-positive and community centered. Also, the cool lavender facecloths at the end of class are the best!

This Carrie Hart's yoga story.

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Beginning Again

I first stumbled onto yoga more than 15 years ago when I saw a tiny ad in the newspaper for a beginning yoga class. I'm not exactly sure why, but for some reason the announcement clicked with me, and I thought “I want to do that.” After some fact finding, I signed up.

All it took was one class - and a really good teacher (Terry Brown), - and I was hooked. The studio was a good place to learn about yoga because, while their primary style was Iyengar yoga, they offered classes featuring many different practice styles.  I favored Ashtanga because I liked the challenge and flow of the series and the natural heat my body produced.

My first experience with hot yoga was quite by accident. I'd travelled with my husband on a business trip and when exploring local yoga studios, I stumbled across Baron Baptiste’s studio in Boston which was where he was practicing at the time.  As luck would have it, I could attend a class that he was teaching. 

I had no idea the room would be heated above the body heat produced by the sheer volume of the many bodies there for his class. My husband, who went with me, only made it through 15 minutes of the class and was done. Even though I was drenched in sweat,  I not only completed the class, but loved it! That was my only experience with hot yoga until many years later.  Over time, I found other forms of exercise.

I have a stone paperweight on my desk with the words “Begin Again” engraved on it. That phrase perfectly describes my yoga practice, as well as so much of life. My yoga journey has been a series of starts and stops. My practice became very consistent for several years, but then life interfered like life has a way of doing which was ironic because that's the very time I needed yoga the most.

 A couple of years ago, a running friend invited me to a hot yoga class at the Bikram studio. I met Rebecca (Jordan-Turner) and Prana, the studio cat, who I figured wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t a good place. (Animals are smart like that!)  I survived that first 90 minute class went back again….and again….and again usually mading it to a hot yoga class at least weekly. I had “begun again!”

I noticed the Revolution Hot Yoga (RHY) sign during a Saturday morning run with three of my running buddies, and we decided to try their Sunday AM class the next day.   When I walked in the door, there was Rebecca!

Over the years, I've practiced at several different studios with many teachers. I believe that what's most important isn't the studio amenities, but the spirit and heart of the studio. The meaning of yoga is to unite or connect with ourselves, each other, and the world around us. RHY provides such an environment, and the feeling doesn't emanate from the physical structure, the heat, or the particular elements of a class. The spirit comes from the teachers and my fellow yogis there.

As I see it, the ultimate goal of yoga is not to increase flexibility and strength of the body. These are simply the results and benefits of a regular yoga practice, just like many other forms of exercise give you tangible, physical results. What I've come to understand is that the true goal of a regular yoga practice is self-realization and staying balanced and healthy. Yoga increases my mental and emotional flexibility and strength so that I can be a more fully present, genuine, and compassionate person.

With yoga as with life, the beauty of the practice is not about the results, but about the journey.  I'm honored to travel that journey with my fellow practitioners at RHY!

This is Susan Brady's yoga story.

Go to RHY website.