The Best Medicine

Being first introduced to yoga in 2011, I have a fairly short yoga life compared to some yogis in the studio. Unlike many others, hot yoga is the only type of yoga I've ever experienced.  I don’t know what it feels like to practice yoga without sweat dripping down my face and into my eyes. I imagine that normal yoga would be a bore!

Since that very first class, I have been addicted to hot yoga and can tell a tremendous difference when I don't practice for a period of time. Upon beginning yoga, my main goal was to just make it through a whole class without sitting down.  Now, I'm making the effort to go deeper into the postures.

My first yoga class was the most physically challenging thing I'd ever experienced in my life.  I think I sat down for half of the class and found my mobility limited. After leaving, I noticed that my skin felt so clean, and I slept like a baby that night. As I continued practicing, I began to see more positive physical changes in my body. 

Since an early age, I've had weight issues and chronic lower back problems.  Before yoga, running and playing tennis were my primary forms of exercise, but didn't help me maintain a healthy weight. Since starting yoga, I've lost around 40 pounds and have been able to keep it off. I've also not been back to the chiropractor since shortly after.  

Beyond the physical benefits, yoga has helped me maintain a balance in my mental health by alleviating anxiety. A regular yoga practice has guided me through difficult emotional challenges in the past years by keeping me centered and focused. Yoga is my physical and emotional medicine. 

In the year after starting yoga, my friends began asking me what I was doing to change my physical and mental state so much.  I gladly told them about hot yoga and encouraged them to come to a class with me.  Many were Muslim ladies, who for cultural and religious reasons were not able to attend a class in the presence of males. 

With Rebecca's (Jordan-Turner) help, we started a women’s only class that has been going since. I enjoy sharing my passion for yoga with these ladies and introducing them to an exercise that is not normally found in their home countries. Some of these same ladies have been coming back since 2012 and have gained many benefits from the practice. 

When Rebecca left my old studio, the women’s class was put on hold, and I gradually stopped practicing there as well.  I didn’t feel motivated and was getting bored doing the same series over and over again. When I heard about Revolution Hot Yoga (RHY), I was excited to get back into yoga and made it a top priority.  

I love how RHY caters to everyone’s needs. There are days when I want to slow down and check my technique, and others when I want to push myself by going to advanced classes which have taken my practice to a new level.  I now have muscles that I didn’t even know existed, and I am proud to show off my newly toned quads and biceps. Since practicing at RHY,  I've learned challenging postures that give me something to work towards. This year, I am focusing on learning the techniques and exciting new postures outside of the Bikram series such as dancing warrior, binds, and inversions (which I hope to be able to do soon!)  

Recently at RHY, I have also been learning how the postures create energy flow in our bodies.  I've noticed this especially in Camel pose, which I would say is my favorite posture because I can literally feel the movement of energy through my back, up my chest, opening my rib cage and heart.  It's just amazing how much energy one can receive from these postures. 

There are so many things that I love about hot yoga. Topping the list would simply be the sweat and the feeling that I'm getting a good workout. I always carry the thought in the back of my mind that, if I can make it through a hot yoga class, nothing else in my day can be more challenging! I also love the higher focus and energy I get after every class. 

I feel it is my duty to share the positive things in my life, and my dream is to bring this yoga to others. Because I'm known to be a world traveler, I would love to someday teach yoga in Latin America or the Middle East after acquiring certification. These regions aren't as familiar with yoga, and I want to spread what I've learned at RHY all over the world! 

This is Angie Kapely's yoga story.

Go to RHY website.

Love At First Sweat

For years, I had a casual relationship with yoga, attending classes randomly here and there.  In those early classes, I remember feeling lost with the fancy Sanskrit words and fast flowing sequences, but I still found them interesting and beneficial.  After class, I would get what I called a "yoga hangover" in which my tender shoulders and sore hamstrings would make themselves known while performing every day tasks.

In August of 2010 during a particularly difficult time in my life,  I decided that I needed to get to a yoga class ASAP.  Although I lived in New York City at the time, I was visiting Greensboro and searched online for available classes that day in the area.  I knew I needed a challenging experience so that ruled out all the gentle, restorative, level one classes.  Bikram Hot Yoga popped up and the next class was in two hours.

I had heard of Bikram and knew it was hot yoga, but that was all I knew.  Barb Libby taught the class that day, and I felt like every word she spoke was just for me.  I haven't seen her since that day, but I would like to have the chance to thank her for being part of what turned out to be a life changing event for me.

It was love at first sweat.  I was hooked after my first class.  In those early days, I practiced a lot.  I felt like I was on a vision quest.  I tried to convert everyone in my life to become a hot yogi.  I went back to New York and practiced hot yoga as much as I could.  Hot yoga quickly became part of my identity and an essential part of my life.  No matter where I went, I found a studio and practiced.

About the time I moved back to Greensboro, Rebecca (Jordan-Turner) started teaching at a studio where I was practicing. While her words and dialogue guided my yoga practice, she became my friend and mentor.  I knew that I would practice wherever she went; I knew that I would teach this yoga one day; and I knew that I wanted that journey to happen under her guidance and expertise.

I've seen this yoga change lives.  It changed mine.  People want to know the secret as to why this former angry punk kid now has buoyancy, centeredness, and calm.  It's no secret.  It's the yoga.  And I'm not shy about telling people either.  I want to bring this yoga to others because everyone deserves to feel this good.

My wonderful teachers at Yoga To The People in New York City, where I trained, follow the mantra below.  I thought I would share it with you.

There will be no correct clothes
There will be no proper payment
There will be no right answers
No glorified teachers
No ego no script no pedestals
No you're not good enough or rich enough
This yoga is for everyone
This sweating and breathing and becoming
This knowing glowing feeling
Is for the big small weak and strong
Able and crazy
Brothers sisters grandmothers
The mighty and the meek
Bones that creek
Those who seek
This power is for everyone
Yoga to the people
All bodies rise

This is Kate Burnet's Yoga story.
Kate is RHY's newest teacher.

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A Warm Community, A Hot Room, And A Cold Towel

My first experience with yoga was about 15 years ago when I attended a weekend workshop at Triad Yoga Institute (TYI) with my friend Julie Schwarz, who is now a yoga teacher in Denver. I have continued practicing there and at home since. I love to practice yoga when I travel, especially at the beach or leading a class for friends or family.  I consider TYI to be my yoga home and honor all the teachers there who have blessed my life with their advice and friendship.  And since I joined Revolution Hot Yoga  (RHY) in November,  I am now privileged to have two very special yoga homes!

My first experience with hot yoga, in December 2012, was terrible.  I went to a different studio and found myself completely lost, exhausted, dehydrated, and sick after the class. I vowed to NEVER attempt hot yoga again. My dear friend, Tammi Thurm, told me about RHY this past November, and I trusted her enough to give it a try. I absolutely loved the practice, all the teachers, and the vibe of the studio. I have been practicing there several times a week since.  

My schedule also includes at least one class a week at TYI, which I do with my husband, and a few days at the gym where I run on the treadmill and try to fit in some arm strengthening exercises. I had a brush with death a few years ago when a mystery illness almost shut down my heart, kidneys and lungs. Since then, I have worked hard to become strong and flexible, build my stamina, and make physical activity a priority.  

Yoga has been a part of my adult life for so long I can hardly remember when I wasn’t practicing.  It calms me, helps me with balance, gives me a space in time that isn’t about work or any other obligations, and helps ground me.  I have an addictive nature, and hot yoga has become my healthy addiction of choice. 

I'm always cold - I even wear socks in the summer - but have lived with a man for the past 25 years who prefers it to be 65 degrees year round.  The only time I am truly warm is in the shower, hot tub, or at RHY! 

I love how much further I can go in every pose in the heat, and I thrive on the endorphin rush that comes at the end of every class. It stays with me throughout my day and increases my quality of focus for everything else I do.  I'm blessed to have had my own marketing consulting firm for 23 years and to be able to work from home. This allows me to have flexible schedule and to often fit yoga in my day.  I believe the time I devote to yoga is an investment in the quality of service I provide my clients.  A lot of very positive things have happened to me professionally since I started hot yoga.

I don’t believe my enthusiasm and commitment to hot yoga would have occurred anywhere else. RHY is a community treasure. I believe that whether RHY is your only form of practice or a complement to a traditional non-hot practice, yoga has the power to change your life.  

Rebecca (Jordan-Turner) is a force of nature who truly cares about every person’s yoga experience and wants them to have the information they need to understand the poses and how they are accessible at any level of experience. Every teacher has that focus, and it's the culture of the studio.  Although the sequence and dialogue may be largely consistent, the attention to each student's body, appreciation of their fears, and joy shared as they finally nail that scary pose are gifts that each teacher compassionately and uniquely brings to every class.  

From the calm and nurturing ambiance of the studio to the much appreciated kindness of the cool lavender face towels given at the end of class, it's clear to me that adding RHY to your life is a positive step in taking better care of yourself.  Life is full of changes and having that constant of a warm and loving community, hot room, and cold towel goes a long way in helping embrace those changes with grace, optimism, and resilience. 

This is Pam Goldberg's yoga story.

Go to the RHY website.

Something For Everyone

About three years ago, I started doing hot yoga after my third Marine Corps Marathon.  I had fractured my pelvis ligaments five weeks before the marathon.  Although surgery was needed, my recovery was amazingly fast (the doctors thought I was a freak of nature),  and I ran the marathon with some pain, I felt I needed to strengthen/lengthen the muscles/tendons.  I knew that I needed a new and different challenge.

That's when a friend introduced me to Bikram Hot Yoga.  Before that, I'd never done yoga of any kind.  I LOVED it from day one and have been a regular ever since.  I was amazed at how mentally and physically challenging the practice was in a completely different way than any of my other sports endeavors. I have been a swimmer, runner, and cyclist for most of my life.   

I am continually amazed at the diversity of people I encounter in yoga: young, old, men, women.   Yoga has something for everyone which I find so inspiring.

Yoga has helped me tremendously, both physically and mentally. I have avoided injury while running when I had some significant ITB (illiotibial band) issues before practicing yoga.  Yoga has helped me with balance, discipline, and flexibility.  The practice has also taught me to relax and spend time focusing inward allowing my mind to chill out.  It’s my me time.

I have found that I enjoy the inner experience of doing yoga as much as the physical challenge.  While I have had great days and not so great days, I have NEVER had a bad day practicing.  Yoga has taught me how to enjoy and celebrate the best that I can be on any given day and not compare it to past days or anyone else’s ability.  In a yoga class, I don’t feel that I have to compete like I do when racing. Every practice is a learning experience, and I always feel satisfied and content after. 

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got dizzy doing camel pose and thought, "Oh, that’s what the instructors keep talking about."  Interestingly enough, I have experienced the feeling a few times since. Because I'm going deeper into my postures these days, I get thrown off balance sometimes.  Laughing, I just tell myself, "It's always a journey."

I LOVED Rebecca’s (Jordan) instruction and always attended her “Sunday Morning Yoga Church” at Bikram.  When she left, I tracked her down to Revolution Hot Yoga (RHY).  I love RHY.  I find the classes so much more challenging and interesting and have learned something different from each instructor there. The yogis at the studio are in tune with each other and are a supportive community.  I like the interaction in class and feel I have grown more in the last few months at RHY than I did in two plus years at the other studio.

This is Lori Stresemann's (right) yoga story.
Her and a friend after the 2012 Boston Marathon.

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Yoga Is Seeing Life The Way It Is

In high school, I was on the cross country running team.  I loved being outside and the feeling of camaraderie and collective effort of a team sport.  Although I wasn't very good at it, I made the effort.  

In college, I started doing karate and advanced to mid-level belts in Shorin-ryu and then Wadoo ryu with a side venture into aikido.  Upon moving to Greensboro, I found that there was no Japanese karate system for me to plug into.  So, I started running again as my sole exercise.  At 6'1" and blah blah pounds, unfortunately, I'm like a Clydesdale.  Visions of running a marathon were always interrupted by some stress injury. 

A sport's physiologist diagnosed my problem as "running on streets" and suggested that I run on trails.  An easy fix! I stepped in a hole and broke my ankle.  

Soon after, I'm wandering Barnes and Nobles and come across the book, Power Yoga, by Beryl Bender Birch. Beryl PROMISED me that if I did ashtanga vinyasa yoga that, like the New York Road Runners Club members she teaches, I could run injury free.  Beryl didn't lie.  

My first attempt at yoga was to follow an ashtanga-like sequence in a Bryan Kest video. When I tried to get into some of the postures, I found my body stiff, and the poses impossible.  After 45 minutes, I was sweating bullets and exhausted as I laid down in rest pose, but I had this amazing endorphin rush.  I've been addicted to yoga ever since.  I've practiced and taken workshops by various ashtanga instructors since and eventually stopped running as I became more involved with yoga.

Today, my practice is still primarily ashtanga yoga modified for a 60 year-old body.  I practice each weekday at 6am at the Clubs in Greensboro with a core group of tribe members.  We practice for an hour and a half and then skip off to work which, in my case, is Medical Director of the Guilford County Department of Public Health.

I discovered Bikram yoga about 15 years ago when I would travel to Raleigh on business and stop at the Bikram studio on Wade Avenue.  When the Bikram studio opened on Market Street in Greensboro, I was grateful for the chance to attend on a morning each weekend.  

Rebecca (Jordan) was my favorite teacher at that studio.  I had her teaching schedule on my calendar with the intent that, when possible, I'd attend her class.  I was very disappointed when she disappeared from the teacher lineup, but happy to find her teaching at Revolution Hot Yoga (RHY) as well as many of my hot yoga friends. 

With the intentional modifications in their sequence, I find the RHY experience more enjoyable.  In Bikram yoga there is encouragement to feel pain.  You can't hurt yourself less by hurting yourself more.  There is enough suffering in the world.  You don't need to practice yoga to make yourself suffer more. Yoga should make you suffer less.  You should look forward to each day's practice, not dread it.  RHY takes what is best from the Bikram practice while leaving out the dangerous stuff.  The heat is more temperate which allows for safe stretching but avoids the vomit comet.

There's a video making the rounds entitled "Yoga will ruin your life" which is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on how yoga changes your life which I find pretty accurate.  David Williams, an esteemed ashtanga yoga teacher and friend, tells people just starting out, "You don't want to do yoga.  Yoga will change your life.  If you eat meat, you'll stop.  You'll start spending money on yoga clothes.   Your vacations will be spent in far away places doing yoga.  If your girlfriend doesn't do yoga, you'll leave her.  If your job interferes with your yoga practice, you'll quit. You'll want to teach yoga.  Don't do yoga."  Of course, he's right in many ways.  Yoga changes your life.

The best definition of yoga I've seen is a translation of Patanjali's yoga sutra 1:2 "Yoga chitta vrrti nirodha."  It's usually translated as "yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind."  Which usually takes about six pages of explanation to begin to understand.  A better definition is found in the stairwell of a dorm building at Kripalu: "Yoga is seeing life the way it is."  I love that.  Yoga leads you to see the world as it is, not as you want it to be, imagine it to be, or someone tells you it is.    

This is Edward Robinson Jr. MD's yoga story.

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Sweaty Togetherness

Steve Young and Mona Olds, who are married, are familiar faces around the RHY studio.  Many of us have practiced with them for years, and they are a much loved part of our yoga family.

Seven years ago, Steve saw an ad in the newspaper for a Bikram yoga studio.  Although he had never done yoga before, the idea of hot yoga interested him.  With his first class, he was hooked and has had a regular practice since.

"I liked hot yoga right away and thought it was good for me.  As a full-time truck driver, I feel the need to take care of myself to maintain and ensure my physical health.  I've always enjoyed keeping fit.  My yoga practice has felt like the right thing to do towards that goal."

At 62, Steve continues to want to practice and feels that hot yoga helps him stay young.  Through yoga, he has learned to keep his back strong and address work-related back pain through non-medical means.

"I think one of the things I like the most about yoga is that I can be 'alone' in a room full of people," Steve said.

Within a few weeks of his first hot yoga class, Steve was able to convince Mona, who was a little apprehensive, to try it.  After realizing that she could make it through a whole class, she kept going as well.

At first, Mona found the heat mind blowing and would feel a little woozy during class, but after, she felt great and found that she slept better and her skin was healthier.

Surprisingly, the sweating is the part she both hates and loves the most. "It's hard to explain.  It's uncomfortable, but very cleansing at the same time."

During the seven years she has been practicing two or three times per week, Mona was treated for breast cancer.  She found that the deep breathing, stretching, and sweating helped her body cope with surgery and radiation.

Over the years, Mona has been able to find the right balance in poses more often and hold them longer.  Oddly enough, some of the poses she disliked the most in the beginning are now her favorites.

"The strangest thing for me has been realizing that I can hear a particular instruction dozens of times without really grasping it or giving it any importance.  Then all of a sudden one day, the same instruction will mean something completely new to me."

Steve and Mona saw a good thing in Rebecca's (Jordan) instruction and wanted to stay close to that.  So, they followed her to RHY.  "I like the teaching philosophy of Revolution Hot Yoga.  It's very hands-on and individualized even in a room full of people,"  said Mona.

Practicing yoga together provides a special activity they can share and gives them extra incentive to attend class.  "Our lives are pretty busy so we often go to class on separate days, but when we can go together, there's an additional dynamic that's very fulfilling.  On the ride home, we compare notes about what we discovered or accomplished and who we visited with before or after class.  Invariably we arrive home feeling a whole lot better than when we started out! "

This is Mona Olds' and Steve Young's yoga story.

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Even If You Hate The Heat, Hot Yoga Heals

I hate the heat.  Let me be clear – I HATE THE HEAT!  There is nothing worse to me than sweating for no reason.  I’ve always said that I don’t want to sweat unless I’ve done something to cause it.  When my sister first told me about Bikram yoga and that the room was heated over 100 degrees, I thought she was crazy, but she swore by it.  I ignored her insistence that I try it for quite some time.

I’ve never really been athletic.  When my parents yelled at me to go outside and play, I was the kind of kid who grabbed a book and went out under the tree to read.  In addition to that, I don’t have your stereotypical yoga body.  Don’t get me wrong, my body is beautiful, but it won’t fit in no Lululemon, if you know what I mean. 

But after trying hot yoga, I was surprised to find that, in my heart, I AM a yogi.  The postures and the challenge of hot yoga spoke to my brain, and my stubbornness pushed me past the mental doubt.  And it didn’t take long for me to know that I loved what was happening to my physical body.  But the real breakthrough was in my emotional well-being. 

In January 2013, I was diagnosed with Binge Eating Disorder.  For months, I saw a counselor and dietitian who specialized in coaching people with eating disorders.  I dove in and worked hard to make progress.  I am fully in recovery now and didn't realize, until I stopped going to hot yoga for a while, how much the mental and physical elements of hot yoga helped in my recovery.

In June of 2013, I committed myself to Bikram yoga.  I had tried it two summers before but didn’t make it more than a week or two into the practice.  This past summer, I was in recovery, and the yoga really spoke to me this time around.  

At first, I enjoyed the predictability of the Bikram practice, knowing it was going to be the same 26 postures every class.  But over time, I felt like I wanted more than the physical challenge.  I needed to feel emotionally and spiritually safe, and that element was missing for me.  

Around the same time, my favorite teachers Jen (Schell) and Jane (Cable) were suddenly gone.  I couldn’t find them anywhere.  I overheard (and proceeded to eavesdrop!) on a classmate’s discussion about a new hot yoga studio in town.  I immediately went home, searched the Internet, and found that new studio - Revolution Hot Yoga.  Both Jen and Jane were on the schedule as teachers.  I couldn’t wait to check it out.

My work schedule got crazy in October 2013, and I took a couple of weeks off from yoga.  When my schedule lessened, I just couldn’t bring myself to return to my previous studio and instead took advantage of the introductory week at Revolution Hot Yoga.  I was instantly hooked because it was different, in a very good way.  I felt safe there, and I wasn’t just a customer.  I immediately felt like part of a community. 

Although I loved my experience during that first week, I had some financial difficulties that kept me from going for a while.  In total I was away from hot yoga for 6 weeks.  I had been struggling quite a bit during this time and one day, my fiancee said to me, “Love, you need to find a way to get back to yoga.”  It was then that I realized how meaningful it was to my life. 

So I emailed Rebecca (Jordan-Turner), explained my absence, and told her about my eating disorder.  I’m not sure why I told her, because I barely knew her and at this point, I'd only shared my diagnosis with a few close friends.  But I felt like I could trust her and that I needed to tell her, and she helped me find my way back to the RHY studio.  

Her loving, encouraging, and supportive words brought me mentally back where I needed to be, and now I am a regular.  I try to practice 4 or 5 days a week, if I can.  I don't think that it would be overstating it to say that hot yoga has been life changing for me.  I feel stronger mentally, emotionally, and physically with every class and more connected to my body and mind with every drop of sweat that hits the mat.  

Hot yoga is essential to my life in so many ways.  I may still hate the heat, but strangely enough, my body and soul crave it now.  Hot yoga is what keeps me on the path of recovery. 

This is Joanne's yoga story.

Go to RHY website