Yoga Magic

As a young girl, I watched all my Mom's exercise endeavors. Being an early riser, I used to crawl out of bed, curl up in the big recliner in the den, and watch her do aerobics videos or yoga sequences. I liked the ritual because it was a quiet time. Watching someone else practice yoga is still mesmerizing and meditative for me. Yoga looks so fragile and strong at the same time. 

Over my adult years, I took a few yoga classes at the YMCA and although I enjoyed the stretching, I didn't really feel a difference in my body.  So, I kept running instead. 

My cousin is a Bikram yoga teacher, and I knew there must be something really amazing about the practice that would convince her to go to California for nine weeks for training. Two days after my first half-marathon, I tried hot yoga for the first time. I was dehydrated, felt like the teachers were yelling at me, and wasn't sure what to make of the experience, but felt amazing in the days following. However, I only attended two classes because I couldn't do all of the postures and felt exposed, observed, and just plain weird. 

A friend, who had transformed herself into a more confident, balanced, and happy person doing hot yoga, made me take a second look at the practice. My cousin, the Bikram teacher, is super thin and fit. I've never been like that and don't really want to do the hard work or the healthy eating required.  So, I figured hot yoga just was not for me after my couple of bad class experiences. However, my friend spoke so highly of it, talked about crying on her mat, and just letting everything go. I really wanted that kind of spiritual renewal more than anything physical.

My friend told me about Revolution Hot yoga (RHY) and Rebecca (Jordan-Turner), and I came the first week the studio opened and have been attending pretty regularly in spurts, five days in row then not all for a week, since.  I found Rebecca, Jane (Cable), and the other teachers so nice, supportive, and complimentary of my efforts.  It didn't matter if I could do the postures 100%. What mattered was my effort. 

I was super proud to make the 100+ practice club this past year because it shows the level of commitment I made to myself over the long haul.

Hot yoga got me through my dissertation at graduate school last year. There was a point where I couldn't really tell the difference between being asleep and being awake. I sat at the computer reading and writing all day, and at night, I dreamed I was sitting at the computer reading and writing. I even had dreams about footnotes. Really. 

Yoga was something very different which took me out of that haze for a little while. In one class, Rebecca mentioned that padahastasana II was good for people who typed all day. After hearing that, I threw myself into the pose, standing on the palms of my hands waiting for my fingers to tingle which was both fun and relaxing. Because of hot yoga, I was able to keep off SOME of the dissertation weight. 

After turning in the first draft of my dissertation, I did my own version of a thirty day challenge. Each week, I kept healing in new ways. My knee swelled up, and then went away. I popped my toe, and it got better. My back started hurting, stopped, and I was able to feel sensations I'd never felt there before. The month long experience was surreal and amusing to observe, but I just kept doing the yoga.  If it had been anything else, I probably would have quit. 

The fitness that comes with yoga is a nice byproduct for me. My yoga practice is about healing and meditation which Rebecca and Jane facilitate. Sometimes when I'm in class with them or right after, I just want to lie down and put my head in their laps because they are like yoga mommies to me. I study ritual and magic in graduate school--the ritual and magic of the English Renaissance--and yoga brings that to life for me in our little RHY studio. 

I find something magical about this yoga:  the meditation, the breath. Rebecca, Jane and Carmen (Cavanagh), the RHY studio, the Sanskrit, the Hindu gods, the candles, the twinkly lights, and THE LAVENDER FACE CLOTHS! :)

This is Tina Romanelli's yoga story
Tina is now a teacher at RHY and is getting married this weekend!

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A Year Of Yoga

What a year it has been at Revolution Hot Yoga.

We did it!! With your help, we made it to our first anniversary! Although we’re not really surprised, we're proud. We knew that our vision of an intimate, welcoming, beautiful studio with excellent instruction and a revolutionary approach to hot yoga was bound to succeed.  Add you, the amazing community that we've attracted, to the mix, and it’s an unbeatable formula.

Frankly, we're amazed at how quickly the time has flown by. It seems like only yesterday we were opening the studio doors and welcoming our first students. We're sincerely humbled and grateful for the success of the past year and passionately dedicated to improving and growing over the coming years.

Some milestones of the previous year:

• On October 9, 2013, we opened our doors for business at 8:30am.
• 365 days later, we have offered 1,364 classes.  Of those, Rebecca taught 40% or 546 classes.  Jane taught 433 classes or 32%.
• 905 people have come through our doors to take their first class.
• 15 people have made it into the 100+ Practice Club!! 

1. Emily Rex 274
2. Carmen Cavanagh 234
3. Debbie Hampton 211
4. Tammi Thurm 182
5. Pam Goldberg 181
6. Page Motley-Mims 137
7. Steve Young 136
8. Ron Baron 130
9. Susan Brady 127
10. Pete Turner 119
11. Rebecca Jordan 115
12. Jane Cable 110
13. Tina Romanelli 105
14. Stacy Dove 102
15. Martin Price 100

We’re proud that our current teaching team Rebecca, Jane, Carmen, and Tina, made the list, and our administrative and long-term work study persons are included as well. The team that yogas together, stays together!

On average, Emily Rex, our most frequent yogini, practices 5.25 times per week.  So, when you see her do amazing things in class and are tempted to think, “she’s just good at it,” remember the hard work and dedication that goes into her practice.

According to the results from our survey, we must be doing something right:

• 84.95% Described their first class as "excellent."
• 100% Said they would refer a friend to RHY

It’s thrilling to look back on our first year and see how far we’ve come, but far more exciting to look forward to where we're going. Big thanks to you, the members of our community, teachers, work-study team, and administrative group.  RHY is here because you expressed the need for this studio and supported it.  We do it for you, and we couldn’t do it without you. 

It's a deep and profound honor to serve this community with the gift of this yoga, to bear witness to your growth in your physical and spiritual practices, and to maintain this space as a gathering place for those who seek the light we offer, which is the light which dwells within us all.

Namaste

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Yoga Is My Secret Defense

In high school, I was introduced to yoga when my mom's friend opened her own yoga studio which, I think, was basic Hatha yoga. . Being a brand new studio, business wasn't exactly booming.  Often, I would be the only one in a class which meant that I received a private lesson essentially.   

I first tried hot yoga a few years ago and although there was a year and a half gap in between my first and second class, I haven't stopped once I really got into it.

Both forms of yoga (hot and not) have a calming effect on me which I really like.  In hot yoga, I feel like I get the added benefit of ridding my body of unnecessary stuff it doesn't need in all of the sweat, and I prefer it. 

I find it rather incredible what a little breath and movement can do for me in yoga.  Sometimes after savasana, I leave my mat with the sense that I've resolved something, even though I can't consciously say exactly what. Yoga allows me to address issues that otherwise I don't think about all the way or don't really understand.  

Hot yoga also puts things into perspective for me.  Often, my thoughts can carry me away, and the yoga grounds me. What's wonderful is that it's not the yoga, in a literal sense, that does this.  It's accomplished by me practicing the yoga which is really just me breathing and moving.  I can carry this grounded feeling with me everywhere I go. Yoga is like my secret defense against the more unpleasant things I encounter in the world. 

For example when I started practicing yoga regularly in high school, I was that typical rebellious teenager with zero patience for her parents. My mother and I were in a what seemed like one long, continual brawl, and after fighting one evening, I went to yoga class. Coming out of the class, I bought her some tea that I thought she would like from the yoga studio's little store, even though I was angry with her and could hardly tolerate being in the same room.  The purchase only struck me as strange days later.  In the moment, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world, getting my mom some tea that I knew she would like just because.

When I started yoga, I liked the flexibility that resulted and again, the sense of calm that was so evident even after just one class. When I began practicing Bikram yoga in college, the sweat factor was great and the series healed my knees from chondromalacia patella, a fancy term for runner's knee. 

Physically, Bikram yoga made my body feel great, until I needed to take a break from it.  I probably just over did it by going to class almost every day for a few years which took a toll on my body.  Around that same time, Revolution Hot Yoga opened its doors. I found that the shorter classes were kinder to my body and was able to slowly get back into a regular yoga practice.

This is Ron Baron's yoga story.

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Hot Yoga Is The Cure For Me

Back in 1986, I didn't like my first yoga class.  Already practicing karate and working out at the gym, I thought I was too manly for yoga and never went back.  Fast forward 16 years to 2002.  I started having horrible lower back spasms and hip pain.  My girlfriend at the time was practicing Ashtanga yoga and strongly encouraged me to give it a try to help.  It definitely did.  The girlfriend is long gone, but I've stuck with the yoga.

Although my back and hip issues improved, they still nagged me when I first tried hot yoga in Oregon in late 2004. Shortly after, I moved to North Carolina and found a local hot yoga studio.  Before a class, I showed the teacher that I couldn't lift my right heel off the floor while sitting on the floor because of intense pain in my hip. She advised me to do as much as I could without pushing too much. When the class was over, I was easily able to lift my heel off of the floor while sitting down without any pain in my hip.

After that, I knew hot yoga was what I should be doing and practiced 4-5 times a week for months. My hip pain has been gone since, and I can count the back spasms I've had since then on the fingers of one hand. Before practicing hot yoga regularly, I would get them several times in a year.

When skiing, I tore up my left knee in 1988 and again in 1991 and wasn't able to move well laterally after that for many years.  Then, one day after a hot yoga class, the knee noticeably popped when walking down stairs. Because it was sore after that, I had it checked out by a doctor who told me that everything actually looked really good. After the soreness passed, it's been as good as it was before I hurt it ever since.

Other than skiing, the problematic conditions developed in my body due to sitting at a desk job all day for decades.  Some muscles weakened and atrophied which meant others got stressed and overworked compensating. Plus, the vertebrae in my spine were compressing and pinching nerves and the pain in my hip was coming from a pinched sciatic nerve. Through a regular hot yoga practice, especially rabbit pose, I've opened my spine and don't have pinched nerves anywhere anymore.  I can't stop doing yoga because, if I do, everything bad slowly but surely starts to come back. I know. I've tried quitting a couple of times over the years.

I have flexibility I never dreamed of before I started hot yoga and more strength. I feel better in my mid-fifties than I did in my thirties and forties and it's been nice not to have to deal with and worry about the health issues that I used to have.  Hot yoga's positive impact on my health has been dramatic. It's not for everyone, but it's right for me.

For me, having a consistent practice is the most challenging thing about hot yoga, but my back and my hip make sure that I keep practicing. I find it interesting that I never know how a class is going to go. Some days, my body can't do things it normally can.  I might not feel like going one day, but I go anyway and have an awesome class. Then one day, I might feel super walking in the door but struggle in class. Regardless, I'm always better off for getting to a class.

Plus, classes can be fun. While doing locust pose one day, the teacher said, "This pose cures tennis elbow and carpal tunnel syndrome. They don't have machines at the gym that can do that." A little voice in the back corner of the room said, "They don't have wind removing machines at the gym either." The teacher replied, "I have a vision in my mind of a gym with some happy old men sitting under a sign that says wind removing machines."

This is Martin Price's yoga story.

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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.

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