From Belly Dancing To Hot Yoga

I was turned onto belly dancing when I lived in Miami.  Upon moving to Greensboro in 2003, I found a network of belly dancers and continued to dance as a student.  Eventually, I became a teacher and opened my own studio. In addition to a full time job, I was teaching belly dancing four times a week, rehearsing, and performing. Because I was overworking the same muscles, my lower back began to bother me.

I had met many other belly dancing instructors who were yoga teachers, and all of the belly dancing workshops I had attended encouraged the students to practice yoga to strengthen their core.  I had been doing traditional hatha yoga classes on and off at that time.

It was winter when I first heard about hot yoga from a student.  Because I've lived in a tropical climate for most of my life, the idea really appealed to me.  I was hooked after my first class.  I didn't realize how much I missed sweating.  I love the heat and how much more pliable it makes my body.  While I found Hatha yoga to be very relaxing, hot yoga kicked my butt!  In the beginning, I struggled in every class,and my goal was just to stay in the room for the entire class.  Some days I could, and some days I couldn't.  

I realized that I didn't know how to breathe during a hot yoga class. So, I focused on breathing through every posture instead of worrying about what my body was doing in the posture.  After about a year, once breathing became second nature, I started listening to the teacher and concentrating on my body's response to the instructions during the posture. My practice grew tremendously then. 

At that point, I was practicing five days per week. I completed a 30 day challenge which was hard, but at the same time a tremendous personal accomplishment. Then along came a teacher that took my practice to another level (Rebecca Jordan). It was amazing when my forehead finally touched my knee in standing head to knee!! I thought I'd never be able to do that. 

I followed Rebecca to her home studio where I was introduced to different styles of yoga and then to RHY. It's so exciting to learn new postures and practice at a studio that incorporates different styles of yoga without restrictions. I love the people that I have met through yoga and the community feeling of RHY.

This is Carmen Cavanagh's yoga story.

Go to Revolution Hot Yoga website.

Growing Up With Yoga

My mom took me to my first yoga class in 1999 when I was 13 years old at what was then a very small yoga studio in metro Detroit. The style of yoga was Ashtanga, a modern form of classical Indian yoga, which is a series of postures and incorporates vinyasa, coordination of movement and breathing. The practice often included meditation after class. 

I loved yoga from the very beginning, and it has been an integral part of my life since. Practicing with my mom was particularly special for me as it was a great way for us to bond and spend time together.  We would attend class every Sunday morning.  

In high school, I was a competitive cross-country runner, and practicing yoga not only helped me maintain flexibility and prevent injuries, but also helped me develop focus and concentration that enhanced my performance.  As a teenager, practicing yoga was immensely helpful for accepting the changes that happened in my body and mind in a healthy way. 

In college, I studied music performance and was not able to practice yoga as much, but I used the meditation techniques I had learned at yoga to help me prepare for important performances and auditions.  

In the years that followed, I began practicing more frequently, and yoga has benefited my life in numerous ways. In a physical sense, yoga has helped me not only develop and maintain flexibility, but also build a tremendous amount of strength. The mental and emotional benefits of yoga have been even more important for me, as the practice has aided me in developing focus, discipline, and a sense of mindfulness about yoga as well as my actions towards myself and others off the mat.  

The more meditative aspects of the yoga practice, the ability to be aware of my thoughts, feelings, and emotions, has helped me tremendously in learning to acknowledge these as products of mind and not get too carried away with them.  Yoga has given me a firm sense of grounding in all parts of my life throughout the years.

Over my yoga life, I've practiced various styles including Ashtanga, vinyasa, Anusara, and Iyengar yoga.  I have learned about the foundations of yoga from each, and my practice has changed and grown on an intrinsic level. More importantly than deepening my strength and flexibility, practicing yoga has helped me develop a certain mindfulness and ability to pay attention to my body and respect its limits. Lately, I am trying to allow my body to “move itself,” rather than moving my body.

I first tried hot yoga in 2011.  Although I had known about hot yoga for several years before actually taking a class, I had been reluctant to try it. When I finally did, I found the heat particularly cleansing and invigorating and the practice exhilarating. Practicing yoga in the heat certainly allows the muscles to warm up more quickly, and I believe can help reduce risk of injury, as long as mindful awareness is always present. 

Since practicing hot yoga, I have also noticed that my skin and hair are healthier because they are more nourished and moisturized. Hot yoga has also helped me develop an awareness of what type of nutrition my body needs and improved my digestion.

I became involved with RHY when Rebecca (Jordan) was teaching classes at her house last year. Rebecca and Jane (Lauer) offer a wealth of knowledge and insight in their teaching and are also wonderful friends.  So practicing with them has been an honor for me. 

Although I enjoyed practicing Bikram yoga, I was excited about the opportunity to divert from doing exactly the same series during each class and re-incorporate elements of vinyasa into my practice. The RHY community offers so much support, creativity, and love, that there was no question in my mind that I wanted to be a part of it.

This is Emily Rex's yoga story.

Go to RHY website

Glowing From The Inside Out

My first exposure to yoga was at my college gym.   I wasn't quite sure what yoga was all about, but decided to add it to my fitness routine because I'm not naturally flexible.  Although I started with power yoga, which was fun, I branched out to explore other classes at different studios.  

When I discovered hot yoga in 2008, I knew I'd found the right fit for me.  Hot yoga quiets my mind, helps me focus on my body and breath, and allows me to release tension after a long day.  I love the way the heat relaxes and elongates my muscles so they don't feel scrunched up and tight.

After walking out of that first hot yoga class, I sat in my car and felt the most alive and awake in my body that I'd ever felt.  I felt like I'd just had a full body massage, but even better!  I was glowing from the inside out - and when I teach, I want my students to leave with that feeling.   

I've always been a driven, type-A personality.  Hot yoga helps me find stillness, calm, and peace.  Instead of taking medication for anxiety, I find relief in yoga.  It works better for me. With yoga, I've noticed that I'm not sick as often and my digestion is more regular.  Because I'm taking care of myself, I'm better able to take care of those around me. 

I knew that I wanted to teach yoga almost from the beginning.  Just a little over a year after I started practicing, I took a sabbatical from my day job to attend teacher training in summer 2009.  My certification is in Bija Hot Yoga based on the Ghosh 84 posture series.  Much of the training still sticks with me today as it focused on anatomy and the physical side of yoga asanas.  I particularly enjoy the way my body moves from posture to posture with the flow of the breath.  

I continue to grow my teaching skills in vinyasa yoga and anticipate building education and experience in this area. I'm constantly learning new things about yoga, whether it's from reading something or talking with other yoga teachers and practitioners.  I know I'll never stop learning with yoga (and not just the postures or asanas).  With yoga, I always have a lot to look forward to.  

Yoga is an integral part of the fabric of my life.  If I'm not on the mat, I'm often thinking about yoga or encouraging others to try it.  I frequently use breathing and movement techniques with my clients in my job as a counselor because they can be powerful tools to gain a sense of mastery and control when the world feels like it's out of hand.  

I respect the community at RHY and think the studio has something special to offer. Being a teacher at RHY gives me a chance to take part in that.   

This is our glowing Kate Sutton's yoga story.

Go to Revolution Hot Yoga website

Fueling The Yoga Fire

I took my first regular yoga class in 1998 in South Jersey.  I found the teacher in the Yellow Pages, and the class was held in his home. He warmed the room with space heaters and let his kitchen faucet run to make relaxing running water sounds.  I thought it was funny, but it worked.  I will never forget the feeling of deep peacefulness, relaxation, and calm I had after that first class like I'd never felt before.

I continued practicing with that teacher for a couple of years and began training to become a Pilates instructor under the tutelage of Romana Kryzanowska, who is to the Pilates world what Bikram is to hot yoga.  I was about to apply and "audition" for the Pilates instructor training program, a two year process, when my Pilates teacher asked me if I wanted to go to a hot yoga class with her.

She and my students had been telling me about these yoga classes in the city, Philadelphia, which were the same 26 postures and crazy hot.  So, looking for more challenge, I tried my first Bikram Yoga class.  I was hooked after one class.  I remember thinking that I'd found what I was looking for and wished that I was starting Bikram teacher training rather than Pilates.  I loved the intensity, the challenge, the heat, the sweat, and the amazing feeling I had after a hot yoga class.

I continued with my Pilates training, while commuting into the city every day the rest of that summer to take Bikram classes.  Then, I found out about a woman, located close to where I lived, who taught hot, hot, hot classes out of a converted barn which she heated with a wood burning stove.  Talk about hot!

The barn studio became so popular that she eventually had to open a "real" studio in a strip mall.  I practiced with her for two years, went to Bikram teacher training in the Fall of 2003, and have been teaching ever since.

Yoga has taught me to be patient, more kind with, and accepting of myself.  Yoga has helped me to work through anxiety issues and has given me a new found confidence that I didn't have before.  The best way it has changed my life is through teaching.  When I teach yoga, I'm my happiest and feel that I'm in my element.

I have met so many interesting, wonderful people through yoga.  It's been an honor being a part of people's practices and seeing them go through their yoga transformations.  The yoga is truly life changing and to be a part of that is very special.  I love teaching hot yoga!

I've been waiting for a hot yoga studio like RHY for a long time.  Greensboro has been in need of a studio offering a new, refreshing take on hot yoga, where there's a strong-knitted community of like minded individuals looking to grow their practice in a positive, supportive, healthy, clean, friendly, inviting, and warm atmosphere.  At RHY, I like that the teachers are free to learn and share their knowledge from their personal backgrounds and other sources, not just hot yoga sources, in order to encourage and support growth in students' practices.

This is Erin Alexander's yoga story.
 RHY's awesome addition to our teaching line up.

Go to Revolution Hot Yoga website

We Were Born To Give, Not Get

“We were born to give, not get.”

I heard that sentiment over and over again at Bikram Teacher Training.  I couldn’t agree more, and it’s at the heart of why I teach yoga.  

Students coming to class and sweating it out in the hot room provide me the opportunity to continuously learn and serve.  It makes my heart happy to be able to share my passion and lead others through a class.  Ask any yoga instructor.  It’s the greatest job in the world.

Being a yoga teacher is about serving.  It was continually emphasized in our training, that to become yoga teachers, we had to learn how to serve others.  Each student finds hot yoga for their own personal reasons.  As teachers we may be privileged to know what these challenges are or we may not.  

Every person who comes into class is unique with a unique set of circumstances for that day.  It's the teacher’s responsibility to set their own ego aside, be present, and figure out how to make each class about the students in the room.  That’s the tricky part, but it's also the part I love and why I teach yoga.

I went to teacher training in Los Angeles in the fall of 2012 and practiced twice daily with 450 others from all over the world.  Our class was considered unusual because it was the largest teacher training ever and for the first time the percentage of international students eclipsed the percentage of American students.  The classes were incredibly hot, long, and hard.  The hotel staff where we lived, practiced, and studied liked to gossip about the temperature of the yoga room.  One week, rumor had it at 120 degrees.  

We rarely got to bed before 1:00 a.m. and were up at 6:00 a.m. the next day to do it all again for nine weeks. Benjamin Lohr’s description of teacher training in his book, which he appropriately named Hell Bent, is spot on.

Even though we may not have shared the same language, culture, or opinion of our training, we all stuck it out because we did share the same passion about hot yoga and wanted to be able to share it as teachers.  We were driven because of the profound impact yoga had made on our lives, myself included.  

I started a regular yoga practice 8 years ago when a friend encouraged me to try prenatal yoga.  I found hot yoga 5 years ago when I was suffering from acute asthma.  Today I use yoga to help me manage my asthma, physical pain from injuries, and keep me centered. 

It's my intent as a teacher to share what I have learned from my countless dedicated teachers and students. RHY provides an opportunity for me to do this in an inclusive, supportive, safe environment that allows for student feedback both in and out of class.  This is important and a requisite for me, as a teacher, so that I may help the student in the best way that I know how.  

Jen Schell in floor bow.

Go to Revolution Hot Yoga website

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.