Good morning Tammy,

Since I haven’t been to any of your classes this week, I decided to take my second of ten Bikram yoga classes this morning.  Despite the near death experience at my first class, I’m going again because Groupon ehounds me to see whether I’m using the Groupons I purchased.  Groupon also wants me to rate the experience at the Bikram studio; I’m in a good mood and will skip this part.  As the saying goes, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything; otherwise your next Bikram class may terminally be your last.

There is a little trepidation about going to another Bikram yoga class.  I go to your class to feel good about myself and laugh which I think is the purpose of yoga.  I think Bikram is life’s way of seeing if you have a death wish or if you really want to be alive.  There are a couple of signs indicating my first class wasn’t a comedy festival or an ecstasy party.  Nobody said hi to the teacher as she walked into class.  During the entire 90 minute class, every student had their teeth clenched; they should’ve been wearing mouth guards as they were surely grinding their teeth.  The sole positive I can relate from the class is that I was able to stay up until 2 in the morning after the class; good bye 5 Hour Energy drink.

My mind wanders who may be a good candidate for Bikram yoga.  Somebody who is waiting for a big inheritance should consider suggesting Bikram to their “loved one”; the richie may not make it out alive.  Ladies, is the love lost from your marriage and you’re thinking about divorce?  Is your hubby’s life insurance paid up?  If so, don’t even wait for his birthday, your anniversary, or the holidays, gift him some Bikram yoga classes as soon as possible.

When I go this morning, I’m going to pay special attention to the teacher’s speech at the beginning of class.  The teacher must give out a safe word like they do in BDSM sessions.  I must be able to stop the madness or get a reading of the last rites.

Bikram for breakfast is definitely the way to wake up!  NOT!

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Tonight was my first Bikram yoga class.  I don’t know if I can go back but I’ve already paid for 9 more lessons.

When I walked in the studio door it was already a little steamy.  Okay I thought, this is really going to be exhilarating.   When the teacher arrived she asked for my name and whether I had ever done Bikram yoga before.  No and Gary I announced.   She then cranked up the heater near my mat.   Initially we did some breathing poses where you move your arms and neck.  So far so good.  Then oblique twists for mountain pose.  Cool, good bye muffin top.  Soon there were new poses I didn’t know and I was covered in sweat.  I reached for a towel to wipe my face, neck, arms, and chest.   The cute, young, girl-next-door-teacher, approached and told me to give up the towel because I would need it the whole class.  I was able to do a few more poses and then I had to stop and sit in timeout on the ground behind my mat.  I feared heat exhaustion.  Aerobically, I was burnt toast.  I could feel my heart pounding out of my chest.  I watched everybody else do what I was incapable of.  She then called out triangle pose.  She came over to me and sweetly whispered, or so I thought,  “come on, even Charlie Brown can do this one.”  During another pose she told us to put our hands by our heart and we can pray if we want.  I don’t think she was kidding.  I couldn’t see the clock so I piously requested the end of class.  Throughout class the teacher would call my name to encourage me; however, I felt quite embarrassed.  After all, there were a couple of overweight guys who had 15 years on me and they could do all of the poses.  I heard her say shivasana and I got up from my exile as I can definitely do relaxation pose.  She said to keep our eyes open.  I think something is wrong.  Three seconds later we were instructed to fold our torsos over our legs; this sent me back to once again being a bench warmer.  The teacher was so hot her halter top and capri pants were covered with sweat stains.  No need for any weird ideas; I was so delusional my brain didn’t have the capacity for any Clintonesque thoughts.  After several more fakes, the real shivasana arrived.  I got back on my mat and nearly passed out.  When I came to, I saw there was only one other person in the class and she was leaving.

Was this really yoga?  Maybe an inbred cousin.  Hardly any of the poses resembled vinyasa yoga.  It was so hot I think the walls will soon be covered in mold.  Maybe I should call Groupon and tell them I dropped into the wrong class and get my money back.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I’m confused about something I’ve never done before:  Bikram yoga.  I grouponed a set of 10 classes.

I understand there is a person named Bikram; how did this dude get a yoga named after him?  Did he pay the yoga gods a lot of money?  Are Patanjali and Pattabhi Jois rolling over in their graves?  How does Iyengar feel about these naming rights; was he part of the bidding process?  Was Bikram trying to keep up with Pilates by self naming a form of fitness?  Is this considered the beginning of yoga’s commercialization?

Why 26 poses?  When you’re crazy they say you’re playing with a half of a deck of cards (26)?  One pose to match each letter of the alphabet; if that’s the case, why don’t they give each pose a letter instead of a name?  Or one pose for each bone in the foot and ankle; so you can brake one bone for each pose.

Why so hot?  To make us feel as hot as it gets in India?  To test the human spirit when there is no air conditioning?  To ensure that people do yoga with the least amount of clothing (don’t blame me if your mind is in the gutter, I didn’t say it had to be 105 degrees)?

Should I sweat out these questions in 26 hours or just enjoy, I mean suffer through, the classes?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Today one celebrates Valentine’s Day and exchanges romantic gifts with his/her special person.

What does everybody do for his or her self?  No, I’m not referring to anything pornographic.  In class you generate an atmosphere of silliness, acceptance, and wacky places where we’re supposed to put our various body parts which you call poses.   You ask us to focus our mind.  You ask us to look into our souls and love the person in the mirror exactly the way we are, right?  Does it matter exactly how we do the pose?  I think you adjust us to make the body feel better, rather than worrying about whether the body looks perfect, right?  So by following your directions to breathe in the moment and be present, are you showing us how to give ourselves presents?  Does that make you Saint Valentine and us students your little cherubs?  Thank you.

If you don’t mind, I will not be wearing red for class today.  I may be in the present but I don’t think others would take me seriously as Cupid in warrior I or warrior junior, or as you say warrior II.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

So I’ve had some sort of virus for a while now.  It has forced the cancellation of a trip to New York, interfered with work, and halted yoga classes.  I’ve resorted to looking online at yoga things; one might call me a yoga lurker.  No, not dirty stuff, just compelling like a crack addict needs a fix.  I know reading about the experience of others and how they do things is not good for me.  It’s supposed to be about me.  For once, it is all about me.  Alas, I have figured it out; yoga is an activity for narcissists.   After all, I’m not supposed to worry about the way others practice.

Do you think this sickness has messed with my brain or am I more enlightened?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Today I sat and meditated.  For fifteen minutes I thought about normal things; like the garlic festival I will be going to and how garlic is supposed to be great for your health.  I then pondered how many weeks it will take to get the smell out of my pores.  Next I remembered something in the liquor store; they actually sell tequila in bottles shaped like rifles and hand guns.  I know these might be cool at parties but what kind of message are they sending?  After all, how accurately can you shoot when drinking?  I started to think about the dinner I had with someone’s elderly mother.  The woman is in an assisted living facility but they don’t shave her face.  She has whiskers almost a half inch long but I don’t think she has a clue what the cat pose is.  Do the workers leave this grotesqueness there to spite her since she is mean to everyone?

What are you supposed to think about during meditation?  Is there a right and wrong? Am I twisted?  I pay attention to my breath but my mind wanders elsewhere pretty quickly.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I’m sick again.  It may be that I was just doing too many activities and burning the yoga candle at both ends.  Actually, it was probably the close-talking woman at the networking party who told me she had been sick on and off for 4 months but that she wasn’t contagious.  Maybe I should bottle up some of my sickness and send it to her so her malaise lasts a little longer.  I know this isn’t a yogi’s way of looking at life but recently I seem to get sick for four to six weeks now, rather than the normal week.

You’d be proud of me.  I looked at my intention of getting better and enjoying the world.  I can’t do any cycling nor yoga. So what can I do?  Hey, how about meditation?  Well, I sat in the official position for 15 minutes and the pressure of sitting up straight made the chest congestion feel worse.  Then I thought about your classes.  When we do shivasana in your classes, we lay down on our mats and put our hands to our side.  Hey, I can do that.  So, I decided to put my mat down in the house and just as you say “float into space.”  For some reason it wasn’t that comfy so I climbed onto my bed.  I concentrated on listening to the ins and outs of my breathing.  My back was on the bed and my arms were out to the side, face up.  After a while, I was sleeping.  The dream was better than usual.  I seem to recall you saying that relaxation is the ultimate goal of yoga.  Mission accomplished.

If the goal of yoga is relaxation, why do we do all the poses?  Shouldn’t we just learn to sleep better?  I think I might be missing something here, but this revelation might just take down the whole yoga industry.  Maybe we can reformat yoga as a sleep tool, build a start-up, grow it, have an IPO and sell our shares for millions.  Then, we will have the time to actually practice what we created.  Sickness yoga may have solved life’s problems.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I was going to your yoga class yesterday and saw a hot twenty-something woman hanging out after her yoga class.  She was talking with a friend and then I noticed it.  Not a nose ring, nor a pierced eye brow, nor a belly button ring.  A stream of lightly colored air started flowing out of her mouth.  She propped her left hand up in a beautiful feminine gesture as she looked at her friend.   I saw the white stick we know as a cigarette.  She was old school defiance.

After an hour and fifteen minutes in your class I left in a dreamy yoga afterglow.  My mind flashed back to the woman I saw before class.   No I wasn’t getting all hot and bothered over her.  It seems she was smoking to elevate the post-yoga high.   Maybe something that causes cancer isn’t all bad.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Today I wanted to take a mid-morning yoga class at a local gym.

I was a guest of a friend and we got to the parking lot ten minutes before the class was supposed to start.  Cars galore.  What’s with that?  Well, there was a fitness class prior to the yoga class and there are a lot of retirees in South Florida.  We had to really scurry for a parking spot.  Saying my friend was nervous as I backed up past 15 cars through the only lane of travel would be an understatement; I thought there were going to be ½ inch finger divots in the passenger door handle.  Then, as we got into the place, the previous class was letting out; within a minute the entire floor was completely covered with mats.  Are you kidding?  What’s the Sanskrit phrase for turnaround and leave?  Yep, adios before we even started a single pose.

Somehow I don’t get the idea of massive yoga classes.  They’ve had yoga classes in Times Square, the National Mall in DC, and Millennium Park in Chicago.  I’m not trying to be negative but I like to have space for my poses.  I know you’re supposed to accept your neighbor, but touch your sweaty neighbor more than once and I get a little skeeved.  I know if they touch me, I’ll be quarantined for sliminess.  Am I missing something?  In a setting where the space is filled mat to mat, can you, or any teacher, make it around to each and every person for adjustments?  Did I miss a tweet saying only yoga teachers or perfect yoga students are invited to yoga love fests?  Is there supposed to be some sort of cosmic group connection or yoga wave in the colossal sessions?  Perhaps the best person for these classes would be the shivasana robbers as they stand to make some extra loot.

Can you let me know what the appeal is to enormous yoga classes and public displays of yoga affection?

Gary Kahn