My First Class (and a few hints about yours) ...

by Tricia, Director of Bikram Yoga Lower East Side

My first day of yoga was in the Spring of 2000. I was living in Atlanta where I ran a few restaurants. I was stressed out, had my hand in the chocolate pretzel bowl, and I felt out of shape. I was sick of the gyms, I had no extra time, and I was feeling less than T-rrific. After a hard week at work, I staggered to my friend Wayne's place to get my hair done. Wayne took one look at me and immediately announced he was taking me to yoga class. Yoga class? No way. Yoga just wasn’t my speed. I was an All American soccer player in college: I liked my hamstrings tight and my workout fierce. Needless to say, I was skeptical.

But Wayne promised me this yoga would be different. He promised it would be an intense work out and that I would gain flexibility with the heat. He went on telling me about how great I'd feel, how much weight he'd lost doing the yoga, how much healthier he was, blah blah blah. Through all his shpeil, he forgot to tell me what I really needed to know, like:

• What to Wear: I showed up to my first class in pants and sweatshirt and I had no dry clothes to walk home in. I was soaking wet and a little miserable when the class ended. I RECOMMEND YOU wear whatever you would wear to exercise outside on a hot summer day; students typically wear running shorts, bike shorts, sleeveless shirt or tank tops. Something with a little bit of Spandex is good, that way it won’t get baggy or see-through when it’s wet. And bring some dry clothes to travel home in.
  
• What to Eat or Drink before Class: Wayne also didn’t tell me what to eat or drink before my class. So I had a bagel and coffee and absolutely no water. Come to think of it, I probably hadn’t had any water in a few long days (and even longer nights).
  I RECOMMEND YOU drink plenty of water the night before class, and we recommend not eating right before your workout. This is because having a lot of food in your belly might make you feel nauseous in the heat. But it’s also not a good idea to practice yoga “on empty” low blood sugar makes your head feel swimmy a juice, a piece of fruit, power bar, or yogurt should give you what you need to get through the class.
  
• The Class Itself
  I can’t remember all the details of my first class, but what I do remember is a room full of all sorts of bodies of all kinds of ages doing some hot moves I had never seen before. I could get into some of the postures easily, but some seemed completely impossible. I don’t remember feeling frustrated though: the teacher was really encouraging, and she insisted that if I came back, I would learn all the postures over time. Looking around the room, I had to believe her: there was no way that old guy in the back walked in here able to do bow pose like the ballerina he was now. Hard work, smiles, and sweat would be all it took, she said. A whole lot of sweat.
  
• Ok, let’s talk about the sweat: There was a ton of it. I loved it. I loved feeling hot, and sweating toxins out of my body. But I couldn’t believe how much I was sweating, and how challenging the class was. This was Yoga? Wow. Tougher than it looked in those 1970 at-home yoga tv shows I watched as a kid.

There’s no one who visits this web page that can’t do this yoga. The instructors will give you everything you need to get through a class, from instructions as basic as how to breathe (in and out through your nose), to tricks on trouble-shooting your poses, getting through the heat, knowing when to sit-down, focus, and just watch. You can drink water between any of the poses after the warm-up ( the first 4 postures), and if you need a break in class, you can sit down on your mat, connect with your breath, and rest until you're ready for more.

How quickly you progress in your Bikram practice will depend entirely on you - upon your natural ability to a small extent, but mostly upon the honest time and effort you give to yoga. It will have little to do with how "perfectly" you can do the poses. Instead, it will have to do with how well you understand what you are trying to accomplish in each pose, how honestly you try to accomplish your goal, and how supple your muscles and joints have become in comparison to the point at which you began. In Yoga there is no standard of comparison except yourself. Perfect is the best you can do that day. Even on your first day. Which is today, right?