Bikram 101

...Mind, Body and Spirit

by Amber Klahm

As I sit here writing this, it’s a typical rainy day in the outskirts of Vancouver but the energy in our streets is nothing short of a warm rays as we have welcomed the world to our very city for the 2010 Winter Olympics. As we have only a couple days left of the Olympics, I am also coming to an end of a challenge that has giving me life, spirit and a sense of accomplishment- as of March 2^nd, I will have completed 150 consecutive days of Bikram Yoga. As with any goal, we have our doubts and we have our anticipations, we have our setbacks and we have our glory moments but as I come to the end, I realize all this has been for something so much more.

Like the Olympics, that has brought the world together in the forms of inspiration, motivation, determination and peace; I have learned how much of a true inspiration my goal has been for so many instructors and students. Students come up to me with excitement in their eyes telling me they are continuing their own challenge, whether it be to start a 30 day or continue with 60 or 100 days. I have had instructors inspired to take on the 30 day challenge (including teaching mixed in with that!) for many reasons; health, emotional, even just to have more of an appreciation for this yoga. These moments alone have made me realize that this challenge has gone beyond me; it has paved a path for those searching for their own challenge.

Like any athlete who walks onto the stage or waits for the gun to go off, the anticipation when we walk into that hot room is the moment we wait for every day we come into our studios; the ability to take that first breath of that heat, to roll out our mats and look ourselves in the mirror and say “I am here because this is exactly where I need to be”.

We sweat liters of water, we even bleed a bit sometimes, we suffer aches and pains, we laugh, cry, mentally tell our instructors off, pray for the fans to come on, pray for the one more ounce of energy to stretch just a little bit higher, and through all of that, we realize that once we leave that room it was all worth it.

When we come out of that room, we should all realize we have given ourselves another chance for a better life, a new appreciation of ourselves and a way to open up our minds and our hearts to those in our lives- for that we all deserve a gold medal.

I would like to add my appreciation and thanks to all those who have been reading my blog- www.ambersbikramyogadiary.blogspot.com . You have let me release my thoughts and feelings in a harmonious and loving atmosphere.

Namaste~

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Amber Klahm lives in a town just outside of Vancouver, BC called Langley. She has been practising Bikram Yoga for over a year and half and has grown such a passion for this amazing healer of the body, mind and soul. Amber is currently a student and part time counsellor for adolescents. Her other interests include swimming, writing, hiking, and spending valuable time with friends and family.

I've got to blog. Then read all of the blogs I follow. I must comment on the blogs and then go back in case they replied to my comment. I need to tweet and see if anybody "direct" tweeted me, or perhaps "mentioned" me. Maybe I want to "retweet" some tweets. I better update facebook and catch up on other status' while I'm there. Don't forget to "like" some of those status' or maybe even comment on them. I have some farmville gifts to accept. Guess I better harvest my crops and trees, collect eggs and milk, brush horses, cats and reindeer and collect feathers. Oh, look my neighbors helped me out so I better go and help them out. Now on to checking email and maybe surfing the net to catch up on news....Oh wait, I just got a text message on my phone......

Happy Friday, rock stars!  We are now entering the ninth week of the 101 day challenge, and today is the ninth Friday!  (Wow, nine weeks.  Can anyone think of something else that's nine weeks long?!  Nine weeks can go by fast.)

By this point, I'm sure you've all settled into some sort of food and beverage routine that keeps you from feeling like death warmed over after sweating profusely for 90 minutes every day.  So let's talk about this for a minute...

Everyone's probably heard that you have to "replace your electrolytes."  And I think that everyone also has the vague idea that "electrolytes" are things that come out of your body when you sweat, along with a few toxins and a lot of water.  This is pretty much accurate, but let's get a little more specific.

By definition, an electrolyte is just any substance that dissolves in solution and conducts electricity.  In our bodies, the most important electrolytes include sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), calcium (Ca 2+), and magnesium (Mg 2+).  According to this nice Medical News Today article that I found, our muscles and neurons can be thought of as the electric tissues of the body.  A muscle contraction needs the right levels of calcium, sodium, and potassium to be present.  If those electrolytes are out of balance, then the muscles become weak or the contractions become severe (i.e. cramps).  The level of electrolyte in the blood tends to change when the hydration (the level of water in the body) is altered.  After you sweat, you lose a lot of water and a lot of electrolytes.  If you drink a lot of water, but don't consume any electrolytes, then you'll end up with lower electrolyte levels than when you started.  (This is why it can be dangerous to drink a LOT - like many, many liters - in one sitting.  It dilutes your electrolyte levels so quickly that your kidneys can't keep up, and it can cause the same symptoms as severe dehydration, up to and including death!)

Now in our case, under normal conditions, we're just worried about preventing mild imbalances.  If you keep your water and electrolytes at a good level, then you can sweat for hours a day and never have a problem.  So how do we do this?

Sports drinks such as Gatorade or Vitamin water are an obvious source of electrolytes.  They're fast, convenient, and effective.  You can grab one from the 7-11 and drink it on your way home.  Easy!  Coconut water is a great natural alternative which has less sugar and no artificial ingredients.  (I like Zico best.)  However, these are still all pretty sugary, and there are plenty of reasons why a person might not want to add more sugar to her diet.  So what else can you do?

How about eating some leafy greens?  Eating some fruit?  Adding some sea salt to your food?  Eating beefy jerky?!  (Apparently beef jerky is a great source of electrolytes, but is not recommended as a health food due to some of its other contents.  Who knew?)  Sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium are all minerals that occur naturally in tons of foods.  (What did you think sweat people did before the invention of Gatorade?)  This solution is easy to overlook, but in my opinion it's the best one, because it has so many positive side effects.  When you eat well and include plenty of high-water fruit and veggies in your diet, then you don't need to rely so heavily on supplements.

Here's a quick list of some natural sources for various electrolytes (taken from various online medical sources).

Potassium:  Avocado, tomatoes, spinach, cantaloupe, kiwi, lima beans, milk, winter squash, oranges, fish, poultry, and of course bananas.


Calcium:  Broccoli, kale (and other leafy greens), milk, yogurt, tofu, almonds, chickpeas, oats, sardines (ew!) and cheese


Sodium:  It's easy to get too much sodium from highly processed foods.  But if you're eating lots of natural foods, it's usually a good idea to add some sea salt to your meal to keep the sodium up.  My other favorite sources of sodium are salt and vinegar Kettle Chips, pickles, and Cheeze-its.

There's also an electrolyte supplement called Elete Electrolyte Drink Mix that I'll use in a pinch, if I feel like my levels are falling low.  You can get it in a little pocket-sized bottles, and it's a super-concentrated electrolyte liquid that you can add to any beverage.  It has a little bit of a mineral-y taste in plain water, but it's not bad, and if you add to to a smoothie or juice you don't taste it very much.  (I've even hidden it in hot chocolate... yum.  I don't worry about my sugar intake too much.)

I hope you've found this little science report useful.  I'm obviously not a doctor or nutritionist, but I think most of this is good common sense.  Like Michael Pollan says, we're better off the more we think about eating food rather than "nutrients."  (Grocery stores are ridiculous.  Don't add fiber to water, just eat some whole wheat bread!  A topic for another day.)  Everyone have a delicious and sweaty weekend!

My nails are growing like crazy. My hair is getting longer too. I'm not sure why practicing Bikram everyday does this, but it does. I got home tonight and threw my towel/yogi toes/yoga outfit in the basket in my garage and noticed it was full already. Didn't I just do yoga laundry a couple of days ago? We are more than halfway through, yet it feels like we will be doing this forever, doesn't it? I just wonder though, if my hair and nails are growing at an accelerated pace, what else is growing? Muscles? Flexibility? Mental strength? Emotional stability? Spiritual growth?

Yesterday morning, during the 30 second break that leads into standing head to knee pose, while I was trying to organize my sleepy brain and gather up some determination for the poses to come, an image popped into my head.

How many of you guys have read the Calvin and Hobbes comic strips by Bill Watterson?  This was a strip that ran for 10 years about a 6-year-old boy (Calvin) and his stuffed tiger (Hobbes), but that description doesn't even begin to cover it!  (For the uninitiated, you can see a great sampling of comics here.)  Anyway, one of the running jokes in the comic was that Calvin's dad would sporadically take the family out on these camping trips or fishing trips that would be disastrous.  Absolutely disastrous.  But every time, the dad (who was a somewhat inept, business-suit-wearing, and frazzled guy) would insist that suffering is great for kids because it builds character.

That's what I remembered as I got ready to interlock my fingers and pick up my foot in front of me three inches below the toes.  "This is great for Calvin!  It'll build his character!!"  Because what is the yoga class (and especially the standing head to knee part of the yoga class), if not one big, long "character building" exercise?

Now, I'll admit that I have serious doubts about the effectiveness of Calvin's dad's "character building" fishing trips.  Those usually ended with angry wives, stubbed toes, soggy stuffed tigers, and zero fish.

But what about the effectiveness of our yoga classes?  What are we getting out of this daily practice, besides confused friends, sore backs, piles of soggy yoga towels, and zero spare time?

That's a question you have to ask yourself, of course.  But in my case, I have to admit that it really seems to work!  Since I started yoga, I've found myself in a couple of stressful situations (confrontation with a restaurant customer, minor car accident) that would have totally thrown me off balance before, and to my own surprise, I found myself staying calm and simply breathing.  I've found myself in the middle of a long, unpleasant task that I didn't really want to do, telling myself, "Ok, this is the halfway point, so it's just like triangle pose in a class!  It's all downhill from here!"  So good job, Calvin's dad!  I guess you were on to something after all.  A little bit of "suffering" can build character - just as long as you go about it the right way.

I love getting various kinds of energy work done. Acupuncture... Reiki... Crystal therapy healing.... Shucks, even massages are considered "energy healing"... And I love it all!

When I began practicing this yoga five years ago, I never really thought about how long I would practice it for. I was a casual practitioner... Averaging one or two times a week. But unlike most things in my life, I never seemed to outgrow and get bored with this yoga.

Here we find ourselves almost halfway through this incredible, life-changing 101-day challenge. This is quite an accomplishment and each of us are realizing the intrinsic rewards and the unavoidable tribulations!

Have you ever been a bit winded by standing bow? Have you ever started the setup, hand back holding your foot, arm straight up in the air, waiting patiently for the commands to start the kicking and stretching part of the posture only to have the teacher pause to help a student with the wrong grip? Have you ever waited for the instructor to finish coaching that newbie on the grip only to find yourself exhausted already trying the hold the first part? Maybe you even come out of it for a second and then "re-setup" when the instructor is finished with the newbie. It could be that your second attempt to setup is a bit sloppy as let's face it....you are a tired wreck. This kind of thing happens to me every so often during an off the charts hot class. In fact, it happened recently. That, combined with Juliana's competition post got me thinking about setup and dialog.

First, my apologies for the slightly late entry!!  I spent the entire weekend in LA at the yoga championships, and my sense of time has been all off since I got home last night!  Also, it's been taking me a bit of effort to "unpack my brain."

So - Friday was the U.S. Championship, Saturday was the International Championship, and then on Sunday they did something new, and held a final round for the top 10 men and top 10 women from Saturday's competition.  (This meant that the top 2 U.S. men and women, all four of whom made it to the finals, ended up performing three days in a row!)  There was also a youth division on Sunday morning.

If you're just joining us and scratching your head at the idea of a "yoga competition," go read my last post and then come back to this one!

The events were streaming online live all weekend, and pictures and results have been posted at OhMyBikram, an awesome new Bikram yoga blog page based out of Toronto.

Here's a bit about my personal experience...

The Yoga

The performances were amazing.  Things started strong on Friday with the U.S. championship, but by the final round on Sunday, things were really being taken to a whole new level!  The championships really do get better every time.  Courtney Mace, last year's international champion, taught the 7am class at headquarters on Friday, and she kept saying that it was amazing to see how everyone, collectively, is getting so much stronger every year.

My jaw was on the floor for most of the kids' performances.  It's great to see people starting Bikram yoga so early in life!  And there was some seriously good yoga this year, especially among the girls.  One after another, they went up there and nailed advanced postures that I've been trying unsuccessfully to do for years!  (Can anyone tell me, when did all the little kids start doing full standing bow?!)  It was really inspiring to see.

Those top 10 performances were mind-blowing.  In the men's division, Kasper Van Den Wijngaard and Joseph Encinia were neck-and-neck for the International gold medal.  I honestly couldn't tell who had won.  Kasper ended up coming ahead of Joseph by only six-tenths of a point.  (The routines are scored out of 80 points.)  I also have to give a shout-out to Deepak, whose score would have been in the same range if he hadn't gone over time in his last posture!!  And then, in the women's division... that may have been the best 30 minutes of yoga I've ever seen.  One of the more senior Bikram teachers wandered past me halfway through (I was working as volunteer, guarding the door), and said, "The ladies are bringing it this year!!"  I think it's fair to say that 5 years ago, any one of those performances would have earned an international medal.  Brandy Winfield ended up with a definitive win, but again, the scores were really tight; there was only eight-tenths of a point difference between third and seventh place!

The Technical Stuff

You can learn a lot by watching these performances.  You get to see the postures in their fullest expression, and you get a good glimpse of the advanced postures.  The competition also helps you to start understanding the nuances of the postures.  Think all standing head to knee poses look the same?  Try watching 60 different people do excellent versions of the pose, all in a row.  Your eye starts to recognize all the differences and subtleties.  The little technical details - the exact position of the grip, the height of the heel, the angle of the wrists - start to jump out at you.  And since every body is unique - long legs, long spines, short arms, short torsos, muscular and strong, slim and flexible - you start to see what correct execution looks like on all the different bodies, with all their different proportions.  

On Monday there was a choice between advanced class with Emmy or judge's clinic with Bikram.  I headed to advanced class, and I was happy with that choice, since Bikram was actually there with us for the first hour before he headed over to the clinic!  Bikram and Emmy started the class by talking about the postures that they'd seen on stage over the weekend.  Their advice to future competitors was clear and simple: follow the Dialogue!  They said it over and over.  At the national and international championship level, people are still just getting deductions for not following the precise set-ups that are given in the dialogue.  They mentioned things like gripping three inches below the toes in standing head to knee, two inches below the toes in bow, and keeping the wrists straight in bow.  Have no doubt, these guys know exactly what is written in the dialogue, and they are sort of baffled when people aren't following it!  Emmy thinks that when people get advanced, they start to do things their own way, but they should be doing it the way the dialogue says in order to get the best benefits.  Even in competition, it's not about doing the "prettiest" posture; it's all about doing the most correct posture, according to the dialogue, to get maximum medical benefits.

The Fun

I adore the championship weekend because it's just like a massive family reunion (where there are hundreds of people in the family and very few of them are related by blood).  Teacher training groups were reunited - the fall 2005 graduates were very proud to point out that almost all of their Group One was there! - students were reunited with their favorite teachers, Facebook friends met face-to-face for the first time, and of course everyone got to see Bikram, Rajashree, and Emmy again!

I kept describing it as a "yoga convention" to my friends at home, because that's what it feels like to me.  Even if you're not competing, you spend the entire weekend immersed in the world of Bikram yoga.  I was getting up before 6am every morning to take the 7am at Headquarters, but I still found myself awake past 1am, at the hotel bar with a glass of wine talking about yoga miracles or in a friend's hotel room talking about how to pick up the foot in standing head to knee.  In other words, it was yoga dork heaven!!

And of course, there was Bikram's birthday party on Saturday night, complete with Indian buffet, mind-boggling demonstrations from last year's champions, and a classic Bikram speech.  And yes, he danced.  (He loves to show off his disco moves.  "I invented disco; I just took off the -theque!")  And yes, I did too.  It was glorious and silly.  It was everything that you wish you'd had at your awkward middle school dances.

On a personal level, I was thrilled to meet some great new friends and spend time with some of my favorite people.  On Sunday night, after the awards ceremony, a car-full of us took off and went to the Korean bathhouse on Olympic Blvd near Headquarters for a couple hours.  Then we went to a late-night Pakistani place and filled our stomachs on a full spread of hummus, grape leaves, and baba ganoush, plus some kind of black tea with mint leaves in it.  Our waitress asked if were were from here, and everyone laughed; we had one person from Hawaii, one from Australia, two from Massachusetts, and one Massachusetts/California hybrid (me).  It was such a joy to be in that moment, in that place, with those people.

The Real Competition

On the final day, just before the last awards ceremony, last year's champions all got up to speak.  I was really moved by Courtney Mace's speech.  She said that she started Bikram yoga about 6 years ago because she "just wanted to feel better," and she never imagined the potential that would be unlocked by just 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises.  (At this point, I was already mumbling, "I think I have something in my eye...")  She said that when you see the competition, and especially when you are a part of it, you know that it's not really a competition between people.  "There is always a competition," she explained, "but it's not between people.  It happens every time you step into the hot room, and it's a competition between the ego and the soul.  And the soul always wins.  It has to.  So by the time you get on the stage, there is no competition anymore.  There is only your soul."  (Okay, I admit it, I definitely got teary!)

It was a wild, disorganized, and wonderful weekend, all in true Bikram style.  If you ever get the chance to attend one of these championships, it's most definitely worth the visit.

I'll probably be updating my own blog with more bits and pieces throughout the week, so keep checking over there if you still want to hear more!!

Does this happen to anyone else?

As we approach day 50, many of us have hit some snags. A few of us have some catching up to do. I read an interesting article on "Oh My Bikram" blog regarding the whole concept of a challenge. A long thread of arguing yogi's ensued on this topic. You have your purists who insist a challenge must be everyday, no makeups allowed. Then you have the others who say it's 30 classes in 30 days (or in our case, 101 classes in 101 days). Click on the link and read the arguments for both sides. It's pretty interesting. My thought is this: before you embark on your challenge decide which one you are going to do. Will you attempt to go everyday and literally start over if you miss, or will you do the one that allows for doubles to catch up? Pick the one that resonates with you and stick to it. After all, you are doing this for yourself and not to prove anything or receive some sort of award. The reward we all will get is the amazing sense of accomplishment when we are through.

Plan ahead. Try your best. Some days are better than others. Look at your own two eyes. Drink your water. We all have our strengths. Work really hard and then take a rest. Listen attentively. Surround yourself with amazing people. Pretend you're a camel, an airplane, a cobra & a flower. Some things are gonna' hurt like hell--don't be scared. Commit to yourself. Follow directions. Sometimes you think you can't make it, then realize you just did. Don't compare yourself to others. Be on time or you might miss out. Make everyone feel welcome. Point yourself in the direction you want to go. Quiet your mind. You can't just run out of the room every time you feel like crying. Focus on you. When you fall down, get back up and try again. Small corrections can make big differences. Every millimeter counts. There are many things you cannot control. Concentrate. Others will guide you, but only you can do the work. There's always space to scoot over and make room for one more. Smile when making a triangle. Everybody sweats. And don't forget to breathe.

by: Cristina Eriksson

One thing that has been on my mind the last days is a thing my Budo-teacher talked about some time ago.

“There are only to types of students, continuers and quitters. The beginners don’t count as they don’t know yet what they are doing. After you have been a beginner and by your second semester, you have made a conscious decision to continue. After that you are either a continuer or a quitter.”

This makes so much sense in (Bikram) yoga as well.

We have beginners. We all have them in all studios, they don’t know what they are doing, they get a trial pass for some classes for a bargain price. Some students quit right at this time and others go on and buy a month card, or a 10 times card, or what suits them. At this time they become continuers.

Continuers come back. Once a day, once a week or something in between. They come regularly. They have an open mind and want to learn. They continue. They do their yoga continually.

Quitters quit. They give up. They have excuses that, if we hear them, we can see through them as being a (more or less) lame way to not come back. So they quit.

Quitters quit when it is starting to get tough and rough.

Quitters quit when they get in touch with things that are uncomfortable.

Quitters quit when the laziness in them takes over.

It doesn’t matter for how long you have been a student, you are still a continuer. Some more experienced, others less. Continuers continue what so ever... After a tough day, an uncomfortable feeling and through the hard work... Day after day after day.

I come back to the studio every day. So far I am a continuer and I want to continue to be a continuer with this yoga.

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Cristina lives in Stolkhom, Sweden and has been practicing Bikram yoga for over 5 years. Currently, she practices at Bikram Yoga Sodermalm. The 101 Challenge is a way to more deeply learn about herself and this yoga. She works as a Lead Developer where she combines her two interests: motivating people and software development.

Heather (aka TheMissus) pointed out yesterday that we crazy masterminds blog administrators have never properly introduced ourselves. Fair point! I'd rather talk about yoga than myself, but today I will talk about myself. And yoga.

So.... Hi!  My name's Juliana, and I used to be a ballet dancer.  (Hence the name.  When I first picked this name, for a ballet forum a million years ago, I really just wanted to be "J" or "the J," which was what my friends called me. But those were too short.  Ta da - "the Dancing J".)   I started ballet when I was 7 and kept it up all the way through college. I apprenticed with Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre in Cambridge, MA during my last year of college and then spent a year with them dancing full-time after I finished school, during the 2006-2007 season.

Ballet dancers love cross training, and I dabbled in pretty much every yoga style I could find. A friend brought me to my first Bikram class during the summer of 2004, at a tiny studio in the Pacific Northwest, and then another friend brought me to Bikram Yoga Boston the following winter. This particular yoga style really captured my attention. It was intense, it was cleansing, and I couldn't believe how good my body felt after class. I could never make it to yoga regularly when school was in session (college + ballet + yoga = not enough hours in the day), but I would go to Bikram a few times a week during summer breaks, and I always loved it.  I had the idea in my head that if I ever really "got into" yoga, this would be the style I would like to do, and I would do it every day.

In the summer of 2007, I decided that ballet as a career was Not For Me. I left the ballet company, started applying to grad schools, and walked into Bikram Yoga Boston to see if they had any work-study spots open. The owners hooked me up right away and started training me for the regional championships that were happening that fall. They were so good to me. Brad, Jill, and Tomo Koontz were my first yoga family, and I am forever grateful to them. I had an amazing time practicing at their studios, where I got to take strong dialogue-driven classes every day and I was welcomed into the most amazing community I'd ever experienced. (Seriously, you have no idea how nice yogis are to each other compared to ballerinas!! Sorry, bunheads, but you know it's true.) I also started making regular trips to study with the amazing Diane Ducharme, whose studio was a couple bus rides away on the outside of town, and she's been a great friend and huge influence on me. I can't say enough good things about her, either!

This all sounds unsettlingly linear, so here's the curveball: the college I went to was MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, world-renowned school for scientists and engineers. My undergraduate degree is a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering. (I'm pretty mathy.) While I was getting deep into my Bikram practice in Boston, I also applied to engineering schools and got accepted into my top choice Ph.D. program at UC Santa Barbara. Hooray?!  I think Brad was kind of heart-broken that I wasn't going to the Bikram teacher training! He'd already been trying to talk me into it for months. To tell you the truth, I was sad, too. (I think I already knew that he was right.) But grad school seemed like a good idea, so I packed up, hugged my teachers goodbye, and moved cross-country to work on semiconductor engineering.

But the Bikram bug had bitten me, and there's no going back from that! I tried to give grad school my best effort, and I lasted for a year and a half, but it became so obvious that my heart wasn't in it. Research work is a noble calling, but sitting in lab all night and reading research papers all day just isn't the life for me. Santa Barbara is less than 2 hours north from Los Angeles, so I could drive down on the weekend to take classes from Bikram, Raj, and Emmy, and that just pulled me deeper into the yoga! After months of going back and forth in my head, I had a moment of total clarity. It happened during a Sunday morning class in October, at 10am, during pranayama. I knew that Bikram yoga was the path for me. It was obvious, beyond the shadow of a doubt. And it wasn't necessarily easy, but it was simple and right.

Four months later, I am no longer in grad school. I did manage to finish a Master's degree, which was a great bonus. (I may never use it, but you never know.) I'm still in beautiful Santa Barbara, doing odd jobs and practicing at the Bikram studio here. I am going to teacher training in just a couple months, on April 18th in Vegas!  I feel so lucky.  I can't wait to see what happens next.

And that's the beginning of my story....


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Juliana Olmstead is a Bikram yoga teacher at heart, and soon will have the certificate to prove it!  Writing about yoga is one of her favorite activities these days, besides practicing yoga, talking about yoga and studying the dialogue!  (YOGA DORK.)  She also cooks, travels, and watches bad sci-fi movies.  She thinks that watching the global Bikram yoga network grow stronger and stronger is the coolest part of this blogging stuff, by far!  She grew up in Northampton, MA, spent 6 years in Boston, and currently lives in Santa Barbara, CA.

We've had so many guest posters lately. It has been wonderful! And I encourage ANYONE who wants to guest post to simply write in and let us know. We would be more than happy to schedule a day for you to post. The stories and thoughts everyone has shared have been awesome. The Bikram yoga community is amazing and strong.