Bikram Yoga - Like Dying but in a Good Way

           “It’s a lot like dying.”

           “Good, I’ve been meaning to try that. Let me know if you get your hands on some DMT too. I’m tired of waiting.”

             I’ve only done Bikram once, which isn't nearly enough to have a real opinion, but after my first time, these are my feelings about Bikram:

Cons:

1)            “This is [not] supposed to hurt!”

The instructor yelled things about how different positions were meant to be painful.

“Ignore the pain and push yourself harder!”

No yoga instructor in his or her right mind would ever say this to a class. Our mantra is, “Listen to your body. If I instruct a position that doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.”

2)            It’s a cult.

            I hate the feeling of being manipulated, and going through my first Bikram class was a hazing ritual meant to make me suffer enough to cognitive dissonance myself in to loving Bikram. 

            Additionally, I was the only new person in class that day, and the instructor said my name easily over 50 times. AND he had everyone clap for me at the end of class for having survived.

While my vanity was temporarily satiated, I hate the feeling of being manipulated.

3)            It’s like dying.

            Bikram has a rule where you aren’t allowed to leave the hot room once you’ve come in to class. You can lay there and not move, but you’re not allowed to leave. This is because my fight or flight instinct kicked in around minute forty and my brain screamed in terror

“Get out of here or we’re going to die! What the hell is wrong with you! We’re going to die! Stop doing tree pose because YOU ARE GOING TO FUCKING DIE UNLESS WE GET OUT OF HERE!”

Once it was over, I felt as though I’d survived a terrible fever. Bikram wasn’t so much of a workout, as it was successfully staying alive.

Pros:

1)   “This is [not] supposed to hurt!”

        Bikram is not for the weak, and if you don’t want to challenge yourself mentally and physically than it’s not for you. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I did every movement the entire class; I won a battle of wills against myself.

         It’s the runner’s high – the body and mind scream for relief, to give up, and then you keep going, and then you prove yourself stronger and braver than you ever imagined, and then you feel just fine, and then, in that moment, it all feels so easy and beautiful.

2)            It’s a cult.

            I’ve always wanted to join/ lead a cult. Bikram successfully actualized a childhood dream of mine - that glorious bastard.

Also, they clapped for me. I like that.

3)   It’s like dying.

For the rest of the day, I felt invincible. I had survived a near death experience in the morning, and the rest of my day’s obstacles felt impotent against that intensity. I felt I’d lived my entire life in that hour and a half.

           I had a mentor in college who is now in his 30s and owns a successful advertising agency. He has a lovely wife and two cerubin children. When he was in college, he took acid every day for a year and painted paintings and filmed everything with his camera - the world's next great artist.

How did he not go crazy from all that distortion?

The blissful essential existence of the experience of nonexistence while we still exist.

“I learned to accept my own death one day. It’ll happen. Just let it be. It’s all okay.”