About Bikram's Yoga
The Bikram's
Yoga series consists of 26 Hatha Yoga postures
that
are designed
to
exercise 100% of your body. These postures work
your muscles, ligaments, joints, tendons, internal
organs and glands systematically moving oxygenated
blood to one hundred percent of your body,
to
each organ and fiber, restoring all systems to
healthy working order. Proper weight, muscle
tone,
vibrant good health, and a sense of well-being
will automatically follow. A Bikram's Yoga
class
lasts 90 minutes and is taught in a room heated
to 105 degrees. The heat facilitates flexibility
and reduces the chance of injury.
Your Progress
How quickly you progress 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.
(Few of us ever do the poses "perfectly.")
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.
Regular practice of Bikram's Yoga has powerful
physical and mental benefits. Physically, students
increase core strength, flexibility, agility,
cardio-vascular strength and balance. Mentally,
regular practice of Bikram's yoga helps students
cultivate faith in one's self, self control, concentration,
determination and patience.
For more information on the physical and mental
benefits of the Bikram series, read the testimonials
at the Bikram's
Yoga national website.
About Bikram
Yogiraj Bikram Choudhury
is the founder of the Yoga College of India™.
Born in Calcutta in 1946, Bikram began Yoga at
the age of four with Bishnu Ghosh, brother of
Paramahansa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi,
founder of the Self Realization Fellowship in
Los Angeles). At the age of thirteen Bikram won
the National India Yoga contest. He was undefeated
for three years.
At seventeen, an injury to his knee during a weight-lifting
accident brought the prediction from leading European
doctors that he would never walk again. Not accepting
their pronouncement, he had himself carried back
to Bishnu Ghosh's school, for he knew that if
anyone could help to heal his knee, it was his
teacher. Six months later, his knee had totally
recovered. Ghosh was a celebrated physical culturist
and the first to scientifically document Yoga's
ability to cure chronic physical ailments and
heal the body.
Bikram was asked by Ghosh to start several Yoga
schools in India. There Bikram came into his own.
The schools were so successful that at Bishnu's
request Bikram traveled to Japan and opened two
more. He has since brought his curative methods
of Yoga therapy around the world.
"The regular practice
of Yoga challenges all the weak areas and systems
of the body until radiant health is achieved.
Yoga is the perfect vehicle for change of yourself
First by creating a strong and powerful body and
mind. It is a starting point from which you can
then begin to realize your human spirit. Only
then can we hope to effect a global healing of
the planet".
From Yoga: A Vehicle for Global Healing by
Bikram Choudhury and Emmy S. Cleaves, 1992.
To read the
whole article go to http://www.bikramyoga.com/globalhealing.htm
|
