Bikram Yoga - A Deep History and Understanding Articles | Yoga

By: Darren Williger

Bikram Choudhury is the founder of Bikram Yoga. He had studied Yoga with Bishnu Ghosh, who is the brother of Paramahansa Yogananda. It contains a series of 26 poses, and the Yogis practiced it in a hot room of 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit, this is to allow the yogis to go deeper and safer into a pose. In addition, the body becomes more flexible in the heat, and you will notice that you can do many poses with your body that you never imagined you could do it before. This also helps in toxin elimination by inducing sweating, increasing the blood circulation and preventing injury. The Yogis do each pose twice and hold each for some minutes. Bikram Yoga is so beneficial to the entire body, as it exercises your muscles, bones and works on your internal organs, too, e.g. the stomach, the liver, the colon, the kidneys, the heart and the lung.

At the beginning of the exercise, the Yogis stand upright for a while "do the standing postures", then the backbends, the forward bends, and the twists. Each pose is accompanied with breathing; Kapalabhati Breath (the fire breathe). In each pose, you stretch and strengthen your muscles, joints, and ligaments. At the same time, you are releasing toxins in your body and working on your internal organs, e.g. the glands, lymphatic and the nervous system. Eventually, Bikram Yoga is like any other Yoga it differs in some techniques, like the poses and the room temperature, but it resembles any other Yoga branch in relaxing the body and the mind and releasing them from any stress, as it unites the body, mind and soul.

Like all the Yoga exercises, you do not need special equipment or any specific sports wear, you just wear what you feel you are comfortable in, and can do the whole exercise without anything to bother. Usually, people wear loose cotton clothes, because it is comfortable and they can sweat in it.

Bikram designed to warm up and stretch the muscles, ligaments and tendons, and its poses placed into an order so that they should stretch them.

People use Bikram Yoga as a mean of losing weight and developing toned and strong body. Anybody can practice it, even those with chronic diseases e.g. Hypertension, Diabetes, Arthritis,… etc. Moreover, their symptoms are noticeably improved. One of the healing success stories of Bikram Yoga was that of Bikram himself, the Bikram Yoga founder. He recovered from a serious knee injury caused during his weightlifting exercise, when the doctors told him that he would not be able to walk again. He practiced Asanas under his Yoga teacher supervision, which strengthened his muscles and made him able to walk again naturally. So many people practice Bikram. Especially the celebrities in Hollywood, music, sports, politics,…etc., they regularly practice Bikram Yoga to achieve high performance at work, good health, and to relieve their body from stresses. One of these celebrities is Madonna, not to mention how strong, and toned her body is, with those magnificent curves, and flexibility. It is no wonder that she sparkles everywhere she goes, and how creative she is at work. Everybody notices her everlasting youth, energy, and liveliness.

Bikram uses the same routine every time you practice it. You should not get bored of this. However, you should take advantage of this as much as you can, as a good exercise practiced repeatedly and regularly, gives you perfect results in the long term.

Go ahead, start your Bikram Yoga class, it is cool and great, you will notice a big change in your mood, energy, physiology and the way of thinking and dealing with situations, during your first class.