Do You Have a Place Where You Can Go?

May 9, 2026May 10, 2026 Healing, Mental Benefits, Philosophy, Poetry

Do you have a place where you can go?

A place within yourself
Or a place with humans
A place with a loved one
A place with friends

A place where you can just fall apart

A place where you can feel every feeling

A place where each and every one
Can just be
Can unfold
Can flow through the body
So the mind can catch up

Without reaction
Without explosion
Without the pressure to
Shut it down, or
Dismiss its importance

This place is not only a place
It requires a being

A loving witness

A friend who sees you

A love who can hold you
Through it

A parent who is
Strong enough
To let it unfold

Or an inner being, mine or your own

Strong enough
To trust

The wisdom of the body, mine and yours
The intelligence of our emotions

Rooted in place
Witnessed
Loved
Within

The Room Where You Remember Who You Are

May 7, 2026 Ethnography and Culture, Healing, Mental Benefits, Philosophy, Practice

New Yorker magazine cover showing people doing yoga separately in Central Park, May 4 2026

It comes disguised as a sweaty stretching class. But Original Hot Yoga is something far more profound — a whole-human practice that restores what the modern world quietly takes away.

What a Broken Back Taught Me About the Mind’s Deceptions

April 12, 2026 Healing, Mental Benefits, Philosophy, Physical Benefits, Practice, Teaching and Coaching, True Stories

What if the thing that is making your pain worse—or your frustration worse, or your practice harder—is not your body at all?

What happens when we prioritize thoughts and words over all other forms of evidence – evidence from the body, evidence from behaviors, and evidence from the internal and interpersonal systems that tell us, “Something isn’t quite right here. Things are not lining up somehow.”

The Body Has Something to Say

A fairly young yoga practitioner – in his late 20s – came to talk to me after class the other day.

Blessings in the Form of a Broken Back, part 3 | The Healing Power of Stillness |

March 17, 2026April 13, 2026 Healing, Physical Benefits, Practice, True Stories

I have learned a dozen lessons and received a thousand blessings from my back injury on March 17, 2004.

Today is the twenty-second anniversary of that morning.

If you missed the first two parts of this story, you can read Part 1 and Part 2 first. But the short version is this: I slipped on black ice on my way to a 6:00 am Bikram Yoga class in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Everything Else Can Wait – Journal Entry

October 6, 2024October 6, 2024 Ethnography and Culture, Healing, Philosophy

**See the end for the readings fresh on my mind this afternoon.

Everything else can wait.

For each of us as individuals, everything else can wait.

Whether we are feeling stressed, purposeless, or bored….whether we are lonely, overweight, addicted, or over-worked….. Whether we are just waking up as young adults or whether we are in our later decades of life….. Whether we are energetic and healty, or suffering a chronic illness and pains….

Yoga Is A Language: Building Internal Literacy in the Original Hot Bikram Yoga Practice

August 1, 2024August 1, 2024 Ethnography and Culture, Mental Benefits, Philosophy

How long did it take each of us to learn the basics of our first language? And how many hours of practice have we had?

The internal physical systems are much more intricate than spoken or written language, yet we expect to “get it” quickly and move on to another feat of accomplishment, well before we’ve even mastered the basic alphabet of the body!

In under 6 minutes, check out this quick video chat about how the Original Hot Bikram Yoga practice helps us develop and master basic internal literacy!!

How Bikram Yoga Brought Me Inner Freedom

July 8, 2024July 4, 2024 Ethnography and Culture, Philosophy

From the age of 16 through age 25, I struggled with addictive thoughts and behaviors related to eating, food, my body, and self-image.

I was essentially imprisoned in my own mind. How many hours, days, weeks, months….were lost to cycles of self-destructive behaviors and obsessions?

Once I started my intense and regular practice of The Original Hot Bikram Yoga, though, things started to change.

And eventually they healed permanently.

Bikram Yoga, Our Educational Upbringing, and Inner Success

June 27, 2024June 27, 2024 Ethnography and Culture, Philosophy

I love school and I pretty much always have. I have had some outstanding teachers all along the way. In elementary, secondary, post-secondary, graduate, and unofficial schooling! I am beyond grateful to all of them.

Something I have realized lately is that even the best school systems are centered around skills for material, external success. This is most certainly needed.

However I have noticed that nearly all of us make it to adulthood or finish our official schooling with a very small amount of internal success.

How To Beat the Heat (and Reduce Your Footprint!)

June 18, 2024June 19, 2024 Biomedicine, Ethnography and Culture, Health, Physical Benefits, Science, Studies

When the summer heat waves arrive in Michigan, most of us instinctively reach for the air conditioning. And while A/C is a nice creature comfort, we overuse it. To our physiological and ecological detriment.

The thought of going into a hot room to actually handle the heat doesn’t make sense at first. The usual thought response is:

“No way, it’s hot enough already!”

“Why would I choose to sweat more?”

Furthermore, since the more “mainstream” hot yoga classes in North America have become more movement based, I can understand why many non-bikram-lineage hot yoga studios are turning down their heat.

Yoga Near Me – Traditional Yoga Asana

May 30, 2024May 30, 2024 Ethnography and Culture, Philosophy

This summer it will be – for me – twenty years into teaching The Original Hot (Bikram) Yoga. Which is only a fraction of the amount of time that my yoga mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents practiced and taught before they trained me. But 20 years is finally enough to deeply understand where Bikram is coming from when he says, “It takes 10 years to become a yoga teacher.”

This prescription signifies a deep level of respect for what yoga asana is, what a yoga asana teacher is supposed to do, and the level of training & experience that one should have to transmit a living practice.

Inflammation and Our Health

April 25, 2023April 26, 2023 Biomedicine, Ethnography and Culture, Health, Mental Benefits, Philosophy, Physical Benefits, Science, Studies

I am especially grateful for the connection with those of you who take classes regularly.

We seem to be on a pretty magical healing journey together.

Themes emerge spontaneously. Questions come up. Connections are made. We all grow together.

One of the themes from the last week or two (or three?) has been the topic of inflammation.

This is not a brand new idea for us; our book Hope for Autoimmune Disease danced with the topic through the 15 health narratives that we documented.

Bikram Yoga: What Happens If You DON’T Practice

January 16, 2023January 16, 2023 Current Research, Ethnography and Culture, Healing, Health, Mental Benefits, Philosophy, Physical Benefits, Practice, Student Highlights, True Stories

What Happens When You DON'T Do Bikram Yoga

by Ann Chrapkiewicz

For almost 20 years now, I have been sharing a certain topic with anyone and everyone who might want to listen.

Just a few minutes on this website will tell you what that topic has been.
An hour spent with our book on Bikram Yoga and Autoimmune Disease will also give you a clue.

Any guesses?

Answer: “What happens to humans when they do Bikram Yoga.”

Yep, that’s it.

Is Bikram Yoga Only Focused on the Physical?

August 11, 2022August 11, 2022 Ethnography and Culture, Healing, Mental Benefits, Philosophy, Practice

bikram yoga toe stand pose asana original hot yoga sedona arizona cathedral rock

by Ann Chrapkiewicz

Question: Is Bikram Yoga too focused on the Physical? Is it a dominantly physical practice?

Answer: Well….some people do say, “Yes.”

I have heard it over and over. Things like: “They are so focused on their bodies.” Or: “those mirrors – they are so vain.” “Competitive”. Or: “You can’t possibly go within when you have all of that heat and sweat and light.”

My response to these answers is that 1) they are coming from the outside looking in, making a judgment without experience.

Healthy Choices for a Health Practice | Indoor Yoga during COVID |

July 22, 2022October 1, 2022 Healing, Health, Online Classes, Physical Benefits, Science

October 1, 2022 UPDATE: Masks are no longer required in our facilities but are welcome and invited for anyone who chooses to wear one.

Additional air purifiers have been added to our yoga room, and we are continuing to maintain a room capacity of 21 as well as a 6-7 foot spacing between everyone in the room.

***************************************************************************

Original Post from July 22, 2022:

I am one of those people who pondered, even during the first weeks of COVID shutdowns, whether there would ever be an “end” to the pandemic.

Leaving the Prison of Pain and Nothingness

March 9, 2022May 19, 2026 Ethnography and Culture, Philosophy

by Ann Chrapkiewicz

Would I rather feel Pain? Or Nothingness?

This is the broad choice I have been given, the dominant set of options I was born into. Not just me, personally, but I, the human of 20th and 21st century North America, and probably many other places and times.

Whether I am experiencing emotional pain and choosing alcohol…
In the process of childbirth and being pressured to get an epidural….