Category: Mental Benefits

Do You Have a Place Where You Can Go?

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

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

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. 

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

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!!

Inflammation and Our Health

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

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?

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. 

New Vision: WE Will Be the Ones to Save Bikram Yoga | Becoming a Community-Supported Yoga Collective |

Biomedicine, Ethnography and Culture, In The News, Mental Benefits, Online Classes, Physical Benefits, Special Projects, Testimonials, True Stories
save bikram yoga patreon page

–by Ann Chrapkiewicz

21 months into the pandemic, it is time for me to speak up.  Well over 50% of Bikram Yoga studios in the U.S. have closed since spring 2020, and that wave of closures is not over.  I have been doing everything I can to not be one of those who close, and I will continue to do everything I can.  But at this point a broader base of support is required, and I am asking YOU to be a part of this.

This Body is the Earth | Bikram Yoga as a Tool for Reconnection | Happy Earth Day!

Ethnography and Culture, Healing, Mental Benefits, Philosophy, Practice
Pranayama Deep Breathing Bikram Yoga Red Rock Crossing Sedona Arizona

by Ann Chrapkiewicz

For those of us who have been raised in civilizations of extractive capitalism, tools for healing and reconnection are needed.   Badly.  By all of us.

Disconnection, alienation, and estrangement from the earth (including our living, breathing bodies) is pretty much par for the course.

So on this Earth Day 2021 and all going forward, I want to include our human bodies as part of the earth that we celebrate, connect with, protect, love, and heal.

How to Set Up Your Mind for Bikram Yoga Online

Mental Benefits, Online Classes, Philosophy, Physical Benefits, Practice
bikram yoga original hot yoga mindset triangle pose east lansing michigan

How to Set Up Your Mind for Bikram Yoga Online

Back in the summer of 2020, I shared some tips on our blog here for How to Set Up Your Hot Room (or not-so-hot room) for practicing Bikram Yoga at home.

Since then, many of my (seriously amazing) students have given me very helpful feedback.  They have shared the best tools for the job: which space heater is best, which humidifier the most efficient, and other great little tips to help our home practices be nice and sweaty.

“Required” Reading! | First BYCA Book Club Meeting | Breath by James Nestor

Athletes, Ethnography and Culture, Event Announcements, Healing, Mental Benefits, Philosophy, Physical Benefits, Studies
breath the new science of a lost art, book by james nestor

How to Breathe: Announcing our first BYCA Book Club Meeting!

You are invited!!

I have recommended and shared with you many book suggestions over the years.  But never have I felt that a book should be required reading for anyone involved in a traditional yoga practice.

This one is SO good, so relevant, and so immediately practical for your daily life!

side note: I actually think it should be required for all physicians, teachers, and health practitioners of any kind. 

Hope for Autoimmune Disease | Book Release |

Current Research, Ethnography and Culture, Interviews, Mental Benefits, Physical Benefits, Practice, Special Classes, Special Projects, Testimonials, True Stories
Co-Authors of Hope for Autoimmune Disease: 15 Personal Stories of Living Better with Bikram Yoga

BYCA BOOK RELEASE

Hope for Autoimmune Disease: 15 Personal Stories of Living Better with Bikram Yoga

We could not be more excited to tell you about the completion of our book project, a global work-in-progress for the past 2.5 years.

Hope for Autoimmune Disease: 15 Personal Stories of Living Better with Bikram Yoga is the world’s FIRST publication that narrates the effects of Bikram Yoga on a family of related diseases. 

How to Set Up Your “Hot Room” for Bikram Yoga Online

Mental Benefits, Online Classes, Physical Benefits, Practice, Special Classes
bikram yoga online cobra pose

How to Set Up Your Hot Room (or not-so-hot-room) for Bikram Yoga

Can you do Bikram Yoga at home?  Can you do Bikram Yoga without the heat?  The answer is yes, absolutely.

For many years of practicing, we could not have imagined Bikram Yoga without the traditional “hot room”! However, thanks to our practice of adapting to the hot room, we have learned to adapt to many other challenges since 2020 began…including practicing Bikram Yoga anywhere and everywhere! 

Bikram Yoga Online | 90-Minute Original Hot Yoga | Attentive Instruction |

Mental Benefits, Online Classes, Physical Benefits, Special Classes
all ages full locust bikram yoga

Bikram Yoga Online / Outstanding Live-Streaming Instruction

Looking for the traditional, 90-minute Bikram Yoga class….taught every time with personal attention, detailed corrections, and daily inspiration?  You are in the right place!

All of our classes listed on the SCHEDULE (click here) are available to current and new members.  All are welcome; beginners and experienced Bikram Yoga practitioners LOVE our classes.

For New Students: You may try out our online classes for one month (31 consecutive days from your date of purchase).

20 Years of Bikram Yoga | Hip Dysplasia | Bikram’s Compassion & Love |

Guest Teachers, Healing, Interviews, Mental Benefits, Physical Benefits, Student Highlights, Testimonials, True Stories
standing head to knee bikram yoga original hot yoga

We are so happy to welcome Angela Moulin Sinclair to Bikram Yoga Capital Area!  Her passion for this yoga as well as her nearly two decades of experience make her such a wonderful and positive part of our yoga community. 

Angela and I first met at a Mary Jarvis Lake Michigan Shapeshifting retreat in the summer of 2018, but our shared history goes back to many similar experiences in the early 2000s at Bikram Yoga Teacher Training (at La Cienega Headquarters, Los Angeles).