After the indulgences of the holidays, the new year can often be the perfect thing to motivate you to achieve your new fitness goals. 2012 may just be the right time to tackle your first 30-day challenge or your first 60-day challenge, or it could be the right time to get into shape.

Sometimes, making a simple resolution that you can stick to is the best to ensure that you succeed and form a habit that you keep, rather than forgetting your goal by February. For many people, that simple goal may be making it a priority to get into the hot room at least three days a week consistently. Often, consistency is the key to succeeding in your practice, so fluctuating between periods of no yoga for weeks and then having weeks where you make it into the studio six times doesn’t do much to help you to achieve your long-term goals.

If you are already pretty consistent in your practice, maybe your attainable new year’s resolution would be to increase the frequency of your practice. Some good goals might be to increase your frequency from three days a week to four days a week or, if you already have a five day a week or more Bikram yoga schedule, make it your goal to try a double at least once a week and see how far you go in your practice when your muscles are already warmed up.

If you simply don’t have any more time in your schedule, make it your new year’s resolution to get the most out of class when you do make it into the Vegas Bikram Yoga studio. Promise yourself that 2012 will be the year you stop mentally checking out after camel, going through the motions without being fully engaged, or sitting down during triangle. Whatever your weaknesses are in your practice, you know them best and can tackle them in the new year. Or determine to make your weakest posture stronger and then progressively work on each posture as they fall into the title of “weakest.” No matter how strong your practice is, there is always a week spot that you could be pushing to make better.

We look forward to seeing how you all progress in the new year!

Gift List:

The Skeptical Spouse:  

a ten class card

$130

You know that they would fall in love with it and that it would become a cherished shared interest, if only they would try it with you.  With a ten class card, there are no more excuses not to try it.

Your Best Friend:

a new outfit for Bikram yoga

prices vary

You practice together every day and she keeps showing up in the same outfit.  You know she’d love a new top and shorts, but she just won’t spend money on herself.

Your (Over 60) Parents:

one month of Bikram yoga

$99

If your parents just had something to keep them busy now that they’ve retired, you might get some time to yourself.  Getting them addicted to Bikram yoga might just give you the peace and quiet that you need.  And of course, keep them healthy and keep their joints feeling fantastic

The Love of Your Life:

One year unlimited pre-paid

$1090

Nothing says “I love you” quite like a year of Bikram yoga.  While jewelry or a tablet may elicit a smile and passing excitement that fades as soon as the newness wears off, you know that an annual membership to Bikram Yoga Summerlin will keep them happy all year long.

No matter who you have on your list or how difficult they are to buy for, Bikram Yoga Summerlin is certain to have the perfect gift.  It’s a great way to get your significant other or your friends to try Bikram yoga so that they fall in love with it as much as you have—or at least understand why you’re so addicted—and a great way to give a gift that will continue to give after the holiday season is over.

Making the time to get into the Las Vegas Bikram yoga studio and sweat it out will help you keep your sanity and keep your weight under control during the holiday season.  While an hour and a half a day plus all of the associated preparation and recovery time may seem like a huge time commitment, you are as important as your family, friends, co-workers, community, and everyone else who you work hard to please at this time of the year.  Bikram yoga is certain to give you the energy and the serenity to go about your day with inner peace, achieving the things that need to get done without allowing the stress to win.

As an added benefit, maintaining a steady Bikram yoga practice helps you to enjoy all of the eating, drinking, and extra calories that come with the holidays without worrying about your waistline.  When everyone else is setting New Year’s resolutions to lose the weight that they have gained and working furiously to shed those five extra pounds, you will be able to relax.

The first difference comes from within yourself: your body is at a different point each day, as is your mind.  What may have been challenging the previous day may come naturally to you in the next class; conversely, what seemed easy the day before may become challenging, either as a result of your body, or from a tweak that an instructor gives you in class.  Many postures that you believe that you have mastered become a struggle again, taking you many months to feel comfortable in the posture again after an instructor has directed you to get your hips in line, lock all ten fingers together, lock your knees, turn your toes in, and so on.  Some days, your mind seems to wander far away from the hot room to your grocery list, back to work, or simply to wonder what the difference is between a Japanese ham sandwich and an American ham sandwich.  Other days, your mind is focused in the room, your intentions are set, and the words of the instructor guide you perfectly through the postures and you find yourself making breakthrough after breakthrough, kicking out in standing head to knee, keeping your elbows locked in your backbend, and keeping your knees perfectly straight in paschimotthanasana.

The next difference comes from your yoga instructor.  While many people say that it should not matter who is teaching your class, that it is always the same, for many practitioners, this does not hold true.  Some instructors make the class fly by, some are funny, some are inspirational, some are challenging, and some give you the positive encouragement that you need.  There are some instructors who give you the laugh that you need to break the tension by quoting Bikram’s witticisms and one-liners; “Bikram says hold your feet and spread your legs further and further apart, like a popular girl on prom night;” some inspire you, reminding you that with the inner peace that you find, you will become attractive to others and that they will want to be around you; some push you to your limits because you made the mistake of telling them that you like and need to be pushed; and others give you the compliments that you need to push through a posture just when you’re ready to give up.

Although the dialogue is always the same, the presentation is never quite the same, not only in personality, but in emphasis.  You may practice Bikram yoga in Las Vegas for six months before an instructor puts emphasis on the portion of the instructions for standing bow pulling pose that remind you to bring your shoulder blade to your chin.  While the other instructors were saying it the whole time, you may never have heard it before until someone put emphasis on it in the tone of their voice or specifically corrected your posture.

Ask anyone who has been practicing Bikram yoga for several years and they will invariably tell you that no two classes in their entire experience have been the exact same.  When you practice Bikram yoga, you will find that your 90 minutes in the hot room will never again be replicated.

a) are moderately pleased.

b) rush home to tell your spouse.

c) send out a mass text message to everyone in your phone book, update your Facebook status, and tweet about it while you’re changing out of your Daisy Dukes and into dry clothes.

2)      Your friends:

a)  know that you take yoga.

b) are tired of hearing about yoga.

c) are unhealthy/overweight slobs who must be saved through the power of Bikram yoga.

3)      You are in a horrible accident.  You:

a) go to the emergency room and do whatever the doctor tells you.

b) accept emergency medical treatment but skip subsequent appointments and throw away your medication because they’re trying to “poison” and “brainwash” you.  Bikram yoga will take care of the rehabilitation and healing process.

c) refuse to have missing limbs reattached because Bikram yoga will re-grow them.

4)       You see the online quiz entitled “Who said it: Bikram Choudhury or Charlie Sheen?”  You:

a) are surprised to learn that there is a person named Bikram and it is not an arbitrary name for the style of yoga.

b) laugh.  It’s pretty funny… one has tiger blood, the other has Bengal tiger strength; one is battle tested bayonets, the other is “bullet proof, water proof, wind proof, money proof, sex proof, emotion proof, stress proof, strength proof.”

c) cry.  How could they imply that they are in any way similar?  This is just the “circus of American yoga” trying to defame the master again.

5)      You overhear someone talking about the advanced class.  You:

a) are surprised to hear that there is one.  It did seem odd that it was called Bikram’s Beginning Yoga when there was only one class.

b) think “Wow.  Go them.”

c) spend the entire class shooting them the stinkeye in the mirror and finding any and all flaws in their practice before going home to cry about why you are not worthy.

6)      There is a new student in class.  You:

a) are glad to have company.

b) think “Shame, they probably have no idea what they’re in for.”

c) spend the entire class clearing your throat when they wear their shoes in/ bring their keys in/ drink water before eagle and in between postures/ are attempting to kick out during standing head to knee with a bent standing knee.  Idiots.  Too bad there’s not a “Bikram’s Intermediate Yoga;” surely you don’t belong in the same class as this water-guzzling fool.  Sometimes it is too late, you are too old, and you are too bad.

7)      There is a pregnant woman in class.  You:

a) wonder if it is healthy for the baby.

b) think she is superwoman and deserves an award.  She just replaced Sarah Jessica Parker as world’s most awesome pregnant woman.  Rocking bow pose is way cooler than rocking Narciso  Rodriguez.

c) think she needs to be at home in bed instead of cracking the door and lowering the temperature to 104^o and 39 percent humidity.

8)      You must attend a funeral five hours away from the nearest Bikram Yoga studio.  You:

a)  have no thoughts of yoga, only of how you can comfort the grieving.

b) feel vaguely guilty about not getting in the hot room and then feel guilty about feeling guilty about it when you should be focusing on others.

c)  try to convince the bereaved to drive you there and then spend the rest of the trip breathing into a paper bag to calm your anxiety attacks after they refuse.  Others find your empathy touching and people continually comment “I didn’t know you two were so close.”

9)      Your friend practices hot yoga.  You:

a)      think that he is a kindred spirit.

b)      tell him that it is a common misconception that Bikram and hot yoga are the same or even comparable and invite him to try a Bikram class with you sometime.

c) give him a lecture on the many differences and warn him that the most disturbing part of hot yoga is the cavalier approach towards the health of their practitioners and find it doubtful that they can be getting any benefits.   You took a class once just to tell others how wrong they are and prove how much better Bikram is.

10)   You are shopping with your friend when she asks if she looks fat in the pants she is trying on.  She does.  And it’s not the pants.  You:

a) assure her that she does not.  That is what good friends do.

b) tell her that she does not, but ask her if she wants to come to Bikram with you, “if it would make you feel better.”

c) say; “I’m so glad you brought this up.  I’ve been looking for a way to tell you.  I, too, was once in your way-too-tight jeans but thanks to the salvation of Bikram, I am now a size 00.”  You consider yourself an evangelist for the cause.  Another waistline saved.

Scoring Guide:

Mostly a’s: You are a new practitioner or someone who does it as part of your overall training routine.  You might not look like a Japanese ham sandwich, two wheels in one base, or a flower petal blooming, but you like the yoga and the benefits that it has on your overall fitness.

Mostly b’s: You have Bengal tiger strength and English bulldog determination!  You are a committed practitioner and make it into the hot room three to four times a week.  You definitely love Bikram yoga and can’t imagine your life without it, but if your studio is closed for Christmas, it’s not the end of the world.

Mostly c’s: You have a serious problem.  You are obsessed with Bikram yoga and the culture of Bikram yoga.  When you are not in class, you spend all of your time watching YouTube videos of Esak Garcia and reading everything you can find on the topic.  You know what an unbroken lamppost looks like, you know the dialogue better than the instructors, and you have stopped paying for health insurance to support your Bikram habit since you “don’t need it anymore anyways.”

While Bikram yoga cannot wholly cure the ailment, it can provide some relief for peripheral neuropathy.  It is often recommend that those suffering should have the affected areas massaged in order to increase blood flow; however, it can be difficult to find someone to massage often enough and frequently enough to do more than diminish the pain for a few minutes.  The first thing that Bikram yoga practitioners suffering from peripheral neuropathy note is the reduction of pain that comes from increased blood flow to their extremities.

The next, more gradual benefit to practicing Bikram yoga is weight reduction.  One practitioner suffering from peripheral neuropathy lost 40 pounds through a steady practice, significantly reducing the amount of pressure on the feet.  By putting less weight on the feet while walking and standing, the pain can be reduced on a constant basis, improving the overall quality of life of those suffering from the chronic and painful condition.

Peripheral neuropathy is just one of the many ailments and diseases that Bikram yoga has been said to help cure, prevent, or alleviate the pain of.  Practitioners frequently tout the overall health benefits that can improve: diabetes, asthma, insomnia, alignment problems, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, high blood pressure, and low pressure, among many others.  In the long-term, Bikram yoga can help to prevent many diseases, both through weight control, helping to prevent heart disease, obesity, and diabetes, and through the removal of toxins, which are at the root of many diseases and illnesses.

While it may be tempting to compare yourself to the woman practicing in front of you who looks like a sideshow or Cirque du Soleil act, as long as you are listening to the words of the instructor, giving it your best, compressing during compression postures and stretching during stretching postures, then you are receiving the maximum benefits.  At the end of class, the two of you will walk away with the same benefits, connecting your mind, body, and spirit, increasing your flexibility and strength, incinerating fat, and ensuring lifelong health.

As you progress in your practice and you eventually come to look like the person who you once compared yourself to, you will discover that just because you are not a “beginner” anymore in the Western sense of the word, you are still challenged by the class.  When you look around, you will see that your instructors are still in a class called a “beginner’s” class and they are still just as challenged as you are.  Over time, the parts of the class that challenge you will change, as you seek to tweak, perfect, and hold each posture, with an unending number of adjustments to be made before you are “textbook.”

It is important to bear in mind that when Bikram formulated his dialogue and said “eventually or in the future,” he did not necessarily mean tomorrow, next week, next month, or even next year.  This statement must be taken in the context of the Indian culture, where “eventually or in the future” could mean next month, but it could also mean in the next lifetime or the one after that.  Bikram yoga is truly mind-boggling when you consider that you are receiving the optimal benefits of the posture from the early stages of your practice on, yet you will never stop being challenged by the series.

In Pittsburgh, you may see football players, in Leicester you may run into the cricket team, and in Las Vegas Bikram yoga studios, you are almost certain to see a few of your favorite MMA fighters and boxers.  These athletes, in particular, seem to love Bikram yoga for a myriad of reasons: shedding water weight before a fight, increasing their cardiovascular stamina, and preventing injuries in the cage or the ring.  Many Brazilian Jiu Jitsu fighters have said that Bikram yoga is the perfect complement to BJJ, giving them better circulation, increased flexibility, core work, improving their balance, helping them to connect their mind and body, and learning efficient breathing, among other reasons.

Increasingly, the training routine of Mixed Martial Artists is a schedule that involves rotating MMA, kettlebells, strength and conditioning training, and Bikram yoga.  UFC Mixed Martial Artist Kenny Florian cited Bikram yoga as part of his training routine, hailing its benefits.  Whether you practice Muay Thai, BJJ, Karate, Taekwondo, Judo, Catch Wrestling, Amateur Wrestling, or are a boxer, incorporating Bikram hot yoga into your training routine is an investment in both your career and your body.

• Bikram yoga teaches discipline of the mind and body, which gives its practitioners the mental arsenal necessary to overcome any challenges posed outside of the hot room.
• Bikram yoga teaches humility and grace.
• The body that you develop through Bikram yoga and the challenges that you overcome completely rejuvenate your self-confidence.
• Being able to accomplish your fitness goals helps give you the push necessary to tackle your diet goals.  Alternately, burning so many calories gives you the ability to stop starving yourself and eat whatever you want.
• Many practitioners find that their bodies subconsciously reject unhealthy choices, whether they come in the form of food, smoking, or alcohol.  Others find that they have more motivation to give up their bad habits in an effort to improve their practice and stop suffering through a sweaty detox session while hungover, winded, or filled with greasy food.

How has Bikram yoga rejuvenated your life?  We’d love to hear from you!

What it Means

Locking the knee means actively engaging your quadriceps muscle during the posture.

Benefits:

• Heal sore knees
• Prevent future knee damage
• Increased flexibility in your hamstrings
• Your walk will feel lighter.

How Can I Tell If I’m Locking My Knee?

Well, the first way to tell is that your Bikram yoga instructor isn’t chasting you.  In all seriousness, you can tell that you are locking your knee when you can see a shadow of muscle definition over the top part of your knee joint.  Over time, you will be able to tell that you are locking your knee rather than straightening and leaning on it when you no longer have knee pain after class.

Learning how to lock your knee is an incredibly important part of your practice.  If you have any questions about how to lock your knee and whether or not you are doing it properly, speak to the Bikram Yoga Summerlin instructors after class.