About Bikram Yoga
What is bikram yoga?
 Bikram's Beginning Yoga Class is a twenty-six asana series designed to scientifically warm and stretch muscles, ligaments and tendons, in the order in which they should be stretched. Bikram Yoga's twenty-six posture exercises systematically move fresh, oxygenated blood to one hundred percent of your body, to each organ and fiber, restoring all systems to healthy working order, just as Nature intended. Proper weight, muscle tone, vibrant good health, and a sense of well-being will automatically follow. Your ProgressHow quickly you progress will depend entirely on you -- upon your natural ability to a small extent, but mostly upon the 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 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. To be 'Perfect' in Yoga is to do the best you can do.Bikram teaches you not only the ideal pose - how you will eventually be able to do it - but also the reality - telling you what problems you will have as you try to do the pose, what clues will help you make rapid progress, and where you might be tempted to "cheat," thus depriving yourself of the benefit of doing the pose properly. Bikram explains to you, in his inimitable humorous and informative way, how his scientifically designed series of twenty-six poses will enhance mind and body, relax, strengthen, reshape, and heal all of you in 90 minutes.
Classes with Bikram
More About YogaThe word Yoga is derived from the Sanskrit root "yuj", i.e. "to yoke" [to the spirit] meaning "union of the Individual Soul (Atman) with the Universal Soul (Brahman). "Atman" and "Brahman" are Hindu idealogical terms, and are used as a reference for the mind, whereas there truly is only Oneness. Yoga embraces a wide range of disciplines whose ultimate goal is the joining of body,mind and spirit, a conscious unification into Oneness. Yoga is one of six classic systems of Hindu philosophy whose roots date back 5,000
years. There are four classic Yogas, and they are progressive in nature; i.e., Karma Yoga (right acts and actions), Bhakti Yoga (devotion), Raja Yoga (meditation) and Jnana Yoga (inner wisdom or enlightenment). The classic four yogas have expanded into several other forms of Yoga. Hatha Yoga (worshipful poses), for example, is part of Raja Yoga training. Some of the other forms of Yoga are Nada Yoga (music), Mantra and Japa Yoga (chanting and on beads)and Kundalini Yoga (study of the psychic centers or chakras). In the Western world, the most popular form is Hatha Yoga, (Sanskrit for Union of Forcea), a form of Yoga that stresses mastery of the physical body as a gateway to attaining spiritual perfection. Hatha Yoga traces its origins to Gorakhnath, the legendary 12th-century founder of the Kanphata Yogis.
Who is Bikram Choudhury?
 Yogiraj Bikram Choudhury is the founder of the worldwide Yoga College of Indiaa?￠. Born in Calcutta in 1946, Bikram began Yoga at the age of four with India's most-renowned physical culturist at that time, Bishnu Ghosh, the younger brother of Paramahansa Yogananda (Author of the most popular book on Yoga, The Autobiography of a Yogi, and founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles).
Bikram practiced Yoga at least four to six hours every day at Ghosh's College of Physical Education in Calcutta. At the age of thirteen, he won the National India Yoga Championship. He was undefeated for the following three years and retired as the undisputed All-India National Yoga Champion.
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 acelebrated 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. 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.
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