Urdva Padmasana in the Sun

Copenhagen is bathed in glorious sunshine today so I rolled out my mat on the roof after work.

Bikram Action Figure

Due to the wonders of social media an image posted by Bikram's daughter Laju Choudhury made it all the way to my Facebook news feed.

A Bikram action figure. What the...?

A quick google revieled this image:

But it is nowhere to be seen who made it, if it's a joke and somebody's having a good laugh (I know I am) or if Bikram needs money for new Bentleys and entered a new market. Either way it's pretty creapy if you ask me. I wonder if the plastic is flexible enough for a dandayamana-dhanurasana...

Iyangar Before the Props

Check out this amazing video of one of our time's greatest yogis BKS Iyengar. I wonder when he decided to ad belts and blocks and blankets and focus entirely on structual alignment and not give a monkey's about flow. Iyengar yoga has the very apt nick name 'Furniture Yoga', but in this video it's just the man and his mat. Hell, he doesn't even have a mat. And no clothes either...

I'm a Hot Yoga Teacher - With Yoga Dogmas

I went on a 2 day Hot Yoga course this weekend. The course taught me and 6 other yoga teachers how to teach Hot Yoga, to sequence in heat, what to do when students get uncomfortable or get heat stroke, how to adjust and a bunch of other things. And according to the teacher and my diploma I am now equipped to teach Hot Yoga. Not Bikram, mind you, or Absolute Hot Yoga or Baptiste or any of the other hot yoga systems, but just yoga in a hot room. And with my experience from practicing Bikram and (Nalini) Hot Yoga I do feel that I can teach a good hot yoga class. I can teach a class that I’d very much like to attend myself with the best from Bikram, Asthanga and Hatha in one big pile of Hot Yoga.

Apart from teaching me Hot Yoga the course also showed me that I have yoga dogmas. I fear the Yoga Police on every street corner, because how can one take different traditions of old yoga (well, some of it only 40 years old) and mix it up in a big melting pot of asana? And then turn up the heat. And go unpunished? It’s not so much Bikram’s 26 patented asana I worry about - I don’t mind picking his system apart just for the hell of it, but isn’t there a reason why yoga is kept in different traditions?

Come to think of it there probably isn’t. Maybe it’s a natural evolvement of yoga to select the parts of a system you like and mix it with the rest - in a hot room and call it stuff like Hot Fusion, Hot Flow or Hot Power? That’s what Bikram did, anyway. And it is even what Pattabhi Jois and Iyengar did. But is that free for everybody to do? Haven’t people like Bikram (not to mention the DPP guy from yesterday) already pushed yoga so far away from its core? Do we really need to push it further? When does it stop being yoga and start being gymnastics, if all the traditions vanish and nobody remembers in which tradition you chant the Invocation to Patanjali or in which you focus on awakening of the psychic centers or chakras?

See? I have yoga dogma issues. I have no idea why I’m such a conservative when it comes to yoga. If you know me, you know that parts of my life are pretty unconventional. So maybe I need to loosen up a little and get off my high yoga horse - and maybe do some unconventional Hot Yoga. 'Cause it's pretty awesome.

Tough Love Wrestler Yoga

You’ve probably seen the the video about American paratrooper Arthur Boorman, who, after he was injured in the Gulf War, was told he was never going to walk again - until he discovered yoga. It’s a very inspiring and sweet story and if you haven’t seen the video you should definitely give it a watch.

But what’s even more entertaining is the yoga Boorman discovered. DDP Yoga by former wrestler Diamind Dallas Page:

It ain’t your mama’s yoga! Kickass Cardio! Prepare to be amazed!

What the f*@%?

I love that this tough guy will attract some types who would have never considered yoga in their life. I’d love to see a class. You you think they OM and meditate?