25 YEARS AGO THIS MONTH WALKED INTO MY FIRST BIKRAM YOGA CLASS. Before Bikram Yoga’ nothing (aside from Darren 😉 ) grabbed my attention the way it did and I always wanted to share the benefits of Bikram Yoga from the very first amazing class I ever walked out of; I felt it a duty; that it would be wrong not to! I LOVE teaching! Teaching is that singular space where I can ‘get over myself’ simply because I HAVE to be there 100% for students. Teaching is an important part of my personal practice and development. In 2011 I took a new path creating and running my own business with Darren. I will not say there is ‘no grind’ involved in the business side of it but the people we draw to us and who walk through our purple doors tend to be at their best and most curious and on a cusp themselves and this keeps us ‘hooked’ if you like.
AS I HAVE AGED over that time there crept in more and more doubt about the ‘certainty’ of the knowledge that I diligently acquired on many of my teacher training courses. Those early learnings and belief in them gave me comfort… but life experience hasn’t always matched with what I had been taught. I am as uncertain as ever I was in my first few years of teaching; I am just more ‘comfortable’ with living with the uncertainty perhaps and I have heard “CERTAINTY IS FATAL TO INQUIRY”. I do belief it is important for practitioners to be able to have comfort and trust in their Yoga instructor at least for the duration of their class; but I do also hope that I have taught our students to be discerning and enquiring themselves and to trust their own little inner voice… SOMETIMES I CANNOT BELIEVE that I ever embarked on such a daring journey of trying to teach something as ‘vast’ as Yoga to the numerous unique minds, bodies and spirits that walk through our doors; I have tried to make it a major focus that people become their own best teachers; I dare to hope I have had some success with that.
BIKRAM YOGA has empowered me to admit right now that even after 12 years of Yoga Matters, we have never been able to fully realize our Yoga dream (‘The Dream’ itself is for another post) and that I probably don’t have the skills to bring that dream to fruition right now; by skills I am referring to the fact that I am not a ‘business woman’ and I am no good at the ‘hustle’ that seems to be required nowadays in order to make ‘Yoga’ a viable business. That was never ‘the point’ for us; we were never looking to take over the Yoga world; but being a successful business had to be the platform for us to taking that next step to ‘The Dream’. Being constantly online and having to market 24/7 was not my Yoga dream at all and I despair more each passing year at portrayal of Yoga on social media in many ways makes Yoga seem less accessible to the folks we would like to draw to us {See Blog about Shy Yogis!} . At YM we always like to tell it how it is, disciplined with no frills, but it would seem this is not attractive to the numbers of people we need in order for ours to be a viable business. The ones we want to draw feel intimidated by the overall presentation of the Yoga idea online and we are not ‘bendy’ enough for the ones who want to hop on the ‘latest’ insta draw.
OF COURSE this is worrying, not because we want to be a business person ‘raking it in’, but because if we are not a viable business how do you keep a bricks n’ mortar studio running, how do you keep a sacred space for the ones who truly love their personal Bikram practice, how can you be there for those people whilst you are wondering month to month will there be enough money to pay your own salary? I am not a breatharian…
I still have A Dream. Perhaps it is a different Dream but I wonder if it will be more sustainable Dream if I reassemble my life again and start from scratch. I cannot function properly without Bikram Yoga in my life and so we know what it means to others too. So begins a new chapter. We recently re-jigged things in a way that allows us all to still get to practice Bikram Yoga at our dedicated Yoga school; we get to keep that promise we made 12 years ago; to be here for you.
EACH DAY we have an income of 86,400 seconds. It is up to us how we spend them. We call them ‘Justa’ second(s). ‘Split’ seconds. We diminish them but it was the one second choices that gave me all of these fab anniversaries:
1 second to let go of something that isn’t serving
1 second to make space
1 second to start from scratch
1 second to have a new beginning
1 second to endless possibilities
1 second…
The ‘Bikram Yoga’ split second choice has been the precursor to me taking control of everything about my life physical, emotional and spiritual. I can honestly say that after 25 years of practice that I Still. Feel. Better. EVERY. Single. Time. I practice Bikram. Every.Time. No matter how I arrive on my mat I ALWAYS FEEL BETTER AT THE END. It is truly 90 minutes to transformation.
SO WHAT HAVE I LEARNED? TURN UP. No expectations. Just Turn Up. Nobody knows what the outcome is going to be. Just Turn Up. It will be ok. Bikram Yoga helps you believe in yourself. It is a series of 26n2 little acts of kindnesses to yourself; you HAVE to be kind to yourself. Everyone else will benefit from this kindness to yourself.
I have also learned: Do what is right and expect nothing from it.
At 52 I am still getting important breakthroughs and making progress in my personal practice and there is happily LOTS of room left for improvement and plenty more new work to be done and adventures to be had on my mat and off it. Life is an occasion, we must Rise to it! That Rise requires work and we need something to support us in our work on our Rise! Thank you Bikram Yoga for supporting me!
RIGHT NOW today everything I have is everything I want…
Still In Pursuit of Stillness 🙂
Trisha x
June 2023