other yoga?

[Guest guest]

HI all!!,<br>I am brand new to the list and very

new to Ashtanga. I have been practicing Bikram for

about 1 year and I really enjoy the practice/benifits

but I feel something is missing. Would you recommend

intergrating the two? Since one is so lower body based and one

upper? Do you recommend practicing "yin" yoga to even

out the physicality of Ashtanga.<br>thanks for any

response.<br>P-nut

[Guest guest]

one of our members, senor pinche wey, has

produced a fantastic instructional video called "bandhas

of steel with el senor" that you can purchase from

tlslade's website. it combines astanga and bikram poses

with pilates abdominal work all following a tae-bo

warm-up. the series climaxes quite literally in an

advanced form of karnapidasana that will guarantee you

never leave your house again. you would be wise to

aquire it.<br><br>namaste,<br>m<br><br>p.s. if el senor

is out of stock you would do best to choose one

style or the other and stick to the

sequence.<br><br>p.p.s. the p.s. is the only serious part of this

message.

[Guest guest]

I've heard that Bikram yoga is 'easy' for an ashtanga practitioner. Ashtanga is

more demanding, I don't think there's much need for integrating the two

practises.

[Guest guest]

Bikram yoga isn't easy for the Ashtanga

practitioner. Ashtanga dances around some things and never gets

to them in the series for the general populus that

Bikram gets right down to. Like trunk flexibility from

side to side, and rounding of the back. You can't just

skip those things. To gain flexibility and strength

all over, you can't just skip over a few things and

get the major ones. I do Bikram 3 times a week and it

has helped my Ashtanga practice

immensely.<br><br>Lauren

[Guest guest]

Another thing I like about the Bikram series,

things which it has which aren't in primary Ashtanga,

are Cobra, Locust, Bow, Camel, reclining hero, my

back never feels as good as it does when I've been

doing those. I really missed them when I was doing an

exclusively Ashtanga practice. I will say that at one point,

after doing Ashtanga fairly regularly, I started having

various aches & pains, so thought I'd scale down,

diversify, go back to practicing Bikram, and I felt quite a

loss of strength, so I think the Ashtanga is better

for that. <br><br>Lately, after an extended break

from much of any kind of practice, (after, yet again,

encountering pains after several months of a 5 day a week

Ashtanga practice), I'm building up again, using Bikram's

series. (doing some of the floor poses in the yin style)

It does make me feel physically fabulous, mentally

calmer. I've never developed any aches from doing this

method. <br><br>And yet I still harbor hopes of one day

developing an Ashtanga practice again... I feel like at this

point in my life I'm not able to make the kind of

commitment it seems to demand. Maybe that's just my lazy

mind talking.<br><br>Edie

[Guest guest]

The good thing about Bikram is it's a system. If

and when I do it....I try to do Bikram the Bikram

way...i.e. breath, eyes open in Savasana etc. My heart

belongs to Ashtanga. I like to do Ashtanga or Bikram not

Bikashtangram. If I had a wrist or shoulder injury, I might

crank up the Bikram. Also there seems to be some

overlap of Bikram and second series.....I only do first

series though.

[Guest guest]

Right after I started to intensely practice

Ashtanga (5-6x per week) I started to have what I called a

toxin fever in my muscles. I dont know if that's what

it was but my muscles felt as if they had a fever -

very achy. So I scaled my practice back a bit - only

did primary to Navasana - for a while and I worked

through it. Then I slowly started adding postures. I

think often we push ourselves to do more than we should

and led classes only enforce this. I was flexible so

I felt I could do the whole Primary series. But of

course yoga is so much more than

flexibility.<br><br>Still, as El Senor mentioned, Ashtanga is not for

everyone. I had tried various forms of yoga and when I

found Ashtanga, I knew right away that it was for me.

It felt familiar. Perhaps from 13 years of Ballet

and doing the same barre exercises every morning, the

process of Ashtanga felt natural. Perhaps Bikram is just

your thing.<br><br>mel<br><br>PS. the poses you

mention are done in later series in Ashtanga

[Guest guest]

<<the poses you mention are done in later

series in Ashtanga >><br><br>Yeah, I know these

are in intermediate. But it seems if one is on the

100% faithful ashtanga path, those poses are not

supposed to be done until primary has been completed, and

work on intermediate has begun. Something which may

take years. I do feel my principle error in my

approach to ashtanga was trying to do too much too

soon.<br><br>I don't know that Bikram is necessarily my thing,

although right now it seems the most accessible. I know it

has shortcomings, to be sure. I prefer the ashtanga

method of heat - from within, as opposed to an

artificially heated room (I do my practice at home, have only

been to one class. I left feeling not nearly as good

as I had when I attended Intro to Ashtanga classes

w/ TMiller). And there's no inversions, which I feel

are important, and am capable of doing (basic

versions). <br><br>I appreciate El Senors reply. I know

Ashtanga's not for everyone. Maybe it's not for me. But

maybe it's not for me right now; maybe later. Time will

tell.<br><br>E.