[Captive] in Park Slope; Bikram is Sandskrit for Torture.
Effed in Park Slope | Monday, January 19, 2009 at 7:53AM 
A New York Native is Held Captive By The Passive-Aggressive Energies of a Nouveau Yoga Community
This is an ongoing series in which we attempt to bring you lots 'o different perspectives on what its like to *actually* live in Park Slope...from readers just like you (or not--that's the whole point).
So everyone is going to the Bikram place on Flatbush these days. People you would NEVER think were into yoga go there - Not just relaxed, looking-for-spiritual-growth -and-enlightenment hippie-types, but yuppies who are in a hurry and want "results" yesterday.
Bikram is the EXTREME, quick-fix version of yoga, if you can even call it yoga. It was created by a guy, Bikram Choudhury, who is currently macking with his fortune in Beverly Hills. Bikram consists of the same 26 postures performed in a room that's 105 degrees farenheit or hotter. The result is that you sweat your ass off, release toxins, and lose shit-tons of weight quick.
The results are so extreme and noticeable that they actually offer classes at 8pm - this is so that you can go sweat your ass off and then fit into your skin-tight dress so that maybe they'll let you in to see Real World Kate work the Hotel Gansevoort.
The classes have a pretty sexually charged vibe - everyone is scantily clad because it's hotter than blue jesus. The class schedule card even says, "Men wear shorts or a bathing suit and no shirt. Women wear tight shorts and a sports bra." Hot. Very.
I first tried Bikram a few years ago when I spent a holiday week up in Canada - fuckin hated it. I had a raging headache the first few times and thought that was a good thing, so I drank a gallon of water and kept going. Then when I almost fell down the stairs after momentarily blacking out, I decided it wasn't for me. It's just too extreme, like the Big Mac of Yoga - so I went back to occasionally practicing Ashtanga, Vinyasa or Hatha instead.
Since moving back to Brooklyn, I've started going to Park Slope Yoga pretty regularly. I love it there - The classrooms are beautiful. The teachers all have various skills and styles, but the basic philosophy is the same. It's just the right amount of om shanti and namaste for me being lifelong hippie-Jew that I am, and I feel like I always get a good workout while also stretching my mind.
Anyway, a few weeks ago I came down with a wicked cold that wouldn't go away. It also got so cold outside that I couldn't run or walk or do much exercise of any kind. Coinciding with the holidays, this all left me with a new spare tire around the middle and the unwelcome loosening of a belt buckle. I haven't been able to totally kick my cough either.
Seeing as I keep running into people in the neighborhood who are either go to or coming from Bikram, I decided to give it another try. So after almost two weeks in bed and a pretty healthy daily dose of cough syrup with codeine, I bundled up on Wednesday morning and headed out in the snow to the 10am class.
As soon as I arrived, I saw that it was crowded as hell with an angry line at the front desk. Someone was visibly upset about their class card running out, someone else "just needs a towel. Can I just please get a towel?!" The atmosphere was rushed and tense.
The locker room (most yoga places have a kind, quiet, generally purple and tapestry-laden room where you can leave your stuff) was stuffed with coats and shower shoes and signs reminding you to "keep your shower under two minutes."
I paid the $20 (*(&#@*&^#$!!!) to take one class (no discounts for first-timers) and entered the yoga studio.
It was sweltering, crowded, and the stench was overpowering. The room was was dark and carpeted, not at all like the yoga rooms with sweet, light polished wood floors, golden statues of Buddha, incense burning and plants hanging from giant skylights filling the room with ethereal glows that I was used to. This was like a cross between a Russian bath house and an airport lounge.
I took the only "spot" left, pushed up against the back mirror and next to a man with no shirt and a mammalian amount of back hair. I gagged imperceptibly. While lifting my arms in certain postures I knew I would make contact with him again and again. I tried to breathe and love the humanity of it.
I already felt a little light-headed.
The class started, and the same pale, skinny, hurried woman who had been collecting everyone's money came in and stood at one end. No om shanti here; Just go.
The first pose involves tilting your head back with your arms under your chin, breathing in and out while lifting your arms and forcing your head back in a pretty uncomfortable position. All the while, they've got you staring at yourself in a giantic mirror-
"Keep looking at yourself," the teacher would say. "You are your own best teacher."
Yeah? Then gimme at least 10 bucks back.
At this point I could still physically deal, though the smell in the room from everyone lifting their arms was starting to become so intense that even I, with my stuffed up nose, was starting to get deeply nauseous.
Soon enough though, the poses started killing me, and to make matters worse the teacher would say:
"Go to the point of pain and then go further."
What the fuck, is this Yoga or Rocky IV? This is about as far from the philosophy of my regular yoga as you can get- I started to come out of my two weeks of bronchial torture haze and remember why I hated Bikram.
I started to get seriously light-headed, and so in-between postures I reached for a sip of my water.
"No water!" came a gruff shout from the front of the room. I looked up in disbelief.
"Sorry, sweetie," the teacher softened. "We don't drink water for the first 25 minutes of class."
I must have looked completely baffled because I heard a few chuckles. I guess the Bikram Heads were laughing at my total incompetence as a newcomer.
She reached for her WATER - I mean - HELLO??!
I reluctantly put my water bottle back down and promised it and my kidneys that I would drink a gallon of it as soon as I was allowed.
I suffered through the next few postures getting more and more nauseous and realizing that this was probably the worst possible idea for someone recovering from a pretty bad winter sickness.
Finally we were allowed to drink water. I drank half of my bottle - one of those giant Smart Water bottles - and regrouped.
When we started the next move I got so nauseous and light-headed that I had to sit down. I got into child's pose and thought I'd sit for a minute and the nausea would pass.
It wasn't working. I thought I was going to be sick.
I decided I needed to leave the class instead of continuing to disrupt my grizzly-haired neighbor - who by this point was dripping with a thin film of greasy sweat. Enough.
I rolled up my mat and started to tip-toe in between the two rows of people, making sure to go quickly but quietly.
"What's wrong, sweetie?" said the teacher in a sing-song innocence.
"Oh, I'm getting over being sick and this is just too much too soon," I whispered, reaching for the door.
"You need to stay though." she said firmly, looking right into my eyes.
I was really taken aback. It definitely felt like I was in The Firm. I looked at her, baffled, and said, "Excuse me?"
"You'll get benefits just being in the room that you don't even know about."
"Um..." I saw spots. "No thanks. I need to go."
I reached for the door again, and as I pulled the handle she barked,
"Just so you know? We don't DO that here."
I looked at the other participants, some of whom were slowly nodding their heads like I was in Franz Kafka presents Eyes Wide Shut.
"You really need to stay next time. Please make sure the outside door is all the way closed."
For a split second I didn't know if I was going to cry, laugh, scream or throw up.
I decided to not say anything and continue to leave quietly. As I gathered my strength on the locker room floor I envisioned my cold walk home 10 blocks away and wondered if I'd even make it.
I did some deep breathing exercises, without throwing my head back thank you, and felt well enough to take off my sweaty clothes, put on something dry, and head the hell out of there.
I was going to leave a note apologizing for the disruption. That's the kind of girl I am. But I decided I didn't need to explain; I just needed to get my Om Shanti ass the hell out of there and never go back.
exercise 
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Reader Comments (13)
Great story - though I have to say that this is how I feel about ALL Yoga studios.
bikram is the dan brown of yoga.
who is that? Vinod Khosla?
It's true: that studio kinda sucks, and Bikram is def the drive-thru version of yoga. But I don't like chanting, and sweating in my underwear surrounded by half-naked MILFs for 90 minutes ain't so bad either.
i've been doing bikram for a while now, and lately that flatbush location has gotten sooo crowded with all these people trying to fulfil their new years resolutions of getting fit. it's kind of annoying that no matter what class time i go to, its always cramped mat to mat and you have to worry about hitting touching your sweaty neighbor. gross.
That's a pretty fucking scary story - that yogi woman would have a pretty scary lawsuit on her hands if anything serious had gone wrong with you.
Talk about delusional hippiedom
Sounds reminiscent of EST, where they wouldn't let you out of the room to pee. You were just supposed to cross your legs and hold it or pee the floor. Or it's full of dominatrix/dominator yoga master wannabes. Glad you escaped, but hey, you could've just hurled on her bare feet and called it even...
That's awful. I'm with you... that sounds like the absolute opposite of everything I've ever thought about yoga. Someone's going to get hurt in one of their classes. Yuck.
I went to that place twice, after not having practiced yoga for a long time. The first time I liked it and decided to commit to it. The second class I took, the instructor was like a drill sargent, and I knew then it wasn't for me. My mother, herself a yoga teacher (Kripalu yoga, which is like the polar opposite of Bikram), agreed that its unhealthy on multiple levels. The positive part was that it did get me back into yoga, and I now take class at Park Slope Yoga 2 or 3 times weekly. Nikki and Oceana, two of the teachers there, offer vigorous, creative, supportive vinyasa classes (no chanting), that kick my butt. I leave feeling both energetic and relaxed, which is the reason I do yoga in the first place. I encourage you to go back to PSY and try some classes with those two. You won't be disappointed.
Bikram is dangerous. The heat allows your muscles to stretch beyond their normal range. You think you're "doing it better" than you really are because of that. It's positive reinforcement, but false.
It's too hot and stressful on the body.
The dickhead who started it (Choudhury) tried to copyright the sequence of poses and runs this like a franchise business--he's in it for the money (check out his dozen Rolls Royces).
There are plenty of reputable hatha yoga studios where you can study without any kind of mandatory spiritual aspect or risk your heart's health.
Clue - if you feel sick or injured while doing yoga, you're doing it wrong or the teacher or technique is flawed. Or you're simply sick or injured.
And please people - heat doesn't "release toxins." Jesus.
@ Hater:
I find several flaws in your argument as someone who practice bikram regularly. First, what medical evidence do you have to suggest that the practice is dangerous? The only injuries that I see in class is when people get ahead of themselves trying to show off their flexibilty and in the process ignore the dialogue of the instructor. If you follow instructions carefully and come into and out of the postures correctly, it is pretty darn hard to get injured. Secondly, about Bikram's wealth, how do you know he has 12 RRs? But let's say he does- if you could afford to have 12 of whatever thing you'd love to own, wouldn't you buy it? Finally, bikram yoga does release toxins. Part of exercising is that you sweat, which releases harmful toxins that build up from the environment and your lifestyle. No other form of exercise leaves you feeling as refreshed and renewed as a single bikram session does. As someone who's suffered from acne for year, bikram is about the only thing that cures my skin.
anon 11:05 = Bikram Choudry
Bikram Yoga is some intense, masochistic stuff. Like many people who practice Bikram, it was my first real experience with yoga -- I was turned onto it by a good friend while living in Philly. The beautiful studio in Center City Philadelphia has all hardwood floors. It's clean and well-run, with a number of passionate-yet-gentle instructors. The "drill sergeant" thing is a huge turnoff for me, and would seem to contradict what most of us hope for in any yoga class.
After college, I moved to Los Angeles for work. (Having absolutely hated it, I quickly returned to New York, my hometown.) L.A. is coincidentally home to Bikram and his headquarters.
Bikram's carpeted warehouse of stink is conveniently located amidst the grime, dense smog, constant traffic, fast food drive-throughs and car repair shops of historic La Cienega Boulevard.
Bikram (the man) is a megalomaniac. He routinely singles out newcomers and screams at them during his own classes. My friend once witnessed an outburst where Bikram demanded the staff physically remove a woman from class after his abuse had literally brought her to tears. Apparently, this type of behavior is commonplace for his classes. There are horror stories all over the web. Deplorable.
These days, I only practice yoga at home, sometimes with a few friends. To my mind, it's so much more pleasant than a public studio setting -- never mind the savings! Netflix has plenty of DVD titles available for rent. Bryan Kest's Power Yoga is a very popular one, and it's quite enjoyable -- even for no0bz.
Srsly, fuck Bikram.