Recent Events

Bishnu Ghosh Day - July 9th 

Much thanks to all of our wonderful students for observing this day. We hope you enjoyed last month's Newsletter on PURE Lineage and took this day to reflect on the traditions of hatha yoga.

Posture Practice - July 16th

Make plans to attend Posture Practice August 20th, 1:45-3:00pm Downtown! 

Summer Youth Camp - July 18th-22nd 

The Youth Camp at Cedar Park was PURE FUN! 15 youth attended 5 days of yoga, friends, more yoga, healthy snacks, Synergy, even more yoga and countless smiling faces! Many youngsters are now new yoga practitioners, strengthening their lives with the ancient benefits of asana and enjoying the freedom of stillness and breath. We look forward to the next session!

Yoga is Medicine

www.PUREaction.org 

Want to know more? Check us out on the web!

PURE Action Website 

Ida Ripley is originally from Victoria, BC, but is a yogi of the world. She began practicing Bikram yoga in 2000 and teaching in 2003. She has traveled to many corners of the world, has taught in Hong Kong, Korea, India, Peru and across Canada and the United States. She is one of few teachers in the world, and the only teacher in Canada, who is sanctioned by Bikram to lead Bikram yoga seminars.

Ida is the 5 time Western Canadian Hatha Yoga Champion, and 2009 2nd place international champion. Though her years of competition and teaching, Ida has spent extensive time with Bikram, Rajashree and many of Bikram's esteemed teachers.

Ida teaches at the teacher training sessions, as well as demonstrates at many of Bikram's advanced seminars; she has been qualified to lead the advanced series since 2007. She has a very clear and concise teaching style, and emphasizes demonstration and discussion, paired with one-on-one assistance in her seminars to help students attain a deeper understanding of the Bikram series.

Ida brings energy and enthusiasm to her seminars and classes. She teaches to all levels. Beginners will learn the simplicity and key components of the postures, and more advanced students will learn to delve deeper into their practice through a greater understanding of precision and execution.

Ida will lead the Posture Practice August 20th, Advanced class August 24th and 26th 12:15 Downtown, and the 28th 2pm at Westlake. Check the live schedule for her Beginning class schedule!  

"I began practicing Bikram Yoga in 2004 and became a certified instructor in 2007.  I don't know why it took me three years to decide to teach something that I loved immediately - I guess I was being selfish with my own practice and wanted to learn as much as I could before I started giving that knowledge away.  Right after I finished Teacher Training in the Fall of 2007, I was convinced to compete in the Florida Asana Championships two weeks upon graduating and won 2nd place in the State.  From then on, my yoga career snowballed rapidly and I've been growing as a teacher, a student, and a competitor of yoga ever since.  I have recently been honored the title of National Champion in the latest 2011 USA Yoga Asana Championships and I am so excited to see where the yoga will take me next.  This practice has done so much for both my physical body and my mental strength.  My favorite thing about practicing and teaching Bikram Yoga is seeing significant change in individuals among a series of the same postures done over and over.  I am blown away every time I think of how endless the possibilities are of human capability. Now I thrive on sharing what knowledge I have (and continue to learn) with other students and want to help spread yoga across the world."

Afton will be with PURE for two weeks! Check the live schedule to
catch one of her classes before she moves on to her US National Tour!

Casey is one of the few people here that can say she's been doing this yoga since she was a kid! In high school, her parents would bring her to yoga as a penalty for teenage rebellion, but as many of us know, it soon became a way of life as opposed to a punishment. With the help of Bikram Yoga as well as the community that has grown around it, she has overcome clinical depression and now hopes to help others as a teacher.

Teaching Bikram yoga has been a passion of Casey's since graduating in Acapulco fall of 2008.  Originally from San Antonio she decided to move back to Austin to go back to school at U.T.  She is excited and honored to join this amazing team of yogis at PURE!

"I completed my Teacher Training in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 2007.  

Through the years, I have come to realize that Bikram yoga is so much more than just a physical workout, that it truly is a personal journey of the body, mind and spirit.  Bikram Yoga teaches us that through faith, self-control, concentration, determination and patience we truly begin to develop our foundation of mental strength.

The most rewarding thing about being a Bikram yoga Teacher, is that I can now help other people to find their own true calling and to heal themselves through a consistent Bikram yoga practice,  while still learning more about myself every day.  It's hard to hide anything from yourself when you strip your mind bare and spend 90 minutes in The Hot Room. A person learns very quickly that excuses don't help and that only through 100% honest effort can you realize your goals (both inside and outside of the hot room).  
I feel truly blessed to be doing something that I love!

Thank you Pure Bikram yogis for making me feel so at home, in my home away from home.  I'll bring a little bit of each of you back to Melbourne with me. "

Jess, you will be missed!

G'DAY Mates! My name is RadioActive, with the Hotrod Honeys, and I am a PURE Bikram Yogi. I've been training all year at PURE Bikram Yoga Downtown as a way to get ready for my teams big trip down under to play the #1 team in Australia, the All-Star Victorian Roller Derby League in Melbourne, Australia. PURE Bikram is wonderful enough to sponsor our league, The Texas Rollergirls. It has been crucial to my training to play roller derby this year. I've rehabilitated from a low back injury and find it an incredible addition to our flat-track roller derby training flexibility and strength. I even did the July facebook check-in challenge every day before I left for Australia, it was great motivation since we left on July 19th! The determination paid off as my team, the Hotrod Honeys, excelled in strength and teamwork beating the all-star Victoria Roller Derby League (180 to 53). We also hosted a 2-day training bootcamp with over 175 skaters from dozens of leagues all over Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania. 

Before leaving for Australia I met our wonderful guest teacher, Jess Loera, Melbourne resident, who gave me great tips for travelling and places to visit. I was determined to visit a Bikram studio abroad, to see more of our great community, and, of course, it's great for jet lag (we had a game to win afterall!). I visited Bikram Yoga Fitzroy, in a hip North Central Melbourne district. Owners, Michael and Susan Houghton, went to training with our very own Katy Durham, and I was warmly greeted in Michael's class. The quaint 1 room studio was packed, mat to mat, and full of wonderful Aussie energy! I tweeted this picture after, sporting my PURE Bikram tank, and was pleasantly surprised by PURE Bikram's retweet, reminding me of the training journey and support from back home. I promptly got back into the PURE Bikram's studio when I got home (great for jet lag) to prepare for our own leagues championship that next weekend (August 6th). Championship bouts were amazing! Hell Mary's 71, Heartbreakers 56, Hustlers 94, Hotrods 56! I'm looking forward to more PURE Bikram Yoga training! Namaste. 

-RadioActive

Lululemon athletica would like to invite you and your friends and family (yes! it's a family friendly, so bring your grandparents, kiddos and dogs) to practice yoga with some of Austin's best teachers, celebrate keeping Austin weird, listen to live entertainment, and shake your asana during this COMPLIMENTARY yoga, music and art festival.

Your PURE Team will have a booth set up for you to visit and peruse!

Here is everything you need to know for this year's event!

Yogasm Austin 2011

Questions about the event?

Email austin-store@lululemon.com or call Lululemon at 6th and Lamar (512)474-2659. 

Rajashree Choudhury & Emmy Cleaves 

Bikram Yoga Dallas and Bikram Yoga North Texas are proud to host the 5th Annual Bikram Yoga Women's Retreat! Attend the retreat to learn from Rajashree Coudhury and Emmy Cleaves while exploring women's issues from a yogic and holistic perspective.  

Does your office need to blow off some steam? Does your running team need a little stretch and a bend? How about your alumni meet-up, social group or even just skeptical friends? We want everyone to try Bikram Yoga! What better way to try out PURE Bikram Yoga than with your fellow friends and coworkers?

Contact susannah@purebikramyoga.com to find out about scheduling a FREE community class for your  group! 

Background:

I am a diabetic, and this condition somewhat defines my life. It's always there in the back of my mind, the food and drink I consume, the necessity of physical activity. My paternal grandmother died from diabetic complications and a maternal uncle had a leg cut off because of it. Half of my cousins are on insulin just as I am, so as cancer ravages some families, diabetes is the unwanted black sheep member in my circle of life. Every morning the first thing I do is check my blood sugar. It should be 110 or below for a normal person. But late last year and earlier this year, I noticed the blood sugar average climb from 100s to the 200s, sometimes 300s, upon waking up. Nightly, I take 100 units of insulin before sleep, so this development was scary, to say the least. I vowed not to drink alcohol or sodas this year just to get a handle on this elevation. Taking my good health for granted is something I can no longer do.  

Employer's gym:

Needless to say this progression was unacceptable. I am fortunate in that I work for a high tech employer. The corporation feeds us lunch twice a week, sometimes breakfast, has a stocked glass fridge on my floor of many assorted sodas, and a wheeled snack available to us through the course of a work day. Yes, sugared temptation is nearby.

But there is a gym onsite that is open twenty-four hours a day. I finally got motivated and started using the gym at the end of the work day, hoping to get into shape and drop these daily blood sugar averages. It didn't work because the routine got boring despite the cable plasma televisions and every machine known to mankind. What I was missing was the human element. Working out in isolation was disheartening. Though there were some regulars who did their workouts after the close of business, every one was in their own routine, so I knew I needed another activity, one in which social interaction was necessary, a kind of collective, 'we're in this together' routine.

My life in Corporate America requires me to sit in my chair all day making and taking phone calls in-between the avalanche of emails I am wading through, and then coming straight home and going back to work after the company laptop is fired up. For my professional life, I handle international sales, and the world is open twenty-four hours a day in every possible language, culture, currency and time zone.   

Research: 

I heard yoga was a benefit to your health, and that hot yoga was even a better benefit. Being a degreed engineer (read: anal retentive, detail oriented), I started researching Austin studios and came across the offer of joining the University of Texas sixty-day health study at PURE Bikram Yoga for people who had never done this practice. Before I started the study, disaster struck.

At our company gym, I did not wipe down the machines, and because of that, I got a respiratory infection, and it's something I never had before. It wiped me out completely. All those workouts I had done before went down the drain as I could not do any physical routine as I was literally so sick. Finally I limped into the doctor's office who told me it would be just some time before it finally filtered away. I had to wait another four weeks or so before I could start, and finally after getting my preliminary blood work done at the U.T Cardiovascular Aging Research Lab, I began the program, even though I was not completely healed, literally hearing the wheezing in my lungs after every breath.

Yoga:

It was back to the future for me, for I had served four years in the army airborne after graduating college. When I started my first several sessions, I kept on thinking, I did this in the army. These were the exact same exercises I did every morning at 4AM in basic training, and since I was in the airborne infantry, I did it five days a week for the rest of my enlistment. Did I do all twenty-six Bikram Yoga moves in the army? No, but we did a number of them, to limber up before we ran in formation.

Just like in the military, I knew the only way I would ever benefit is if I did it daily, so it was my goal to change my schedule around to doing this practice daily. The Cedar Park studio is less than ten minutes from my house and on my way to work, and the downtown studio is less than five minutes from my employer, so I had no excuses, which is one way I chose PURE Bikram Yoga to start this new part of my life; just like in real estate, location, location, location. I had no excuse not to do it daily.

Daily routine: 

Doing yoga daily is certainly humbling; something my goal oriented personality detested. How could I not master all these twenty six moves if I do it daily? Well, I haven't and don't think I ever will. The key part: that there is something you can always get better at and when you think you have it down pat, during a session, sometimes it doesn't come together. Does anyone ever really master this practice? I think if someone goes in wanting to master it, they will be mistaken. The idea is not to master the practice but practice to master.

I look at a yoga session like I use to when I was a paratrooper. Every jump was unique. I never got use to jumping; it never became routine. Every time I jumped, I thought of it as my first time, so I would not become complacent and something catastrophic and tragic happening as a result. I've seen the consequences of paratroopers who took it lightly. This may be just a yoga practice but being focused on it during those ninety minutes as if it's my first day, and not on all the external events in my life, means I can improve my health overall.

Anecdotal evidence:

I've noticed in anecdotal ways how my health has changed:

- I can spring onto the elevated back porch after filling my dog's bowl with fresh water. Before I started the study, I had to step up gingerly because I was not flexible enough.

- I can now leap out of my chair at work, as before the study, I was just too lazy to get up. 

- I can now bend over and pick up things I dropped on the floor, something I never did before. 

- I snapped my right ACL in a ski accident in Austria a few years back, and it required knee surgery. I can still feel it but not as much anymore.

- I have a typical paratrooper's injury in which my right side ribs flare up every once in a while making it hard to stand up straight; since I started my practice, it has not reoccurred ... yet.   

But as they say, the proof is in the pudding. I do not have all my before/after numbers but here are some of them:

Before: 3/29/11          After: 6/22/11

TC=139 mg/dL          TC=126 mg/dL

TRG=267 mg/dL       TRG=162 mg/dL

TC/HDL=6.8              TC/HDL=8.2

GLU=120 mg/dL       GLU=91 mg/dL

The triglycerides number was a shocker; it dropped by over a hundred! The best number though is the HbA1c number (not listed here) which for diabetics is the golden benchmark, even before the daily blood sugar count. It went from 7.2 to 5.9. At 6.0 is considered the entry point to become an official diabetic. I may have lost only three pounds during the course of the sixty day study, but it was around the important area, my waistline, as some of my pants now feel looser and my overall body fat percentage decreased! 

I'm about to begin my fifth month of consecutive yoga. I do not know how long I'll go, but for now, this fits into my life. Circumstances may change later in which I walk away, or slow down my practice, but for now, I'll stick to my daily routine.   

Have I benefited from yoga? Yes. Is it for everyone? No. But could anyone benefit from a Bikram yoga practice?Absolutely. If an inactive, overweight, bad diabetic like me can make a physical comeback at this age means hope is never lost on those who will make the effort and try ... try sincerely.

-JC Cavazos