Before I knew it I was hooked on Bikram.  I now have more energy, my back feels better, and my body is more flexible.  In addition to helping my back, it has released lots of tension due to my career.  As a school principal, I experience stress on a daily basis.  This February will make it two years that I have been practicing Bikram Yoga.  I keep attending because I believe it helps my mind, body, and soul.  I really enjoy attending.

I used to suffer from extreme back pain.  So desperate to try anything to alleviate the pain, I decided to invest in a posturepedic bed.  My daughter and I visited a friend of hers that owns a mattress store in San Antonio, Texas.  While at the register, I asked the wife's owner if it was really a good idea to purchase the expensive bed and if she really thought it would help my back.  "Well of course the bed will help you sleep more comfortably", she said, "but let me tell you what really helped me."

She continued to tell me that she had also had excruciating back problems until she was introduced to Bikram Yoga.  When I returned to Houston I pondered it and finally decided to give it a try.  While driving to H.E.B. one day, I became so ecstatic, I couldn't believe my eyes.  I saw the Pearland Bikram Yoga sign across the street.  My husband and I immediately inquired about PBY's grand opening date and signed up on the spot! 

The third posture in the Bikram Yoga series is Awkward, Utkatasana.  It has three parts.  We are focusing on the setup and the first part.

You bring your legs apart, as far apart as your hipbones are - about 6 inches, no longer than a dollar bill really.  Your feet should be under your hipbones.  You want to keep your heels hidden behind your toes.  Now that takes some doing because when you sit down into the chair, as they say, your heels naturally want to come in a bit.  Your job is to keep them behind your toes and keep your feet on the ground.  You have to keep 6 inches, relatively the length of a dollar bill in between your hands, your knees and your feet.

Your arms are up in front of you reaching forward towards the mirror - rigid the entire time.  This takes some time to develop the shoulder muscles.  For a while until you do that you may feel intense burning in the shoulders. This is a good thing, counterintuitive as that may seem.  You also want to keep your shoulders relaxed.  Do not let them come close to your neck.  There should be slight downward slope off of each of your shoulders from the neck indicating relaxation of the trapezius muscles.  This too, takes time.  Your chin is up - level in the mirror.

You sit in the imaginary chair.  Your legs should be parallel to the floor, not higher or lower.  If you can't get that low yet, no problem, but if you are sitting lower, than you absolutely must come up until parallel or higher if that is too difficult.  Now if you can bring you hips back towards the back wall then you can get lower, but your legs must remain parallel.  Simply resting your legs on your heels or somewhere thereabouts is not the ideal.

Then with your arms rigid and straight, your fingers together, your shoulders relaxed, your quadriceps parallel to the floor, your stomach sucked in MAXIMALLY you rock your upper body back.  You should be able to raise your toes off of the ground a teensy tiny bit.  This will mean that you have achieved getting the weight into your heels.  Although you do want to keep your feet flat on the floor.

Are you breathing?  You have to breathe, the whole time - slowly and deliberately.  Otherwise the posture is all for not.  Anyway, I cannot imagine that someone could get into posture correctly without breathing.  You can easily tell if you haven't because afterward you usually exhale and inhale loudly, usually by the mouth.  This is a great indicator that you were not breathing.  If anything first breathe correctly and then slowly do all of the rest. It takes time.

If this posture gives you any sharp pain in your knees ease off until that no longer occurs.  It is much more important to listen to your body and progress at it's timing rather than obey the ceaseless chatter of the mind telling you to do each posture perfectly.  That is the practice.