Susan’s Bikram Yoga Journey
My yoga journey began relatively late in life, I was 56 years old.
In 2002 I took my first class at Yoga Tree, Elsternwick, the first Bikram Yoga studio in Melbourne.
The combination of heat and humidity was a challenge but I quickly realised the importance of the conditions. My body felt looser, more stretchy, and I even began to enjoy the sweat.
I loved the feeling of my body beginning to do the postures which all the younger, fitter people in class were able to execute. A few months later, I did a 60-day Challenge (practicing once a day for 60 consecutive days) and distinctively remember thinking, “I can do this for the rest of my life”. And here I am, I will celebrate my 78th birthday in September.
In 2005, my husband Michael and I went to the 9-week Bikram Yoga teacher training in Los Angeles, an experience I can only describe as a complete opening of our physical, mental and emotional beings.
In July 2007, we purchased Bikram Yoga Fitzroy. Michael sold his chiropractic business and I left my job in advertising.
Many of our friends and family (including our accountant) thought we were completely daft to have a change of careers and dive into owning, running and teaching in a yoga studio.
The early years of Bikram Yoga Fitzroy were nothing short of amazing. At one point we weekly offered forty-one hot 90-minute classes. It was the advent of the worldwide interest in yoga before the adjective “hot” became the catch-cry of the fitness industry. We renovated the yoga room to accommodate more students and added more showers. Our yoga room presently can accommodate 74 people.
Personally, I hit a wall in mid-December 2016 when I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. I spent 13 months dealing with chemotherapy, including a mastectomy mid-2017. The 40-degree heat in a Bikram class raises core temperature and boosts your immune system, thereby weakening cancer cells and making chemotherapy more effective.
During this period, I craved the heat and humidity which allowed me to sweat out the toxins of the chemo drugs, and focus my mind on my breath and postures.
Practicing my yoga was a huge physical challenge as chemotherapy damaged nerves, producing numbness in my hands and feet, and muscular weakness in my legs. During the 13-month period, I still practiced yoga 114 times and I taught 125 classes.
In September, I will turn 78 and Michael and I have made an important decision, recently signing a further 10-year lease for our studio.
As we grow older, our bodies change but this practice remains accessible, effective and therapeutic regardless of our age or state of health. Continuing to practice as we age maintains not just physical strength and flexibility but more importantly, mental/emotional flexibility and strength, making us more capable of adapting to life changes.
Bikram Yoga is a lifetime practice.
About the Author
Susan and Michael are Certified Bikram Yoga Teachers and have been running Bikram Yoga Fitzroy for the last 17 years.
