I’ve been practicing somersaults lately to get over my falling backwards fear, but I haven’t yet gotten the guts to purposefully fall backwards in headstand. At least with the somersault my hands are free. What can I say? I was one of those kids who could never do a cartwheel. No gymnastics or cheerleading for me growing up…I was  a nerd and always one of the last ones chosen on any sports team.

I fell once during Bakasana (crow pose), and it’s taken me a year to get the guts to lift my feet off the floor again for just a few seconds. Maybe I hurt myself falling in a past life?

Maybe I should just get over and join a “Head Stand Human Skittles” game, where you group people in headstand and throw Nerf balls at them to knock them over like they are bowling pins. And no, I did not make that one up! Strange world this is, eh?

(CFS sufferers have a tendency towards orthostatic hypotension, which means we have thin blood and/or low blood pressure that can cause dizziness or even fainting when standing up quickly. Working out in an overheated room causes the blood to thin…thus, it stands to reason, if you already have a problem with low blood pressure or low blood volume, working out in high heat is probably a bad idea.)

But I’m curious about the different yoga styles and wanted to see what all the fuss was about Bikram. So I got his beginning yoga book and learned about his series (a separate review of the book will be posted later). Bikram created a specific sequence of 26 postures (plus two breathing exercises) that he claims works out the entire body in a way no other yoga series does. I wanted to find out if there was truth to the hype.

I finally did the full series yesterday, probably not properly, and I cheated and didn’t do everything twice as indicated. (Mostly, I did, however.) Still, I got a good workout, and it took me an hour to get through everything (though, I did add restorative supported bridge pose at the end).

Bikram has two sections to his series. First, a standing series, and then a floor series. Most of the poses were doable (even, surprisingly, standing head to knee), but the two that got me were the toe balance and the “fixed firm” (his name for reclining hero). I can’t even sit upright in hero without a block underneath me, so fixed firm is a long way off.

His standing series was a bit heavy on balance poses and a bit light on hip openers (no warriors here). The floor series reminded me a lot of the Sivananda series…lots of backbends that move the spine one way and then the other. A few parts are practically identical to Sivananda (cobra -> locust -> bow).

Two major elements missing from Bikram are poses that work on the upper body and inversions. Heck, I think even just the addition of plow would be helpful here, and even Sivananda, which is light on the arm stuff, has an arm balance (crow) at the end.

Overall, I really like this series because it works a lot on the spine in the same way the Sivananda series does. This is why I am not too keen on doing vinyasa flow or power yoga classes all the time – they don’t do jack for your back unless the teacher actively decides to add backbends at the end (something other than just bridge pose).

With that in mind, I think I would happily incorporate the Bikram series into my home practice, and perhaps add shoulderstand and plow at the end when I want some inversions. I don’t think I’d make this my sole yoga practice, and I won’t ever do it in full heat, but it’s a good series to know.

You don’t get “name” teachers at Sivananda, and heck, they don’t even put the names of the teachers on the schedule, but I have yet to take a class with a bad teacher there. The classes are so small (sometimes only a few people) that you always get individual attention and some nice adjustments.

Last night, the teacher gave me a nice push in plow until I got a bit nervous; she came back and set me up with pillows for my feet. Try getting that in a class of 50 people. I went farther and deeper in a bunch of poses thanks to the adjustments.

I guess for some these classes are not strenuous enough, but really, I consider headstand and any number of classical poses to be tough enough without the variations. Once you master them, then you get to try all the alternative versions. Unless you can go into full lotus while doing a headstand, I don’t think you can say that headstand isn’t challenging enough.

Best part? You get to do sivasana between poses. I love that.

On another note…I used to be able to go to satsang regularly but lately I’ve been going absolutely stir crazy during the chanting. It just seems to go on and on and on. I can barely sit through it. Has it just gotten longer or am I all just all wired up for the summer? Hm.