Paul and Sarah Jane Semrad
Bikram yoga has been such a centering force in our lives that it is difficult to imagine a time before. Of course, during that time before there would have been no way that you could have gotten me to believe that I would love this practice so much.. Sarah Jane has the advantage of having several years of Iyengar before "discovering" Bikram Yoga. She had been trying to convince me for years to try yoga, which I did a couple of times but, lets just say that there were no sparks. When she came home from trying this class she said that I really should give it a try (after she told me how funky the room smelled). I did my first class lost, alone and a little scared. Amazingly, I lived through the ninety minutes, and I wanted to come back. Because of my unexpected embrace of Bikram Yoga, Sarah Jane saw that this could be something we could do together, a system of support that has helped us get to class many, many times since.
We had expected to see results in our physical well being but have also been pleasantly surprised by the many other advantages. We jokingly call it our therapy because of the positive influence on our mental health. With the repetition of the same postures in each class, we have both learned patience. Because focus and breathing are so important to this practice we have also learned how to let go of things that really don't matter. And through the lesson of how each day, our bodies are different we have gained a better understanding of our relationship with effort and outcome. Sarah Jane is able to sleep at night and a skin condition I have had since junior high school has cleared up.
