It has been ages since I have sat down and written anything good, bad, or ugly. I had a few very busy months flying back and forth to Ohio as my father slowly lost his fight with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. No one tells you when you are young that right when you have YOUR life together and are happy that one of the best people in your life will leave you feeling so lost you don't think you will ever feel good again. I am a work in progress every day, and I miss him every day, just like I have missed my mom since she passed away 8 1/2 years ago. It really does feel like you are suddenly an orphan, that no one will ever love you as much as those two people did.
I will say, as quickly as I can because while this is not yoga but it is about life, my dad was my hero! He worked his whole life from the time he was 8 when his dad died. He and mom who had also lost her dad young, did an amazing job at raising us with love, tenderness, morals and ethics and anything we have done wrong since then is PURELY our fault!
ANYWAY, I have been to a couple of "Bikram" yoga studios in the last month, Breathe Hot Yoga, in Seattle, WA,and Cel Rejuvenation Center in Portland, OR.
Breath Hot Yoga is a very nice open studio with a lot of room and a very interesting set up in the yoga studio. They have two rows up front where the heat is 105, then as the rows go toward the back the intensity of the heat dissipates to 85. The first day I went after a long time between any kind of yoga at all, I was in the third row and was very comfortable. When I moved up, that was great too since I have grown very fond of the sweat falling into my eyes.....
The teachers are very good, they do a few different routines that the first day were a little strange but grew on me. The yoga on the floor they do one of each of the 4 positions then they rest then do them again. Then the first two sitting postures are ganged together which is a little less fluid but worked for me. The teachers are very good about correcting people here an there without being obnoxious about it. This studio has a very nice changing room with plenty of space too! They have yoga mats and towels for rent and sale and a few yoga clothes. They also have a personal trainer to teach other methods of physical fitness.
One of the things i liked about this studio and the Cel Rejuvenation Center in Portland, is they have wooden floors. I do not have super hyper sensitive sense of smell but I do have to say, I have been to a few studios that have a pungent odor that no amount of carpet cleaning will ever dissolve. The wooden floors really do away with any smell at all and they just FEEL cleaner!
The Cel Rejuvenation Center (CRC) was the former Bikram PDX, still owned by the same woman but they now have this center with a lot of different types of yogas, Nia, and Yin to name two. They also have a massage therapist and a Live Food Cafe. The official Bikram is now across the river but they still have some Bikram classes at this studio. When I was first trying to find it on the map I kept coming up with different information because of the remake of the Bikram and the renaming of the original to CRC. When they were told of the difficulty of doing a web search the people at the studio were on top of it to make sure it wouldn't be hard for anyone else.
The owner has taught the three classes I have been to and she is very good. She has a great patter and a feel for when to help people to get the most out of the pose. They have a great heat there and a natural Portland humidity right now since it has rained every day for two weeks!
I am off to Sedona, AZ next week and haven't yet had a chance to research yoga there. Hoping to do a few classes between some major hiking and meditation!
Speaking of meditation, I did a great set of private classes in Charlotte, NC with Ranjit Deora, http://www.charlottemeditation.com/
He is a fantastic teacher and mentor with tons of experience! While I still have problems sticking to my schedule, Ranjit gave me a lot to work with in the future and keeps in touch via email!
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