Finding your inner sensei with hot yoga
By Juliet Sanders,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–
When you first enter the small, dark purple room, the heat hits your body like a wall. The instructor goes to her mat and begins with the downward dog position. Instantly, the class of 20 students copy her pose.
This is the typical experience most people have upon entering hot yoga studios like the Bikram Yoga studio on 2nd Street. These kinds of studios have been popping up all over Davis, due to the increasing popularity of hot yoga.
There are now over nine hot yoga studios spread out throughout Davis. A study done by the American College of Sports and Medicine showed that yoga was ranked in the top ten trends for 2014 and 2015.
“Yoga has gotten a lot of attention in the media because a lot of movie stars and bloggers are doing it,” Erin Dunning, a teacher at Bikram Davis, said. Whether you hear about it from the stars of your favorite show or the Victoria Secret models, the yoga lifestyle has been propelled into the spotlight.
“A lot of people search for that mind body balance. People nowadays need that kind of calm in our society,” owner of FitHouse gym Jen Miramontes said.
“It feels like I can cleanse my body, there’s this mind body connection you can’t get anywhere else,” Becky Ramirez said. Ramirez has been a practicing yoga student for a couple years, and it’s one of her favorite forms of exercise.
Yoga is also beneficial for your health. According to a study done by the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, people who had been practicing yoga for a year had a 43 percent decrease in their use of health services.
Yoga is known to be a stress and anxiety reliever. “The different types of breathing and positions help take your mind out of everyday life, which gives you this calming feeling,” Laura Murray, a yoga teacher at FitHouse gym, said.
For most people, yoga is meant to calm the mind and exercise the body; however for a small amount of people, it has become a kind of religion.
“Religion is in the eye of the beholder. A lot of people need it as a sanctuary and something they can rely on,” Miramontes said.
“Like anything Westernized, it can be anything you need it to be,”Jamie Testa, a yoga teacher at Akasha Yoga in Davis, said. Yoga can be a religion that enables people to find comfort and sanctuary within themselves, allowing them to have peace within the mind.
Murray recalls when she first started practicing yoga, and the conflict she had with her family: “I come from a Christian family, so when I started doing yoga there was controversy in my family. I don’t think they understand yoga is an ancient form of exercise that goes back 5000 years.”
Yoga has been a part of multiple religions, starting with Hinduism. The practice of yoga can be traced back thousands of years, mainly being practiced in India.
A big part of this kind of practice is the use of Om. It is believed to be the universal sound, the sound seen in all cultures and every language throughout time.
“It’s a chant that will help calm your mind and unify the class,” Murray explained.
Hot yoga itself offers countless benefits to the mind and body, according to those who practice it. “It’s really unlimited, I couldn’t even name all the benefits. It builds strength and flexibility while at the same time opens up your mind and gives clarity,” Dunning said.
Multiple studies have shown yoga also improves sleep patterns, helps depression, alleviates anxiety, causes better circulation and helps relieve pain.
“The kind of mental clarity and peace is something you’re not going to find in other kinds of exercise; yoga really offers everything” Blake Mason, teacher at Akasha Yoga, said.
