National Competition

I haven't posted in a few weeks, but I'm still here, still practicing, but very busy. I have a few posts I want to get to in the near future. Just a reminder to everyone that the U.S. national competition is this weekend in L.A. Three people from Vegas will be there competing, two guys and a girl. You can check out usayoga.org for details on the event. Apparently they are going to stream it live on line too, so check it out!

Greg

Yoga as a Competitive Sport

452 classes (10 advanced) in 439 days.

As many of you may know, it is a goal of Bikram and his wife to get yoga into the Olympics as an official sport at some point down the road. This would of course greatly increase the visibility of Hatha Yoga in general and Bikram Yoga in particular. It would also make it possible to get Bikram Yoga being taught in schools because it would be considered an official sport, which would be absolutely fantastic. There are a few points which I believe would greatly facilitate this and make it happen much sooner.

The first point is there needs to be a clear distinction between Bikram Yoga as a form of exercise/healing/meditation and Bikram Yoga as a competitive sport. This can be quite a difficult task, as practically no one considers yoga as a competitive sport, including many people who practice it. Some people even have large objections to yoga competitions in general. I’m not going to get into those arguments here other than to say that promoting yoga as a sport would introduce more people to yoga than practically anything else.

Making the distinction between the practice of yoga for its many benefits and yoga as a competitive sport really isn’t that difficult. Almost every competitive sport you see is also done by people just for fun, or for health benefits. There are far more people that run or jog for fun and health reasons than run in competitive marathons. The same goes for anything you see in the Olympics, ice skating, skiing, basketball, whatever. Just because some people compete in those sports doesn’t mean the sports don’t have their own intrinsic benefits to anyone who wants to participate.

The second point is that in order to promote yoga as a sport, it needs to be covered in the media as a sport. This is almost entirely non-existent as far as I can tell. I scour the internet often for media on Bikram Yoga and it’s always covered as some sort of human interest or health story. This is fine, except even yoga competitions in different areas get covered as some sort of cute and quirky activity and not as a sport. There is an excellent website called usayoga.org which does provide data on the different regional competitions in the U.S., but the media coverage really needs to be expanded to the sports world.

Look, in addition to the “main” sports in this country, ESPN covers things such as fishing, bowling and poker. I think we can fit in yoga competitions somewhere in the sports media if these other activities get coverage. I’m not suggesting ESPN starts covering regional yoga competitions, at least right away, but local sports media should absolutely be informed when a yoga competition is going on, not to mention maybe some other websites dedicated to competitions (I already have some of my own ideas for this).

One more thing, if any of these media types balk and scoff at the idea of covering the yoga competitions as a sport, just bring them to the hot room for a class:)

Greg

Three Minutes

442 classes (10 advanced) in 429 days.

Three minutes – that’s how long the routines are for the yoga competition. As discussed earlier, you do seven postures, five compulsory and two optional generally taken from the advanced series. The five compulsory postures are Standing Head to Knee, Standing Bow, Bow, Rabbit and Stretching. You do these seven postures in a routine that has to be three minutes or less. This weekend we had the Nevada Regional Championships and I got to experience the longest three minutes of my life. Not even three minutes actually, I was a little under that. To end the suspense, no I didn’t win. Both the men’s and women’s winners were from Reno, and they were excellent. Second and Third went to people from Vegas, who were also awesome.

But back to the three minutes – I can assure you there is quite a difference doing postures in class in a nice hot room and doing postures outdoors on a stage in front of a bunch of people. We’re one of the only places I know of that holds the competition outdoors. We’re able to do it, because of the climate, but it was “only” about 75-80 degrees when we went on. While I was up there doing my routine, I got to hear traffic going by, a cell phone (turn off your phones!!), some kid screaming, and oh yeah, a big gust of wind while I was in Standing Head to Knee! I held Standing Head to Knee fine, but that wind freaked me out for a second there.

I knew I would be nervous, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I was quite calm when I walked on stage which was a nice. The big surprise for me was how I felt when I finished my routine and walked off stage – utterly euphoric. Hard to explain, but it was one of the best feelings of my life. It hit me at that exact point what I had actually accomplished. Countless hours of practice, doing advanced class, practicing my routine, etc. I saw various people waffle about competing and then drop out. Most people won’t even consider competing, but I stuck it out and in the end it was absolutely worth it. My practice is so much better because I trained for competition and I got to train with some absolutely wonderful people who went through the same things as I did. You get to know people pretty well when you spend lots of time in the hot room together!

The picture above is of me practicing my routine at my studio.

Thanks to my studio Green Valley, all my coaches (especially Sheri), all my fellow competitors (special shout out to Melissa who I think came to every single coaching session) and everyone who encouraged me along the way. And yes, I’ll be back next year, already working on my routine…

Greg

Training for Competition

424 classes (8 advanced) in 411 days.

The Nevada competition is fast approaching, and is now less than three weeks away. For over a month now, I've been training for this, along with the various other competitors. Of course, we've had a few people drop out over the past month, but we still have a decent group of people getting ready to compete.

For those unfamiliar with competition, you have three minutes to do seven postures. Five compulsory postures and two optional ones. The five compulsory postures are Standing Head to Knee, Standing Bow Pulling, Floor Bow, Rabbit and Stretching. The two optional postures are basically taken from the advanced series, and there's lots of choices.

Our training consists of various exercises to improve the postures, walk walking (great band bends), practicing each part of Standing Head to Knee, etc. And of course, practicing the routines, over and over again. It definitely takes some getting used to not doing postures in front of a mirror, since we're not going to be looking in a mirror on stage! Then we have various teachers give critiques of the postures. It's amazing to me how many details there are to every posture. You get some idea of this practicing in class all the time, but training really gives you a deeper understanding of the postures and how they're supposed to look.

And yes, I'm nervous! But it's been a fun experience so far, and my practice has certainly improved a lot, even though I'm very sore of late!

Greg