West is Hot on Bikram Yoga

As you may remember from a post last February, I’m a Bikram Yoga junkie. That’s right, I have to have it. I wrote about how it helps me focus and how much it’s changed my life. Well, here we are six months later and over a year into my practice and I’m still as devoted as ever. But since that time, West’s relationship with two local yoga studios has grown and they have become two of our favorite clients as well. Reston Yoga is where I got my start. The owner, director, Rima Hinawi is a friend and a client. She truly cares about the folks that practice at her studio and it shows in everything she does. The Reston studio is warm and inviting and the community there is like a family. Even though the teachers teach the same thing day after day, they are all unique and each class is a new experience. Rima has been working on a refresh of the studio and each time I go there’s a new surprise (new floors, new paint in the bathrooms, new plans for changing rooms, an orange juice machine). We’ve been working on some more logo clothing along with an event poster for the studio. Hopefully, soon we’ll start working on the website and additional marketing collateral.

And, since I started to practice, one of my favorite teachers and dear friend, Insel Metin, opened a studio IN OUR BUILDING. Hot Yoga Bikram Tysons opened a few weeks ago and I am proud to say that I was in the very first class open to the public. Of course I got to walk through the space when it was just a thought and then each time a milestone was achieved. We designed the logo, brochure and marketing collateral for the studio and I could not be more thrilled to be able to just walk downstairs to get my fix. Insel’s studio is very high tech. It’s got a very sophisticated heating system that cleans itself and everything is ultra green. The yoga room is spacious and bright with interesting artwork placed carefully about. The atmosphere is very modern and inviting. Bikram Tysons has a lot of new students from the Tysons area, so each class is full of the energy from that wonder that comes from discovery. I’ve gotten to see some old friends and meet some new ones. The teachers are fantastic–some that I’ve never met before and some that I know from other studios, and of course the famous Insel!

As a reminder, Bikram Yoga is a series of 26 postures completed in an order specifically designed to provide optimal health and longevity. The routine is dynamic and exhilarating. Classes are 90 minutes long and are conducted in a room heated to about 105 to 110°F to warm up the whole body, to work the body deep into muscles, tendons and ligaments and change/regenerate the body from the inside out. In a three year research project at Tokyo University Hospital, Bikram helped doctors prove that Yoga regenerates tissues and thus helps cure chronic ailments

I’m not gonna lie. The classes are hard. It’s hot and you sweat a a lot. But, once you get over the hump and learn to focus on what you’re doing, you forget all about the heat and pay attention only to breathing and getting the postures right (and not falling over). They are hard and taxing, but each time I get closer to doing a posture correctly, I have such a feeling of accomplishment. This is not your every day yoga. It’s an unbelievable workout and it’s one of the only exercises that I’ve ever done where it doesn’t matter if you do it perfectly. As long as you try, you get the benefits of the postures. Pretty cool. If you want to try something different, come to Reston or Tysons and try it out. I’m working on getting the whole office down to the Tyson Studio for some corporate sweating. We’ll see how that goes. I’ll keep you posted.

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