'Yoga is therapeutic'

Not just a slim, svelte body, but also a mind that is healthy and stress-free -that is what regular yoga gives you. A daily session purifies and removes toxins from your body thereby improving the quality of your skin and hair noticeably. Yoga is therapeutic and uses high breathing techniques which help people to cope with day-to-day stress and also improves respiratory, cardiovascular, skeleton and digestive system. We get Rajashree Choudhury to talk about Bikram Hot Yoga. How is hot yoga different rom other forms of yoga? It is not different; it is the traditional Hatha Yoga we practice in a heated room in which only 26 postures of Hatha Yoga are done over a 90-minute session under one instructor where teachers do not support the student to perfect any posture. Students are motivated to use their mental strength to perform. How did Bikram come up with it? Bikram Choudhury began learning Hatha Yoga poses at the age of three. At five, he began studying with Bishnu Ghosh (Paramahansa Yogananda's brother) and won the National India Yoga Championship four consecutive years in his teens.With the guidance of his guru, Bikram created his 26 posture series which restored his health. At 14, Swami Shivananda declared him "Yogi Raj" (King of the Yogis). At age 20, a weightlifting accident crippled Bikram. Although he was told he would never be able to walk again, with the help of Ghosh, he claims to have fully recovered within 6 months. As an adult he opened yoga schools in India and Japan, and in 1972 he opened his first U.S. school in San Francisco. Bikram arrived in the United States in 1973. Celebrities, athletes, and others began to flock to him. His main school is currently near Hollywood, California. In the 1990s he began offering nine-week teacher certification courses, and certified instructors now number in the thousands with Bikram Yoga studios all over the world. Bikram Yoga has been tested and studied by scientists and after their certification of being safe it was launched for people and since then the number of people benefited from it are innumerable. Is hot yoga is more beneficial? Any side effects? There are no side effects of Bikram Yoga. People try their high potential physically and emotionally. It is more beneficial because it is also therapeutic. It uses high breathing techniques which help people to cope with day-to-day stress and also improves respiratory, cardio vascular, skeleton and digestive system. The 90 minutes session requires a lot of concentration and balance and it is also tough. But when you finish the class, the person feels the best.