Bikram Yoga: Masochism or Rational Theatrical Practice?

by Emily Hardy

I started practicing Bikram Yoga in 2009 and class is as agonising now as it was on day one. Tortured for the full 90 minutes by my lack of elasticity and the defeatist voices in my head, I wonder what motivates me; there must be something (besides deep-rooted masochism) that keeps me going back? (Tolerate my antagonism - I am going somewhere with this).

Bikram is tough, time-consuming and pricey but there I am, day after day, with my mat, towels and water. I'm not alone either. Bikram is absolutely bursting to the rafters with creatives, actors, singers and dancers. For two, seemingly unrelated industries, I've come to the conclusion that Bikram Yoga and the performing arts are not altogether dissimilar.

For those of you yet to experience the chamber of horrors, Bikram Yoga consists of twenty-six postures and two breathing exercises that work "every muscle, tendon, joint, ligament, organ and gland in the body." So far, so good! But there is a catch... The room is heated to approximately 40˚C. You, and up to one hundred other victims, gather in a humid room (much like Inferno’s on a Saturday night) and together, "flush toxins from the body through sweating." Sweat drips persistently from your elbows, down your legs, into your eyes and, comically, from the end of your nose. Your mat steadily begins to resemble a small pond.

Feigning optimism, I recently dragged myself back to Bikram after a six month absence. As I should have predicted, the experience was far from pleasant. In the same way the mind apparently erases the pain of childbirth, my mind had seemingly forgotten the extent of the nausea and dizziness that rapidly ensues. I went a shade of green and, struggling to keep down my Shreddies, defiantly sat and waited for my heart rate to recover - my silent mantra: "Stay in the room, don't throw up. Stay in the room, don't throw up." As it happens, I did survive to tell the tale. I lightheadedly stumbled into the crowded changing room and, dehydrated now, clumsily manoeuvred between hordes of sweaty, naked women (this really is not as erotic as it sounds), grabbed my things and made a swift exit.

The twist is this: I went back the following day, and the day after that. A few classes later, an instructor with 26 years teaching experience said the following and it all clicked into place...

"This Yoga doesn't just improve the flexibility in your legs or in your spine. It teaches you how to be flexible of mind. Only when you learn to be truly flexible will you sour through and tolerate anything an individual teacher, or indeed life, may throw at you."

When the instructor uttered this wisdom, she hit upon the explanation I'd been seeking. The potentially irritating variables thrown our way in Bikram (the sweat, the teacher's tone, an overly vocal or tactile neighbour) can no more disturb us from the practice than variables thrown at us on stage (the audience, the energy, a missed line, etc.) The script remains identical, and yet no two classes and no two performances are ever the same. It is the ability to adjust, adapt and tolerate that allows us to survive in our much loved industry in the long term, so this Yoga might just be excellent practice, rehearsal even, for both the physical and the mental demands of a career in the industry. We have to learn, as the wise lady said, to be flexible.

The glamorous, privileged life people associate with acting represents only a fraction of the industry. In reality, the majority of us face incredibly challenging work conditions on a daily basis and Bikram can teach us to resist and dismiss the sort of distractions that may arise within uncomfortable conditions. Participants are required to stay present and focused, regardless of the temptation to think of something else, anything else. Staying focused in the hot studio is an achievement in itself and excellent preparation for a performance during a downpour at the Regents Park open-air Theatre or for entertaining at a kid’s party with four-year-olds tugging at your trouser leg, for example.

Additionally, we performers can occasionally struggle to achieve a sense of spontaneity - inevitable really after four hundred performances or eighty takes of the same scene. (I recently spotted someone yawning on the barricades). Every Bikram teacher works from a set script, and in time, the body wants to rely upon muscle memory and automatically initiate the movements. However, they remind and encourage us to react to the instructions without anticipation, pre-emptying nothing, like listening and responding to a cue line as if hearing it for the first time.

The challenges in Bikram can resemble those faced during tough dance classes or auditions; Yogis are expected to be graceful, stay balanced and move with elegance into and out of the postures, even when dehydrated, weak and nauseous. If your body can work through all that, you can trust it to work through nerves, for example. Furthermore, the deep, deep backward bending in class can stir deep-rooted emotions such as anger or sadness, helping us to access these feelings more easily in performance.

So, there's my rationale and it's all the justification I need. After class, breathing deeply and standing taller, I feel confident that very little can faze me. It is human nature to challenge ourselves. Performers know that better than anyone, and when I have successfully endured those ninety minutes of Bikram, I am unstoppable, even if I do look like a beetroot in a wig. That's not to say that I buy into everything the yoga teaches. My cynical/rational self winces at the faux-scientific jargon, similar to what you find on a bottle of Pantene Pro-V. But learning to be flexible in yoga prepares us to tolerate any eventuality, in life or on stage, and might just ease some of the trauma that comes hand in hand with careers in this heartbreaking industry.

I initially went to Bikram in order to feel less guilty about eating whole chocolate oranges in single sittings and because I wanted to to be a bit bendier but now it is about more than that. Going to Bikram makes me feel like I have proactively (if abstractly) gone about improving my performance skills and I leave with a fantastic sense of achievement ... along with insatiable hunger. If you've never been to Bikram, give it a go. I'm not saying it's pleasant or easy, but after the first few classes, when you start seeing small changes, improvements in your posture, breathing, and ability to focus (not to mention more definition in your abs), then you will understand why I and a thousand other performers keep going back.

Emily Hardy @Emily_L_Hardy

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