Is Ashtanga Yoga is Better than Bikram Yoga?

Whoa! Calm down. I know the title seems smug, but let me explain.

I began practicing Bikram yoga about 4 years ago. Ridding myself of toxins by sweating like crazy and obtaining enormous gains in flexibility really appealed to me, or, uh, my ego, actually, so I signed up and practiced regularly. After the first few classes, even with many different instructors, a continuous theme started revealing itself to me. The no bullshit, no excuses, no hesitating attitude began to envelope me, and I fell in love with Bikram yoga, even though I barely made it through the first class without bolting from the 42-degree room. In fact, I barely made it through my first two weeks. Dizziness and nausea followed me everywhere, but yet I kept going, falling deeper and deeper in love. Weird? I know. To be that excited about something that was making me ill seems silly, doesn’t it? But somehow I knew I needed to continue. Bikram yoga was opening my eyes to a problem I let lay dormant for so long I nearly forgot about it. Extremely low blood pressure, difficulty balancing electrolytes, and a pretty severe aversion to any extreme temperature have been issues of mine since early childhood. There was a sense that if I just kept going, it would all work itself out. And it did. Well mostly. Until I started training again… I’m a cyclist. Well, I ride a mountain bike everywhere. I ride to work, I ride to mountain biking rides, I ride to parties, I ride to the climbing gym, and I ride to yoga classes. I am an athlete, and this is where the problem lies. Bikram is a beautiful, effective practice and art. So beautiful in fact, that I couldn’t continue my usual activities while doing it. The 90 minutes I was spending in the studio were literally all my body could tolerate for the day, sometimes 2 or 3 days. Listening and being highly in tune with my body is a skill I developed over 25 years of dance training. My body was without a doubt saying, Stop. It was shutting down. There were days I couldn’t make it up the stairs without needing a break. Waking up in the hospital and learning I passed out and the ambulance came to rescue me was my breaking point. I either had to pick Bikram yoga or mountain biking, but I couldn’t do both. Bikram yoga got canned, but my body began to ache from the lack of stretching.

While researching Ashtanga yoga retreats for my website, I began to learn a little bit about this other hardcore type of yoga. Then I began to try it and experience it. Sadly, there is no official Ashtanga yoga instructor in my home town or anywhere within a 3-hour commute. You see, it’s very difficult to obtain an authentic Ashtanga yoga teaching certificate compared to other styles of yoga, so that means there are significantly fewer teachers. So I ordered some DVDs, and I committed myself. Ashtanga yoga is no easy task. I was exhausted after the first few times trying it, but slowly my body became accustomed to it, so I could push a little bit harder, and slowly I got a little bit stronger each week. Note: NOT each practice. The progress is slow and steady, measured over months and years rather than days and weeks. My body has responded to this in such a way that I now feel stronger and healthier physically, emotionally, mentally, and somewhat spiritually.

One of the biggest differences between Bikram yoga and Ashtanga yoga is how heat is applied. In Bikram, they heat the room to a hot temperature, helping the muscles to warm up and reach the maximum point of flexibility faster and easier. And, oh boy does it ever feel good the first time your forehead hits your shins in a forward bend, with your knees completely locked out? Ashtanga yoga is practiced at room temperature, working to heat the body up using your own internal fire. Essentially, you’re training the body to warm itself internally. And here’s the kicker. If the body is heated externally, it will not learn to heat itself up on it’s own. As an experienced dancer, I was always careful about dancing in warm temperatures because, even though I felt warm, if I hadn’t gone through the proper warm-up, the muscles hadn’t really increased circulation, thereby increasing the risk of injury. In other words, I injured myself while dancing in warm temperatures simply because I felt warm but, in fact was externally warm and not internally warm. Huge difference.

I’m a hardcore naturalist. I don’t like to use any crutches. Arch supports, cushioned runners, tensor bandages, body lotions, hair conditioner, prescribed eyeglasses just a touch over what you actually need, pain killers, anti-inflammatories, are all crutches. Just leaving the body alone and letting it do it’s thing, without running to the pharmacy to solve every little discomfort will make the body stronger and more efficient.  Anything that makes it easier for your body to do something, that eventually your body would just fix naturally is considered a crutch and will make it weaker and less efficient. And yes you guessed it, a heated yoga studio is now on that crutch list. In fact, soon my current yoga studio will be a tad bit cooler to help challenge my ability to heat itself up. An externally heated room makes it easier for you to stretch and reach maximum flexibility. But at a cost. The cost for me was it took everything out of me so that I couldn’t maintain my cycling training schedule. But more importantly, I completely lost my ability to warm up my body. Rooms that were below 22 degrees, were my nemesis. I was so bundled up in the winter, I could barely move my arms and legs. And… I live on Vancouver Island. An extremely mild climate with winter temperatures rarely dipping below 0 degrees Celsius or 32 Fahrenheit. In the summer we’re blessed with sunshine for months on end with temperatures hovering around 25 degrees Celsius or 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I was cold all the time. Until I was months into my Ashtanga yoga practice. My cold tolerance was increasing. My mental ability to overcome obstacles was increasing. The act of graciously accepting things just as they were and working within that realm without applying it as a limitation or flaw was weaving itself into my daily life, motivating me in a different, yet wonderful way.

Today, people are becoming accustomed to having every little discomfort alleviated immediately, making them weak and unhappy. Ashtanga takes a different approach.

I noticed during my Ashtanga vs. Bikram Yoga Retreat research that Bikram yoga retreats were mostly high-end, expensive luxury retreats. Ashtanga yoga retreats were simple and basic. Read between the lines, and you’ll see Ashtanga Yogi’s don’t need to be surrounded by luxury to be happy. They are just happy as is. This is something I deeply aspire to. Happiness is a choice, not dependent on the thread count of the bed sheets. We all have our boundaries that can seem immovable, and some people will never truly understand why acceptance is really the fastest way to obtain your deepest desires. Ashtanga yoga simply makes you delve into why these boundaries exist; it might push these boundaries around a little bit and force you to decide whether it’s worth all the effort to maintain their existence. That in itself is worth every minute I’ve put into Ashtanga, and it’s a better and more effective practice for me than Bikram. I understand there are many Bikram lovers out there who won’t share my beliefs, but I’m okay with that. I do think that as human beings, we need to continually question what we are told is good for us, experiment with an open mind and heart, listen to our bodies, and push our boundaries. Then, upon doing so, we can discover what is truly needed in our life.