Triple digit yoga - It's sweaty. It's intense.It's boot camp - Bikram yoga
If you miss the triple-digit heat of summer
and are itching to get a bit of exercise, Amy
Pittelkau has a deal for you.
Pittelkau recently opened Blue Moon Yoga, a
northeast Fresno studio that specializes in
Bikram yoga. It's a standardized program of
26 poses performed in 90 minutes inside a room
heated to 105 degrees.
Sweating yet?
Like other forms of yoga, Bikram emphasizes
balance and a mind-body connection. It also
features poses that, when performed masterfully,
fold practitioners into origamilike figures.
But in addition to the heat (yes, even during
summer -- a specially engineered commercial
furnace keeps the temperature high), Bikram
differs from other types of yoga in its strict
regimen, intensity and constant instruction.
"This yoga is so demanding," Pittelkau
says. "You want to see what you're made
of in class. You work to your capacity."
Romy Yoshimoto of Fresno takes four yoga classes
a week. Until now, she's had to travel beyond
the Valley to satisfy her craving for Bikram.
While she enjoys how limber she feels while
doing it, she is ambivalent about this approach
to yoga.
"I like the fact that it's so extreme,"
she says. "The moment you walk into the
room, you're very warm. So you're working at
your maximum.
"On the other hand, I can't handle it
that often. It's like a treat to me because
it's so extreme. You never want too much of
a good thing. You just sweat too much."
Pittelkau says some people call Bikram "boot
camp" yoga.
She began practicing in 1999 while living in
San Francisco. A dental hygienist who swam,
ran and lifted weights as a bodybuilder, Pittelkau
began suffering chronic disabilities related
to fibromyalgia, an arthritis-related condition.
"I was immobile," she says. "I
couldn't drive. I was bedridden. I was sleeping
16 hours a day. I was taking medication."
Her physical therapist suggested yoga. Though
Pittelkau was reluctant to go, once she started,
she was immediately smitten.
"I was blown away," she says. She
watched in awe as a woman nearby, a dancer,
moved through her poses. "It wasn't her
flexibility or her beauty. It was her stillness.
She was calm. She seemed so in control of her
mind and her body."
A year later, many of Pittelkau's symptoms
had waned. She was ready to start teaching.
After moving to San Luis Obispo, she opened
a studio in 2001. She sold the business four
years later, after moving to North Fork.
Pittelkau, 43, has tried other types of yoga.
"I call it cold yoga," she says.
"I love the heat. So when I take a cold-yoga
class, I feel tight. I feel congested in my
body. I don't feel like I can move as freely."
Yoshimoto first tried a Bikram yoga class in
Sacramento a few years ago after a long night
of partying. It was not pretty.
"I almost passed out twice, since I had
so many toxins in my body," she says. "It
was hot."
She has reservations about the strict program,
which was developed by Bikram Choudhury of India.
But she's happy to have it as one option among
many yogas.
"Bikram is militant," Yoshimoto says.
"To me, that defeats the philosophy of
yoga: 'Do what you can.'"
Generally, in yoga, "There are lots of
variations for a certain pose," she says.
"You do what you're in the mood for, do
what you're feeling. If you're hurting, don't
push it. Where this is the same 26 poses, whatever
Bikram studio you go to. It's standardized.
It's Starbucks."
Still, it appeals to certain athletic types
who might otherwise be reluctant to try yoga.
The contrast between the soft, soothing ambiance
of many classes and the Bikram that Pittelkau
teaches is evident right away. Among the poses
students strike are common ones, such as the
Rabbit and the Camel, but the result is more
hot and sweaty than soft and fuzzy.
Pittelkau's instruction is nonstop, freewheeling
and blunt.
"I remember taking a Sunday morning class
for my second class, thinking, 'Sunday morning.
Quiet!'" Pittelkau says. "But that's
how this yoga is conducted."
She's part drill sergeant, part cheerleader.
Between suggestions on how the students should
move -- "Let your head drop like a 10-pound
bowling ball" -- she explains the reality
of exercising in what amounts to a sauna.
"If you see some stars, you're doing it
right," she says. "It's not unusual
to have room spins after that pose."
The lights are left on. There's no meditative
music. A mirror takes up one wall, running the
length of the room.
Jennifer Peracchi Harmon, 28, of Fresno, began
taking Bikram classes from Pittelkau a few years
ago in San Luis Obispo. After moving to Fresno,
she'd given up the practice until Blue Moon
Yoga opened.
She likes having the mirror staring her in
the face.
"It forces you to become connected with
yourself," she says. "If you fall
out of your posture, you see that. You feel
it, and you experience it, and you have to get
back into it and do it again."
Pittelkau says she encounters three types of
students:
"One says: 'This is kind of cool. I like
this kind of challenge. It's hot, but I'm going
to check it out and do my best.'
"The second kind is: 'I'm not sure about
this. I think I want to leave. I think I'm going
to vomit.'
"Then the third one: 'I'm out of here.
You're a bitch, and your hot yoga sucks.'"
Fortunately, Stephanie Massetti, 27, of Fresno,
is the first kind of student. She hits the gym
several times a week to lift weights and run
on the treadmill, but she'd never taken a yoga
class before Blue Moon's opening night.
She had no problems with most of the poses,
nor the heat.
"I felt like I was actually working and
cleansing my body, detoxifying," she says.
Harmon knows what she means.
"Being in an air-conditioned room for
45 minutes doesn't cut the cake," she says.
"Bikram is a challenge. It is a mind-body-spirit
connection. It brings you together. I feel more
grounded, so I can be more productive.
"It's a great workout, so I don't have
to go run."
