The World Is A'Changin'

I don't like change much, especially when something is already good.  But the world seems to have a way of twisting things around so one day you go to buy your favorite blush and they've discontinued the color (yes, this traumatic tale HAS indeed happened to me....).

Bikram yoga is like the Starbucks of the yoga world - or so I thought.  Every studio you go to looks about the same, the instructors say the same thing, you do the same poses, you have close to the same heat, you sweat the same (most of the time) and things are good that way.  But, as I discovered yesterday evening, things don't always stay the same - sometimes they take the thing you love, give it a makeover and send it out and then it walks past you and you don't recognize it but then you do a double take and you're like "wait - wha...?" and everyone else is like "ahhh - you look SOOOO good!" and you're like "heh, yay, sure, you look.... great?  I mean, I kind of liked you the way you were before, but hey..." and then you just keep on staring uncomfortably and you're thinking in your gut "I don't like it, but maybe I'm the crazy one because everyone else likes it?....."

Have I put too much thought into change?  Well - I should!

Because my beloved Chicago Bikram studio has taken the yoga I love and gave it a makeover and sent it out on the street - AND I CRIED!  Ok, I didn't really cry, but I definitely said "I don't like it" -- literally, I told them "I don't like it...."

Brilliant Bikram Chodroy, the man who created the Bikram Yoga series, wisely demanded that carpet be put in biram studios as part of the series, you straddle your mat and do these deep stretches and because you're so extremely sweaty, if you were on anything but carpet, you'd slip and do the splits unintentionally and you'd wind up with some series bodliy harm.  Every studio that I've been in around the country has carpet.  Sometimes its smelly, but you get over it - I mean the gym is often smelly but you go there to sweat so its cool.  And, most places have a cleaning regimen with the carpet so its not that bad.  AND all the floor poses you do are on your mat so its no big whoop.  AND you're surrounded by some really REALLY smelly people to begin with so, the floor stinking, is not your worst problem.

There was one studio that I went to in Budapest and they had a hardwood floor, which seems really clean and easy to sanitize, but you have to do poses differently because you can't put your sweaty feet on the floor because of the bodily harm as mentioned above.  I hated it!

Friday evening,  my heart was betrayed when I found my favorite studio "Budapested".  While I was otherwise preoccupied over the holidays and not able to get down for a class, they went and tore up that aweseome waterproof carpet that they had and put in this funky, sticky "hardwood" floor.  AND biram yoga for me has changed.  NOOOOOOOOOO!!

Bunch of stupid wimpy people who complained about the "smell" (which I still protest was non-existent) and the "wet floor" (you're not doing yoga directly on the floor).  Grow up and do bikram the way it was meant to be done!  So you get sweaty, so its a little smelly.... buck up and strike a pose.

Please don't change anything else .....