The Bikram practice makes a big deal out of the importance of staying in the room, no matter how hot, tired, sick or terrible you feel. The idea is that this trains you to put up with terrible situations outside the room with an equanimity that advantages you. It’s not that it makes you passive in the face of torture, but rather that it lets you do the hard stuff, while lengthening your reaction time when the hard stuff happens to you. After 90 continuous minutes in the hot room, you can leave and do what earlier seemed like a big deal: Shoot off that awkward email, make that call you’re dreading or sign up for that challenging course.
Sometimes you can tell a student is struggling to stay, but there’s a moment where they resign themselves to it. You can tell by the way their energy transforms, from miserable to stoic, from terror to calm, or just from “WTAF” to “I think I can actually do this”. In that moment between wanting to leave and deciding to stay, that person is working the absolutely hardest of everybody in that room. Often those are the classes where the magic then really happens, maybe through learning some humility, or perhaps having a more physical breakthrough.
I’ve had two students leave. The first was a man who said he’d done a Bikram class before. He interrupted me speaking during standing deep breathing to ask me to demonstrate; if he’d done Bikram before, as he’d claimed, he would have known the class is dialogue-driven and not demonstrated. If he’d asked a bit more nicely, I would have shown him, I think, but there was something arrogant in the way he demanded I show him, so I instructed him to listen instead. He lasted a few more breaths and walked out. The lesson: Catch all first-time studio visitors and be sure they understand the classes are primarily a listening and breathing exercise, even if they claim to have practised Bikram before.
The second was a good friend who had started practising at my encouragement and had only been to a few classes. She started to walk out during the standing series. We had a short exchange, and I still couldn’t believe she was leaving, so I grasped her chin between my thumb and palm and said something like, “Really?! Come on!” She still left and I couldn’t BELIEVE I’d done it. I was mortified! I absolutely would not have done it if I had not known her well, but it was still a transgression in that space. Of course, I apologised. She still practices (and says she’d never leave again).
The only class I’ve struggled to stay in myself was a few years into practice when I had a heated phone call with someone just before starting the class. The challenge wasn’t really physical; I was so furious I couldn’t breathe steadily during standing deep breathing and it took every ounce of effort to stay there.
I took another class in Singapore more recently, when I had already started teaching, and was unwell but determined to do the class. By standing bow I was on my knees; by triangle I was in savasana; by cobra I was in the foetal position BUT THERE WAS NO WAY I WAS LEAVING. And the teacher actually gave a beautiful little chat about how we each buoy each other up just by being in the room. I appreciated her sentiment and her belief that I was even still listening to her.
And then the other day I had a student who shifted my perspective on this a little again. She was sitting out the second set of each pose during a 90, and when we got to savasana, asked whether I minded if she stayed, or I wanted her to leave because she was bringing the class energy down. It had never occurred to me that a student might not think they were welcome in the room once they had started a class. I told her to stay. Take a savasana! Take a nap! This student, maybe, needed to learn whatever you call the opposite of humility. I do think that just by showing up, we’re connecting to the people in the room and helping them with our presence, our breath, our own effort to stay.
What I’m reading: The New Yorker’s interview with the amazing and wise Esther Perel. I’ve recommended Mating in Captivity to everyone I know, and her podcast is riveting—you can never quite predict what her method or advice will be (reminding me a little of Cheryl Strayed in Tiny Beautiful Things).