It seems I always liked things that make me sweat. I came to yoga in 1997 for the physical benefits - specifically to save my knees so I could continue to run. For the past ten years, I have relied 100% on Bikram Yoga. My knees are 100% healthy, and I can run for fun when I want to. I can now touch my toes, and the annoying pains I used to feel in my joints have vanished.

Like so many who discover yoga, I've stayed with it for another, less physical reason. Much of my adult life I spent working for America's defense. It was as-if over the years, my body had grown its own layer of armor, my mind learned to defend against unseen threats and my heart maintained constant guard. In 2001 a gentle monk penetrated my armor to plant the seed of nonviolence in my hard-packed soil. That tiny seed somehow survived. Many years later, today I feel more comfortable in my skin, more trusting of others and more calmly confident that I am standing exactly where I should be standing.

I enjoy connecting yoga principles with those of soldiering, and the more I study, the more I see striking similarities between the yoga and military service. Writing has always been one path to clarity for me. So, when I'm not in the yoga room, I enjoy writing about life and the many things yoga has taught me about it.

Day by day, I just keep showing up. I keep sweating.

I was brought to my first Bikram class in 2001. From that very first day I knew it was something that needed to be a regular in my life. In the summer of 2004 I left New England and went to LA for the teacher training. An experience I will hold near and dear. For the past seven years I have continued to grow as a teacher and as part of the BYS and Juice Box community, now a very special place in my heart!

Before suffering through my first Bikram Yoga class in August 2004 I had never stepped foot in a gym, fitness center or exercised for that matter. After taking 3 class in the first week I was ready to abandon my job and asked the instructor what was required for me to become an instructor.

The feeling after a yoga class was like nothing I had ever experienced, and I felt compelled to share the experience with others and help them feel the same wonderful things.

After one year of practice my future wife Mercy and I attended Bikram's Teacher Training in fall 2005. I taught in Reno for two years with Mercy then taught in Houston, Texas for eight months. In May 2008 Mercy and I went to Korea to teach English for one year. There was no studio but we did our best to practice the yoga we loved in our small apartment with a Bikram yoga class CD and a pot of boiling water on the stove. Later a studio opened there where I moonlighted teaching on the weekends. I returned to Reno in July 2009 and am so happy to be back in this wonderful community teaching the yoga I love.

Born and raised in Brooklyn N.Y., I found my way out west in 1994 (Marin county to be exact). My first Bikram class was sometime in 1999. I had been training for a marathon and my body was so beat up from all the miles of running. I had heard about this hardcore, hot yoga that was supposed to be an amazing workout, but also sometime that would help stretch and heal my aching muscles. I was not disappointed. That first class was like nothing I had ever experienced before, I thought I was going to die. I was immediately hooked and knew I was going to stick with this for the rest of my life. I had a yearning to go to training after my first year of practicing, but life got in the way and I just stuck with my practice. When I moved to Truckee in 2003 I was trilled to find a studio there and was able to continue my practice.

In 2008 I went back east to help care for my dad. The studio in North Carolina was 40 minutes from the house, but luckily there was one. The day my father passed I had to be in the yoga room, it was my womb, my comfort, what kept me sane, and that day I cried through the whole class. It was my step mom who pushed me to go to training, she had seen how much a part of my life the yoga was for me. And so I went to training. It was the hardest thing I ever did in my life.

I taught in N.J. my first year and a half out of training, but eventually found my way back to Truckee. Tanya would always comment on how focused our students were, and now that I'm an instructor I understand what she means. I feel blessed to be able to teach this yoga, I learn so much in that room everyday, and I'm grateful to be part of the Juice Box Yoga family.   Namaste :)

I began my Yoga journey in March of 2003 when I was 17 years old. I first came to Bikram Yoga because of chronic back pain I received from years of racing motocross, and after being involved in a series of racing accidents, I was seeing a chiropractor twice a week for over a year to help alleviate my pain with little results. I decided to try an alternative form of therapy so I took my first Bikram class at the Reno Studio. I was instantly hooked!! I loved how I could sweat out toxins, gain a strong since of mental clarity, and get a great exercise all together at the same time. Best of all, within my first 10 Bikram classes, all of my back pain was gone, and from that point I knew Yoga was going to be a major part of life!

I originally started practicing 3-5 days a week at the Sparks studio, and I would attend the Karma class with Barry almost every week for about two years, and later, as I began living in Reno again, I also started developing a very positive relationship with both the Reno and Truckee studios. I have come to know many of our students throughout our community in the Sierras and I always admire the dedication and perseverance we all bring to the mat every time we practice our favorite Yoga.

In December of 2010 I joined the Staff at Bikram Yoga Sierra and it has been a great honor to serve our community and be a part of our growing movement to help create World Peace through our own sense of Inner Peace. I attended the Teacher Training program at Bikram's Yoga College of India in spring 2012, and I am very excited to finally be a teacher here in our community.

I have been teaching Bikram Yoga since 2003. I love it. My dad told me when I was a kid that it doesn't matter what I do as long as I love what I'm doing. Mission accomplished. I have never had a desk job, and I don't think I could. I continue to change how I do what I do, but every day I get to teach a class or a seminar or a private yoga session, I am thankful and full of gratitude for everything and everyone in my life. Ain't life grand!!??

I have taught all over the world. I have had the opportunity to teach in Asia (Hong Kong, Seoul, India) as well as all over North America, including Canada, the US and Mexico...and I'm hoping to add Europe and Australia to that list over the next year...and then who knows where else!

After spending years teaching many classes I primarily teach Bikram Yoga seminars and posture clinics now. I breakdown the Bikram series and do demonstrations of all of the postures as well as assist one on one to help people learn more about their own practice.

Since my years of competing, I have started doing much more coaching and judging. I feel like I have learned a great deal about myself and the Universe through my competing years. I've had to opportunity to work closely with Bikram and many other people who have been in this community for many years.  I feel honored to be able to share what I've learned with others. I know that this yoga is so much more than the physical benefits and now use the physical to discover the spiritual...what a ride.

idaripley.com

Grace Aber.

I was brought into the room by my brother back in December of 2009. Who would’ve known the effect that one small spontaneous action would have on my life… I immediately fell in love with yoga and applied for a job cleaning the studio once a week so that I could continue my practice and eventually ended up working the front desk. Practicing has always been something I have held dear as it has allowed me to open up in mind, body and spirit. It has also helped me to be find confidence, self-love, and drive for life, and once I started working the front desk I enjoyed working too. I loved to see people’s happy smiling faces and having the opportunity to be a part of our awesome community.

People had asked me for the longest time when I was going to go to teacher training and become and instructor, and my answer for the longest time was that I would go once I had finished school. The thought of teaching (standing in front of people and talking for 90 minutes) struck a paralyzing fear into me and was something that I didn’t think I would ever be able to do. However, I took the plunge and took a semester off of college to get teacher certified and graduated in November 2012.

Teaching, as expected, has proven to be quite a struggle for me, but if there is one thing this yoga has taught me is that our potential inside and outside of the room is limitless. I would once stare in awe of yoga champions who could do breathtaking postures that demonstrated strength, flexibility, and grace that I can now do myself today. There is nothing like accomplishing something that you had once thought you would never be able to do. Through teaching, I hope to transcend more limitations, insecurities and doubts from my mind to while leading others to discover that they too are limitless.

The power of this yoga is incredible, it has brought so many unforgettable people to my life and has provided me with so many once in a lifetime opportunities. I feel so tremendously blessed to be a part of our glowing community and to have the opportunity to better myself with each passing day.

I originally came to Bikram to help with my running. 15 years of 100+ mile weeks with absolutely no stretching at all left me with very tight hips, ham-strings, shoulders, and injured ankles. I decided to do yoga to improve my running, but I found benefits way beyond.  Within the first month, an achilles injury that had crippled me for a year and caused me to take months off from running, was healed. I now run with no pain in my tendon or my ankles.

I began my practice at a time when my entire life had literally changed overnight. I can say with no exaggeration, that yoga saved me. I left my first class completely exhausted with the best "high" I'd ever had. I thought about nothing else all week.  When I wasn't in class, I was thinking about class.  When I was in class, I was thinking about when I could come to my next one.  I equate the feeling to what you have in the first few months of a new relationship. The euphoria you feel in having that emotional connection. Though I am and will always be a runner, I connected emotionally, mentally, and physically with my practice in a way that I never could with running. Unlike many other physical activities, yoga gives back more than it takes.  

I cannot wait to see what my future practice brings and to reap the benefits.

andrea@yogajuicebox.com

In 2007, I began my practice in the San Francisco Bay Area after making the random decision to check out the Bikram studio that was located along my daily drive to work. I got through my first classes on sheer determination; I was not someone who was used to the intensity that the practice offered. My first month was filled with sore muscles, dehydration, and persistent headaches alongside self doubt, and too much comparing myself to others. I struggled through and kept with it because I could feel years of inactivity and lethargy drain from my body through my sweat (and often my tears!).

I practiced in the bay area for eight solid months of five to seven day a week practice. I consider that time to be the most significant period of transformation I have ever experienced. Physically, I was 45 pounds lighter, I could see the outlines of muscles I never knew I had, I had a completely different diet and habits, and I was exponentially more active than I had been, both in and outside the yoga room. The change was as much mental as it was physical; I was calmer and more confident. I realized then and still tell others to this day, that there is something incredibly special about the self acceptance that comes from staring at your flaws in the mirror day after day, changing what you can, and coming to peace with what you can't.

I relocated to Reno in 2008 to attend UNR and remove myself from the chaos of San Francisco that just wasn't my style, and continued my practice at Juice Box Yoga.  While I had learned the basics of the postures as well as the importance of keeping up a regular practice in the Bay Area, In Reno I've learned so much more. I have learned to be determined at the same time as accepting, tenacious at the same time as patient, and of course- to lock my f***ing knee! In the last three years in Reno and at JBY, the positive effects of my practice have only increased. I feel like I've embraced a healthier, happier version of myself; although I'll never be physically or mentally perfect, I can try with every class to maintain the best version of myself possible.

I first practiced Bikram yoga in 2010 in Missoula, MT. I enjoyed the militaristic style of Bikram, but after my student intro offer was finished I told myself that it was too expensive to continue. I thought about Bikram yoga off and on for the next 2 ½ years. After traveling around I finally landed near Reno. I was blessed with the opportunity to have enough time on my hands to look into what I wanted to do with my life. I came across a quote by a British Philosopher, Alan Watts. He gave lecture once about "What if money were no object?" This brought me to thinking about yoga. I started practicing Bikram in my living room randomly. When I discovered there was a Bikram studio in town in September 2012, I thought to myself, “If I don’t go now then I will always find an excuse of why I can’t go.” So I went.

I’ve learned through my time here that the reason I come into the classroom is more than to have a place to practice or to sweat, but the value of having a teacher to take your practice to the next level; to be there to help you do the postures correct and safe. Otherwise why would we come? Yoga is more to me than a workout but best described by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. “Remember that yoga is the work of the inner self (Vyakta) on the outer self (vyakti). All that the outer self does is merely in response to the inner self.”

 I had always been fairly active growing up.  Competitive sports and martial arts consumed a significant portion of my extracurricular time.  But when I entered high school, I devoted most of my athletic ability to competitive tennis.  During my summers, when I wasn't on the court practicing my serve or teaching the summer camps, I was very often in the weight the room attempting to build the strength and endurance required for three hour tournament matches in the summer heat.  All of this training took a toll on my body in many ways that I did not fully appreciate at the time:  my ankles and knees had become very stiff and injury prone, and I suffered from serious imbalances between the right and left sides of my body.

 When it became obvious that I did not have the tournament record to compete at a division I college, I retired from intensive competition to embrace recreational play and junior level coaching.  During this time I struggled to find activities that gave me the same degree of discipline and rigor that I had come to rely on as a tournament player.  Then, in April of 2012 my sister introduced me to Bikram yoga here at JBY.  I immediately embraced the practice.  It offered me everything that I had been looking for and so much more; the real potential for continual growth and self-cultivation.  After only a few months I began to notice the benefits, and my practice has now become an integral part of my life.  I naturally jumped at the opportunity to work for the studio.  I feel that my work here at JBY is an extension of my practice, and I cherish it just as much.