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As we enter 2012 many of us decide to practice more...a lot more!!
Just remember, it's better to increase the frequency of your practice to a level you can maintain. Consider adding one extra class per week, when you can maintain that, then add again from there.
To emphasize areas of focus we are borrowing from the words of Bikram's Senior Teacher, Emmy Cleaves.
The start of the New Year is the time to re-focus on your beginning series. The beginning series is where all the health benefits associated with the practice come from and it works best with frequency, precision and intensity.
Do any of these sound like your class?
Precision and intensity without frequency - That would mean that you do a great job when you manage to get to class, but you never go to class. You go every day for a week, then give yourself two months off. That's not going to work!
Frequency and intensity without precision - You are going all the time, and you are trying really hard, but you're still not listening. You're working harder, not smarter. You're just doing whatever you feel like doing, instead of following the dialogue word by word. You think that you're getting some really great exercise with all that sweating. But in the long run, that's not going to work!
Frequency and precision without intensity - You are coming all the time, maybe even every day, and you're doing everything correctly, but you're never really pushing yourself, never putting any serious oomph into it. You're coasting. That's not going to work!
So what DOES work?
Frequency - This does not, by definition, mean that you have to practice every day! In the long run, frequency means that you're committed to practicing 3 times or more per week, and you do so regularly.
AND
Precision - Fall in love with precision. Get interested in it. Try to be precise in every motion, every twitch, down to the placement of your big toe or your thumb. All the good stuff is in the details. Never assume that something is right just because you did it that way yesterday. Keep your ears always open, just like your eyes. Even if you've done 100 classes in a row, or 1000 classes in a row, go into every class hoping to refine your technique in some little way.
AND
Intensity - Yoga class is a gas station, remember? Bikram says that it's the only physical activity in the world where you gain energy instead of burning it. And how do you make that happen? By putting more energy in. Computer programmers call this the rule of GIGO - "garbage in, garbage out"! But we can look at it from the positive angle - energy in, energy out. Change doesn't just happen on its own; you have to make it happen. Don't let that intensity fade. Practice like Bikram himself is in the room. Practice like it's your first class in weeks, and you've been missing it. Practice like it's your last class for months, and you want to squeeze every drop out of it!
Remember…combine them all together: Frequency, Precision and Intensity!
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