Lydia
Bikram Yoga taught me that if you keep detailed awareness in anything you are doing, you will never be bored and there will always be positive changes happening.
I was born in Sun Valley, Idaho, a ski resort in the western US. When I was little, my mother taught me Bikram Yoga. I liked doing some postures at home, but that was it, because I was busy with competition skiing. And when I was not skiing, I went playing volleyball, tennis, mountain biking, skateboarding, skating, surfing, or water skiing. I even ran a marathon to raise money for research into leukemia.
Car accident
In 1999, a friend urged me to try Bikram Yoga. Seven years before, I had a car accident that left three broken vertebrae. Despite months of intensive physical therapy, I had constant pain. Doctors suggested an operation, but I found the risks too big and decided to learn to live with the pain.
From student to teacher
My first Bikram class was challenging, however, after the second lesson I felt that the pain in my back was less. I was over! The following four years I trained with the world-famous Senior Bikram Yoga teacher Mary Jarvis, and then attended the 2003 Bikram Yoga Teacher Training.
Bikram Yoga Den Haag and Rotterdam
Before I opened my first studio in The Hague in 2006, I taught for Thérèse Aartsen, the owner of the first Bikram Yoga school in the Netherlands at the Ceintuurbaan in Amsterdam. My school in The Hague was the second Bikram Yoga school in the Netherlands and two years later I opened Bikram Yoga Rotterdam.
Both studios are, and always have been, independently owned and operated businesses. It was my mission when I opened them to create a friendly environment to share my love of this yoga with anyone willing to try it and it still is today 12 years later.
Teaching Yoga
I have two passions: practicing Bikram Yoga and teaching in Bikram Yoga. Every lesson I take, I learn something new and I learn even more when I look at my pupils during teaching. It is wonderful to see how people discover their own power, let go of fears and experience a physical and emotional transformation.
Bikram Yoga beginner’s tip
Do not try to get into the postures very deeply from the beginning. Instead, come to class often, so that you can gradually build up the depth.