I came to Bikram Yoga in 2001 as a complement to and eventually a replacement for running and weight training. I had been an avid 4-5 mile runner for years and even ran a couple of marathons. The years of pounding had taken a toll on my joints and my years as an executive at an investment management firm had tested the limits of my health and peace of mind.

The very first time I stepped into the hot room I knew I had found exactly what I needed and had been looking for from a health and fitness program. I can say, without hesitation or exaggeration, that my body and my mind are stronger and more flexible than ever before.

I became a teacher and a studio owner in 2003 to provide this opportunity for anyone who is ready to step up to the challenge. Bikram Yoga is a serious workout for the body and the mind.

I have practiced various types of yoga since 1989. I played competitive tennis for most of my life and found the stretching and flexibility aspects of yoga integral to my overall fitness. Midway through my professional tennis career I underwent reconstructive knee surgery. Yoga was a critical part of my rehabilitation.

In 1999 I discovered Bikram Yoga in New York City. After my first 90 minutes in the hot room I felt changes in my body that I had never before experienced.  I have been a consistent practitioner ever since.

Teaching has always been in my heart, so I chose to attend teacher training with my wife Tomo early in 2004.

I started to practice Bikram Yoga in 2002.  Despite feeling mildly ill after my first 10 classes, I maintained a regular practice.  This consistency has brought me a wonderful sense of wellness. 

I am proof that with some persistence, Bikram Yoga can help you to lose weight and achieve optimum health and fitness levels. Teaching this yoga and offering its wonderful benefits to others makes me happy.

I took my first Bikram class in 1999 at the insistance of my masseuse Marie-Pierre, who promised the yoga would help cure a chronic pinched nerve in my neck. An avid runner and weight-lifter at the time, I had never taken a yoga class and didn't consider it to be a “real workout.”

My first class blew my mind - it was definitely a real workout, but what hooked me was how well I slept after it. Of all of the physical activities I've ever done - cycling, running, swimming - nothing has made me feel as good as Bikram yoga and that's what keeps me coming back.

I became a teacher in 2003 and feel very lucky to be part of the staff at Bikram Yoga Harvard Square.

After more than a year of telling myself and everyone that I know that I was going to “give hot yoga a try,” I took my first Bikram class in October 2007 at the Harvard Square studio. The sights and sounds around me, the sweat pouring out of my body, and the exhilarating “yoga high” that I felt afterward made me keep coming back for more. Several months into my practice, I noticed my body beginning to change.

For years I had been a long-distance runner and biker and an avid gym-goer, but despite my efforts I felt weak, achy, and fatigued most of the time. A consistent Bikram yoga practice has allowed me to become the strong and energetic person I have always known myself to be. I feel at peace with who I am and confident in my abilities in and outside of class. As Bikram would say, “yoga makes me, me.” Teaching yoga at BYB is a dream come true. It is my joy and honor to play a role in the life-transforming process of students.

I am always looking for a new challenge.....

In 2006 I found that new challenge when I tried my first Bikram yoga class. Since then, everyday that I practice the yoga, I feel the exact same way. Every class is a new challenge, a different boundary to be crossed and different feelings that come up and in my experience it is always for the better!

As a competitive roller skater for most of my life I have endured a number of injuries that have resulted in chronic back pain. I would visit a chiropractor very regularly, but with a regular consistent practice of Bikram yoga I found that I no longer need to go!!

Because of the way Bikram yoga made me feel from that very first day, I couldn't stop thinking about yoga. Every day I would try to find a way to fit in; this was sometimes difficult working a demanding full-time sales job. In July of 2009 I decided to say goodbye to Corporate America and become a Bikram yoga teacher. This experience has changed my life and I feel so fortunate to be able to teach Bikram yoga full time and share this wonderful practice with others!

I began Bikram Yoga in 2003 and although I blocked out my first class, I somehow managed to keep going through the 10-day intro. Six weeks later, I was sending my application to L.A. for teacher training.

After spending 9 weeks in Bikram's boot camp, I returned to Connecticut where I taught for a year. I moved to Boston in January and I've been practicing and teaching at BYB ever since.

I started practicing Bikram Yoga in 2004 when I was looking for a physical excercise that would not only condition my body, but recondition my "screw loose brain." My practice was intermittent, I never quite committed to practicing frequently and consistently.

After a year of working night shifts as an ER nurse, I returned to the practice in 2007 with a junk body and frayed nerves. My first week back of practice I knew my health and overall life quality depended on consistent practice of this yoga.

I decided to go to teacher training in order to make the yoga a true priority, realizing that if it were my job to teach, I'd hold myself more accountable in my practice. To this day I know that jumping in with both feet and going to teacher training was one of the best desicions of my life, and has without a doubt improved my mind, my body, and the course of my life.

I found Bikram Yoga in the Spring of 2002 in Brooklyn after enduring my first couple of winters in the Northeast. As a native of Southern California, the heat was the perfect antidote, and it slowly brought me back to my center. After many years of ballet, jazz and modern dance and several years of other Hatha Yoga styles, the physicality of Bikram Yoga was not unfamiliar, but there was something more about this sequence that kept me coming back day after day. Fascinated by its restorative power, as well as the morphing difficulty of the “26/2” due to water and food intake, hours slept, mental state (i.e. “the body you came in with”), I knew that someday I would teach this yoga.

After many wonderful life events including marriage and the birth of my daughter, life dealt me an unexpected blow when I was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer in April 2008. Bikram Yoga helped to restore my health and vitality following surgery and subsequent treatment, and soon after, the decision to attend Spring 2009 Teacher Training in Palm Desert was made. My one wish for my students is to find the strength within yourselves to make your yoga practice your primary method for overall health and healing and watch for yourself the amazing transformations that are possible in your mind and body!

I was one of the lucky ones. My mom dragged my brother and I out of bed every weekend through high school to suffer through the ninety minutes of Bikram yoga. At the time, of course, I had no idea of the benefits of the practice. It wasn't until I left the house for college, and rediscovered this yoga for myself, that I began to recognize just how critical a part of my life it had become. Before long, I was the one dragging others to class.

Soon after I moved to Boston, following graduation, I participated in my first thirty-day challenge, and within a year was on my way to teacher training. Having started Bikram yoga at such a young age, I can't imagine what my life would be like without it. Bikram yoga provides me not only with a consistent challenge and physical and mental stability, but also with a community of supportive people who all share the same passion for living lives of true wellness.

I studied various forms of Hatha Yoga for four years before discovering Bikram Yoga. With one class I was hooked and began practicing on a regular basis, impressed with how much it improved my stamina and sense of general well being.

I enjoy the high level of concentration, focus and discipline this yoga cultivates. In 2006, I attended the Spring Teacher Training with Bikram in Los Angeles and have been teaching at both studios since my return to Boston.

Sharing the many benefits of Bikram Yoga with others, and watching them change their lives through the practice, is a great privilege.

My journey with Bikram's Yoga began in March 2007, as I stumbled across the Bikram Yoga Boston studio, and without any anticipation of what was to come, took my first class.

After a few classes, I knew this type of Yoga had exactly what I needed: a challenging practice, welcoming staff, and a community that all share one common interest and goal; to sweat, work extremely hard to become the healthy human beings that we deserve to be. Not only did I gain physical and emotional strength, but my entire perception changed and I realized that any limitations I created for myself do not actually exist at all.

Two months later I signed up for teacher training. This enhanced my practiced and proved to me that the yoga works. We are capable of anything; we just don’t know it yet. Bikram’s Yoga provides us with the opportunity to get outside your mind and into your body, gaining a deeper sense of self. I am grateful and proud to a part of this amazing process.

My Bikram practice started in 2002 after being reluctantly dragged to a class by a friend. It took a while, but finally went back for my second class a couple of years later. With a decade of yoga practice behind me, it wasn’t until I found Bikram yoga that my body began to actually transform and change. See you in the hot room!

In 2006, I started Bikram Yoga in Chile after many symptoms of old injuries returned while training for a half marathon. Within weeks of practicing my back became stronger, my body was lighter, and my pain disappeared. I quickly realized that I would always need Bikram Yoga in my life. My practice defines my lifestyle and challenges my physical and emotional strength on a daily basis. 

Over the years I have introduced everyone from my father to my landlord to Bikram Yoga. There is nothing better than seeing someone realize their true determination through this yoga. I finished teacher training in December 2009 and am privileged to help inspire students to reach beyond their limits and see how Bikram Yoga helps us become our true selves. 

My friend Dave Ryan brought me to my first Bikram class in NYC in the fall of 2000. It was definitively the hardest thing I had done in as long as I could remember, and I remember walking out of the studio thinking - “That was crazy... will never do that again!” - only to find myself looking online a few hours later to see what time class was the next day because I felt so amazingly good. The closest Bikram studio to me was an hour away back then. so i commuted from NH to MA 5 days a week for a couple of years.

After trying almost everything to heal a late-developing spinal kyphosis - including a bulky 10-pound backbrace for a couple of years - I realized that Bikram was the only thing that was going to do the job. I grew almost three inches in my first six months of practice, back to my original height of 6'0 before the kyphosis became evident. I have practiced very consistently for the last five years, and I feel years younger than I did when I found Bikram Yoga back in 2000.

As an interesting sidebar, my friend Dave who introduced me to Bikram Yoga had fallen out of practicing for some time. In the fall of 2007 he was stuck by a car while he was bicycling and shattered both of his collarbones. After having steel plates inserted throughout his chest, I drove out to visit him in NYC. We attended Bikram Yoga classes each day during my visit, and he fully rehabilitated himself by practicing almost every single day for the next year. Almost exactly one year after our visit, he attended Bikram teacher training and is now a full-time Bikram instructor in NYC.

This yoga is truly the wellspring of life, health, and happiness.