January 2012
Julie Gervais
As the holiday season comes to an end, we start to plan for the
upcoming year and reflect on the past. We count our blessings that
have come into our lives, and hope for a new, healthy, happy New
Year!
Julie Gervais, our January Student of
the Month, has a lot to look back on this past year. After
one of the more difficult years of her life, she is surprisingly
feeling better than ever. A ballerina for over 20 years, Julie
found Bikram Yoga 8 years ago, but didn't start a regular practice
until 9 months ago when she was diagnosed with arthritis. Through
her ups and downs this past year, she has been able to remain
strong due in large to her physical and mental release she gets in
a Bikram Yoga class. Determined, and eager, Julie is a dream
student who no matter what always has a bright smile on her face!
We are so thrilled that she has become such an important part of
the Detroit Bikram community!
As you read Julie's story, you may start to reflect on the year
you've had, and as you do, remember to count the blessings that
have come into your life. Happy New Year to our yoga family!
"What a pleasant surprise to be chosen as Student of the Month!
I feel honored, but also a little bit embarrassed. Instead of
receiving an award, I think I should give one: to the practice
itself, to Jenny and Ian for creating a beautiful space that is
welcoming and supportive, and to the excellent team of
teachers.
Looking back on what has surely been one of the more difficult
years of my life, I am a little surprised to find myself feeling as
well as I do - physically, mentally, and emotionally. I'm not
generally fatalistic, but it's hard to deny that I found my way
back to Bikram Yoga at exactly the right time. There is not a doubt
in my mind that my practice, about 9 months old now, has enabled me
to remain relatively strong through a bunch of rough breaks. I'm
enormously grateful for it.
I first tried Bikram Yoga about 8 years ago, during a summer
break from ballet. I wasn't a hard sell. I remember feeling the
benefits right away - an incredible sense of well-being, an ease
and deep flexibility in my muscles, and an immediate improvement in
concentration and focus. But despite my enthusiasm, I didn't keep
up with my practice. I was really busy with a lot of things and
just didn't find the time.
Fast forward to February 2011: after many months of dealing with
what I thought was hip tendonitis, I finally got my diagnosis:
arthritis, precipitated by dysplasia (that's when the pelvic socket
never did properly cup the head of the femur), and compounded by a
bone spur. That explained a lot of what I'd been experiencing. The
news didn't really hit me until I got home. By then, my whole body
was shaking with fear and grief. For 20+ years, ballet has been the
absolute center of my life, and this diagnosis was unambiguous and
final. No dancing with this hip.
Luckily, I had by then already found my way to the new Troy
studio. I went to class the next day. A little later, I started the
30 Day Challenge. I reminded myself that I had been wanting to find
a better balance in my life anyway, with less ballet and more time
for other work projects. And I kind of slipped right into a routine
of practicing regularly. The extreme physicality of Bikram Yoga is
on par with what I'm used to, and it's a relief to still able to
wear myself out physically. I have always needed this kind of
physical release, and can become lethargic and kind of depressed
when I'm inactive. The only other option the doctors mentioned for
me is swimming, which doesn't appeal to me for a lot of reasons -
especially because it sounds so cold!
I didn't get to finish the 30 Day Challenge because in March, my
Dad got put in the hospital. He was released, and then re-admitted
and released a second time, but after being admitted a third time,
he had reached the end of his body's ability to cope with multiple
problems, and he died in June. I traveled to upstate NY a lot
during those months to see him, but whenever I came back, I
returned to class. At that time I was mostly taking the late
afternoon/early evening classes, and I would always call his room
right before or right after class because I knew he'd be awake
then. It often put me in a pretty precarious state during class,
and one day I realized that if I was crying, people might not even
notice because it would just look like sweat anyway! So that was
kind of liberating.
It also happened that on the very same day my Dad first got put
in the hospital, I came down with positional vertigo - an inner ear
disturbance that creates a sense of a spinning environment. It's
kind of violent at first, and then it levels off and slowly fades
away in a couple of weeks. Or it did the first time, anyway. I got
it again at the end of the summer, and this time it didn't go away
on its own but luckily, Erica Applequist (instructor) referred me
to our own fellow Bikram Yoga student, Dr. Art Rosner, and he did a
magic little maneuver that cleared the problem (I think he would
say that it's science and not magic.) I kept up with class the
whole time, but couldn't do a lot of things, as moving my head
'off-level' would trigger the spinning. It still felt good to come
to class and do as much as I could, and all of the teachers were
super patient with me.
Some people have remarked to me that I seem to be 'good' at
Bikram Yoga, and I appreciate their kind words but it kind of
cracks me up. I may look a little more comfortable or natural, due
to so many years of dancing, but I feel like it's an enormous
struggle every time. Not just because of the heat and the intensity
of the postures, but because the parallel alignment of the legs
directly addresses my long-term muscle imbalances. I can balance
all day on an outwardly rotated leg, but standing on one leg in
parallel is only slowly becoming more possible. I can lock my knee
now for maybe 10 seconds at a time before it buckles. I do have
crazy loose hamstrings, so I really never feel a pulling in the
backs of my knees, but any of the postures that have a goal of
putting the stomach on the thighs/chest on the leg, like
pada-hasthasana, are really difficult because of the bone spur in
my hip. I think I will have to wait for hip surgery to be a true
Japanese ham sandwich.
My ideal practice would be 6 days a week but my current schedule
allows for about 4. When I can be very consistent and attend
several days in a row, I feel my hip loosen up beyond what I
thought was possible and I suspect, beyond what the doctors would
believe. I'd really like to see the medical community initiate some
more studies of the effects of the practice on various conditions.
I'll be the first subject on the arthritis study! I'm not expecting
a miracle, but there are definitely days when I am really, really
surprised about just how much more mobile it can be.
I'm always hopeful for new people who come to the studio, that
they will be able to give themselves time to acclimate and realize
how much better they can feel in their bodies. I try to wrangle
friends, family, and my ballet students into class. But I don't
push too hard, because I think if someone feels pressured, it's
difficult to keep an open mind. If anything, I might re-tell a
story that a fellow Bikram student told to me. He mentioned that he
met up with an old friend, someone he hadn't seen in a while. And
the friend kind of stared at him, before finally saying 'You seem
to be getting younger!' That seems like a great way to get
everyone's attention!"
~ Julie Gervais
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