We’re kicking off 2017 by featuring a different class style each week. This week, we’re exploring triyoga Hot! Here we catch up with Kristin Campbell, the yoga teacher behind triyoga Hot and the Tapasya hot yoga sequence.
What is tapasya and what inspired you to create it?
Tapasya (pronounced tah-pahs-ya) literally means to be with intensity for the sake of transformation.
My approach to hot yoga in the beginning was incredibly fierce and pushy, as the setting in traditional Bikram classes promotes. Truth be told, in the early years of my practice, I took out my self-loathing on my mat through my fierce approach and intense desire to fix myself. Through facing myself in the mirror, and through the yogic teachings being revealed to me at that time, I found self-acceptance. I realised that being born in this body is not a problem to be solved; we are born free, untethered and full of joy. In this human experience, we forget this truth sometimes. We practice to remember. It’s the contrast that wakes us up.
During this time, I owned a studio called NeoAlpine Yoga in the ski resort town of Whistler BC. and had been teaching Bikram yoga for eight years. Just as my approach to the practice was shifting, so was the way I was teaching Bikram yoga. As I evolved, there was incredible receptivity from my students. From this, I saw a need for a mindful, alignment-based style of hot yoga. In 2008, I took Bikram Yoga off the schedule and started teaching what I called ‘Hot Fusion’ until I partnered with YYoga shortly thereafter. Hot Fusion morphed into YHot.
I officially launched Tapasya Hot Yoga in 2012, which is based on a set series that is a creative synthesis of over 20 + years of yogic study in several established Hot and Hatha yoga styles, Bikram, Baptiste Power Vinyasa, and Anusara (which had its roots in Iyengar and Tantric philosophy). The sequences are supported by a system, a philosophy, a methodology, and specific alignment and timing principles, that together form an intelligently curated style of Hot Yoga. The series has been designed to offer the practitioner a transformative experience with remarkable physical, physiological and psychological benefits. It is a strong and empowering, spiritually uplifting, intelligently sequenced, alignment-based method of Hatha yoga.
Why do you think so many people start yoga with hot yoga?
Having a set sequence and language used makes it accessible and it offers measurable results. It also doesn’t require upper body strength and is easy on wrists and joints. The heat also makes the class more accessible for tight bodies. Finally it’s an intelligently sequenced, foundation based practice with traditional poses and that appeals to both beginners and advanced practitioners alike, as it is well rounded and brings you back to basics.
What are the main misperceptions about hot yoga
Some people think you aren’t supposed to practice yoga in the heat, or they think it’s dangerous, that people might over-stretch. To me, this says more about how one might approach their practice, over the temperature of the room.
Some say the receptive nature of a set sequence is boring or limiting in some way, however yoga is not meant to be entertainment for the mind. In fact the practice of yoga is meant to cease the fluctuations of the mind. Sure, repetitive movement can be a cause for checking out and for going on auto pilot OR through repetition one may experience meditation.
What do you love about hot yoga?
I love the detox, the meditative aspect, and the effects that the sequence has on me physically. The heat and intensity, calls me to be extremely focused, to be present and from this it becomes meditation in motion.
It wasn’t always like this for me though. In the beginning I was very distracted, fidgety and reactive to the experience. With time and experience, I realised that my reactions and distractions were only expending energy which I could be putting into my practice. I remember reading a quite by Ram Dass back in the early days, “what if the itch comes and you don’t scratch it?”. I took this on. It shifted me in a big way.
In this space my mind shuts off; my thoughts become the background and my breath and connection to my body, the foreground of the experience. Pre-existing agitations and stresses are burned away in the fire of this transformative practice. I leave feeling well tested and well rested, completely rung out and reset.
