Bikram Yoga Capital Area owner and MSU alumna Ann Chrapkiewicz performs the utkatasana pose during a class Nov. 14, 2013, at her studio, 1355 E. Grand River Ave. Bikram Yoga is done in a 105-degree studio with a variety of poses to get the heart pumping and oxygen flowing.
Several times a week, MSU alumna Ann Chrapkiewicz steps into a room heated to 105 degrees to guide students and community members as they bend and stretch their bodies to maximize their own health.
Chrapkiewicz, a ten-year veteran of the Bikram yoga style, otherwise known as hot yoga, opened East Lansing’s first Bikram yoga studio — Bikram Yoga Capital Area — earlier this year to the enthusiasm of residents.
Bikram yoga is a sequence of 26 postures and two breathing exercises. The yoga is done in 90-minute sessions in a room heated to 105 degrees with 40 percent humidity. Bikram yoga sessions are kept so hot for a variety of reasons, including to get participant’s heart pumping and oxygen flowing, and to detox the body by opening the pores to let out toxins.
In 2003, Chrapkiewicz stepped into her first Bikram yoga class in Ann Arbor after being convinced by a friend.
“I was clueless, I had never done any yoga before,” Chrapkiewicz said. “It was the hardest thing I had ever done, but it felt so good.”
She continued to practice yoga and fell in love with the way it made her feel. However, the friend who took ?her along never went back because it was “too hard,” Chrapkiewicz recounted with a laugh.
In 2004, Chrapkiewicz went to Los Angeles to attend an annual training program to become a Bikram yoga instructor — the only way to become an official instructor of this particular yoga form, she said.
“The intensity of the training would be an awesome learning experience,” Chrapkiewicz said, explaining why she decided to go through with the program. “On the one hand, you become certified ?to teach, (on the other hand) it improves your understanding of the yoga and your body.”
Training was nine consistent weeks of yoga immersion. Each week, students took two yoga classes five days ?a week, attended lectures and ?practiced teaching between ?15 and 18 hours a week.
“We learned about the postures, how they’re supposed to be practiced,” Chrapkiewicz said. ”(We learned) a lot about the philosophy of this type of yoga.”
She said Bikram yoga places a strong emphasis on doing each posture as correctly as possible.
“However deep they get into the postures, they get all the benefits they need,” Chrapkiewicz said.
After her training, Chrapkiewicz taught in various studios in Ann Arbor, Traverse City and the Detroit area. In 2008, she moved to East Lansing to work on a second master’s degree at MSU.
By this point, Bikram yoga had become a staple in Chrapkiewicz’s life, but East Lansing had no studios of this type.
“About three times a month I would drive to a Detroit-area studio, mostly to practice anytime I could,” she said. “I would drive to Traverse City (during extended weekends) to teach.”
Chrapkiewicz said this time allowed her to see how many different studios operated. Additionally, the lack of a Bikram yoga studio in East Lansing helped foster an idea that she had carried for a while.
“For many years, I thought I wanted (my own) studio at some point,” Chrapkiewicz said.
She began planning for the studio during summer 2012. At the same time, she was juggling a position as an academic advisor for MSU’s Center for Gender in Global Context until a month before the studio opened in June 2013.
Chrapkiewicz said Bikram yoga has completely changed the way her mind works, squashing body and weight image issues while improving her focus. Additionally, the yoga has solved some of her personal physical issues and allowed her to have a healthier pregnancy than the norm, she said.
Furthermore, becoming an instructor has exposed her to all different types of peoples and issues.
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“It’s fascinating for me to watch people and see how far they can come just by having an open mind,” Chrapkiewicz said. “This is 99 percent mental and 1 percent physical. Some people get that quicker than others, and that’s OK.”
Chrapkiewicz currently is a doctoral student at MSU studying anthropology and is doing her dissertation on yoga.
