As Bikram yoga teachers, so many students tell us this one is their "nemesis!" And we get it. SHTK not only requires you to use a ton of physical strength and stamina to develop your own flexibility, it also calls upon 110% of your will power, integrity and mental fortitude to stick with it, try the right way and not give up. The good news is, by using those aspects of your body and of your character you are building them up, and they (like this posture) will only get better with practice.

Health benefits include:

• Raises heart rate to improve cardiovascular fitness
• Tones legs muscles, especially inner thighs and quadriceps
• Stretches hamstrings, shoulders lower back
• Improves abdominal strength
• Interlocked finger grip strengthens fingers and hands
• Locking the knee strengthens the muscles which support the knee joint
• Promotes self discipline, determination, concentration, patience and faith

How to do:
Standing Head to Knee can be best understood by dividing it into a progression of stages or steps. Keep in mind that while we identify 4 main "steps" in the posture, there are a bazillion mini-steps along the way, and any one of the steps may take you weeks, months or years to master. For example, between grabbing your foot and locking both knees, you may find your maximum expression of the posture somewhere in-between for quite some time. No worries: as long as you try the right way and you don't give up, that's the ultimate destination!

• Step 1: Grab your foot. Shift your weight onto the standing leg and grab the (soon to be) kicking leg foot in front of you with all 10 fingers interlocked. Hold underneath the ball of the foot, about 3 inches below the toes. Don't lose this grip. Your kicking leg knee should be bent, the heel should be directly below the knee, and the thigh should be a bit above parallel to the floor. How high your thigh is will depend on your anatomy. Be sure your head is up so you can focus one point on your standing knee in the mirror, without straining the neck too much. Lock the knee to the best of your ability.*
• Step 2: Kick. From Step 1, inhale and slowly, gently extend the kicking leg heal toward the mirror, keeping your toes turned back toward your face. Keep kicking the heel forward until your both knees are locked and your legs form an upside-down "L" shape. Don't lose your grip. Let your shoulders be pulled forward by the strength of your kick, and you will get a great stretch for your shoulder muscles in this 2nd step. The feeling should not be that your arms are holding up the leg- but rather that the kicking leg is pulling your shoulders forward. Note: You do not need to wait until your standing knee is locked before you begin to kick! In fact, if your standing knee has to bend a bit for you to achieve Step 1, kicking out even a little bit may actually allow you to lock it all the way. And it will definitely take some pressure out of your lower back.
• Step 3: Bend your elbows. Only if both knees are locked and you can balance there comfortably, start to bend your elbows down toward the floor until your elbows touch your calf muscle. Try to get them to go below your calf muscle! This 3rd step stretches the hamstrings, shoulders and lower back a lot. Be sure not to lose your grip, and continuously keep kicking your heel toward the mirror while you bend your elbows down.
• Step 4: Forehead to knee. In the beginners class, we only practice this step during the 2nd set of SHTK. If your elbows are touching your calf with both knees locked, slowly bring your body down, chest down, head down, round your spine to look at your stomach and touch your forehead on your knee. Shifting the focus of your eyes like this is supremely challenging! Be sure to keep kicking the kicking leg forward and locking both knees continuously to create a solid foundation.

*You want me to lock my knee??
Yes. But let's make sure you understand what we mean by that. In Bikram yoga, to "lock the knee" means 3 things: Straight leg (full extension of the knee joint) + thigh muscles (including quads) contracted + body weight even on the foot. Check out our post on the subject for more!

Eyes and abs!
Balancing on one foot is a big challenge for many beginners. Remember that your 2 best friends on your "balance team" are your abs and your eyes. So always keep your abdominal muscles pulled in firmly, and maintain your one point of focus on your standing knee throughout the posture.

Breathe normally
Breathing properly is key. If you’re working on Step 1, simply breath normally with an engaged core. If you are kicking out into Step 2, inhale slowly by the nose while you kick your leg forward. Take another deep inhale when your both knees are locked and exhale as you bend your elbows down for Step 3. Take another deep breath and slowly exhale again as you tuck your chin to your chest for Step 4. This focused breathing keeps you calm and maintains oxygen moving through your body to feed your muscles. It also assists with the stretching and rounding of your spine and ribs.

Enjoy!
Finally, the real secret to mastery of Standing Head to Knee is: attitude. Relish every step of the magical journey, because every step has something to offer your body, mind and soul. And more than anything, this posture demands that you activate and cultivate the connection between those! That's part of what makes it so tough, and that's also what makes it so... yoga.

Our building has no roof access. For months now, I've been trying to coordinate a really tall ladder- or a really tall guy with strong shoulders- to get us on the roof of Bikram Yoga St. Johns and hang our temporary banner signs. For various reasons, my original plan wasn't looking promising, so my husband and I decided to do it on our own instead. If we couldn't get on the roof, we'd hang it from the balcony! That's how Orlo ended up spending yesterday afternoon scrambling all over the building facade, string held in his teeth and balancing precariously in compromising positions while all the high schoolers at the bus stop across Lombard pointed and giggled.

By the time he called me to come by and check his work, he had the whole thing rigged. It wasn't what I'd imagined. I'd pictured a precisely hung banner attached to the building by some magical invisible method in such a perfect way that passersby wouldn't notice the vinyl or grommets or string or nails but would simply think immediately "Oh! Let's do yoga there!"

I frowned and looked at my feet and softly kicked the ground. I didn't want to ask him to take down what he'd done- he had worked so hard and pretty much risked his life crawling around up there. But it just wasn't exactly right. It looked messy. There were no convenient places to attach the sign, so string criss-crossed the facade at odd angles. A corner had torn from the banner when Orlo pulled it taut (using his yoga-chops to balance on one foot atop the 8-foot tall entry gate) and he had repaired it with a green tarp clip he found in our shed at home. There was a lightbox in the way, so the banner had to be folded up at the bottom instead of hanging flat. One corner was a few inches higher than the other. You get the idea.

I was concerned that this banner would give the wrong impression of our business. I worried that potential students would see it and think we were sloppy, we were unprofessional, we were imperfect. I thought some of them might even decide, seeing our fumbled attempt at banner-mounting, not to give us a try. I told Orlo all of this.

By the way, Orlo is the best. He said he was going to finish tightening some of the strings, and calmly assured me we could cut it all down if I still wasn't happy when he was done.

I am so glad I had a few minutes to reconsider. Because here's the thing: that banner gives exactly the right impression of who we are. And no, we're not sloppy or unprofessional. We're the kind of people- and ours will be the kind of studio- I think any prospective student would be pleased to get their yoga from.

We are people who see a problem and use the tools and skills at our disposal to fix it. We are people who are not afraid to take things on. We build businesses in the same year we get married and birth our first baby. We get stuff done. We clamber up and down building facades to hang banners, and when they tear we repair them with the best thing we've got. We are not sleek or streamlined. We're not putting in granite counter tops. We are scrappy and tenacious and we work. We throw our bodies into everything we do. We couldn't wait for a ladder to tell you we are here, because we know we have something to offer you which will change your life, as it has ours.

We don't mind if things get a little messy. That's something the yoga lets us practice: what's important is showing up and doing your darnedest. As one of my teachers says, "The perfection is in your effort." I almost forgot. But now I have a banner to remind me.

A recent conversation with my husband, uploading stories onto our Testimonials page, teaching several classes this weekend full of super-motivated students, and  watching my 1-month-old daughter's efforts on her movement mat have all got me thinking about: perseverance, drive, dedication. What great feats we are capable of when we pour in everything we have! Here's one of my favorite poems on the subject.

Even if you've never taken a Bikram yoga class, you can probably imagine a few ways sweating your guts out for 90 minutes a day might change your body. (Weight loss, lower blood pressure, increased stamina, improved digestion, anyone?) After all, Bikram yoga is a hatha yoga practice, meaning a practice of physical postures, called asanas, and breathing techniques, called pranayama. And hatha yoga offers tremendous health benefits for all the systems of your body. But that's not all, folks! By attending to your physical practice, you also cultivate certain qualities of mind which have the power to absolutely transform the way you see the world and the way you live your life:

1. Concentration. This word literally means "the action of bringing to a center." By fully focusing your intention on the specific work at hand- be that locking your knee, keeping your breath steady, or focusing at one point on your forehead in the mirror- for just a few seconds at a time, you are training your mind for ever more demanding feats of "bringing to a center" which are called for in daily life. While all traditions of hatha yoga develop concentration skills, Bikram yoga adds some bonus challenges to your concentration in the form of heat and dripping sweat. Lucky you! With a regular practice, you will find yourself more able to focus on the tasks you tackle outside of the hot room, resulting in more efficient performance in all areas of your life.
2. Faith. Plenty of faith gets practiced in Bikram yoga classes every day: faith that time did not stop and the 90 minutes will eventually end, faith that the room is only 105 degrees and not 2000 degrees which is what it feels like, faith that the teacher is not actually trying to kill you, etc. The most important, though, is faith in yourself, that you are capable of more than you think. The more you remind yourself of that, you become capable of even more.
3. Self-Discipline. Move with the instructions, not before and not after. Wait until "party time" to drink water. Stand absolutely still between the standing postures. Don't. Wipe. The. Sweat. Lie still like a corpse in savasana. Don't. Wipe. The. Sweat. The instructor might remind you, but she's not going to come over and slap your hand if you reach for a sip right after half-moon pose, and she couldn't breathe for you even if she wanted. In the hot room as in the world outside, you are the only one responsible for your actions. Bikram yoga is your opportunity to practice repeatedly choosing the best actions to take.
4. Patience. First class ever? Tight hamstrings? Bad back? Knee surgery? Coming back to yoga after having a baby? Just having an especially rough day? Bikram would say, "Take it easy, honey." And for many of us that can be the most difficult thing! Patience involves faith and self-discipline, too. In Bikram yoga, while the postures never change, you yourself are very different from day to day. Patience is crucial in the hot room to protect you from injuring your body by pushing too hard, too fast- and to keep from judging yourself harshly if your postures are not yet where you think they should be. Cultivate patience with yourself, and you'll find patience for others is quick to follow.
5. Determination. All of the physical, mental and spiritual benefits of Bikram yoga are yours for the taking, but they hinge on this: you've got to stick with it! One class alone might make you feel fantastic right away- it might even work out that kink in your neck or get rid of your hangover from the night before- but lasting results require the determination to keep coming back to class. A few times a week, ideally. Even when it feels hard. Even with a kink in your neck. Even with a hangover! And when you come to class in whatever state you may be, each and every posture asks you not to give up. We even allow plenty of time in each posture, so if you fall out you have a chance to practice your determination and try again. Determination is also essential to practice all the other qualities of mind: you have to stay determined to concentrate, determined to have faith, determined to exercise self-discipline, determined to be patient with yourself. Your determination will be rewarded with successes great and small, and (like the yoga itself!) once you make it a habit it will aid in every challenge you face.

How has Bikram yoga changed your mind? Leave a comment. We love to hear from you!