Damian Kosabeck
email: DamianK@BikramYogaEdmonton.com

I needed change from the imbalance that I couldn’t see but felt inside...

In 2005 I found Bikram Yoga and started practicing twice a week. My first classes were okay. I can remember that the toughest thing during my first classes was not the heat but keeping my arms over my head. So simple, “arms over your head”! Oh, the burning numbness - my stubbornness kept my arms away from the relief at my sides. Soon, I didn’t have to huff and puff to keep my arms over my head. I began to feel... something. I couldn’t explain it other than an almost imperceptible feeling of change. That feeling grew with each class into something more real and substantial. The ‘good’ feeling lasted longer & longer, beyond my practice day. The benefits from the yoga were overflowing into my day to day life. I was calmer, stronger physically & mentally, and I could feel more balance permeating my being. It was like small pieces of something old being shed one by one; underneath glistened.

My practice quickly increased to 4 and 5 times a week and with that my progress accelerated. I kept coming back for the yoga and what it was doing for me. I also came to the studio more and more because of the people there – the staff, the instructors and Pernille. I loved the openness and acceptance that greeted me every time I opened the studio door. I would open the door and everything else would fall away. The studio, the yoga became like a time machine... time ceases being relevant and loses its sense of reference. Every time I went, every time I go to yoga it is the same thing.

I was continually finding ways to challenge myself and was being challenged in different ways with each class. I wanted more and more but there are only so many hours and only so many classes one can go to. I would talk to anyone who would listen about yoga and how wonderful it is. I began to relate the yoga to everything... I wanted to share the yoga more and more; there were so many people I could see that could be, would be & needed to be helped by the yoga. Like a flicker of a thought... teacher training. That thought stayed with me for some time, just beyond consciousness. It would surface once in a while but as time went on it became more regular, more real. Soon, becoming a teacher seemed like a natural step, an evolution to deepening my understanding of the yoga and a way to share beyond my enthusiasm.

I went to Teacher Training in the Fall of 2008 and began teaching soon after. It is like I have started again. I feel that same newness and excitement as when I first started Bikram Yoga. Through teaching, I hope to bring that same sense of openness, acceptance and community that kept me with Bikram Yoga. I want people to feel the same wonder that I still feel growing inside me.

You will change, you will be better; there is a more authentic you. Do your yoga, do it often.