Joy Geronca
Joy’s yoga journey started six years ago in Manila, as she tried to find balance in her hectic schedule. First, it started as a means of relaxation and stress relief. After a while she realized her journey had just begun. She moved to the United States to further enhance her career in jewelry design and grading diamonds only to find another passion, Bikram Yoga. Joy happily shares, “Being hypothyroid, I always had to diet, but with Bikram Yoga it’s easier for me to maintain my weight.”
Moving to the US and being away from the place you grew up and friends you have made was hard. Change isn’t always easy but she learned a lot from Bikram Yoga, and one of these is being OPEN to CHANGE. Whatever life brings and being resistant to it is actually just all in your mind. You can break down the barriers in your mind, embrace new things and people and just surrender totally.
After practicing 3 years, and seeing a change, not only in body but in mind, Joy decided to share Bikram Yoga. After graduating from Fall of 2006, she taught for a year in Northern and Southern California and decided to move back home to put up Bikram Yoga Eastwood. And that’s how Bikram Yoga Eastwood exists now.
Ginger Diaz
Growing up in the Philippines, she did not have a lot of knowledge about yoga, and being raised in a Filipino family, she was not the most ‘health-conscious’ person at all. Though she knew the importance of having a healthy mind and body, it was just never a priority.
She started doing Bikram yoga in March 2006, as her metabolism slowed down shortly after she graduated from college. Her first class had been terrible—she felt nauseated as she struggled to breathe in a hot, suffocating environment while trying to keep up while the whole class did postures. Despite this whole experience, she found herself back at the studio the very next day, and most days after that.
As she looks back now, she realized that what made her come back each time was the challenge that it held to her face. She was never ‘competitive’ by nature, but oddly enough, she wanted to prove to herself that she could do so much. As she struggled with such challenges, she began to notice some changes in her body. More than these physical changes though, she started to feel a great sense of the elusive well being that she never had before. She noticed that as the months progressed, it was getting easier for her to focus, not only in her yoga practice but also on her life in general.
Little things didn’t seem to bother her as they used to, and she was becoming more and more patient as well. It was getting easier for her to zero-in on the things that really mattered to her, letting go of things that didn’t seem so important anymore.
She became a certified Bikram Yoga instructor in November 2007. Through this she hopes to give to people what it has given her – health, and much more than that, the humility to strive to go further, knowing that anything is possible if one believes in his or herself.
Betty Watininat Khumtong
She is from Thailand, and it where she started doing yoga five years ago. She began with practicing Hatha yoga for three years before discovering Bikram’s yoga.
Betty already had necessary discipline needed for serious yoga practice, yet, Bikram’s ‘hot’ yoga provided her with challenges that previous yoga experience didn’t have. Inspired by her teachers in Bangkok studio she decided to become a teacher.
Bikram’s Yoga Teacher Training in Hawaii was surely a life-changing experience! She has enjoyed working hard among similar-minded people, who gathered from all over the world to dedicate their time and energy to improve their minds and bodies and to learn to pass the knowledge to others.
In Hawaii during her training days, Betty won an award for the best Dialogue among those who speak English as a second language. After her training, she returned to Bangkok before flying to Manila, where she started working as Bikram yoga instructor in Bikram Yoga Makati studio in August 2007.
In March 2008 Betty began working at Sundar Bikram Yoga Studio in Greenhills. When Bikram Yoga Eastwood studio opened, she was delighted to have one more opportunity to teach and to share her energy with more people.
Lorrie Bendicion
Born and raised in Quezon City, Philippines. she started practicing Bikram Yoga in Tomas Morato, Quezon City on October 15, 2006.
Yoga and meditation have always been her interest, ane every now and then she would buy books or videos on yoga or meditation and practice on her own. But she was never able to sustain the practice due to lack of guidance, discipline and motivation. She was already thinking of joining class in Makati, where the only Bikram Yoga studio is located at that time, then she learned that a studio is going to open just 15 minutes away from my house and workplace. She immediately signed-up for class the next day the studio opened and has been practicing for two years now.
She fell in love with Bikram Yoga and also with the teachers. Through the dialogue, constant encouragement and correction, it made her want to do more, each time she goes to a class. After just a few sessions of looking around, she learned to listen to the dialogue and concentrate on my own postures and breathing thereby also developing the meditative aspect of yoga.
She enjoys the energy of going to class, breathing in unison in Pranayama, moving together into the postures, the sound of breathing after an intense posture, and the constant instructions from the teacher. Physical results are immediate in terms of developing lean muscles, flexibility and strength, and losing a few inches here and there. Along with that, mental focus, strength and determination are developed and oneness in body, mind and spirit is achieved; she got deeper into her practice.
After doing Bikram Yoga for more than a year, an opportunity to go to teacher’s training came when the family business after their 10-year or so family business folded in December 2007. Suddenly, she had the time to do something else and do something she really enjoyed the most.
In her heart, she knows she loves to do yoga, so she decided to bring her practice to new heights and at the same time, share it by becoming an instructor. She admires yoga instructors and get so much inspired by them, and thought this is something she can also too. In April 2008, she went to the Spring 2008 Teacher Training in Acapulco, Mexico, became a certified Bikram teacher two months later. She has been teaching since then. As a new teacher, she believes she still has a lot to learn and skills to develop, but one thing for sure, each class is taught with LOVE, PASSION and COMPASSION. Namaste.
Julie Shannon
Julie first tried yoga in 1995. It felt very natural to her and she immediately knew it was something she wanted to pursue. After years of trying different kinds of yoga, she took her first Bikram class in 2000. Just two months later she attended the Bikram teacher training in Los Angeles. During the 9 week training of two classes per day she felt old injuries “moving out” of her body. Numbness she had experienced in her right leg and deep pain in her right hip joint (from a serious car accident when she was just 17) started to shift and eventually dissipated. The scar on her abdomen (from the same car accident) started to break up and fade. She knew then this was a powerful and healing series of yoga.
After graduating from the teacher training she knew she wanted to offer Bikram yoga to the community of Sonoma where she had been living. She moved back and started the process of opening a studio. Finally in 2003, she opened Bikram Yoga Sonoma. It was a wonderful and fulfilling experience to be part of the positive changes the yoga was facilitating in the students’ lives.
In 2006 she made the decision to sell her studio in order to be a traveling teacher. This first took her to Hong Kong. From there she came to the Philippines for a one year contract,then to Australia for 3 months of teaching and she is now back in Philippines for 6 months.
She has enjoyed and continues to enjoy her “yoga journey” of practicing,teaching and meeting wonderful people from around the world who are making Bikram yoga part of their lives!
Michael Cheung
Michael previously worked in the customer service industry in Hong Kong for over 10 years. After undergoing surgery for a serious spinal injury. He found, after a long search, that “Bikram Yoga” could truly help him to alleviate the constant pain and numbness in his lower back and foot!! Michael now, after regular and consistent practice, is able to live a healthy life free from the shackles of pain and pills! He now wants to help others with similar injuries to be strong once again and to share the goodness of “BIKRAM YOGA”!