The instructor emerges, looking somewhat less the worse for wear than her students. While some head for the beach behind the studio, the teacher stands among a few stragglers as they mill about toweling off, and answers questions while receiving thanks and compliments.

Her name is Laurel White, and she is a pioneer.

Though she learned to windsurf back in the earliest days of the sport in Pacific Palisades with the Waltzes and the Schweitzers, and was once a US Olympic alternate team member, she is currently most famous in windsurfing circles for bringing Bikram Yoga to Maui three years ago.

Bikram Yoga is a modern adaptation of the traditional Hatha Yoga that started in India, and has been practiced around the world for centuries. Bikram’s has been sweeping the US by storm over the last decade, garnering a host of celebrity converts, athletes and entertainers alike. Peter Jennings recently attended a class, and then taped a story for ABC’s Nightline on the phenomenon.

The recent opening of studios in Maui and Hood River has resulted in the rapid indoctrination of yoga into windsurfing society, almost reaching a “cult within cult” type of status.

“I wish I’d known about Yoga when I was racing and training for windsurfing,” says White. “Now I think it’s what has kept me injury free and feeling younger as I’ve gotten older.”

Although there are hundreds of body poses in traditional yoga, Bikram’s consists of only 26, done in a specific order, in a specific amount of time, at a specific temperature—HOT. The room is kept between 98 and 100 degrees–body temperature– which helps loosen muscles, de-toxify the system, and enhance stretching. The first class is free, after that for many it becomes a way of life.

“Bikram’s was my saving grace,” says instructor Dannette Waltze, former wife of windsurfing pioneer Mike Waltze. She had been doing other forms of yoga for 16 years, but finally found her rhythm with Bikram. She started taking classes when White first opened in Maui, and finally went to teacher training in Los Angeles last spring.

Among White’s regulars are Scott and former windsurf champion Rhonda Sanchez, who now run “Team MPG”—a personal training performance group on Maui. They have found Bikram’s to be an excellent compliment to their intense training regimen. Other athletes often showing up for class include freestyle champ Web Pedrick, and pro sailors Brad Drummond, Jace Pannebianco, Anick Violette and Temira Wagonfeld, just to name a few. White also has a list of famous surfers, cylclists, tennis players, and other athletes coming through her doors on a regular basis.

“Maui is a mecca for watersports,” says White. “Some come when they have an injury they want to rehab, but the smart ones do yoga for prevention and gaining an edge in their sport.”

Maui was not the first trail blazed by White. After learning to windsurf back in the “teak boom days” in California, she began her racing career while on a sailing trip to Mexico.

Upon her return, she opened Malibu Windsurfing—one of the first windsurfing shops in the world. After that it was the Olympic team, and training under the guidance of the often controversial Major Hall. Much later she became the Australian women’s slalom champion.

“I’ve always liked to try new things, go to new places,” says White. “I’m not very good at following, I like to lead.”

White got into yoga in 1991 when she bumped into a childhood friend who was on her way to a yoga class and brought Laurel along. After that first Bikram class she went ever day for a week.

“In that week I reduced my waistline by an inch, reduced my sleep time by 2 hours a night, and was smiling every day.”

Three years later she took the teacher training course in Los Angeles from Bikram himself. When White moved “down under” with her Australian husband in 1995, she took Bikram with her, and opened the first Bikram studio on that continent.

“I had a perfect location,” says White. “I was a block away from the best surfing/windsurfing beaches in Sydney. At first people thought, ‘what is this crazy stuff?’ but soon it took off. It was a very good business move in the end.”

Besides surfers and windsurfers, Whites clients in Australia included a rugby team, a few balarinas, and some high profile corporate CEOs. She was even on television a time or two.

When White decided to move to Maui in the spring of 1999, she had much of the plan for her new studio figured out in advance.

“Building this studio was really a community effort. Somebody did the painting, somebody laid the carpet, someone else put up the mirrors. That initial community involvement helped the studio take off right away.”

White recently opened another studio in the neighboring city of Lahaina in November of ’02.

“There are plenty of people in the world, and all of them should be doing yoga,” laughs White. “There will always be a need for as many yoga studios as we can build. There are five Bikram studios on the island right now, and the word is out. People are telling people, telling their friends, because it works. The true benefit of the yoga comes from a raised level of awareness, so we are able to hear our bodies’ messages and reach our highest potential for good in each moment. Therefore we are able to live a life that is effortless and blissful.”

Based on the fat book of hand-written sworn testimonials to the benefits of Bikram’s that White keeps on the sign-in desk at the Paia studio, it appears that she has the right angle.

Bikram Paia: 65 Hana hwy, Paia, Maui, HI
Bikram Lahaina 900 Front Street, Ste. 17
Lahaina, Maui, HI. Phone: 808-876-0052
www.bikram-yoga-maui.com

Bikram Hood River: 315 Oak Street,
Hood River, OR Phone: 541-387-3080.