Before Saturday, I'd never done yoga, and I'd really never done hot yoga. So when big sister Jill woke me up with an invite to try a class with her and her boyfriend Steve, it seemed like an innocent, ambitious change to my fitness routine. I was on the 7th day of a workout binge and the gym seemed about as interesting as blah flavoured oatmeal. So I threw on some workout clothes, grabbed a bottle of water and we headed out to face our destiny. (You think I'm being overdramatic here, but I'm really, REALLY not.)
We arrived at Jill's usual Moksha studio to find it under renovation. This would have been the end if not for a high strung yoga junkie who rolled up in a white car and with a neurotic snap of her cell phone, had her husband googling the schedules and addresses of other studios nearby within minutes. She told us about a Bikram studio nearby, but said she didn't go there often because you weren't allowed to wear green and they kept the room hotter. (At this point, not for the last time that day, I wondered what the hell we were walking into.) We decided to check out the Bikram place; but it turned out they didn't have a class until 4, so we had hours to kill.
We returned home to eat and rest up. Killing time, I checked out the website for the studio, which said things like: "
Bring a positive mental attitude and sense of adventure." And if that wasn't enough, it also promised "
...you’ll laugh, cry, moan, groan, [and] sweat...” And I thought, how cheesy. Then the website said not to eat 2-3 hours before coming, because you might feel nauseous. My second pang of worry struck. The website was also how I learned that ALL Bikram classes were 90 minutes in length. Jill usually attends 60 minute classes, and avoids 90 minute classes out of a sense of sanity, so I decided to keep this information to myself. I was curious to experience my first yoga class and I wasn't letting something like an extra 30 minutes in 105 degree heat put me off.
When we finally found ourselves in the line to sign up. It was 15$ for one class, but 30$ for a beginner's pass, unlimited class for two weeks. I figured even if it sucked, the benefits and the challenge were tantalizing. So with that, goodbye, money. People lingered in the reception area in various states of minimalist workout clothing.
We picked up our mats and walked into the studio. It was filled with people lying on mats all over the floor. It was dead silent. Oh yeah, and did I mention it was HOT? We were stepping into a sauna on the sun. The air was thick, a humid, summer day without any wind. The kind of hot where you sweat by doing nothing. If the heat had been a celebrity, it would have been the product of a threesome between Rihanna, Scarlett Johansson and Brad Pitt.
I laid down flat on my mat to wait, and it wasn't so bad. Wouldn't it be cool, I thought, if I actually had some super immunity to heat and the class was a breeze? Still and warm, this seemed possible. That's when the instructor came in. Apparently the only rules were to try and stay in the room the whole time, and to lay down if you felt dizzy.
Uh oh. Then she said we were going to start with a breathing exercise, laced her fingers beneath her chin and took a deep breath that made her sound like she was sucking the soul out of a small orphan. (Poor little Timmy!) The deepest breath you've ever taken in your whole life. Soon the whole class joined in, and it was a terrifying orchestra of wraiths. I heard a whole orphanage of poor, wounded children having their souls hoovered clean out of them.
After this, came the poses. We began transforming our bodies from bone and muscle into toothpicks and rubber bands. Suddenly my arms and legs were a Rubiks cube that I could not for the life of me figure out how to solve. I was a pretzel, twisting. A puzzle, not sure what was supposed to lock in where. I was an extra hard bonus question at the end of the test.
It was both mentally and physically trying. There was no music to pull you out of the moment, and the 40 degree heat forced you to have the concentration you couldn't ask of 100% orange juice. You had mentally direct your body into the pose, hold it with your muscles, and meanwhile, be hyperaware of each and every drop of sweat literally pouring out of you, sliding down your skin and pooling in a tiny ocean at your feet. The pounding of my heart swallowed my entire head whole. I forgot to breath.
Over the 90 minutes I went through a couple of stages:
• At first I was fine.
• I began to feel like a baked potato, wrapped in foil, easy to pierce, probably capable of melting butter on my skin.
• I was amazed at how by body was capable of stretching and folding in the heat. I was a psychedelic lawn chair.
• I distinctly remember a moment where I thought I was going to break down and cry. I didn't know if yoga had hit a soft spot or I had just lost hope of ever seeing the light of day again. I kept it all together, but that feeling of vulnerability was a cocktail of anxiety and panic.
• Just after the instructor told us we have 40 minutes left, some part of me began to come to terms with my own mortality. Everyone else seemed to be in the same state.
When I looked into the mirrors on the wall, the red faces of my comrades were stony and serious, glistening with a lacquer of sheer-goddamn-strength of will. Jill's eyes were glazed over and black, like a doll's eyes, having just committed murder. Steve's face said he was about to take on his own death in a showdown at high noon. Then I met my own stare the mirror. I was smirking.
Smirking. Maybe I was refusing to let Bikram break me, or I had tapped the inner echelons of my own madness, but whatever it was, whoever it was in that mirror happened to be a shiny, frightening stranger. Someone more powerful, more dangerous than me. Someone armed with either a lot of firepower or rabies. I was Tyler freaking Durden.
We were so sweaty it looked like we had showered. I had to close my eyes because sweat was pouring into them. I could taste the salt in my sweat when I opened my mouth to breath, and Jill noted later, that her fingers had gone prune-y, like she had taken a long hot bath. In way, we sort of had. A long hot soak in our own sweat and a tub of WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS? But, at the end of it all, we walked out of the studio, I realized the answer to that question.
I felt light as a feather, like I wasn't walking but gliding instead. It was like suddenly I was graceful. The air was cool and fresh. Every breath I took felt like a gift. Life was a waking dream. I felt strong, powerful and accomplished and once again, mentally stable. There was not a drop of anxiety in my whole body. It all made sense. I was a Simon and Garfunkel ballad if it woke up from a nap and was still sleepy. Then, at the same time I felt as though I was a deer, powerful and ready to trample the guys who shot Bambi's mom. I think it's on that weird cocktail of feelings that people become physically hooked. I can understand it completely. In fact, I'm going again tomorrow...and I'm getting up EARLY to do it. In the words of Chuck Palahniuk: "It's only after we lose everything that we're free to do anything."
And in the words of me: "Bikram yoga: go for the workout, stay for the chance to face your own death."
Inquiring minds want to know: have you tried hot yoga? What did you think of it? If you haven't, would you ever?
