Hot Mama

I spent a good chunk of my morning twisting and bending and downward dogging and ujjayi breathing in a 95 degree room with several other glistening, sweaty people. It was awesome. I have practiced yoga on and off since I took it for a gym credit in college, but I didn’t discover hot yoga until a little more than a year ago. After a good class, I feel like I got a workout, a facial, and a massage all at once. Actually, I have never really had a bad class. Yoga is one of those things that can only improve my day. I can be a tired, crabby, grumpy mess and after class, I will always feel much better.

I thought spending 90 minutes exercising in a humid 95 degree room would be horrible and I would pass out, or throw up, or have to slink out to breath some real air, but it isn’t like that. When I first walk into the studio it seems suffocatingly hot, but once the class starts I forget about the heat. My muscles are warm and limber and I can settle deeper into each pose than I can in a traditional yoga. The heat makes the challenging poses easier, not harder.

Of course it is wicked hot in there, so there is a lot of sweating and slipping and sliding. The first class I took was on a cold January afternoon in a very crowded studio where each yoga mat was only a few inches apart. It got hotter and hotter as the class went on, and the floor-to-ceiling windows were all steamed up. The instructor led all of us through the series of poses and by the time we got to the shavasana at the end of class, the sun had set and the studio was almost completely dark. I probably sweat more than I have ever in my life and I left the class feeling relaxed and invigorated and almost as high on endorphins as I had been after natural childbirth (more on that another time). It was like a 90 minute tropical vacation. I was hooked.