Hot Yoga, Hot Damn

I am too infatuated with hot yoga to write about the risks of being in extreme 104-degrees-temperature with 40% humidity for an hour. You should know that there are serious risks and read up on them if you find yourself interested in the challenge of hot yoga. That’s what this article is about — the challenge of hot yoga.

I love intense workouts. I live for two-hour Sunday runs. I’m a martial artist junkie with a 4th-degree black belt in taekwondo. I weight train with pride in my workout top that reads “Train Like A Girl.”

Yoga has always frustrated me. My muscles have to fight too much with my mind to remain still in a pose. But, now and again, I would try to bond with a friend by dragging myself to a yoga class. In due diligence, I would struggle through the class by modifying almost every pose.

At some point, what I was practicing shouldn’t be called yoga (maybe “Roga”,) because I was making up my own positions that looked nothing like what was happening in the room. My knees cannot bend very far. There’s more than a 12” gap between my heel and my butt that makes all the sitting poses impossible and the attempt extremely painful.

So, my ego is what has always gotten the biggest workout in yoga class, as I feel a need to explain why my ultra-fit appearance fails me on the floor. Doing poses in the same room I take cardio classes, with the same temperature, has never felt helpful. The “warm-up” is never sufficient. I’m not ashamed to use the room temperature as an excuse for my poor performance, or to psych myself into believing it.

I did learn that yoga-contingent friendships don’t last for me. I’d rather treat myself to a foam roller or a hot bath and avoid the fighting over mat space on top of the humiliation. So, when I moved to Colorado two years ago, the last thing I was trying to find was a yoga class. But, as fate would have it, finding new hangout buddies proved difficult.

The first runner friend I met, of course, invited me to a yoga class. Again, I obliged. I gave her the “it’s was good” thumbs up afterward, but made no attempt to repeat it. A few months later, a different friend invited me to the same yoga studio. We missed the intended class and ended up in the hot yoga class. I didn’t resist since I thought I hated all yoga, so it wouldn’t make a difference.

When the instructor began class, she explained that the number one rule was that you don’t leave the room. This is when I thought, with fear and intimidation, this was going to be a new level of yoga disdain for me. She further explained, “if you feel any discomfort, you should lie down, even if it’s for the rest of the class.” This announcement set my mind in panic mode, as I had already begun to feel discomfort just by being in the room. I thought of at least ten reasons why I should not be in that room, starting with my asthma.

I moved slowly and deliberately with every command. Fifteen minutes into the session, we were in plank position. Planks are a challenge in any given situation, but this felt ridiculous. What the hell had I gotten myself into? This is not yoga; this is a torture chamber.

I had to ignore the thoughts racing through my mind and focus on my breathing to avoid passing out. I made it through the first 75-second plank, and the 60-second plank she commanded five minutes later. But, the third plank pose of 30 seconds wiped me out with ten seconds left. I was done. I flopped down on my back. I tried to recompose myself. However, when I tried to join in a pose I felt like I was going to faint. So, I laid down for the remaining 20 minutes of class. When the door opened, I picked myself up and forced the seven steps to land my body just outside of the classroom door to get some air. Then, a familiar rush came, and I said to my friend,

“Oh my god!

I thought I was going to die.

Let’s do that again soon.”

The Natural High

The euphoria mimicked what I had only known as runner’s high. Hot yoga offers an endorphin rush, like the roller coaster ride adrenalin or the haunted house exhilaration. This was no regular yoga class. The high is enough benefit to interest people like me who thrive off of intense workouts.

I obsessed all week about going back to hot yoga. I felt confident that I could make it through an entire class if I prepared myself. As I reflected on the class, I realized that there were no fancy poses. There was no child’s pose, balancing on elbows, or any contraptions that my body refused to mimic. I could do every pose. I couldn’t do them well, but I could do them. The next class, I made it through all four sets of planks and the rest of class. The adrenalin rush was waiting for me just outside of the door.

The next week, I went back without my friend since she was not available. I started attending three classes a week with three different instructors. I felt relieved to find out that most hot yoga classes do not include planks, although I kept that one in my rotation. My friend, Lauren, renamed the planks class “death yoga” and the other ones “coma yoga.”

I started arriving early to get in the front row to watch my form in the mirror. I talked with the instructors before and after class and asked for tips. Since obsession was setting in, I read up on hot yoga to make sure it was safe to attend frequently. I’m not sure it even mattered, because I didn’t want to give it up.

Hot yoga feels like a ten-mile run when I’m done. The difference is that nothing hurts before, during, or after, and I really don’t have to work that hard. I’m never going to overstretch in hot yoga because the heat is enough of a workout for me. So, I focus on breathing and balancing.

The hot yoga room is small and cozy since it has to be heated. The small class size allows the instructor to pay attention to our bodies and make adjustments. I happily receive them.

People are not there to be cute, because what comes out of hot yoga in 60 minutes is not cute. There are puddles of water on the floor, a slight stench in the room, and people’s hair look crazy. It’s similar to the crossing of the marathon line. In fact, I find a lot of similarities between running and yoga.

Hot yoga is a bonding experience that takes my friendships to another level. Similar to running, my partners and I have to go at our own pace. We don’t try to mimic each other’s pace for the run. We catch up or fall behind as necessary. Like hot yoga, my running rule is that there is no talking. I want the company, but not the conversation. I seek to connect through spirit, not words.

At the end of both experiences, we are exhausted, dehydrated, and high as a kite from the adrenaline. Now, we have something to talk about. We talk about the challenge of it, the mind, and body experience. Together, we have accomplished what most people will never even try.

Trusting the Process

Trusting your body to go beyond normal limits is the cost of the natural high. You have to trust your body to do what you are asking it to do, and you have to listen to its refusals. I love experiencing that mind-body connection in death and coma yoga that I had never achieved on a deep enough level in non-heated yoga.

But, there’s a twist to this story. After two months of hot yoga, my friend and I attended a regular yoga class by mistake because we didn’t check the schedule. I prepared myself to hate it and get through it anyway. To my surprise, I could do a lot more of the poses than I ever could before, and the ones that I couldn’t do, I had learned in hot yoga how to properly use blocks to take the strain off of my knees. The class felt relaxing and my mind did not fight with my body.

I tried another regular yoga class with a different instructor later that week. I had the same positive experience. Maybe it was the nostalgia of the room and the fact that the room was not air-conditioned. Maybe hot yoga was the catalyst that my body needed to connect with my mind to restore a sense of balance. Maybe hot yoga can do that for you.

References

Fetters, A. (2019). How to Achieve a Runner’s High. Runner’s World. Retrieved May 30, 2019. https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20851505/how-to-achieve-a-runners-high/.

Mead, T. (n.d.) 6 Dangers of Bikram Yoga. Alternative Daily. Retrieved June 3, 2019. https://www.thealternativedaily.com/dangers-of-bikram-yoga/