This is Why I'm Hot, This is Why I'm Hot, This is Why, This is Why...

If your lucky enough to be friends with me on facebook (ha!), then you've seen my updates in reference to "hot yoga". I thought I would share with you my experiences and even a couple of pictures.





Now, if you've never heard of hot yoga, let me help you better understand by giving you a visual...




It's like doing this....

In this...

















The idea, I'm guessing because I really don't know for sure, is that you sweat out all your toxins while building up your muscle control. I personally think, and this is just my opinion, the idea is to make a person as miserable as possible in a 75 minute time span. It's like 120 degrees in the room. They have a humidifier on, a heating fan full blast plus the heat turned up AND heated floors. In fact, the floors are so hot, I hate to even touch it. The first time I was doing HY, I was literally dying, sweating my brains out, on the verge of passing out or thowing up, or quite possibly both and I couldn't WAIT to lie down. And of course, I scalded my skin on the frying pan floor.


So, you walk in the room and immediately the sweat is pouring off you. My arms are sweating. The tops of my feet are sweating, my ears...every nook and cranny (never spelled that word before). I'm trying to do these poses but I can't grab on to anything because I'm all slicked up. One second I have ahold of my leg behind me and the next second it's flying through the air towards the poor Chinese woman (a sixth of my size) next to me. If it were to ever make contact with her, it would literally chop her in half with the force. Ha, I'm just cracking up thinking about it.


I can't do hardly any of the moves (I have a lot more of me to work around than most of the people in there). It's funny because if the instructor sees one of the ladies who are taking the class in the wrong position, she'll come over and help them adjust into the right position. Yah, not me. They won't even walk near me. And they refuse to make eye contact. Apparently in the world of hot yoga, I'm a lost cause. Or maybe it's because they're afraid of the wild limbs flailing through the air at any given moment.

Except for one time. During the first class, we were doing this position, and I'm sure it has a name, where you lay on your stomach, bend your knees, grab your ankles behind you and look up. You kind of become like the bottom of a rocking chair. Well, that is just something this body is not meant to do. Not now. Not ever. But that didn't stop the instruction lady. No, no, no. She actually came over, sat on top of me, and jerked my shoulders back just enough to not quite but almost, rip my vertebrae into two pieces. My back may never be the same again.


By the time the class is over, my clothes are sopping wet from head to toe. My body is shaking from the contortionism (word?), and my eyes are buring from all the sweat dripping into them. But, I LOVE IT. I do. I don't know why. Masochistic, perhaps. There's just something about it. I've done it three times now and by the next day, even though I'm incredibly sore, I can't wait to go back the next week.


You know, of course, when I told my mother that I was doing hot yoga, she immediately asked me if we did any spiritual rituals in the class. Rest assured my friends. We find no "chi", we do not "center" our selves, we don't work out "the bad spirits'. No, instead, we listen to elevator music, stretch ourselves silly and sweat out every drop of hydration in our bodies. We do end the session with "Namaste". But I promise, it won't get any more Buddist than that.

Your prize for reading this incredibly long entry is some pictures of the place and well, ME! An "after" shot.




Blasted heat fan!


















The room after hot yoga is done.

















The surprisingly delicious soup given to us after
the workout. It's supposed to be nutrient-filled
or something.















A hot mess.