Well I guess I can officially call myself a New Yorker, because I have experienced Bikram Yoga. For those of you who are not familiar with this little hobby- Bikram Yoga is a combination of 26 different yoga poses practiced in a room that is 106 degrees at 40% humidity. I know- you probably want to run out right now and find your closest yoga studio to inquire about this enticing sport! So, for those of you who know me well, probably know that I would not NATURALLY by drawn to this sort of activity... but my dear friend Audrey asked me to come along and so I put together some sort of yoga-ish outfit and headed on my way. I figured the class would be around 30-45 minutes-- because I mean, who could survive those kind of heat conditions for much longer?? Even as a Texan, that's a bit too long of a stretch without an air conditioning/snack break! So I brought in my liter of water and Audrey and I assumed our positions on the yoga mats. We were ten minutes early.. I suggest being late if you ever attend.. the 10 minute pre-sweat added nothing to my experience! As we're beginning the class, I see that you can do Bikram yoga in any sort of outfit really-- bikinis, workout clothes-- or like my neighbor, the middle-aged man who came in nothing but gray boxer-briefs. Awesome.
So the class begins.. I'm already sweating due to our punctuality, and we start doing the poses and I'm enjoying myself. I'm drinking my water and keeping up with the crowd, so things are going well. The class started at 10:00 so at about 10:40 I'm thinking we're going to wrap up pretty quickly... I'm still thinking the same thing at 11:00... and 11:10... and 11:15. Around 11:15 my water is hot and almost gone and I'm feeling nauseous. The class finishes at 11:30 and we are instructed to lay on the mats as long as we need to and then exit. I felt the cool breeze from the opening door and raced out as quickly as possible-- probably not the best yoga move, but I was going on my 100th minute in 106 degrees. I was NOT thinking about finding my center!
All in all, my experience was a good one. I'm happy I have a friend who encourages me to try new things (even if it requires soaking my clothes with sweat for an undetermined amount of time!) and I'm extremely sore today, so it must have been a good work out... slash I may have done all the poses improperly. So my suggestion-- if you get the chance to try it, give Bikram a whirl! Just take a lot of water... and prepare for the long haul!!
I had a very similar first Bikram experience a few months back. However, I was wearing long yoga pants, two tanks tops, and only brought a small water bottle. I thought I was going to die, especially when the class continued for almost 2 hours! And you are probably sore because you did the moves correctly. Hooray for yoga!
ReplyDeleteSharon & I worked in the choir room Wednesday & the A/C was out-again. It was probably 106 or hotter. The only way we survived was by going into the hall for breaths of air. Yes, the hall A/C works-go figure. After several hours of sweat we broke for lunch & then brought back a fan. So now we have "moving" hot air. It did seem to help, but without moving hardly at all I think we lost 5 lbs of water weight. I don't recommend this form of weight loss, but I'll take weight loss whenever I can get it.
ReplyDeleteDon't you miss choir already :)