super hot yoga

I went to hot yoga last Sunday for the first time since before my vacation. Everything below my neck hurt for two days. I tried to be brave and went back tonight.

The scent-free freak was in a heat frenzy this evening and had us going at 117 degrees (just over 47 degrees for those of you who do Celsius, and, for the record, I really think everyone should now) and 48% humidity. The sweat was pouring out of me.

I passed a dark parkette on my walk home. A drunk guy swigging from a beer can was swaying back and forth on one of the benches. He took one look at me and started singing, "you are so dirty, dirty are you."

Yes, I was ridiculed for my lack of cleanliness by a guy who probably hadn't showered in weeks. Hot yoga never fails to disappoint, does it?

Rainy

more hot yoga madness

I've been going to the crazy people hot yoga. I can't help it; I'm strangely attracted to freakishness.

There is so much amusement at the crazy people yoga. I could write pages about the outfits (or lack thereof) alone. But the best stories about the last class I attended relate to the ongoing scent-free debacle.

Since my first visit, I've managed to escape the superhuman sniffing of the crazy instructor. But in the class I just attended, she ordered two new students to shower with the unscented products beforehand. Like me, they complied.

About 10 minutes into the class, she told them rather bluntly that neither of them met the scent-free standards, and that they would need to leave the studio immediately. One of them was next to me and I didn't smell a thing, and it's not like my nose is freakishly useless. They looked around in a certain wtf way (familiar, since it was the same way I looked around when I was ordered to shower) and then left.

The instructor then ranted to us about the importance of no scents. "Remember that even your deodorant is bad," she said, "and that you can't put it on in the changeroom. You'll have to wait until you completely leave the studio to apply it." Visions of a group of yoga students applying deodorant while waiting for the elevator danced in my head.

Just when I was done giggling to myself about that incident, I caused another myself. You see, I get heartburn every time I do one particular pose, and it's brutal heartburn, the kind that burns continuously. I was determined this week to put an end to it. Without fully thinking through the implications, I stashed a Rolaids in my shorts and decided I would pop it before hitting that sequence of poses.

Well, pop it I did and about three seconds later, the instructor piped up with, "Somebody in this room smells like bubblegum or fruit. Remember, this is a scent-free studio and that will not be tolerated." I was discovered.

DO NOT MOUTH BREATHE, I told myself. Normally this isn't hard, but it's the most difficult thing ever when you feel your life at yoga class depends on it.

Crazy instructor lady pretended not to be able to localize the smell. I know that was all a ruse. She's now got me blacklisted.

I stopped on the way home and picked up longer lasting, unflavoured antacids. Next time I'll take one hours before, something I should have thought of before contaminating the studio with a fruit flavoured tablet. Combine that with my new scent-free shampoo and scent-free detergent, and I'm starting to gather quite a new collection of crazy yoga paraphernalia.

very cold and very hot

Mighty snowstorm. All of my plans for today got cancelled, so I was all about the self-indulgence. I worked out at the gym, watched a couple of movies and read a chunk of a book, then decided to hit a yoga class. I'm bored with the style I've been practising for the last couple of years, so I decided to follow Sunny's advice and give hot yoga a shot. I went a number of years back and and walked out feeling violently ill. But that was a long time ago, and Sunny's been swearing by it, so I decided to check out the studio that's a 20-minute walk from my house.

So much snow and whipping wind. I actually wore boots, a rare event for me in the city. The 20-minute walk easily became 30 since most of the streets weren't all that clean. But there were so few cars on the streets that I was able to walk down fairly major streets in the middle of the road, a lovely rare occurrence.

Then I got out of the cold and into the heat. I got to yoga and was immediately accosted by the instructor. "You're new," she barked in an Eastern European accent. She leaned in and sniffed. "You smell like perfume or scented detergent. What do you use?" When I told her that I disliked strongly scented detergents and certainly didn't use perfume, she leaned into my hair. "OK, it's your shampoo," she barked. "This is a scent-free studio, so I need you to wash your hair with our unscented shampoo before the class. Come back to me so I can double-check your smell before you go in."

Wtf? I did what she said, she leaned in for another smell, and then I was allowed to pay for the class.

But that wasn't the end of the madness. Then she said, "I'm sick right now, so I'm not actually teaching. I've set up a tape of a really good teacher so you can follow along." I walked into the room and laughed out loud. A crappy cassette player in the corner was playing Phil Collins. Eventually the crooning turned into some guy with a Spanish accent talking a group of people through a class. We followed along. Since dude was teaching a regular class, he threw in comments to specific people, like "Denver, make sure you bend your elbows" and "Lisa, I know you're feeling light-headed, but you have to get up and try." Insert snicker here.

Craziness aside, the class was tough and I feel pretty good now, so I'm going back. I just have to remember to seek out the unscented shampoo first.

RainyBow

hot yoga is hot

Today I attended my first hot yoga class. I have done plenty of yoga before, but never hot yoga. Let me tell you something, hot yoga is definitely hot. I have never sweat so much in my entire life. The room is supposed to be heated to minimum 38C but today the instructor was feeling adventurous and made it 42C. Just being in the room without trying to get through the poses would be challenging. Adding 26 poses and doing them each twice is quite a feat and I feel I deserve a medal for making it through. It was hotter than Hades in there.

One tiny girl did the entire class in her panties and bra. This was disturbing enough but then she walked by at the beginning of the class and my nose was assaulted by BO. I would expect that people would be smelly at the end of the class but going in that way was a little much. I made sure to stay far far away.

One gentleman had such an interesting breathing technique that he sounded like he was having an orgasm every time he exhaled. I was completely distracted by this at the beginning but the sex noises just added to the experience.

It took me a good 2 hours post-class to stop sweating and I now have a huge headache. Good news is that I should have no trouble sleeping tonight. I think I'll go back on Wednesday. lol.

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RainyBow note: I too went to yoga last night. Mine wasn't even hot yoga and it just about killed me. The instructor went to end the class and I was thinking, this is great, I'm not even about to die yet. But then some chick informed him that it had only been 60 minutes instead of the 90 it was supposed to be, so another half hour of torture ensued.

And today my groins are burning. I will not be going back Wednesday.