Bikram Yoga

Oh, you know I hafta blog about this!

So I'm kind of one of those people where if something sounds remotely miserable, I'll write it off in one second and never think to do it.

That's how I felt about Bikram Yoga. They keep the room at like 105 degrees, and it's yoga. Two things that let's face it, I'm not exactly pro at. Usually when I do yoga, it's in my bedroom by myself with the door closed so no one can see how woefully inflexible I am. And 105 degrees. This girl don't sweat in public, k??

So Mark, Dwight's best buddy from high school was visiting this week and decides he wants to try it again and have Dwight and I tag along. Dwight calls me up to tell me, and I'm pretty sure my response was, "eueurgh" or something like that. But with a little convincing I was talked into it. I didn't want to be a lame-o pants and stay home. Besides, I've been on this kick where the more stuff I try, the more cool I feel. Don't ask, I don't get it either.

So Mark is saying how we will sweat more than we ever have in our lives put together, so bring a change of clothes and a towel... and I'm thinking, "this is going to be such a blast" in my sarcastic, somewhat teenager-ish attitude.

We get there, and the instructor guy is sitting out there with a towel around his waist, still not sure at this point whether he had something on under that or not. And tats up the wazoo, he seems friendly enough though. I go put my stuff in the locker room where there are one too many naked ladies in there. There was only one, but that's still one too many. And then we head into the yoga room.

It was like a wave of sweaty air filled my lungs. As I laid down and started thinking about how hot it was, I sort of started to panic. I was already feeling like I couldn't breathe and this was going to be the worst hour and a half of my life. Not to mention, I had worn a cami and a t-shirt, me being the only little modest Mormon girl in there. And all the ladies were in these things, I think they must have been sports bras but they were so small, they were more like spo brs. Too small to deserve a full name. So I stick out like a sore thumb in my fully clothed, lerpy body. And we also had the honors of being singled out as the new people. We all love to be the new guy, don't we?

So our instructor comes in, thankfully wearing some shorts (see the a fore mentioned towel). And he is pretty much drill sergeant intense. I thought he'd be all peaceful and try to help us connect with nature and junk. Nope, he was raring to go and get us on our Bikram journey. By the way, he said our goal for the first time was just to stay in the room. Can't tell you how reassuring that was. That's like saying, "okay, you're in a room full of snakes, for the first time, just try to stay in." I'm thinking it's literally going to feel like hell on earth and I'm going to run out screaming and barfing.

We get started. He told us all to breathe from our noses the whole time, and that helped me feel much better like maybe I wasn't suffocating quite as bad as I thought.

He's being pretty nice and understanding of our newness. I'm thinking, "hey! I'm not sweating much!" About 5 seconds later, I see small beads of sweat coming out of every pore, and 20 seconds later, I see sweat drip from my body. I would have screamed, but you aren't supposed to talk in there unless spoken to. It was like swimming in a pool designed to fit only the contours of my body. Cool, I know. Are you grossed out? Hey, at least it wasn't you this was happening to, and I was slightly horrified. So we get through about half. There was a point when I got slightly light-headed and just stood there kind of swaying. But I recovered pretty fast and kept going. But the end, I thought how much better this whole experience was than I thought it was going to be. And I was even thinking it was something I should get into. See, so this is why you don't judge something until you try it. Because now, as I am writing this, I feel quite great.

We headed to Buffalo Wild Wings after the class and I polished off twelve and felt like I had just eaten a small snack. I looked down and all the chicken bones and wondered why my stomach felt so light and empty still. But I'm not complaining, those wings were like the best wings of my life. Thank you, Bikram Yoga for making me appreciate wings even more than I already did.

So, moral of the story, this girl gives Bikram Yoga a thumbs up! I thought it would be more like Bikram Noga. But it was a grand experience, thanks Mark for talking me out of being a lame-o pants.

Pretty much how good we were by the end. Not.

Peace and Blessings!