Hot yoga

Love this, but sometimes you've got to change it up a bit

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of running, something that makes me feel great, but at the same time guilty. Because what happened to the yoga and my new life as a yogi-in-the-making? Well, it’s hard as you cannot be as flexible with yoga as you can with running. I can run pretty much any time of the day (when not working). Morning, lunch, after work, weekend… For yoga, you need to sign up 1-2 days in advance otherwise the class might be full, then you really need to plan your eating because there is nothing worse but turning up for a class with a bloated stomach… Then, since I am everything but a yogi-pro (more like a “terrible, stiff wannabee”) you can only go to certain beginner classes, as everything just a tiny bit advanced screams “danger” to me. So, once I’ve managed to battle all of the things above, I can go ahead with the yogi life. Not the easiest if you ask me, especially since my day plan changes at least 2 times a day and I never know how long I have to work until.

Yesterday I worked until 7pm and then headed to the 7.30pm hot yoga class. 7.30 pm is a bit late for me, since it’s my prime-hunger time, but I coped with this by force-feeding myself some sushi (and a small tiramisu, well come on, you need something good when doing over-time hours, right?!) at 6pm. Still, when stepping into the 39 degrees heated yoga room at 7.15pm, I felt like turning around and running home. I started sweating even before the class began and when we finally started, I thought I was going to die. I had to put a towel on my yoga mat as it got so slippery from sweat…. Sorry, too much information.

However, I’m delighted to tell you all that I (for once in yoga circumstances!) did surprisingly well! I have actually done some hot yoga before (back in 2007) and fortunately the class pretty much still follows the same moves and poses. So even though the class was entirely in Chinese (which can be hard when you need to listen, focus and move at the same time) I could follow the moves quite well (except for once when we were doing a seated post, and the teacher suddenly ran over to me, an alarmed expression playing on his face, and told me I was using the wrong leg. Eh… righty. He looked more embarrassed than me, and I quickly changed around. Oh well).

Afterwards, I was sitting in a pool of sweat, battling a small headache (that came when we went from lying down on our bellies and doing some back exercises to seated poses. Does anyone know why you get a headache from this? I could tell from the fact that I saw at least 2 other people rubbing their foreheads that I was not the only one suffering from this one), and feeling pretty beat. I treated myself to a taxi home, had a long shower and a small snack, and then went straight to bed. Slept like a baby (which is unusual for me), and today I woke up feeling… pretty d** good! Almost as if someone vacuumed me, inside and out: I feel real cleansed! And best of all, no stiffness, no muscle ache, no soar legs… This is the beauty of yoga, something I have to remind myself of so that I never stop going. Really recommend yoga to all of you out there who are like me: stiff, flexible like a fridge, and simply… not into it. I think when you are the least impressed of the whole idea of yoga, it has the biggest chances of doing great things to you. It’s a great combo if you do a lot of running, and it’s actually really nice to get a change of scene (calm, yoga room instead of treadmill) once in a while.