My 30 Day Yoga Challenge: Day 11 & It’s Bikram…

I was feeling so well rested after the amazing sleep I had after yesterday’s class, that I decided I was ready for anything the world might throw at me. Er, what did it throw at me today? Bikram yoga – which is basically regular yoga done in a room at a seriously high temperature. Yeah, Gwyneth Paltrow is a super-fan. I’m not Gwyneth Paltrow… you can see where this might be going.

To add to my fears, my friends have also scared me with horror stories about their experiences with bikram (sweating, dying of thirst, hallucinations, you name it), but I’d put it off for long enough, and so it was finally time to see what it all the fuss was about.

It felt like I’d been teleported to the Sahara desert: the room was absolutely roasting. Heated to well over 100 degrees – the whole idea’s about making your muscles like butter – and I was actually expected to exercise in this heat. Great, I thought…

I arrived to the class, towel and mat in hand, ready to sweat out all my toxins and loose about 10 pounds in the process. Gotta look on the positive side, right?

Hot hot heat

Walking into the room, it felt like I’d been teleported to the Sahara desert: the room was absolutely roasting. Heated to well over 100 degrees – the whole idea’s about making your muscles like butter – and I was actually expected to exercise in this heat. Great, I thought…

But the sweltering temp wasn’t the only unwelcome addition to my regular yoga class, because the organisers decided that it was necessary to show us just how unattractive we were whilst profusely sweating, by placing a mirror on one wall. Ugh.

And then, get this, we were told that it was frowned upon to drink water during the class! At that point I wanted the ground to swallow me up – I was already so thirsty, but it was only going to get worse. The class consisted of a range of yoga poses I’d never heard of (Supta-Vajrasan, anyone!?), so I was grateful when the oh-so-familiar downward dogs and salutations came around.

Circles of hell

So was there anything redeeming to be taken from My Bikram Hell? Well, this, small bit of feeling smug, I guess. The only thing that made my 90 minute class slightly more bearable was the fact that at least I didn’t win the race for sweatiest woman. Nope, first place most definitely went to the lady in front of me who’d a formed a puddle of sweat on the floor in front of her by the end of the class. #phew

I left the class feeling stupid, inexperienced, sweaty – and dying for a drink.

So, next time I am feeling like I’m ready for anything the world might throw at me, please, someone, (for the love of god) remind me that I’m not an athlete and I definitely don’t need to push myself to the brink of death from pain and dehydration to pander to my inflated ego, huh?

K, thanks, bai.

• 30 Day Yoga Challenge
• bikram
• exercise
• yoga