After a two year hiatus, pregnancy, baby, several orders of back ribs, it was time to return to the hot yoga studio.
Was I discouraged to be returning in yoga pants that were now almost see-through from being stretched around my mother-of-three body with one inch of the waist tie dangling loosley while the other was somewhere in the band half way around my back? Did it bother me that a bra was really just an accessory and certainly no longer required under my spandex tank-top? I’m surprised to admit, not really.
It was a new studio, at least for me and the almost forty year old, gasp, old lady (and friend) I had partnered with.
We arrived to the usual routine of waiver signing, reviews of people’s body art and a quick tutorial on how things were to play out in the one hour session. First rule of hot yoga, no talking, a difficult task for two characters best known for our Sesame Street yip-yip-yip-yip-yip alien impersonation.
We loaded up our bottles from the reverse osmosis water thingamabob and headed into the studio.
Opening the door to a hot box with a half dozen sunny side up corpses, lying on mats, in various states of consciousness is a little unnerving. Everyone pretends not to notice the newbies making subtle glances at other things in the room while scanning the brand name on your mat and the length of your leg hair in this non-competitive environment.
When asked to relax with eyes closed, I found myself squinting as though the heat had tricked me into thinking I was on the beach without my sunglasses. It wasn’t bright, just hot. I took note of the instructor repeating things like, “relax your forehead,” “let the tension leave your face,” general, blanket statements to the class, likely because she didn’t feel right yelling, “BITCH IN THE BACK! STOP SCRUNCHING UP YOUR FACE AND TRY TO RELAX!”
The stretching began and shy of filling my pants, I did everything I could to maximize the long overdue workout.
I tried hard not to judge myself and therefore avoided the mirror despite being told specifically to look at ourselves in the mirror to gain some perspective on positioning during the poses. Instead, I focused on the woman in front of me who was in fact the serial killer Aileen Wuornos who Charlize Theron brilliantly portrayed in the movie Monster. Hot yoga is a good place for people with a lot of pent up frustration and perhaps the perfect place to hide from a probation officer who would have more sense than subjecting him or herself to an exercise class that takes place in a sauna.
I cringed when I heard the words, “time for some ab work.” I knew it was coming, I was just hoping the sprinklers would have accidentally gone off before then or Aileen would have confessed she was in fact the person I knew her to be, shifting the workout to a conversation about her troubled childhood.
A couple of wounded pigeons, angry cats and arthritic eagles and I was completely dehydrated.
A good start to a long overdue workout regimen.
I may have to take the day off writing. Something tells me I’ll be icing everything including the tips of my typing fingers for the rest of the day.
Namaste.
