Sitting in a pool of my own sweat, I thought to myself: “Is this really how I want to die? In a Bikram yoga class?” Looking to my left at the men donning furry leopard-print short-shorts, relishing in their own pools of sweat, I answered myself, “No, not really.”
Bikram yoga, otherwise known as hot yoga, has been an exercise fad since the 1970s. While it is hardly a new trend, Bikram, like many other exercise fads, is a “love it or hate it” form of yoga. I mean how couldn’t it be; the ideal room temperature is set to 105 degrees Fahrenheit with 40 percent humidity.
The prospect of attending Bikram yoga terrified me.
To be honest, I am not an exercise kind of girl. Working up a sweat holds no real allure for me. More often than not, post-exercise I look like a cherry-colored Oompa-Loompa and end up waddling for the next week and a half due to my aching bones.
So trying out Bikram yoga? Yep, sounded like torture to me.
But on that rainy and cold evening, while walking through 40-degree misty weather, a hot room to warm up my stone-cold toes sounded like heaven. In my slippers, trudging through the delightful Eugene droplets of frozen death, I walked into Bikram’s Yoga College of India thinking, “Maybe exercise isn’t so bad.”
With a towel, yoga mat and water bottle in hand, the thought of heat made my pre-exercise anxieties vanish. But then I opened the door.
To put it simply, it was hot. It was so agonizingly hot, I thought someone had shoved me in the oven to cook for Thanksgiving. Moving my finger made me sweat.
The class began with a breathing exercise. After ten minutes of breathing in and out, the first sweat droplet hit the floor. Little did I know I would make my own pond of sweat by the end of class.
The instructor, Llia Tardiy, didn’t accept babies, whiners or weaklings. As I moved through each pose, dazed and sweaty, her relentless, militaristic voice kept me from passing out (or at least made me too afraid to).
“Push harder! If it doesn’t hurt, make it hurt!” she yelled repeatedly.
Did I sign up for military yoga?
I’ve taken a lot of weird yoga classes. “See the bright light warm your soul.” “Imagine birds lifting you into tree pose.” “Use your breath to exhale the world of all evil.” “Use your inner lion and rawr the negative oxygen out of you.”
But in Bikram yoga, there are no little birdies or cute pet lions to keep you from passing out face first into your sweat-drenched yoga mat.
For Bikram yoga lovers like Tardiy, the fad, even without cute animals, is addicting.
“I need it now,” she said. “Once you have done it, it feels so good; being without it is like suffering.”
Others in the class love the heat because they say it releases toxins and renews their energy.
At the end of class, I couldn’t decide if I enjoyed it or not. Sweaty and tired, I felt the satisfaction of hard work and exercise. Or maybe the heat still had me dazed.
It’s hard to say whether this fad is torture or cleansing. What will be torture is getting the image of men in leopard Speedo shorts out of my head.
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