It hit my lungs like one of Wile E. Coyote’s lead anvils had fallen on my chest.  Instantly, a finely pebbled coating of perspiration bloomed between my shoulder blades and basted the bared small of my back.  A familiar malaise overspread my body.

Hold it.  Isn’t this sensation partly why I fled southern Indiana—and its wretched, in excelesis-humid summers?  Had I unwittingly submitted myself for participation in a déjà vu scenario in northern Michigan—in December? 

As I situated my purple mat and scab-red towel in the aft section of the crowded, dimly-lit room, another thought crossed my steam-nebulized mind.

The website promised that Bikram yoga could be a “life-changing experience.”  But are ya’ll sure you didn’t really mean that Bikram yoga might be a “life-ending experience?”

 

YOGI’S BLOCK

When you have a creative background like mine, people make a lot of assumptions about you.  Some popular preconceptions are that I must like dangly earrings, have dirty fingernails, own a cat, and show up late.

And I must do yoga.

Most folks seem to think that artsy types spend their free time om-ing away in lotus position.   But I’m less about “downward dog” and more into Dog the Bounty Hunter.  Also, I don’t wear jewelry, my fingernails are clean, I have no desire to be a cat’s chief of staff, and if a paycheck is at stake or food is being served, I’ll be there with bells on.

Flexibility—literally or figuratively—has never been my strong suit.  Consequently, I hadn’t considered yoga as a possible personal interest.  It didn’t help matters either that the YMCA “yogin” used to cut across the basketball court where I shot around.  I don’t care how entranced by your “asanas” you are, there’s no reason for you to pass directly in front of me, through the lane, while I’m practicing free throws.  Mindlessly rude behavior ain’t no way to win yoga-converts.

That’s another area of my yoga-resistance:  spirituality.  I’ve already found a faith, thank you.  And while I often feel meditative during physical pursuits, the only mantra I ever repeat to myself is the Finding Nemo paraphrase, “Just keep running, just keep running, run-ning, run-ning.”  Hey, first and foremost I want a workout—not a religious conversion.

“FREE” definitely qualifies as part of my belief system, however.  So when I saw an ad for free, 90-minute yoga classes, I was all over it.  Without even researching other yoga denominations—hatha, vinyasa, ashtanga—I answered the altar call at Bikram Yoga College of India, a studio located in Traverse City, Michigan.  As I discovered, Bikram isn’t just “hot yoga” as billed, though. 

Bikram is fire-and-brimstone yoga.

 

BODY, MIND, AND BARIUM?

Gym and Church are alike in some ways.  For one thing, both rely heavily on rituals.  Wiping down the machines and returning a basketball to the rack isn’t that much different from ensuring before the service starts that your pew didn’t get shorted on hymnbooks and offering envelopes.  But yoga adds a third prong to its body and spirit components—the feeling that you’re prepping for a medical procedure.

Many of the Bikram briefing instructions smack of a clinic appointment.  Go to class on an empty stomach.  No heavy meal less than three hours beforehand.  You may drink juice or eat fruits up to one hour before class.  Please, no perfumes or scents.  Consume plenty of water.

In case you missed it, those last italics are foreshadowing.  I’ll have more to say about hydration later.  For now, I’ll just comment that I probably should have asked somebody to drive me home after my first Bikram session.

And while the studio’s website didn’t explicitly mention it, Bikram yoga is a barefoot endeavor—and the Bikram environment is way too toasty for those grippy yoga toe-socks.  So added to my pre-yoga to-do list were the chores of feet filing, grating, and sanding—or sandblasting. 

I don’t look at the needle when I go to the doctor, but I wanted to have some sense of what was coming, so I skimmed through the poses online beforehand, too.  Based on the photos and pose names, I was somewhat worried about being able to keep a straight face during the session—until I came to “pavanamuktasana.” 

For real, do you expect me—a former middle school teacher—to not crack up over a word that translates as wind removing pose?

Additional note to self:  no garbanzo beans 24 hours before class.  Lest I become a yoga dirigible—oh, the humanity.

 

I HAVE BEEN A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

The first day of yoga class is sort of like the first day of kindergarten—you start by learning where to put things.  Walk in the door, shoes go here.  Beginners place your mat and towel in the second or third row of the studio floor.  Hang your coat on the hooks in the back hallway.  In the changing room, there are cubbies for storing the rest of your things.

Cubbies?  Cubbies instead of locking lockers?  I don’t know if open cubbies are part of some wishy-washy-yogi dogma, but I don’t trust mellow people who can twist themselves into pretzels any more than I trust members of the rigid community at-large.  I secured my purse in my car.  And yoga-sister, if you swipe my organic conditioner, get ready to rumble.

The suggested yogini uniform is “shorts or thin cotton leggings and leotard, jog bra, or halter top.”  Well, halters are only for women with boobage—and besides, anything held in place with ties sets you up for a wardrobe malfunction.  I haven’t been in possession of a leotard since 1983.  And for a sweatdog like me, wearing cotton during strenuous physical activities would mean staying soggy in a stew of my own filth.   

So for yoga class I chose to stick with my moisture-wicking, breathable, poly-microfiber shorts and sports bra.  I wasn’t thrilled about exposing my midriff in a public venue, though.  The chicks in the website photos looked like scantily-clad willow branches.  They’d dang well better be yoga teachers.

I was even more not thrilled about the idea of the male dress code.  Dudes, I’m begging you:  long shorts.  The guy in the pose demonstration pictures wore Charles Atlas-cut Speedos.  The men I’d want to see in those bun-huggers—now that’s a short list. 

And I doubted that Apolo Ohno or the hunk from the Old Spice Super Bowl commercials would be in attendance for the Sunday afternoon section at the Bikram Yoga College of India in Traverse City, Michigan.

 

THERE’S NO CRYING IN YOGA

The scene that took shape as my fellow yoga classmates began entering the room and settling into their spots was like a more diverse (i.e. less attractive) remake of that Jimmy Eat World music video.  You know the one—where the teenagers are all partying poolside in their underwear?  Except that the age range for Bikram yoga was nine to sixty-nine, and we didn’t have a pool.  Unless you count pools of our own sweat.

Oh, crap.  I forgot my water bottle.  But I’m usually a camel when I work out—I’ll be fine.  Right?

Right?

Things move fast in Bikram yoga.  The sign at the front of the room says “NO WHINING, NO COMPLAINING.”  On a continuum with transcendental meditation at one end and Navy Seal training at the other, Bikram is much closer to Navy Seal training.  And our leader was much more Navy Seal instructor than spiritual guide.

I can’t remember her name—the reason for my amnesia should be surfacing by now—but based on her native New Yorker accent, I’ve given her the alias “Bronx Betty.”  Is it just me, or do all people “turn” when you give them a headset microphone?   I’m sure Bronx Betty is a pleasant person—after class.  There wasn’t any battle for my soul, but less than halfway through a yoga session with her I could have been persuaded to join the Heaven’s Gate cult in exchange for a Turbie Twist and a cherry Popsicle.

You may be curious about the Turbie Twist reference.  Well, if I’d had a Turbie Twist—or an NBA-grade headband—I might have been able to keep the perspiration out of my eyes and avoid using my first timeout.

Yes, in my yoga “practice” there are timeouts.  And yes, I said first timeout. 

The amount of bodily fluids lost during a Bikram yoga class is staggering.  As the moisture poured down my face, it ran into my eyes, co-mingling with my contact lenses and my mascara—which, ironically, is the only cosmetic item I use.  Then my eyes teared, which accelerated the mascara meltdown, and thus created more suffering.  And near-blindness.  Between poses I bolted for the bathroom.

During my short sanctuary, I tried to mop down my forehead and blot the remaining eye makeup mess—while also grabbing slurps of water from the sink faucet.  What a dainty yoga girl I am. 

As I hurried back to the studio, I encountered Bronx Betty—her hand was on the door handle.  At first, I was sort of embarrassed that she’d been on her way to check on me.  But then I started to wonder if it was concern—or had she been getting ready to chase after me?  Maybe she thought I was trying to escape through the emergency exit.

An alarm would have sounded anyway.

 

THE LOST YOGA POSES OF JILL

From that point on, my timeouts were the “take-a-knee” variety.  Okay, a couple of times my head was between my knees.  I forced myself to not leave the 105-degree room again, however.

Man, I thought the military had stopped doing these kinds of experiments.

Later, I looked up the sequence again, trying to figure out which of the 26 positions I’d whiffed on.  As far as I can tell, things started going south for me somewhere after the “triangle pose.”  During one of the “standing separate leg-head to knee pose” sets I’m fairly certain I was tending to my eyeball and hydration needs.  And I know I got slammed by the heat attempting “toe stand pose.”

When we moved to the floor series, I reasoned that at least if I blacked out, I’d already be close to the ground.  In fact, I naively thought that on the floor things might get easier. 

Instead, the effects of the Bikram Temple of Perspiration-Traverse City Synod accrued astronomically.  I vaguely recall watching my yoga brethren do “fixed firm pose.”  I did manage to execute “half tortoise,” though.  I’ve done that one before. 

I read in a magazine that “half tortoise” helps alleviate menstrual cramps.  Eh, maybe.  But I’d rather lie down on the couch with a hot water bottle and eat scrambled eggs.  Hey, what my uterus wants, my uterus gets.

What’s really frightening is that the “camel” and “rabbit” postures appear foreign to me.  I mean nothing about them is familiar.  I assume I spent those sets in the aforementioned head-between-knees position—or as I’ve been calling it, “coma pose.”

By then, I was pretty much down for the count.  For all I know, Apolo’s and the Old Spice hunk’s tushies were in the row directly in front of me—and Kyle Chandler was out in the lobby waiting to spoon feed me a DQ pumpkin pie Blizzard while Harry Connick, Jr. fanned me with a palm frond and sang a few choruses of “When The Saints Go Marching In.”  Too bad I missed it.

 

YOGA-STANK

Bikram-advocates tout several benefits of this specific yoga form, including the stretching and strengthening of muscles, ligaments, and joints.   When the poses are performed in a “warm” room, injuries should be prevented and a deeper workout will result.  No arguments from me on those counts.  The Bikram claim that doing the poses in a Circle-of-Hell climate somehow “flushes” toxins from the body I won’t buy, though.

I know I’m only a dumb hilljilly, but isn’t the sole purpose of sweating to cool the body?

The January 28, 2008 L.A. Times article, “You sweat, but toxins likely stay,” by Chris Woolston verified my assumption.  Although this piece focused on infrared saunas, the principles are the same.  Whether it’s a souped-up sauna or a Bikram yoga class, heavy glistening doesn’t have magical properties.  Your liver and kidneys are the organs that filter toxins from the blood.  As Dr. Dee Anna Glaser, professor of dermatology at St. Louis University told the Times writer, “Sweating for the sake of sweating has no benefits.”

Well, I wouldn’t say no benefits.  I left the Bikram yoga studio that day with my pants fitting looser than they did upon entering.  Plus, more than 72 hours later, my hands were the softest they’ve been since high school.

And if the toxin-release theory is true, then in just one session I probably purged lead paint dust from a rental house I haven’t lived in since 2009 and the residue from Pop Rocks I ate back in the fourth grade.

 

HAIL BETTY, IN MY FACE

You’d also expect to gain new insights from practicing yoga.  Appropriately, the Bikram crematorium I visited offered this enlightenment on their website, “Honor your boundaries, but expect them to expand—have faith.”  That’s wisdom you can apply to life beyond the studio.

A more fitting quote for enduring a Bikram session comes from another fitness program, however.  Like the host said on an episode of the PBS series Sit and Be Fit, “We’ll be using our balls today.”

Among other things, I’m a runner.  Not a fast one, but I enjoy doing long runs.  To persevere in distance running, you have to be a little bit of a masochist.  So “yoga-tose” or not, I think the self-flagellation aspect of Bikram will eventually draw me back. 

Forgive me, Bronx Betty, for I have sinned.  I’ll pay my penance in extra sets.  But I might need a spotter for that “toe stand.”

Namasté—and don’t forget your water bottle.