The Most Expensive Form of Torture I've Ever Bought Myself

There are two things that I hate: heat and sweating. I was the kind of kid that would try to hangout with my mother while she sunbathed the summer afternoons away, but inevitably ended up retreating back into the house after about 20 minutes, dying of heat exhaustion. Blissful afternoons in my plastic fill-up swimming pool were another story; that nice, cool water on my skin sufficiently distracted me from the sun’s deadly fingers. Ironically nowadays, my vitamin D-seeking mother warns me against the dangers of those invisible assassins, UV rays, urging me to always apply sunscreen and wear a hat to protect my youthful skin, especially since her back was, and I quote, “so smooth at one time, until the sun got to it.” That last statement always does make me shudder and reach for my SPF 30, even if I do only put it on my nose.

Heat gets a thumb’s down, invariably making sweating my secondary enemy. Before I start sounding like a complete bum, let me assure you, I’ve played my fair share of sports, just not recently. What’s important here is that I don’t sweat easily—it takes me a bit to actually work it up, and I can deal with it that last mile or so, but after, it’s straight to the shower for me. What baffles me is that I have friends who claim they “love to sweat.” I’ve never heard anything so stupid in my life. Do they really expect me to believe that they enjoy the feeling of awkwardly wet, salty, smell all over them? I do realize some people seem unaware that perhaps one shouldn’t go walking around the grocery story in spandex that is clearly wet in the crotch and down their bum cavity. I mean really, that is not alright. Someone should tell that lady. Someone should also tell that man that doesn’t wipe off his equipment at the gym—I don’t want that disease, thanks.

Damp clothing has never been a perk for me—I remember crying as a kid thinking my tights were wet, crying as a kid in the women’s locker room after swim class because it was too humid to get dressed, and looking down in high school with horror as I realized my gray shirt had a sweat spot gleaming from under my arm. I almost cried.

And so, given my dislike for heat and sweating in my clothes, it remains a mystery to me how I ever let myself get talked into something that combined the two in the most awkward, intense, and horrific way I ever thought possible, Power Hot Yoga.

Several of my colleagues had recently discovered a “great little place” for a fantastic new workout, “Hot Yoga.” Now, I’ve lived in the Seattle area for about four years and have grown accustomed to routine sightings of well-to-do women of all ages rocking their yoga pants, stopping after their sessions for coffee at local cafes, the ones where I’ve been sitting all morning in a rather sedimentary manner. I say thinking burns calories though, I’m sure of it. I’d known yoga was all the rage and was aware as well that the new spin “Hot” was supposedly the next best thing ever.

“Anika, you have GOT to come with us, it’s such a good workout.”

“Oh yeah?” That is quite probably the last thing I would ever want to do…but everyone’s doing it.

“Yeah! You just feel so refreshed and flexible afterwards, it’s awesome.”

“Ah, sounds interesting.” Ok…maybe I’d be surprised…still though, I don’t know…

“You’re active, it’ll be easy for you.” Yes, I am athletic. Here I think is where I made my fatal error—pride, and feeling like I couldn’t say no to a physical activity when I was supposedly the active one…what they didn’t know what that I hadn’t touched my running shoes in months and feared this workout might reveal my secret indolence.

“So, you want to come Thursday?”

“…sure…” Oh shoot.

Thursday rolled around, and from about lunch on, I began feeling the slight twinges of anxiety and dread that often accompany things I do not want to do. How was this happening to me again? After work, I reluctantly made plans to carpool over with Mr. Howard Munson, the school’s history trivia master and instructor. I did this with a fake smile because Mr. Munson is 60 years old and how could I skip out if he was going, dang it?

Getting into the car and driving to our destination is kind of a blur now; all I remember thinking was that it was cold outside, but that I wouldn’t be for long. We arrived at the Wellness Center, a green building with no windows. This detail was concerning. The “lobby” consisted of a small sitting room with plenty of potted bamboo, pebbles, and trickling fountains. I heard once that you should never sleep with a fountain in the room or you might wet the bed—this is the thought that wedges into my mind whenever I see indoor fountains. It kind of destroys the peaceful purpose. I didn’t have too much time to meditate on this however, which is what I would have ended up meditated about in this trickly Zen garden, because the lady at the desk wanted to sign me in.

These next few moments truly determined my fate and looking back, I overlooked so many signs. The lady at the desk looked like a short man, but with really big boobs. I realize this sounds contradictory, but even with the rack, her body was so tight and muscular, it held none of that soft, pliant femininity one comes to expect. Instead, I was pretty sure that if provoked, her deeply tanned sinewy arms could jerk my head back to touch my feet, which would really hurt. She had me fill in my name and information on a form with strong overtones of “waiver.” I paid $15 for the class, was given a voucher for a second free one since I was a newcomer, and then paid $2 more because I didn’t have my own yoga mat. This particular tidbit was her signal that I was a novice and she asked if I’d ever done yoga before:

“No.”

“Well…” there was a long pause that made me stare at her, “it should be ok.” Wait, what should be ok? What does that mean? But did I ask this? No. I did not. But I should have. I looked at Munson who simply shrugged—he’d been here a few times before and had been one of the strong advocates for, “It’s not that bad at all!” Munson did ask her when the class was starting since we had another co-worker, Jorge, on his way, the guy who had coordinated us all meeting there at 7pm.

“Oh, we need to start now, we’re already running late. We lock the doors, so unfortunately he won’t be able to get in after we begin.” The door gets locked? What was this? How I ever propelled myself into that adjoining room, I’ll never know.

The humidity hit me in a tangible, hovering wave. It was like the blanket I’d bartered for once from a vendor in Mexico—kind of musty and uncomfortable. But unlike that blanket, I wasn’t sure the cost of this experience would be worth the effort. The room was a long rectangle whose front was walled with mirrors. I suppose this was for the same reason mirrors line the walls of weight rooms—one must check to make sure the moves are being done properly. Unfortunately, mere reflection could not hope to correct the problems that were my yoga moves. This mirrored wall would also tell me I was not the fairest one of all, and that in fact, I looked to be on death’s door.

The back row was already claimed, so I laid my mat down in the front row, off to the side. Directly behind me, a middle-aged, Caucasian man sat stretching. He had already sweated through his gray shorts, which now appeared several shades darker in most areas, particularly the awkward ones. How long had he been in here stretching? Note to the general public, in case you haven’t garnered this knowledge for yourself already, gray is not the color of choice for working out or warm weather. As mentioned, I learned this lesson in high school and will never repeat that mistake. Having already laid my mat down, I couldn’t very well move it after staring at Mr. Pits—that would seem rude. So I sat down and began some stretching of my own, mostly distracted by my rising body temperature. Things were about to get interesting.

Ms. She-man came in and with the gentle ringing on a gong, began taking us through a sequence of yoga moves whose foreign names I couldn’t repeat. The sequence seemed to go on and on, until we finally came back around to the first position. During the cycle, I did a horrible job of mimicking the moves and honestly felt just a little odd reaching up to adore a sun millions of miles away who hadn’t shown it’s face in months. The solemnity that pervaded the atmosphere of the room added to the heaviness in the air, but I just couldn’t connect. Not that I didn’t feel seriously desperate—I did.

We went through the cycle several more times—I’d grown quite warm and was drinking my water frequently, though not as frequently as I would have liked because the moves kept changing and I felt like I should keep up. To add more pressure to already aching nerves, on my left there was a lady who was doing all the moves, only with several more degrees of difficulty added on. When it was time for a leg lift supported by two hands, she only used one hand. When we stretched up on one side towards the ceiling resting on an arm and leg, her body was completely horizontal, leg extended, resting on her knee and fingers. How did her fingers get so strong? I didn’t want to know. Finally I just couldn’t look at her anymore—my self esteem was plummeting.

It was much better to look to my right, where Munson was camped, slowly doing the moves with all the measured momentum of a sloth, taking some breaks, and as the night progressed, doing the moves to about a fourth of the scope they were supposed to have. He eventually took to hanging in child’s pose, basically a face-down fetal position. I knew how he felt, only I had that pride thing ringing my neck and couldn’t let myself back down, despite my shameful attempts.

Then came the POWER part of this whole ordeal. The cycle we’d been going through continued, only Ms. She-man began announcing a quicker pace, to the point of near blackout for me. With vision blurring, I couldn’t tell what I was doing in the mirror, but it didn’t look like anything Ms. She-man or Miss Gumby next to me was up to, but I was focused too much on survival at this point to care. Feeling faint every time I stood up, and feeling my body was about to implode every time we dropped down to the mats, I swooped, stretched, and sweated through the next hour, the worst one I’ve ever lived through.

Few times have I felt more relieved than when Ms. She-man announced it was time to “cool-down.” Though this was a complete physical impossibility in the humid room, the knowledge that hell was actually coming to an end was like throwing up after an upset stomach, blissful. Had I any moisture left in my body, I would have wept.

Instead, I weakly laughed when Munson looked up from his child’s pose and whispered to me, “This is crazy!”

Yes, it was. The whole thing was, including him saying that. In 15 minutes, I plunged back into the cold air of the outside world, unsteady on my feet. I have no recollection of walking out through the lobby or handing my mat in. I just leaned on the car, leaned against the seat of the car, and closed my eyes on the way home, trying to overcome dehydrated nausea. I truly felt terrible.

We learned that we’d been at the wrong class entirely. This was the fault of our co-worker Jorge who’d finally arrived, found himself locked out, and noted with curiosity that he’d gotten the schedule wrong. Opps. Power Hot Yoga was for advanced yogis, and turned out to be the most expensive form of torture I’ve ever bought myself.

When I finally arrived home, after a half-hearted wave to Munson, I opened my apartment door and fell inside. As I lay on the carpet, its itchiness really didn’t bother me like it normally would have. In fact, I was relishing the way it was scratching my face, as I was pretty much numb otherwise. Only later after many glasses of water, a shower, and more lying down like a viral victim, could I even begin to groan at the humor of the experience. Will I ever be brave enough to attempt Hot Yoga again? No. I don’t think so, but more importantly, I don’t want to.