Thursday, December 16, 2010

Butt Yoga - A Christmas Tale

Bikram yoga is the new antidote to everything. Go sweat it out for 90 minutes at a time in tree pose and you'll never get cancer, goiters or canker sores.

The room is 105 degrees at all times. I don't know what's magical about this temperature, but it causes tiny rivers of perspiration to follow little Oregon Trails down one's face, arms, back, legs and other places one shouldn't mention. Except I have to because the whole room stinks like unmentionables. Mainly because the men wear shorts like these: And the room is carpeted. CARPETED!

I'm not a huge exercise person anyway. I wouldn't be going to this place at all if I
a) didn't live 4 blocks away
b) didn't have such an affinity for holiday foods in large quantities
c) didn't consider yoga to be one of those "sports" you can half-ass your way through and still see results
d) didn't have a friend already enrolled and applying prohibition era mobster-like pressure

But being a known fainter, I was still scared. What if I'm bending back looking at the wall and - boom - I go down like an anvil on an accident-prone coyote? It's hard to get back up from that without looking not awesome. Like running for a bus. This was a valid concern. However I made it through the first class (while watching old hats occasionally crouch in the fetal position or run for the door with a green face). I even made it through the second. And then the third. And I'll tell you what, if you can get through it (and if you've ever spent a summer in Louisiana, you can get through it) - it makes eating two molasses cookies a day for breakfast all the sweeter.

However - it should come as no surprise that I remain a cynical yoga-ist. I refuse to do the stupid audible breathing and I refuse to say "namaste" at the end of class. There's maybe one brown body on average in that whole room and it just makes us all sound like paleface assholes. And if they don't like it (they don't) then they can passive aggressively suggest it so (they do).

This didn't have much to do with Christmas at all, did it. Poo.

So what's new with y'all? I joined a book club.

11 keep(s) me blogging:

Gorilla Bananas said...

Do you have a guru? I'll be your guru if you want, there's no need to go to India. Man, I know some great positions. I also hold a literature appreciation class, which is superior to book clubs.

tiny sneezer said...

So it's the whole sweating a lot thing in a room that stinks that keeps me from the bikram - love the regular old stuff though.

What's the book club thing all about - any good?

stinkypaw said...

Just the thought of going somewhere with a bunch of people sweating in a hot room is turning me off. Yuck that's all.

One of my clients is a yoga center, and it's namaste all the time, weird, since I really don't do yoga.

BTW, missed you!

Robert the Skeptic said...

Nancy has given up on exercise, she figures she is now off the hook because we now live in a house with "stairs".

Nancy was in a book club but after a few meetings where she discovered she couldn't wait until the night before the meeting to read the book, she dropped out.

I'm in the book-of-the-year club; I read one about every year or so.

Anonymous said...

hmm...sweaty men in hot shorts bending over? I'M THERE! plus I like to be hot, and I like yoga.

Me said...

I joined the army. Take THAT book club!

Ms. Salti said...

Nice to see you're still alive...
I haven't done anything new lately.
The thought of sweating any more than I already do in a given day is soooo not appealing. Although, 'regular' yoga is on my list of things to take up sooner than later.

theWaif said...

O.K. wins.

I can't even stand sitting in a sauna for more than 30 seconds let alone doing strenuous body contortions in that kind of heat nonsense. You loco.

And where's our party? I was told there'd be streamers.

Mary Witzl said...

I've done yoga for ages and I believe in it. But I find alternate nostril breathing ridiculous and the only way I can make myself say 'namaste' is by telling myself that it smites evil and promotes good. I live in a world of self delusion, but it's a good one.

Also, I'm wondering just what the men who wear those little shorts look like. Can you clear that up so I'll know whether to swoon or grimace?

Mary Witzl said...

And yay -- you're back!

Ms. Salti said...

I've gotten back to yoga recently, but given the volume of sweat I lose in a normal workout, I'm entirely sure I'd die doing bikram. I stick to my usual stuff and call it good.