the longest 90 minutes of my life

If there’s one thing you probably don’t know about me, it’s this… I will without a doubt always and eventually succumb to peer pressure. Actually there doesn’t even have to be pressure involved, just a casual mention works too. If enough people casually mention something, well damn it I will buy a Groupon and I will try it out. This is how, despite the warnings of my Mother-in-law, I ended up in a hot yoga class last night.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to hot yoga, or just plain old regular temperature yoga, but let me tell you… it ain’t easy. Since I have a happy trigger finger when it comes to Groupon deals, I’m sitting on a 5 class package and last night I cashed in class number one. I got to the studio early and the instructor walked me through a list of rules, no water until after the 4^th posture, if you have an emergency its ok to leave, no cell phones in the studio and so on. Actually this kind of confused me a little, I mean how do you know if there’s an emergency if you don’t have your cell phone?

I went into the yoga studio shook my mat out and looked around at the other yoga people. Of course I was sitting next to the tiniest, bendiest, bikini clad yoga chic ever, the class hadn’t even started and she was already doing back bends down the back wall. Not to be outdone I fell into a pose that is my personal favorite, corpse pose. The heat was intense, like so intense I had a new found respect for Frodo, it must have been damn oppressive up there on Mount Doom.  Then the class started.

It took me about 15 minutes to realize what kind of emergency could make you leave the room, the kind of emergency you don’t get a cell phone call for. Like I’m going to vomit, maybe poop myself, and I’m pretty sure my heart is exploding… holy shit I’m having heat induced hallucinations kind of emergencies. Yeah, it was that hot and that awful. I think the worst part is that there is no clock, you have no sense of time, no understanding of how close you are to the end.  I started thinking about all the things I had taken for granted in my life, like fresh air, refrigeration, breezes… ice cubes. I drank some water, I thought about volcanoes, how horrible it would be if one erupted right now and I never felt cool air again. We did a pose where I tucked my chin up to my knees, and the sushi I had for lunch made a spontaneous appearance in my mouth. I choked back the vomit and kept going.

I worked and worked, and thought about all the people outside the studio, I thought of the future. I thought, holy shit, what if global warming makes the whole planet this hot all the time and every day is like doing hot yoga for the rest of our lives. That was kind of the point I started crying, I was so sweaty I don’t think you could see the tears, but I’m pretty sure everyone could hear me sobbing. Yeah, hot yoga pretzel lady had front row seats to my whole freak show. After crying for 10-15 minutes the class was finally over, the instructor brought us cold wet towels, I cried for a few more minutes, then rolled up my sweat soaked mat and made my way out.

I will tell you this, I am so glad I didn’t buy the 10 class package. I think there is a possibility I will go back, because I’m cheap and the classes are non-transferable. I now I will not be eating sushi for lunch the day of a class ever again.