"Bikram" is slang for "Dear God make it stop"

So this actually happened back in March of 2012, but it recently popped up on Facebook and I got some super fun and positive feedback on it. My friend is insistent I share it with the [tiny*] masses, so I've tweaked it a bit and uploaded it here for your viewing pleasure (or disdain, if you're into that). Enjoy! :) 

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I hate a lot of things in the world… Things like tomatoes, terrorists, and the neverending Northern VA traffic. My newest nemesis in life? Bikram yoga. It’s not even that I just hate bikram yoga: my one night experiencing it was painful. I’m a firm believer that I should try something before I pass judgment. This is my saga.

I’ll start at the beginning. First I had to swing by my local watering hole (the closest Sunoco) and buy 2 liters of water and get cash (the yoga place isn't into plastic and they advocate hydration). I walked in with my head down hoping to avoid the gaze of anyone so they wouldn’t judge my make-up free face, grabbed my waters, and hopped in line behind this perfectly toned girl in leggings and a tunic top. The cashier rung up her items, handed her the change, and stared at her posterior as she sauntered away. I walked up and he wouldn’t make eye contact with me. Inside I was screaming “Hey! I’m prettier than my thumb-holed hoodie and saggy gym shorts suggest!!” but outside I was all “Thanks! Have a good one!”, grabbed my bottles and ran for my car.

So the studio. It’s small. It’s roughly the size of my townhouse from front to back but without walls. It looked like it should comfortably fit ~30 people. There were 50-60. It was also 105 degrees Fahrenheit, with 40% humidity. These are facts here, I’m not just making this crap up- that’s straight off the website. I sat down on my yoga mat with my not-quite-shaven legs and prayed that the heat wouldn’t start a brush fire on my own personal trees. People around me laid on their mats, stretched into positions I’ve never seen before, or sat doing as I did, staring with a hint of fear behind their eyes.

The instructor was this spry man who apparently loved his shorty short spandex shorts. Did he demonstrate the moves? Nope. He walked around, barking out things like “left leg tight right leg relaxed chin out hands together thumbs crossed.” In fact, just for funsies, during the “dead body” pose, he started singing “Country Road.” I kid you not. I snickered when he first started because I thought he was just joking. But no, oh no, he kept it going. As he warbled “mountain mama”, I laid there wishing that the “dead body” wasn’t just a pose but a state of being for me. I laid there for what seemed like eternity with sweat coming out of pores I didn’t know I had.

Did you know that the fronts of your calves could sweat? And that it was possible even when you were stationary? Yeah, me neither. But they did. The guy in front of me to my right contorted himself as rivers of salty exertion careened down his gym shorts. The guy next to him almost fell as his foot slid from the pools of “yogis” around him. I think my eyes were even sweating. My ultimate goal of the night was to stay in the room, and believe me, even that was a challenge. I laid down on the mat at one point, hoping the heat wouldn’t be as bad (given that heat supposedly rises… Or so “they” say!), and down there were smells I’m not used to nor do I want to become accustomed to. I turned to my friend who had suggested we do this and mouthed the words "I hate you and we're not friends anymore."

The air in the studio reeked of persistence and soup. The breathing techniques demonstrated sounded like something from of the exorcist. In fact, after “natural” sit-ups, I legitimately thought people had indeed died in their “dead body” pose since they exhaled greatly and propelled their bodies up with an exhalation of air that suggested resurrection. It was eerie and sounded marginally demonic.

So, for the sake of my soul, I can never go to bikram yoga again.

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So that's it! Anyone else ever had a terrifying experience with some kind of class? :) 

<3

A Redhead

*Note: Not to say that the mass of followers is literally tiny; you are fierce and wonderful! I just mean the number of you is tiny. Like 5. Solidarity, fat kids! =P