turning up the heat

"All you need is a yoga mat, a coffee mug and a rain jacket."

My yoga kit

This statement I heard recently sums up Vancouver perfectly. A quick search on Yelp found 48 yoga studios in Vancouver. Another search on vancouveryoga.com's class database found 146 classes offered in gyms, studios, community centres and more. Vancouver was also recently named the third worst-dressed city in the world because everyone wears yoga pants too often. Yoga is up there with riding a bike and recycling in the list of things one must do in Vancouver. Since my time in Vancouver is supposed to be about life experience and trying all the things I never had the opportunity or time to do in Tassie, yoga has been high on my list of things to do. The gym down the road opens on Saturday and that will have yoga all the time, but the other craze that interests me is Bikram Yoga. A new studio has opened up in a not-too-hard to reach location and offering a $49 for the month introductory deal. I'm going to take it, but first I decided to try an free intro class.

This isn't the studio I went to, just a random picture off
the web to give you the idea.

I've done bikram once before in Hobart. The class is 90-minutes, but it took 90 seconds to realise it wasn't going to come easily to me. For those that don't know, bikram is conducted in a room heated to 40C and involves 26 poses and a few breathing exercises. I'm not a fan of the heat, whether it involves sun or not, so this was always going to be a challenge. But learning to stick with things that fall in the too-hard basket is also part of my time here.

 

After my second class I can only compare me doing yoga to a white guy rapping - it just shouldn't be done. I adjusted to the heat a bit better than in my first class last year, but still got quite dizzy on a few poses and needed a quick sit-down. About 15 minutes I was wondering if it would be bad form to leave, but that urge subsided. I also wasn't looking for a clock to find out when it would be over, like last time. I left with a huge headache and feeling exhausted. But by the time I got home I had more energy than I have for ages. The memories of the hardest parts of class are still fresh and almost bad enough to keep me from going again. But I've set myself a challenge and I'm determined to see it through.