The name “hogi” is not the technical term, my friend abbreviated “hot yogi” and it’s phonetically representative of my experience in Bikram yoga. The idea of Bikram yoga came to our apartment serendipitously, as we were looking for an inexpensive place to work out during the winter months, and one studio offered a $40 month long trial membership. During our very first class I sat behind a middle-aged man in spandex shorts and nipple piercings; I spent the class trying to decide if these really were my kind of people, or if they really, really weren’t.
Bikram yoga is a relatively new yoga practice, created in the 1970s by a man named Bikram Choudhury (if you want some juicy legal cases, Google his name and “sexual assault allegations”). It’s a 90-minute class done in a 105-degree room, composed of a series of 26 postures and two breathing exercises. The first 50 minutes of class are spent standing up, and the other 40 are spent lying down. The postures aren’t necessarily hard, the difficulty is mostly mental; it’s getting through the heat and preventing sweaty body parts from sliding all over each other that makes it hard.
Research on Bikram yoga is mixed, some people say it will liven your body, mind, and spirit, others say they have never wanted to die so much in their entire life. Some studios advertise that you can burn between 700-900 calories per class (yeah right), and other statistics report somewhere between 100-200 calories, aka sleeping.
For the most part, young, healthy people will do just fine, as the instructors encourage resting in ‘childs pose’ or lying down if you’re feeling light headed. Research consistently shows that Bikram improves flexibility and posture, as do most forms of yoga. I have found that it is very important to always drink a lot of water and eat a salty snack after each class in an attempt to replenish all of the liquid and salt lost through sweat during the class.
One thing I appreciate about hot yoga is that it’s impossible to look cute while doing it, and unlike other yoga studios, participants wear just as much Target sportswear as lululemon. It has also beengreat for my ego, as the grandmas in class consistently have better form than I do. My roommates and I are also convinced that at least one person in every class is a professional contortionist, and just watching them makes me believe there is something to this hot yoga thing.
Additionally, most people are so focused on their own situation that they pay little attention to what anyone else is dong. We have about one week left of our trial membership and I can tell that my balance and flexibility have improved, and I often find myself casually standing in ‘tree pose’ while conversing with friends.
Overall, hot yoga is an interesting thing to try, some people really take to it, others, myself included, can’t really stand the heat.