So it's getting towards the end of my time in Los Angeles and there are still quite a few things I want to get done before I make my way back to sunny England... So I thought today I better get cracking...
I'd been thinking of doing a yoga session post drama school...and I'd heard tell of a form of yoga where the room is heated to help you sweat more and flush out 'toxins' etc etc. so I thought it would be an experience. I ventured down to Santa Monica and paid my $30 - which gives me limitless access for a week, finished my smoothie (pomegranite-pick-me-up from Jamba Juice) and signed up to my first class.
Those of you familiar with drama school's movement classes - or anyone for that matter with sadistic tendencies, will know only too well, the contorted positions one can find oneself in when 'pushed into a corner in the name of self-bettering (or battering).' Now I like to think myself rather flexible and having done -ahem- over a year of yoga and pilates (or as I prefer - yogilates) I pride myself that a little bit of heat will not trouble me in the least. I have chosen the first class available which is also the easiest - but never mind, I'm keen to show these rank amateurs how we do in ENGLAND and I'm sure I can still take something from this class nonetheless. I had already been to the gym in the morning so ought to be warmed up enough to jump right in. I considered changing my vest for a clean one - I don't want to get funny looks for smelling bad. In the end I decide to brave it out and to hell with it.
"Hot 8 Yoga
This 90 minute class is for all levels (so... it's easy), heated to 100 degrees (note to self - look up how hot this is) and features Pranayama deep breathing (i.e. lots of resting)"
I enter the room. It is hot, but I had expected this. I follow everyone else across the springy floor (which feels like the inside of a tennis ball) to an open spot, roll out my matt & beach towel. I notice that the men have removed their tops - I follow suit - and so the vest debate becomes "moo" .... it's "a moo point". I'm getting pretty hot now so I do some slow breathing (like on the tube in rush hour) that Pranayamarayama him/herself would surely be proud of. I don't sweat much as a rule so I'm thinking the fact that I'm acclimatising now will keep me dry in the long run.
We begin.....................at what seems like break-neck-speed
"ok so starting off palms facing the side walls (do what now?) breathe the arms up to the ceiling, (breathe the...?) exhale down, head to knee, now left foot forward pushing through with the hips then feet together push back into -inhale- downward dog, rock forward feet facing upward now come through to upward-facing-dog - exhale - now left foot forward, sorry right foot forward, (Only a fool would attempt the left here) thigh parralel with the floor inhale legs together head to knee and exhale palms together stretching up to touch the ceiling."
This woman is Hitler resurrected, I'm one exercise in and beginning to sweat, and for those of you that don't know me so well - I do not like sweating...or being hot - I avoid it at all costs. This makes me laugh out loud (to the bemusement of several others) as I internally register that this is probably a strange choice of activity for someone like me. 100 degrees.... isn't that the temperature water boils at? Blood must be thicker or something - must look into this if I make it out. She is continually asking us to "try and touch the front mirror with your extended arm and the back wall with your toe tips" or "just ignore gravity" She clearly exists on some other plane, only reached by serious meditation or through The Matrix - either that, or she thinks we have somehow squeezed the 12 of us into a phone box for this class. That, at least, would explain why it's so darn hot in here. She talks without let up for the full 90 minutes in a series of body-parts, animal references and directions to be followed -and doesn't seem to have taken a breath herself since she stepped in!
"So holding on to the ouside of the feet pull back into 'Happy Baby' strengthening and straightening the legs if you can... {looks at me} some find it comforting to rock from side to side"
(As if I'm doing it by choice).
We migrate from "King Pigeon," to "Cow Face" and even "Half Lord of the Fishes" you couldn't make these up! It was around here that she lost me. And what's more, every new set of exercises was intoned by our fúrer with a sense of finality that suggested it was the last... It never was.
I pushed myself on at every opportunity, attempted the harder options, determined not to be the beginner of the class, and on more than one occasion I thought I was going to pass out, but no such luck. At one point, Goebbels asked: whether it was "Her imagination or had the temperature dropped?"before turning up the heat.
Thankfully I stuck it out and didn't show myself up too much. I gotta say though, some of the holds get pretty hard when you're wetter than a fish in water. I sweated more than I had previously thought possible; more than at ice-hockey games, more than an entire season of rugby or judo. it was hard to believe there was that much liquid in me! when I finished I could literally wring out my boxers, board shorts and even the beach towel. I cannot believe I was concerned my vest might not be clean enough at the start!
I 'get' yoga and 'stretching,' ... at least, I understand them if I don't often do them. I can see the benefit of a supple and trained core. I can appreciate the social side of congregating and enjoying a non-competitive past-time to "attune mind, body and spirit" and I even noticed a distinct toning effect on my body. But at the end of the day, do we really need "aligned shakras" or"deep heart openers?" Shouldn't we be leaving that to medical professions? I've always seen myself as a positively wiggly Shakra kinda guy. And why the need for the blood-boiling temperature? - If I wanted to sweat profusely and crain my neck at an impossible angle while keeping one hand above my head and the other hanging loose, I'd take the Jubilee Line at rush-hour.
That said, I've paid my thirty bucks for the week now and I'll be damned if they get one over on ME! so I'm thinking the intermediate class on Friday.... anyway how hard can "hot yoga and free weights" be?
I leave you with the tragic news, dear reader, of the unfortunate yoga practitioner in the L.A Times last week (below) who tragically de-capitated himself executing a 'Diving Kingfisher."
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