THE YOGA CHRONICLES: CONFESSIONS OF A RELUCTANT YOGI- "HAUTE, HOT OR NOT- PART TWO"

THE YOGA CHRONICLES: CONFESSIONS OF A RELUCTANT YOGI

“Haute, Hot or Not? Part Two”

            As a general rule, I try to avoid being stuck in a sauna with seventy-five sweaty people, yet here I found myself being steamed like organic broccoli in a “hot” yoga studio and paying for the privilege. One damn Groupon coupon and I had found my inbox positively littered with one of a kind offers to sweat my ass off while looking at the pale and hairy bare back of another fat guy, whose principle aim in class was to ogle the SMU coeds in front of him. (I must confess that as a young law student, when not attending Bible study, I preferred to ogle SMU coeds from the comfort of a bar stool somewhere on Greenville Avenue, but that’s really a travel trip more than anything else.)

            The place had all the quaintness and charm of a UPS store; in fact, both inhabited the same strip center near the SMU campus. I should have known there was trouble when I saw all the BMWs with sorority decals fighting for parking places. Here again, don’t get me wrong: I majored in sorority for three semesters at the University of Texas and for my sins, I ranched a Kappa Kappa Gamma of my very own (Kansas Omega ’07, the chapter which gave us Kate Spade. Check, please.). However, it has been my experience that sorority girls tend toward the highest possible level of exertion and maximizing calories burned.
            The aerobics instructor at the desk quickly immediately dismissed me as a Groupon customer and I was unceremoniously dispatched to the nearest neutral corner with a clipboard and pen, where I was to provide a complete medical history, seven forms of identification, two credit card numbers, a waiver of liability in the event of my untimely demise, and the name of my next of kin.

            As I waited for class to begin, I was obliged to read the literature regarding the foundations and founder of the studio. This style of yoga required strict adherence to the same set of postures done in the same sequence over the same time period in a room set at the same temperature and humidity, a temperature somewhere between sidewalk egg-frying and brick oven pizza.

            I should have also been alarmed that images of the founder revealed a distinct Jim Jones/cult leader kind of thing going on, down to the straw Panama hat, deplorable double knit shirt (with the contrasting ticking so popular in the Seventies among cult leaders) and heavy, military strongman -style shades. Earlier sepia –toned photographs of the founder showed a handsome, swarthy and exceedingly limber version wearing the dreaded “manties,” a foundation garment lying somewhere between its European cousin, the Speedo, and cheerleader bloomers.

            Henry David Thoreau once said beware of any endeavor that requires new clothes. He had just finished his first hot yoga class when he said it.

            Perhaps more disturbing were the photos of huge classes of disciples performing feats of remarkable flexibility in perfectly ordered rows, seemingly captured just so by the photographer so as reinforce the notion of freedom through surrender and acceptance, but instead giving the photo a Church of the Unification mass wedding quality.

            I got another air ball when I asked the aerobics instructor when Rev. Moon was showing up.

Diligently though I may have scoured his work, Thoreau appears to have said absolutely nothing whatsoever about being wary of endeavors that required liability waivers. As a man searching for enlightenment and the perfect martini, I can safely say that nothing engenders the aspiration for peace, harmony and contentment more than several minutes of legal disclaimers and warnings before a yoga class.

It was not until after the founder’s liability mantra was concluded that we were all admonished never to “break the seal,” meaning that we were to stay in the studio until all poses were completed so as not to disturb our fellow yogis path to enlightenment, as if a wisp of the cool air from the profane outside world would bring about the Yogi Apocalypse.

Maybe it’s just the lawyer in me but I seemed to be the only one to see the irony in essentially locking people in a heated room for an intense exercise regimen immediately after disclaiming all potential liability for bodily injury.

I made it through twenty -two poses before my water bottle was empty and I felt like Brando’s tee-shirt in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Despite the aforesaid admonitions and the vague notion that one does not quit, I yanked my sopping wet mat off the carpet and was taking it to the shed when I was semi-accosted by the yoga Nazi guarding the door, who reminded me of my higher obligations to the class. In my funk, it worked for a couple of seconds.

But even in the haze of heat, exertion and dehydration, I fear the East Texas boy in me came out as my initial thoughts first ran toward his scrawny cult ass and the medium -sized mud hole I planned to stomp in it. But fortunately for both of us, I regained my senses soon enough to realize I didn’t give a rat’s ass what he thought and, as for the rest of the class, well, I had their seal right here.

A rare charm of hot yoga studios is the shower and if you break the seal, by God, you get it first. The first blast of cold water gave me perspective on at least one of the many things I had survived in my lifetime.

My two older brothers and their friends, during critical Longhorn or Cowboy games, would routinely sacrifice me to the football gods, a quasi- religious offering which involved me- during puberty- being dragged down a flight of stairs testicles first. My mother -a die hard Cowboy fan who remembers April 27, 1960 not as my birthday but as the day the Cowboys obtained their initial NFL charter- rarely intervened as the offering, more often than not, actually seemed to work

At 53, I have now also survived the following:

The Cold War.

Communism.

Leisure suits.

SAE pledgeship.

The bar exam.

Disco.

Two children.

            The Eighties.

Padded shoulders on men’s suits.

Whiskey.

Cigarettes.

My own self-doubt.

In all seriousness, I truly understand the manifest importance of repetitive postures as a path to meditative peace. In fact, one of my teachers at my studio, Lotus Yoga, is part of the Ashtanga tradition and I find comfort in its repetitive postures as well in the guided meditations at the conclusion. There is a harmony between the breath and movement in the beginning and a peaceful and receptive mind at the end. In fact, I’ve conjured up images of everything from Utopian visions of the afterlife to old Sports Illustrated swimsuit covers during these meditations.

Stripped to its core, yoga is to me a means of physical exertion which can lead to a peaceful mind. This journey is profoundly personal one. Once angry and aggressive, I am trying very hard to not be old and bitter and to find peace and harmony in an anomalous and disharmonious world.

I was not going to find it at the UPS store.

© (2013)

Next time: “Sure she’s your yoga teacher.”