I love how it makes my body feel,
I love how it has changed my strength,
I love how it requires no gear,
I love that it meets me wherever I am that day.
I have a yoga studio in every city that I have lived in since that I love.
My favorite is hot vinyasa. They also call this power yoga, but the key is to do it in a room heated to at least 90 degrees, and the hotter the better. Your muscles warm and just melt into submission. I can always reach farther, hold longer, stand taller in the heat, it's so intoxicating.
Since moving to LA, I have been searching for a hot vinyasa studio. This should not be challenging, since this city is known for being a raw foodie, composting, alternative medicine, incest burning, eco-friendly, sitar strumming town of hippie dippies, right?
blurgh.
I cannot, for the life of me, find the combination of hot+vinyasa here. It's exasperating.
My closest next option is Bikram Yoga, which is a series of 26 poses, done in a room heated to 102-108 degrees. Bikram Choundry, the founder, patented this series after rehabilitating himself using them. You would think that the experience can't be too different from my beloved vinyasa, but alas I HATE IT.
These are the Top Ten reasons why:
(other than the fact that it makes me look like this)
1. They make it as least serene as possible. Bright lights, no music, no soft voices.
2. The instructors basically shout out a script to you. I could probably recite it. Despite this being a town full of actors, these Bikram instructors could really use a lesson in vocal variation. They all say "lock your knee, lock your knee, LOCK YOUR KNEE" in the exact same tone.
3. It's so rules-y. You get yelled at for drinking water within the first 25 minutes. You get yelled at for going to the bathroom. You get yelled at for wiping your sweat. I even got yelled at for doing savasana wrong. IT"S CALLED DEAD MAN'S POSE. As long as I don't move, I'm doing it right. Lay off!
4. The studio reeks like sweaty balls. The ceiling tiles are molding, and some genius thought it would be acceptable to have people sweating profusely while doing yoga in a carpeted room. MRSA, anyone?
5. You have to deal with men in speedos pouring sweat in a full circumference around their yoga mats. This is including but not limited to men with long hair whom then whip it out of their faces, thus throwing their sweat all over innocent bystanders.
6. There's no flow. Vinyasa is all about one movement flowing into another, and the sequences move beautifully. Bikram is holding one pose, and then holding another. A lot of set up and tear down. Feels tedious.
7. The instructors stand in the front of the room on an apple box, if you will, watching your every move, ready to call you out for being wrong. They don't model the poses for newcomers, they just yell out your name when you aren't doing a pose like they think you should be able to. I've actually had an instructor tell me "you look stronger than that, move farther!"
8. I hate the idea that Bikram patented yoga poses. It seems so unholy to me. Now, in order to use the term, any yoga studio must pay a huge franchise fee in order to teach the 26 poses.
9. Damnit, Bikram is expensive. A single class here costs $19, more than any other yoga class I have taken. Apparently, only the rich are privileged to be hollered at to bend farther while bending over so far as to be able to breast-feed from themselves.
10. It's the same every time. I like the possibility of doing crow pose, head stands, dolphin stands, plow pose, and everything in between. If variety is the spice of life, then Bikram is the vanilla of yoga. Hum.
I always feel so anxious to bolt out of there as soon as class is over, cutting short my savasana at the end due to childish frustration. I mumble 'namaste' in unison with the rest and leap up to get my crap and get the hell outta there.
So why do I pay absurd amounts of money for this torture? Well, I can now do camel pose without wanting to barf. That's something, right?
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