Early Thoughts on My Month of Hot Yoga
I think I’m in love with hot yoga. I mean, it’s only been four days since I started, so we are still in that “honeymoon phase” and maybe I’m willing to overlook hot yoga’s short comings, like how I have to get up at 5 a.m. to be there for the 6 a.m. practice, which is the most convenient one because I can do it before wrok. But seriously, four days in and I feel like I can already feel a difference in my muscle tone ((of course, I may just be delirious from all the dehydration and exhaustion)). It’s also helped me to see which of my muscles are tightest and need the most stretchy goodness and I seriously need the work on balance! Plus, I absolutely love the heat – you are just dripping with sweat throughout and by the end of the practice, your clothes are soaked right through, just as much as if you’d jumped into a pool! Also, there’s the mental benefits of yoga, like just taking the time to still the mind. Oh yes, hot yoga has everything!
Except, of course, that while my 30 days for $30 Groupon was a good deal, the cost of hot yoga is rather unaffordable. The usual price for 30 days of hot yoga at the place I’m going to (Westcoast Hot Yoga in Surrey) is $150. If you sign up for a whole year, you can get it for $980. That’s not chump change. I already spend about that much on hockey in a year and it’s hard to justify doubling my exercise budget! Especially knowing that I wouldn’t be able to keep up a yoga-every-single-day habit, as I’ll want to get back to running after this little 30 days of yoga reprieve and I do play hockey one or two times per week. This got me thinking about Darren’s recent post on Groupon – and I quote:
“Buying Groupon deals provides a way for middle-class people to scratch an upper-class itch.”
Since I’ve been going to the before work practice, I’ve been bringing my clothes and makeup to the yoga studio so that I can shower and get ready for work there ((side benefit to early morning yoga: it’s made me become way more organized – ensuring I have my lunch and other necessities for the day packed and ready to head out the door. I even planned out my outfits for every day this week on the weekend so I wouldn’t have to think about it when I’m packing my yoga bag)), and in doing so I’ve been chatting with the others who stick around to get ready for work ((a lot people just head home to shower, but for me it’s more convenient to do it at the studio and head right in to work)). So far I’ve chatted with – and I’m not making this up – a doctor, a lawyer, and a wealth manager. Seriously.
So, while I love my hot yoga so far, I think I’m in it for a good time, not a long time. After my 30 days are up, I’ll probably switch to just doing yoga at home, where it is a nice and free ((and my living room is big enough to be a yoga studio anyway!)), and maybe just pop into a hot yoga session once in a while as a treat. You know, to scratch that upper class itch.
Comments |11|
Tags: exercise, Groupon, health, hot yoga, physical activity, rampant consumerism, yoga
If you’re willing to trek all the way out to Kits, Moksha Yoga has a $5 karma class on Friday nights…
Yeah, so at first glance I thought the title of this entry was “Early Thoughts on my MOUTH of Hot Yoga” – which would have been, honestly, much more entertaining. LOL
But I’m with you – I’m currently training for my first 5K, and I do my runs during my lunch break, because it’s the only time I don’t have my boys. And I love it, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to sustain the schedule. *sigh* Which means once the 5K is done, it’s back to the treadmill after the boys are in bed. 🙁
I can definitely attest to how you could put a yoga studio in your living room.
That being said, the thought of sweating until it was like I’d jumped in a pool makes me want to hurl so badly the force of the puke might break something. I *hate* (and I mean *HATE HATE*) sweating. Hate it. That’s why I swim: can’t tell that I’m sweating when I’m in the water. I would ESPECIALLY hate something where I sweated through my clothes.
@Karen – Yeah, when I lived in Vancouver I went to Moksha a few times. Maybe Friday night karma classes are the way to go (seeing as I prefer to spend as little time in Surrey on the weekends as possible!)
@Courtney – Training for a 5K! You are awesome! I find it difficult to find the time to do training without kids – you rock.
@Kalev – Yes, I know we’ve had this discussion before. And your hatred of sweating is another reason for you to hate hockey – it’s sweat city!
Hot Yoga ROCKS! Since I don’t play hockey, I feel justified in spending the ridiculous sums of money required to sweat in a room with 20+ other bodies. I’m currently on day 3 of my 30 day challenge, as mine started on Monday. A great way to come down from a half marathon for sure.
The heat is the best. I hate the cold. HATE HATE HATE the cold. It’s evil. All these stories of ‘hell’ being an inferno makes me think that it can’t be all that bad. The hotter the better in my view. I especially love hot yoga in the winter, when I can never stay warm. Stupid winter. Stupid cold. I’d punch both winter and cold right in their stupid faces if they had faces. Plus, I’m supposed to be ‘centred’, what with all the yoga.
When I come to visit, we’ll definitely go to hot yoga.
@Dan – Cold is evil. The most evil thing ever, then, would be a spider made out of cold. One of the many, many, many wonderful things about living in Vancouver (did I mention “many”?) is that it doesn’t really get cold in the winter. Seriously, +5 degrees C is “cold” here. People will say “yeah, but it’s a “wet cold,” but I still think it’s better than Ontario and it’s -10 (or worse). I can’t understand how people live in the North or the Prairies during the winter. Speaking of which, I’m trying to convince my friend Anne that we should open a hot yoga studio in her city – Whitehorse – where they sadly lack the goodness of hot yoga. Of course, I have neither start up money nor business savvy, so I’m thinking it probably won’t actually get that far.
Also, when you and I both end up in hell together, we can do hot yoga there. w00t!
Ice spider!!!
By the way, Beth, 5 degrees is *not* cold in Vancouver. 0 or less is.
And Dan: boo hoo hoo… maybe if you stopped running half-marathons and marathons and doing hot yoga, you’d have some body fat and you might not feel the cold so badly. It must just SO suck to be cold you.
😀
I don’t mind sweat from exercise, but I hate hate hate sweat from overly hot rooms. I HATE being too hot; it makes me feel physically ill. I’d rather be too cold any day of the week because when you’re too cold you can grab a sweater or a blanket or a cup of tea and fix it quickly. I find it much harder to cool down when I’m too hot than to warm up when I’m too cold.
I also like rain (in moderation). So sue me 🙂
@Cath: totally agree with you vs. preferring to be too cold vs. too hot. Much easier to deal with being too cold. Once you’re naked (which is not terribly publically acceptable in most places), can’t do much more to cool down.
Although here in Toronto, if you’re too hot, you just go anywhere with air conditioning and they’ll have it turned up so high you’ll catch pneumonia from being sweaty and then chilled to the bone.
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