Prairie Eydie: "Hot Mess" at Hot Yoga - Part 1

Yeah.  This isn't a photo of me, but it sure would be cool if it was. 

For the past three years, I have gone to a gym that features high intensity, interval workouts.  I can flip tractor tires, hold a plank for 90 seconds, and reverse lunge without getting dizzy.  (I never did master the kettle ball swing, once leaving a kettle ball workshop in tears.)  I would have continued squatting around with 20 pound weights if I hadn't moved further away from my gym.  Round trip to the gym would have been a 50 minute commute. At this stage in my life, I know if something isn't convenient I am not going to do it.

I needed to find other gym options.  Sadly my community didn't have much to offer  other than hot yoga.  (Well, there is a large athletic club, but many of my students are members there.  I believe in the strict separation of school day and non-school day.) 

Again.  Not me.

 
Hot  yoga was not my first fitness choice for a wide range of reasons:

• I don't like being hot
• Self-reflection scares me.
• I think Gwenyth Paltrow goes to hot yoga and I am 100% over her.
• I  have never really enjoyed stretching.
• Tractor tires aren't used as yoga props.
• I wasn't sure it yoga would address my muffin top issues.
• And, have I mentioned, I don't like being hot.

But, I reluctantly decided to try hot yoga. A studio was just 7 minutes from my house, offered a variety of classes, and my friend, Kristen, was already a member.  She looked amazing and rarely judged people.   

I felt insecure my first day of class.   For starters, my electric blue yoga mat wouldn't lay flat from its years of being rolled up and shoved in the hall closet.  (Truthfully, I am foggy as to why I even owned a yoga mat.)  My classmates' yoga mats laid flat and were enlightened colors - like meditative mauve and blissed out blue.  I didn't know the protocol of arriving early to stake out your space.  I showed up with four minutes to spare and there was one space left for me.  Front row, next to the instructor, and smack in front of the ceiling to floor mirrors.  Personally, I think the back row should be reserved for new and clueless yogis.

Poor, dear Hummel girl.  She should cover up those fleshy knees and fill her basket with kale.  At least she had the good sense to wear cap sleeves.

Can I even begin to explain how much I didn't want to look at myself doing yoga in 98 degree heat?  I was surrounded by toned, young yogis wearing vented tanks and vibrant capris.  After years of interval training, I still had the physique of an overfed Hummel.  I panicked and wanted to run back to the safety of my van and go through the Starbuck's drive-thru for a skinny, vanilla latte.  But, I gathered up my ego, along with a cork block, a strap, and towel. 

My practice had begun. 

Be sure not to miss Part II of "Hot Mess" at Hot Yoga!

Eydie