I'm so hot

It is not a lie. Hot yoga is f'ing hooooooot. And I have never been this sore after a yoga class in my life. But, I will say... it was worth the torture?

That ends with a question mark because I'm a little undecided. Yesterday I went with three girlfriends up to Solana Beach for a free Hot Yoga class.  I've never been in a real yoga studio before--the 24 Hour Fitness "yoga studio" means they turn the lights out after kick boxing class. The studio we stepped into yesterday was Zen-tastic. Shoeless, unitard-wearing, yogis floated around with long wavy hair and ridiculously hot bodies (no pun intended). My friends and I looked at each other with wide eyes that whispered, "Did you see that?--was it human?" 

When we stepped into the 99 degree room (which would soon heat to well over 100 degrees) our wide eyes turned into red, puffy, sleepy, droopy, salt encrusted...you get the idea...balls of goo.  The yoga instructor, Olivera, had a beautiful, calm Brazilian accent and, yep, a perfect, tan body that glistened and glowed as she wandered around the room adjusting our pathetic forms that did not glow but continuously dripped sweat and leaked stink into the suffocating air. 

My running mantra, "I feel good, I am strong," took a new meditative form... "Don't pass out. Don't throw up."  But, I will say this: after all the stretching and sweating and posing and tipping over and oming... I have never felt so relaxed and content to just sit and be quiet. The four of us went to breakfast down the street  at T's Cafe, and while the girls chatted and laughed, I smiled like a drunken idiot and felt like a melty ball of wax.

If this sounds like something you are interested in torturing yourself with (and I'm undecided as to whether or not I'm going to do it again in this life time), Haute Yoga on Highway 101 in Solana Beach is offering a free week of yoga to all Southern California residents (Click on the offer in the middle of their home page). Hot yoga is not your only choice. In fact, there are almost a dozen different classes to choose from. 

Namaste.