We heart Bikram yoga

Never tried Bikram yoga? New WHL contributor Kristie Mercer talks us through her first attempt…

Yesterday I popped my cherry. No, not that cherry! My Bikram yoga cherry. I’ve been doing yoga inconsistently for the past few years, that’s to say on the rare occasions I find a spare £20 note hiding amongst the mothballs in my wallet to pay for the class. And with my yoga experience thus far, I have loved it. Being a scoliosis sufferer and a chronic over-thinker, I love the calm that yoga provides not just to my stiff body, but also my exhausted mind. But up until now, I have been too afraid to downward dog my way into a 38-degree room for fear of fainting, vomiting, dehydration and complete and utter embarrassment, not to mention the pit sweat. That was up until yesterday when I found myself feeling royally crappy and in a turn completely uncharacteristic for me, seriously lacking in energy.

With the desire to nix the lacklustre, uninspired mood that had crept its way into my bones, I decided to give hot yoga a crack. What the hell did I have to lose? My bad mood couldn’t get any worse and trying something completely new might just re-jig my Zen…or nudge it at the very least.

The heat as I entered the classroom whacked me in the face like a frypan still hot from the stove. It was overwhelming, and my cheeks began blossoming pink like a rose in the height of its bloom within seconds. For the first time in a long time, I felt nervous about exercise. I consider myself to be a fairly fit person, but I think I’d underestimated just how difficult this might actually be. It didn’t take me long to feel like the newbie either. Looking around the sea of yoga mats, I noticed I was the only one without a special towel to place over it…I may as well have been wearing an L plate on my forehead.

Within 12 seconds of the class beginning I only have one word to describe it – WOW. No wonder they say yoga great for cleansing all thoughts from the mind – the only thing I could think about was my new mantra: ‘Don’t vomit, don’t vomit, don’t vomit.’

I’m not usually a sweaty person but man, did I sweat during this class! I had sweat beads on sweat beads, I had sweat coming from places I didn’t even know could produce sweat. It rolled into my ears, up my nostrils, into my eyes and down my limbs, dripping onto the mat beneath me like a leaky tap. It felt like hanging upside down in a sauna. And it was a total mental challenge not to walk out, sweat-covered mat in hand never to be seen again. Basically…it was unreal.

I guess it’s the same feeling marathon runners, mountain climbers or people on month-long expeditions feel after they’ve conquered their demons and completed their challenge (just slightly less extreme. Okay a whole lot less extreme). The glory of proving yourself and your body wrong kicks in and the pain becomes a distant memory.

Only a few minutes into the class every single muscle in my body was screaming and the urge to collapse into the puddle of sweat I’d created on my yoga mat was hard to ignore, but I got through it. My initial thought of: ‘I’m never doing this again’, slowly morphed into: ‘I’m definitely doing this again.’

That feeling of lightness when you walk out of a class is scarily addictive…and I’m not just talking about the few kilos you lost in sweat either. There was a mental lightness, a clarity, a sense of achievement glowing from my sweaty little pores. Only yesterday I was a Bikram yoga virgin, but I reckon soon I may become a Bikram yoga convert!

Kristie is an Australian radio presenter and half of The Thinkergirls who’s highly successful podcast captures the thoughts usually confined to the mind’s of twenty-something chicks – listen here. She is a full-time cappuccino froth lover, part-time stationary addict and all-time terrible driver. Read more of her procrastination at kristiemercer.com or on Twitter @kristielmercer