A tense dad with a bad back tries hot yoga

Through a series of events, typical ‘male’ posture and inflexibility I have some back issues.  I started seeing a chiropractor who commented that my demeanor seemed so relaxed, but when he tried to adjust me I was a tense wreck.  “What do you do to make yourself so tense?”; he asked.  I told him I’m a stay at home dad to 2.5 year old toddler and a 6 month old. 

So, in addition to getting my back popped I needed find a way to relax my body ASAP.  In speaking with the chiropractor I decided that I’d give hot yoga a try.  “Warm taffy stretches, cold taffy breaks” my chiropractor cryptically said as he slithered back to his office with his healthy spine.

I found a hot yoga place near chez Mojo, read the guidelines and filled out the application before arriving.

“Why are you coming here today?” the person behind the desk asked.

I said, “I need to relax and I need to….” “You need to RELAX, if you need to relax you’re in the wrong class, did you read the website?!”, the person said.

“Well, yeah, I also need to get more limber and stretch”, I said as I finished my sentence.  “Good, c’mon in, the class starts in 15 minutes”, she said.

The lobby was 88.  It was a hot, hot yoga lobby.  I then went into the hot yoga room, which made the temperature in the lobby feel like springtime in Vail.

It was then that I met a couple of my classmates, most were women, but there were 5 men in the class also.  “Don’t leave for any reason, and don’t look at the clock,” the first person told me. Her friend said, “She (the instructor) might yell at you, but don’t take it personally.” “Were you ever in the military?” the guy next to me asked.  Military, yell at me? Was this hot yoga or the Sam Kinnison scene from Back to School? (slight language warning if you’re never seen this)

The instructor was a very fit, brunette, Russian woman who looked like Linda Hamilton from T2. For the first part of the class I tried to keep up.  If any of my classmates, or more likely me, made a mistake she quickly called us out and said “What are you doing, sit down and watch.”  Her firm was strict, loud and with a Russian accent.  She was Anna Chapman in a leotard out to verbally intimidate lazy inflexible American men with bad backs.

Have you ever attended a function where the regular attendees knew when you should stand, sit or say certain things?  Hot yoga was like that, except the room was 110 degrees, my eyes were stinging with sweat and Sarah Connor was putting a room full of Skynet employees through the ringer.

Halfway through the class my head was spinning, body was pulsing and I knew that if I kept doing anything active I’d pass out.  I also knew that I shouldn’t leave the room or look at the clock-passing out is much worse than those two things, so I just sat down.

At the end of the class, one guy complimented me and said, “that was great, you didn’t pass out or vomit, congratulations.”  He was semi-joking and told me that it gets easier.  When I was leaving I told the instructor that I liked the class.  “Liked the class?!  You didn’t do anything for the second half of it”, she said, without a semi-joking tone.

The following Thursday I went back.  You receive two classes when you purchase the first one.

“Class, the reason we have two classes for 1 when you first join is so that you can learn the poses, ideally coming a couple days after the first lesson”, she said about 25 minutes into class.  Sensing that this was a not so subtle dig at my hot yoga mastery I dug down deep, intent on impressing Anna Chapman.

Unfortunately, my left quadracep had other plans and started to hurt, which caused me to sit down even earlier than I did the previous week.   “I really liked the class”, I told her as I left.  She mentioned that most of her students come 2-3 times a week.  One of the good students said, ‘they’re open during the day, just come them’.

Alas, I’m a stay at home dad; which is ironic due to the fact that the cause for the tension are the reasons I need to come to hot yoga anyway.