HUT yoga

ha ha, i thought to myself yesterday, hot yoga. how hard can it actually be? i mean, i stretch out every morning and then after the gym every day. it'll suck because it's a little warm in there, but i've sweated before. i know what that's like.

dearest readers, oh, dear readers, let me tell you. i have never come so close dying in my life. well, that's not exactly true. there have been plenty of times i've been walking around by myself in baltimore that i thought i was going to die. let's say i have never come so close to paying fourteen dollars to stretch and sweat myself to death.

hilary and i walked up the stairs to the midtown yoga studio, chortling at each other's little witticisms, opened the door, and were met by a blast of warmth. this isn't so bad, i thought. really it was just like an overheated apartment--and it was a little brisk outside so the warmth felt really good. we gave our money to the friendly, obviously yoga'd-out girl working behind the counter, took off our sweatshirts and shoes, put them in their little gray cubbies. since i'm constantly on the lookout for my future husband--something that hilary and i have in common, though she'd never admit it--i immediately noticed a cute guy, dark, tall, obviously fucking 22 years old. hilary made some joke within earshot of him; he smiled. ding.

hilary opened the door to the yoga studio proper and i wasn't prepared for the wave of heat that wafted out of the room. oh. fuck. i'm not kidding you when i say that this room was heated to feel like a hot summer day in baltimore. it smelled better, but still. we laid our mats down toward the front of the room and laid down. i started sweating. laying there. for fifteen minutes before the class started. by the time class started, and we started pretzeling ourselves into what would become the "easy" downward-facing dog, i was already dripping sweat off my nose. "i didn't know my hair could sweat," i told hilary.

30 minutes into the class i was contemplating several options:

1. die
2. allow myself to vomit, trying desperately to get out of the room, navigating through the winding path of space between other masochistic yogis' mats, before i blew chunks everywhere. that's right, i said blow chunks.
3. try to find a comfortable position in which to rest, because neither laying down or sitting down made me feel any better
4. drink some water and continue with my yogic breathing

so i chose option 1. ok, not really. i chose option 4. luckily the yoga instructor eased up on us about 45 minutes into the workout. she was a nice lady, i have to admit, smiling at me as i tried to do these ridiculous poses--headstands and some thing where i was supposed to fold my legs under me then lean my knees onto one elbow and support myself on one arm. i go to the gym, people. i'm not (extremely) weak. but this was just laughable. of course it didn't help that i was sweating so much that my hands and feet were sliding around the mat like i was lube wrestling at grand central station.

by the end of the routine, though, i'd already decided to go back. for an hour and a half i had no choice but to concentrate on my body, my breathing, my sweating. and, as those of you who know me or have fought with me recently can attest, me letting myself out of my hundred-mile-an-hour mind is no easy task.

"we're just high strung people," hilary said on the way home.

"yeah. you think?" i said.