Hot Yoga – Make New Friends, but Keep the Old by Theresa Cassaday
I’d flirted with yoga for several years before I found the Holy Grail of my practice: hot yoga. Think back… twenty years ago…when hot yoga—really ALL yoga—was starting to catch fire. People were turning to this ancient, new form of exercise and physical healing, and hot yoga emerged as the way to practice with heated studios popping up in every corner of the globe. Let’s give props where props are due, the revolution was being led by now disgraced Bikram Choudhury* and his signature sequence—practiced for 90 minutes in 105 degrees.
In 2002, I began teaching Bikram Yoga and for years, it was my only expression of practice and suited me to perfection. Dedicated practice, challenging workout, glowing skin – done. I was maybe even a bit of a snob about my temperature of preference and didn’t feel there was any room for another style of yoga in my repertoire. Why branch out when I was getting “all I needed” with the Bikram Yoga?
A few years into this yoga nirvana, came an evolution. Our studio, then known as Bikram Yoga Omaha, changed its name (now, One Tree Yoga) and under Directing Manager, Theresa Murphy, BYO did a philosophical about-face. It rocked our hot yoga mats when vinyasa, hatha, yin, and other styles of yoga, not practiced in the heat, were introduced. It proved to be the medicine we Bikram die-hards unknowingly craved.
I did what felt essential, I evolved with the times and let go of preconceived notions that if yoga wasn’t completely “kicking my ass,” the proof being in that unmistakable puddle of sweat, I wasn’t really getting a workout.
To be clear, you could do nothing but hot yoga for the rest of your days and you’d be better for it. It’s an amazing practice and will always be in my yoga rotation. I am not advocating that you abandon hot yoga … rather, keep an open mind and heart to ALL the YOGA and how you could possibly expand your horizons by adding different styles to your practice.
If you’re curious about asana diversification, read on!
Pick a non-hot class and attend! It’s not like being forced to eat canned peas when you were nine.
Keep trying. For the first few outings, it may feel like you’re in a game of Twister with hands and feet that no longer belong to you.
Add the elements. A good space heater and humidifier work wonders. If you can “close off” in a small room – even better. You will sweat, guaranteed.
Email Alison and Gabe at One Tree if you’re just not sure how to take this monumental step (kidding, it’s really not that big a deal).
Be forgiving. With yourself, your teachers, your partner, your kids, your parents who fed you those canned peas.
If you never take this advice, hot yogis, I still love you and will look for you in class when the world completely opens the portal. In the meantime, One Tree Yoga has kept the heat on for you with small-group, socially-distanced, in-person hot classes at the east studio. Get in there and cry, moan, sweat, laugh, stretch, and heal.
*This blog is neither the forum nor does our author have the energy for the story of a man who let wealth, fame and the adulation of his students go to his head. Wanna know more? Google it.