“Picture Yourself as a Steamed Lobster . . . Now Be a Steamed Lobster”

or the alternative title “You Want Me To Bend What and Put What Where How?!?”

My dear friend and co-worker somehow convinced me that taking a Bikram yoga class with her would be a good thing. And for those of you unfamiliar with Bikram, the word translates to “hot” or “fire”, and it’s yoga that’s done in a 110 degree room with at least 40% humidity with a whole bunch of other sweating people. Who comes up with this messed up stuff?!? Oh, some guy in L.A. in the early 1970s (thanks Wikipedia!). Well, let me tell you that when you’re big boned like me, you’re just not going to be as flexible as other folks. But that’s okay because I was willing to give it my all on a cold April night in Berkeley.

My journey of a thousand sweat beads began when I walked into the front door of the business on Shattuck in Berkeley and immediately looked through the glass window where the earlier class was still going on. It was then that I noticed that each and every person in the room was sweating like a pig in a bacon factory. They were absolutely dripping and all I could think was GROSS!!!

My friend arrived soon thereafter and after putting our stuff away, we walked to the sweatlodge of a room. Before opening the door, my friend simply said “brace yourself for this”. Well, I failed to truly understand that warning until I stepped in and the heat of a thousand suns hit me in the face and the sweat of a thousand armpits burned my olfactory receptors. In his book, Dante described nine circles of hell, but had Bikram yoga existed during Dante’s lifetime, he would have included a tenth circle.

But I dug in and decided to try my best. My goal was to make it through the class without giving up or passing out. In my head, both would be considered a failure.

So, I listened to the tiny little woman barking out fast, authoritative orders as I tried to bend in ways that weren’t possible. The best still had to be when we were all on our stomachs with our hands out to the side on the floor. She barked out to LIFT your chest off the floor and to LIFT your abdomen off the floor. And as she further barked at us to keep our heads up and look forward and HOLD, HOLD, HOLD, I looked down and thought to myself ‘how the hell am I suppose to lift my abdomen off the floor when I can’t even get my boobs off the floor?!?’

Despite all of the unspoken protests that went through my head, and despite not being able to do most of the moves, I made it through the whole 90 minutes. The most important thing is that I tried, and I survived. And as I was driving home that night, still sweating like the aforementioned pig, I realized that I actually enjoyed the whole thing. Sure, I’m not very bendy. Sure the idea of having to lay on the mat near a floor that's riddled with tens of thousands of fallen sweat beads is one of the grossest things I can think of (and I can think of a lot of gross things). And sure I was sore for a full week after that 90 minutes of tropical torture. But I felt great, both physically and mentally. I survived the class without quitting, and I got an incredible workout.

So, my fellow Bikram yogaers, make room for Christy, because her quest for inner peace and complete bendiness has only just begun.