My First Hot Yoga Experience

I remember my first hot Yoga experience like it was yesterday. Alessandro and I were living in Australia and looking for a Hatha Yoga class to join.

I had picked up a flyer for Hatha Yoga in a heated room. It was Melbourne, it was Summer, my thoughts were “how hot can it be???, its hot already!”. I just figured it said hot because it was Summer. Little did I know….

So along we go, in our tracksuits and T shirts (and no change of clothes), and a couple of towels and a bottle of water to share. A little bit nervous – new studio, new environment, not really knowing what to expect. We sign up and walked up the stairs to the studio, opened the door and wow!

I don’t think anything can ever prepare you for the heat when you open the door to a hot yoga studio. It doesn’t matter what other hot temperatures you’ve experienced, if you love saunas, it is a different experience.  I do remember part of me thinking maybe we should just turn around and leave right now and that this was nuts! What are these people doing??? Its boiling hot outside, why are we in a hot room about to do a Yoga class????? Why are we not at the beach????

But we stayed, rolled out our mats, put down our towels and started to move along with the instructions from the teacher. I remember trying not the laugh in the class, I took lots of rests, eagle arms totally confused me and I really really wished I was not wearing thick baggy tracksuit bottoms with a T shirt and that I had something else to change into after class!

The class finished, we left, Alessandro with a look of shock on his face and me laughing. That class did something, I didn’t know what exactly at the time and nor did I understand its significance.

I didn’t know what Hot Yoga was, or why I had to go back and take another class, and another and another in this crazy hot Australian Summer, but there was something about this practice that I needed, something that kept me turning up on my mat. It felt right, I never thought about the heat, the sweat, I just enjoyed being there in the moment, feeling alive and awake in my body.  For the first time my body didn’t ache, I felt taller, stronger, less stiff and I’ve developed a sense of internal calmness that wasn’t there before. I wasn’t looking for these things when I started my practice, but I found them, along with so many more benefits.

If you are thinking about starting Hot Yoga, but worried it will be too hot for you, too sweaty, you’re nervous, you are worried you will burst into laughter part way through the class, you’ll want to run out. That is fine, trust me every single person in that room probably felt exactly the same as you, I certainly did. But there is something about this practice, just like any Yoga practice, that is special and this is why we keep turning up on our mats.

If you want to try Hot Yoga but don’t know which class or style is right for you, do ask, we are always here to help.

By Caroline Gozzi