I try really hard not to judge people without knowing them.  However, I have to tell you – I think Bikram Choudhury may be mean.  And, I am thinking he doesn’t like women.

For those of you who don’t know, Bikram Choudhury founded a study of yoga – called Bikram yoga (I even think that is rather obnoxious – if I invented a yoga practice I would not call it LeeAnn yoga).  It is practiced in a room set precisely at 105 degrees and 40% humidity and it takes ninety minutes – not about 90 minutes, but 90 minutes exactly.   If the instructors go over 90 minutes, they are flogged.  (Ok, I do not know that – I am guessing there.)

When I realized that I can no longer run (hip issues), I looked for alternative forms of exercise – and the more intense, the better.  Bikram yoga was recommended to me and everyone told me that you cannot go to only one as you won’t start to like it until you have been to ten or more.  That should have been my first clue.

I arrived at my first class in what I would call normal yoga dress – meaning yoga pants and a tank.  I walked into the room and the heat hit me like a ton of bricks.  I am used to – and love – hot yoga, but this was an entirely different ballgame.  I quickly realized (and was told) that I was wearing too many clothes.

Next, I was given a multitude of instructions –

a.  look ONLY at yourself in the mirror (who did they think I was going to look at??  The sweaty, hairy, very overweight man wearing spandex shorts and nothing else that was next to me?  Ok, I guess I did look at him once);

b.  do not close your eyes – ever (me:  can I blink?);

c.  do not wipe your sweat (after the first class I asked the instructor if I was allowed to wipe the hairy guy’s sweat off of me);

d. do not leave the room; and

e. do not talk in the room.

Trying to bring some humor into the moment (and perhaps being lawyer-ish), I asked what do I do if I feel like I am dying if I can’t get out of the heat and I can’t ask for help?  The straight-faced response:  you stand still so as not to disturb other people’s concentration and embrace the sick feeling.  Ok – WTH?  I was relieved (and surprised) to hear that the doors were NOT going to be locked.

A couple of other insights into Mr. Choudhury’s sadistic nature – all Bikram yoga rooms must have intense fluorescent lighting, carpet and mirrors all around the room.  Any one of those things, alone, would be devastating, given that you are sweating a lot and wearing very little clothing.  No one looks good in fluorescent lighting – well, almost no one.  You do have the very fit blond twenty-something who is barely dressed.  The one time I looked at the hairy guy, he was checking hot stuff out.  I spent a good part of my practice wondering how much sweat the carpet in that room had absorbed – and did I really want to touch the carpet, much less put my cheek on it?  Finally, there were the mirrors.  Have you ever spent 90 minutes looking at yourself in the mirror?  That is what you are instructed – and forced – to do, and it is not pretty.  My freckles become three-dimensional and take on a hologram-like nature – which makes me even more dizzy.

Don’t even get me started on the actual exercises.  Normal people cannot stand on one leg while pulling the other leg behind you and up and over your head – much less do it gracefully.  Of course, hot stuff had no problems with it.  I gotta give hairy guy credit for trying – he had the one leg up and moving towards the back – when, unfortunately, his body decided to pass gas loudly.  Apparently the instructor forgot to give me yet another rule, which is that laughter is not permitted in the room.

C’mon people – life is too short.  To spend ninety minutes in absolute misery looking forward to “corpse pose” is not for me – even if it does burn 1600 calories.