Will the real Hot Yoga please stand up?
Hot yoga is challenging old ideas about yoga.
And you can't spell Challenge without Change.
Back in 1971 when I started doing yoga, people thought I was weird. Few people had heard of yoga and even fewer had ever practiced it. I got turned onto yoga when I heard a Zen Buddhist monk speak at a NY college. He spoke no English; his wife was translating his words. I don't recall what yoga he spoke about, but it was his demeanor that impressed me; he was at once shy and retiring, but exuded a strength and inner power that reached me in the back row of a huge college auditorium.
From there I found my own yoga access on an obscure cable TV station, mornings at 6AM, evenings at 11.
Fast forward 40 years, and yoga is a lot more flexible.
These days you're hard pressed to find someone who has NOT heard of yoga - in 2008 Yoga Journal estimated some 16 million people were practicing yoga (and that was 5 years ago). Now there's yoga in all flavors and with lots of accessories - just ask Lulemon how widespread yoga has become.
And today, hot yoga is the buzzword.
If the benefits of yoga are as humble as a Zen Buddhist monk onstage, the benefits of hot yoga are as eccentric as Bikram himself, the genius originator of the concept of combining heat and humidity with yoga poses. By now, people have heard enough about hot yoga miracles to be more than curious: hot yoga healing crippling arthritis, fibrolyalgia, migraines, heart disease; hot yoga unbending crushed spines and scoliosis; hot yoga relieving depression, anxiety disorder, emotional overeating.
In my experience of practicing and teaching hot yoga, it's all very real.
But is there a Real Hot Yoga?
There are many hot yoga forms including Bikram Yoga, Warm Vinyasa Flow, Baptiste Method, Moksha Yoga, The Barkan Method, and more, including the hot yoga we do here at Riverflow Yoga.
Which makes many people want to say, "Will the real hot yoga please stand up?"
To answer that, you have to really ask, "What is yoga?"
And anyone who gives you a definitive answer is...suspect.
Yoga originated over 5000 years ago; there are actually cave drawings of people in yoga poses so it probably goes back even further. And most of it was handed down by word of mouth - so you can imagine what happened to it along with way, even if there ever was a pure core yoga.
Patanjali tried to piece it all together in this Yoga Sutras, which only mention the yoga poses twice, but even this must be considered, at best, a mottled account of the common yoga of the day.
Real is relative. So here's another question: what does it matter? Real is an experience that each person has for herself. If you do yoga and you benefit mind, body or spirit, well, is that real enough for you?
And what about the idea of someone being in charge of defining real yoga?
Many have claimed ownership of yoga, and some put their names on it as implied ownership. The US Federal courts recently decided that no one can copyright yoga, which has been in the public domain for so many years, the time has long since passed to find legal precedent. The yoga poses are, fittingly enough, community property.
But each person who practices yoga is entitled to boast a kind of individual ownership: the way yoga impacts your life is yours alone.
In my experience, no two people will experience hot yoga the same way; in fact, from one hot yoga class to the next, your own experience will vary dramatically. And that's a good thing.
Even while the hot yoga poses may stay the same, they are impacting a body, mind and life which are in constant motion.
If any one thing defines "yoga," I would say it is this: yoga is a practice that continually pokes and prods you, in order to awaken you...just in case you are in danger of falling asleep and missing your life.
Your hot yoga experience can be inspirational. Share the good, the bad and the very, very sweaty. Continue communing with hot yoga, if that's what keeps you warm. Venture out and experience hot yoga in all its many forms, if that's what keeps you awake.
You may one day find yourself onstage without a translator, unable to express just what it is that you love about your hot yoga. It doesn't matter who understands, and it's not important to make others agree with your hot yoga. Those who do will be drawn closer to your heat; and those who don't will move into a more comfortable place. As it should be.
And meanwhile, keep your own fire burning bright.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Reader Comments (1)
I have gotten so much negative flak for this post - we're actually stressing over yoga now! Here's my thought on the subject: there is no right or wrong ANYTHING. When you believe in the rightness or wrongness of hot yoga, you're just expressing your experience of how it works for you. We live in the free world where we all have choices, for the purpose of experiencing the contrast and then choosing what feels best for each of us. Do you really want anyone telling you what your choice should be?