Why Hot Yoga will outlast us all

Will hot yoga outlast Peak Fitness and other crazes from aerobics to step-class?

For years I experimented with different forms of physical conditioning - everything from swimming at the Y to weight training at home (an exercise physiologist friend prepared a personalized weight training regimen tailored for my size, shape and age.) 

What they all had in common: I was bored.

I dreaded doing it. I played music, put on the TV, anything to distract me from the drudgery (now I see people riding stationary bikes or treadmilling-it at the gym while watching little personal-sized TV screens. I feel their pain).

I was tuning out while I was trying to tune up. Something about this just didn't fit my idea of whole-self health...

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Hot Yoga: Everyone out of the Comfort Zone

Hot yoga is a routine, but there's nothing routine about it.

You do the same yoga poses in every hot yoga class, so the inexperienced might be tempted to think that this kind of routine might create a kind of comfortable, predictable laziness.

I've heard lots of adjectives for hot yoga but comfortable isn't one of them.

Yes, the yoga poses don't vary; Hot Yoga is structured to work your entire body from bones to skin, as they say. Complete each pose and you've just had a whole body workout.

But some people are still a bit mixed up about hot yoga and exercise...

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Is Hot Yoga Awesome?

Sticklers argue that overuse of the word “awesome” has dumbed it down. 

“Awe” is defined as an experience so life-changing, it alters your perceptions; your worldview actually has to expand to accommodate it. Following an experience of awe, people experience an expanded sense of time; suddenly you have a lot more of it.

More time? OK, that's awesome.

And it explains beautifully what I tell students who lament their lack of time to do hot yoga:

Get yourself to hot yoga and the time will show up. Not just for hot yoga, but for everything.  Hot yoga has the potential to change your time/space reality, because hot yoga is fertile ground for awesome experiences. Here's how that works...

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"Which hot yoga poses can I practice at home?"

I love enthusiastic Riverflow hot yoga students who ask me, "Which hot yoga poses can I do at home?"

The answer: all of them - as long as you never move a muscle.

Once you have a steady, 3-times-a week hot yoga practice, you can improve all 26 of your hot yoga poses by rehearsing them in your mind.

That's right - sit back and be lazy. (Repeat after me: Lazy is good; lazy is good; lazy is gooooooood!)

Only it's not so lazy; it takes commitment, focus, and giving up the guilt about "doing nothing." Get ready for your Hot Yoga Mental Rehearsal.

Mental rehearsal isn't a New-Age, touchy/feely thing; it's science. Countless experiments like the one above, usually done with athletes, prove that the results can be exactly the same when you exercise your mind. 

Can you pretend your hot yoga practice into perfection?

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How was your hot yoga class today?

Everyone has a day they love to remember in hot yoga...and a hot yoga class or two we'd like to forget.

Here is one of my favorite posts, from our own Jill Studnicki. Read, laugh, and come to hot yoga!

My attitude at hot yoga stunk today.  I was worried about job stuff, rushed to get to class because the line to buy Q-tips was too long, and it was an afternoon hot yoga class so my body was already tired. 

I struggled.  I sat out a couple of (okay, a few) poses.  My head wasn't in the game.  It was basically a 90-minute pity party.  Usually I'm pretty good about letting things go once I step into the room, but today I was a mess. 

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