Who's that wimp in hot yoga class?

There you are, smashing through Standing Bow Pulling.

The mirror confirms how rockin' you are today - finally, these asanas are easy.

This hot yoga is a snap. Your Cobra pose is hissing. Your Standing Stick is straight on. Even your Camel doesn't make you want to puke.

Meanwhile, that poor guy next to you is wheezing and gasping on his knees, trying his best to breathe in and out through the nose. And, hey, isn't that your teacher in the back in secret Savasana?

Guess who's the wimp in hot yoga class today? You are.

The key to hot yoga is to try 100% correctly, folllowing the teacher's detailed instructions for every pose. A Whatever-It-Takes attitude is the yoga of this yoga. And that may be exactly why that guy beside you is down for the count for now; he just gave it up at hot yoga class. while you're sitting - or standing pretty. To the untrained eye, it may just look like he's the one who wimped out, but...

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Can you trust hot yoga?

Yoga is at least 5000 years old. It ain’t new, even though it’s all over the news.

Lately, the news about yoga is all bad. Yoga can wreck your body. Meditation can throw you into a psychotic episode and eventually get you thrown into a home for the meditatively insane.

The latest word on trusting yoga: DON'T.

After all, you're no expert; how do you know if your yoga teacher is going to fast forward you to enlightenment or send you to the emergency room in a speeding ambulance?

When it comes to your hot yoga practice, just who do you trust to take you out of your comfort zone?

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Who's Your Yoga Teacher, Baby?

Ah, America, the land of innovation.  You're free to choose.  Change it. Dissect it. Try it, you’ll like it…or not. You’re in control. That's the American way.

But does the American attitude work in yoga?

Once upon a time, Yoga was once a very specific, very secret practice designed to bring you to enlightenment. For thousands of years, yoga was for the initiated only. Warning on the box: do not try yoga at home.

In the 1890s, yoga made it’s first appearance in America. We approached with caution at first, and sometime around 1970, we embraced it and made yoga our own, sprinkling in American invention, innovation, individuality. The mantra of American yoga: to the people, for the people, by the people.

Now, more than 100 years later, Yoga is the Ben & Jerry’s of American exercise. What are you in the mood for today?  Iyengar, Bikram, Ashtanga, Kundalini? How about a nice taste of Anusara or Jivamukti yoga? In a no frills mood? Try Yoga with No Fancy Toppings: Yoga Nidra. Want niche yoga? Try yoga for seniors, yoga for infants, yoga for Mid-life Moms who wear Manolos. Want yoga chic? Move your body with Rodney Yee, Christie Turlington, Baron Baptiste. Madonna might be in your yoga class today. Or - dream on - Sting.

Yoga for everyone. Yoga round the clock. Yoga here, yoga there, yoga in your underwear. Yay, yoga, yes...?

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3 More Things I have Learned from Sweaty Naked People

In the past 15 years, I’ve touched more than 5000 sweaty, naked people. By choice.

I am a hot yoga teacher.

I mostly frown on public nakedness (I have had several requests to add “nude hot yoga” to our schedule. Not gonna happen.) Hot yoga is the exception.

In hot yoga, you're shedding your clothing... and your secrets. Because like it or not, your body never lies.

I touch sweat-drenched students with the intention to bring you deeper into a pose. And as I hold on, you teach me a lot about what you are willing to let go.

What are you releasing in hot yoga? I can tell you with a single touch...

There you are, mat to mat with people of all sizes, shapes and smells, testing the limits of your skimpiest clothing, your dripping sweat, your ability to focus despite distractions (this is not easy, especially in forward bends.)

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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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