Hot Yoga

Recently I rejoined Bikram Yoga. There have been quite a few controversies with Bikram yoga in India regarding his patent on Yoga. This yoga is very interesting, in that it is a really taxing workout. The temperature of the room is supposed to be maintained at 105F and the humidity is maintained at a 40%. This is to ensure that your muscles get warmed-up quickly and you can go deeper into the poses than you normally would. Because of this the yoga is pretty expensive too(To setup the heat, have a humidifier etc.,), for a 6-month class I pay close to 110$/month. The Yoga as such has 26 poses, there are 2 breathing exercises that are part of these 26 poses, one at the beginning and one at the end and in between you have a lot of standing followed by postures for strengthening the back. Each of the poses are done twice, first for 1 minute and then again for 30 secs, the idea is that the second time you go deeper into the poses. The yoga as such is pretty tiring because of the temperature and humidity, but surprisingly by the end of it when its done you feel refreshed, I am still wondering how that is possible :)

Lots of precautions you need to take though, you need to stay well hydrated to ensure you dont pass out, I had been to hot yoga for 3 months in Aug 2009 timeframe, I liked it but dropped out because it was very expensive, when I joined now, i thought I would be used to it. boy was I wrong, after the first 2-3 poses i almost passed out, I felt dizzy, so took a break, lied down for some time, drank water and then was good to go.

Anyway the proponents claim a lot of benefit, I did lose some pounds when I was there, so I will update you if I feel some additional benefits apart from weight loss