Pantyhose and Japanese Hot Yoga

Not at the same time, don’t worry. I don’t think pantyhose are the best option for alpinists attempting to reach the summit of the tallest mountain in the world. They are, however, ridiculously common here in Japan, yet another reason I feel like their trends are a bit stuck in the past. I never would have thought that I’d be a regular pantyhose-wearing workingwoman (I am dumbstruck by the fact that that “workingwoman” is one word), even after realizing that EVERY female here wears them. I resisted for my first two weeks. Finally, I caved after hanging out with my Japanese friend and decided to give it the old college try. Turns out, I love pantyhose. They make my legs look awesome, even-toned and slim, and they make me feel less gross changing between sweaty pairs of shoes all the time. I feel like they also keep my pants cleaner from creating a barrier between them and my sweaty legs.'

My new best friends

Speaking of sweat, the only time you can see a Japanese person covered in it is during a hot yoga session. I decided that since I paid a whole $5.00 for a month gym membership, I should milk it for every cent and go to one of the classes they offer. I was completely clueless as to how it works at my gym where literally no employee speaks English. Of course, attempting to ask about if the gym has a sign up procedure for their classes was out of the question. Even if I magically figured out how to ask if I needed a mat or if I could rent one, I would never be able to understand the response. 

So, I learned how to read "hot yoga" in katakana, found out there was a class at 3:45 today and decided just to show up. I got there about a half hour early and there was already a line outside the studio. Good sign. I also noticed there were piles of mats stacked up inside the studio. Sweet, free mat rental, BOOM! I assumed, quite erroneously, that their version of hot yoga would be equivalent to that in America, with the same 26 postures. WRONG. Thankfully, the lady on the mat noticed my obvious white-ness and how completely lost I was instantly, and she started giving me little gestures on what to do in the mirror. The most awkward thing was that the instructor was clearly hilarious- people were laughing at her jokes the entire time, and I just sat there with my straight face plastered on. I think laughing with everyone else when they clearly could tell I didn't understand would have just made things worse. 

My fake laugh is a bit over the top...

The class was actually quite enjoyable, a nice detox, and if I continue to go maybe I will pick up some vocabulary. I doubt it, however. It may even make the normal gym fee worth it next month. 

Yoga Torture Chamber- The Saga Continues

Just call me Patty Hearst. First I was tortured in the way-too-hot yoga chamber, then I was taken prisoner. I figured, you know what, after that first hellish experience at the Bikram studio for which I bought a Groupon, there is no way things can deteriorate any further. I certainly can't say that last night's class was worse than Tuesday's. The good thing about that scarring experience was that I had rockbottom expectations for last night. After I changed and stepped through the studio doors, my body did not automatically turn into a fountain of sweat- good sign number one. The teacher walked in and seemed substantially less like an evil dictator than the the one on Tuesday- good sign number two.

As class kicked off, I got through the first postures absolutely fine, and the instructor made a significant amount of small suggestions that really benefited the way I think about my alignment in postures. When she told us to hang our heads during our first backward bend, she said "pretend your head is a tomato on a vine." Nice visual. During triangle, she explained that when the instructors tell us to have our "thigh bicep" parallel to the floor, they mean the "bicep of our thigh," and I always thought they meant "thigh and bicep." Yes, lots of truly life-changing tips there.

So, around an hour and 20 minutes into the practice, I admit I just got bored. I wanted to go home and get ready for bed. So, I waited for a posture where everyone has their heads down so they would be less likely to notice me sneak out, grabbed my mat and towel and rushed towards the door. Of course, the teacher noticed and asked if I was okay, and I just said "yeah, fine," and stepped out. Well, just when I thought I was in the clear, the two people at the front desk, the evil instructor from Tuesday and some little twat who helped sign people in, called out and asked if I was okay. Not wanting to admit that I just got sick of being in a 90 minute yoga class that was clearly going to run overtime, I just mumbled "yeah, just a little light headed…" and rushed into the locker room. WELL, twat girl followed me in as I was grabbing my stuff to make a run for it and told me I needed to come out and sit down. I wanted to slap her in the face and run away.

I hesitantly complied and sat awkwardly on a bench in the lobby area while she brought me a cold towel for my forehead. I placed the towel on my forehead like a damsel in distress simply to humor them, but got increasingly annoyed as she began to make conversation with me.

"You know, we can't just have you wandering about feeling light-headed. Have you ever done hot yoga before?"

"Um…yeah for about two years. I guess the humidity just seemed high."

"Yeah, it has been for a few days. Well, are you ready to go in to finish class?"

I gave her my best "you've gotta be f***ing kidding me" face and said "um, no, I think I'm just going to head out."

"Actually, you need to sit for awhile."

So, feeling like a captive or a child in timeout, I sat and stared at the clock, watching the seconds tick by slower than molasses moves in winter. Finally, after about 5 minutes, I decided it was time for a prison break. I stood up and tried to sneak past my captors. I grabbed my stuff, and on the way out was stopped once again by evil dictator instructor from Tuesday.

"Um, can I make a suggestion?" Boy, I love questions that aren't questions.

"Sure."

"You were in my class Tuesday and left, right? Well, you need to try to go to an earlier class. And you need more electrolytes."

I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I'll try that."

"I'd highly suggest it." He said, in a monotone.

I made my rush for the for the door and finally escaped, just as class came to an end anyhow. At least I didn't succumb to Stockholm Syndrome. I did learn from this experience, however, that I would not do well as a captive. If I went that stir crazy being forced to stay somewhere against my will for 10 minutes, imagine what days or weeks would do to me…

I'd say "I'm never going back there" but I still have 13 classes left on my Groupon. We will see what horrors I experience the next class on Tuesday….

Yoga Torture Chamber

As I jaunted joyfully to my first Bikram yoga class in many moons, I felt both excited and nervous, but also confident that I would feel amazing after a 90-minute detox in a hot and humid room. My mood worsened slightly from the way the front desk attendant treated me. After affirming her inquiry about whether I had a Groupon or LivingSocial deal or not, she asked me in a monotone drone if I read the fine print about sending my information to the studio in advance. I admitted that I hand't, and she scolded me about not reading the fine print. Seriously? I was there over 45 minutes in advance in order to provide adequate information-providing time. She then thrust a clipboard in front of my face and told me to fill it out, not even trying to mask her annoyance with my lack of fine-print reading.

As I filled out the form, an awkward silence descended upon us like an ominous storm cloud, and I quickly tried to ward it off by making conversation about their studio, etc. She wasn't having it. Note to self: not reading fine print really rubs people the wrong way. My mood still chalk-full of excitement, I left the desk as quickly as possible so she would stop lowering my happiness level.

The beet-red faces of the practitioners exiting the preceding class and the lady sitting on the floor beside the studio door should have been blaring warning signals of what was to come. Yet, naive as I was, I believed that after two years of never having a horrendous Bikram class, it was simply impossible for them to exist. No matter how much I struggle during the course, I always managed to push through and feel an incredible yoga-high afterwards.

I hadn't the slightest idea what I was about to get into. The moment I set foot into that studio, beads of sweat began rolling down my body. That's not supposed to happen until at least five minutes into class. This had me worried, yet by no means panicked. Then class began and things changed. I felt light-headed within the first ten minutes of class. Chalking it up to not being used to such extreme humidity after just moving from a dry climate, I swallowed my pride (almost choking on it) and took a seat on my mat. Yet, my heard rate never subsided from nearing one which would induce cardiac arrest. About 15 to 20 minutes in, a petite blonde from the other side of the room rushed out, her face flushed.

My skin's appearance upon entering the studio 

Another practitioner quickly followed, clutching an empty water bottle. As he passed the instructor, he was met with the snarky suggestion by the teacher that he "bring a bigger water bottle next time." The next time he revealed his inner a$$hole was when the woman next to me did a modification to a posture due to an injury and he pranced over to her and informed her that she was "not allowed to make modifications without notifying the instructor ahead of time." Seriously…? After that, the third or fourth person exited the studio, clearly dying from the seemingly noxious heat bearing down upon us. This infuriated the instructor, and he stopped class to lecture us like a teacher does a class of five-year-olds.

"Um, FAR too many people have left today!" He said sternly. A woman near me retorted that the class was "way too hot" and he simply responded in a matter-of-fact tone that this was his third class in a row (of course, not mentioning that all he has to do is stand there and shout commands) and we should just chill out and "meditate." Wow. That comment made me up and leave instantly. In the locker room, I encountered the first to fall from the torturous heat- the blonde. She asked me how I managed to withstand it for such a long time, and I simply shrugged. At least what shall forever be known as the Bikram Class of Death for me caused me to make a new friend. We commiserated about how we were both stuck in that studio for at least 15 classes because we both bought coupons prepaying for them, so we decided to always attend the same ones.

Her name was Alexis, and she said she literally had to rush out to vomit, and officially labeled it a yoga torture chamber, and noted her concerns because of people dying of hear strokes at that temperature. She then assured me that it is typically not that hot at that studio and that I had just chosen a rough class to be my first. Well, we will see how it goes tonight… 

My Deformed, Broken, Strong, Flexible, Beautiful Spine

Deformed, flexible, to-may-toe, tom-ah-toe. People both complimented and berated my spine in the past few weeks, causing me to whip out my glass-half-full optimistic attitude by electing to ignore the insults and bask only in the compliments. Prior to attending the Boulder Creek Festival where I first decided to dabble in the chiropractic world (a Boulder chiropractor who will not be named [Voldemort style] was offering free adjustments at his booth), I never gave much thought to my spine. I gave about as much thought to my spine as the aloof hipster at the bar gives to the nerdy girl in the corner considering hitting on him. Shame on you, hipster guy! But now, the roles are reversed and I have become the nerdy girl and my spine the hipster.

Companies that set up booths offering deals are just fishing for suckers like me to take the bait. The bait being, in this case, a free initial consultation and follow-up appointment. Well, I attacked that deal like a fat kid attacks birthday cake and ignored the nagging premonition that I would come to regret it.

At my first appointment, Dr. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named (man, he needs a different pseudonym) took pictures from different angles of me standing, and with every click of the camera made a face that would suggest he was about to diagnose me with an increasingly worse stage of brain cancer. Yet I still left feeling chipper about my posture, as it was not until my follow-up that he informed me, to continue with the brain cancer metaphor, that I was advanced stage 3 and may as well say goodbye to my loved ones within the hour. Basically, he showed me the developed pictures and warned me that despite my crippled, deformed spine being in dire need of repair, he could fix it for the low, low price of $4,000 a year if I agreed to come in three plus times a week. By the time I walked out of the building I felt like the mutant offspring resulting from the inter-species breeding of the Hunchback of Notre Dame and a two-humped camel. The Hulk Theme song, The Lonely Man, should have been playing in the background as I shamefully wandered back to my car.

The whole afternoon following that second appointment, I wanted to throw in the towel and embrace my new life as a recently diagnosed spinal cripple. It won't be all bad, I thought; I can just spend it in a back brace like JFK and eventually be assassinated as a result from wearing it (it kept him upright after the first bullet hit him, allowing the second one to end his life). Or, I could just lay down and never get up again. Both totally valid options in my mind at the time.

After sharing the ordeal with my parents, they referred me to their chiropractor to obtain a second opinion. I love second opinions- eventually, if you see enough people, you are bound to get the opinion you want, right? I told chiropractor number two about the ordeal which left her in gut wrenching laughter about the absurdity of chiropractor number one and his desperate treatment of chiropractic care as if it were a Wall Street biz. She assured me that my spine was fine- yes, my posture could be improved but whose couldn't, really? She gave me some useful exercises to do at home to make my shoulders feel more relaxed and gave me a good adjustment complete with popping and cracking sounds as she yanked my head into positions I hardly thought it capable of being in. End scene.

Walking out of her office, I felt less like the daughter of the hunchback but still like my spine could use a whole lot more lovin'. Flash forward another two weeks (warp speed, Sulu! [or is Spock in charge of warp speed? Trekies? Anyone??]). Now we are in hot yoga class, and going into camel pose. Ever since I started doing yoga, I never felt challenged by camel. As yoga instructors say, we all have our "hang-out posture," and that one happens to be mine. This particular class, however, the instructor came over to me and asked if I felt challenged or like I wanted a more advanced posture. I said I wanted to go for it, and the next thing I knew he had me looking like this:

Instead of my usual:

I felt like a badass. After class, he told me my spine is flexible and beautiful and that it was incredible I could do advanced camel. I'm thinking that yoga teacher should consider becoming a chiropractor. Take that, chiropractor number one! My spine knocks it out of the park!

My Hips are More Open Than a 24-Hour Drugstore

Shakira's hips may not lie, but they sure are expressive. Mine seem to be as well, and had no problem openly communicating their frustration with me after far too many hip openers in yoga classes over the past month. Yet scream as they occasionally do after class, I just ignore them with a reminder of how good it is to be open.

I love me some good hip-opening yoga postures, and I love sweating like a pig while pretzeling myself into them. Generally, yoga classes in rooms at temperatures less than 100 degrees just don't do much for me mentally or physically, hence my confusion at the transformative powers of the basic vinyasa session I attended last night. I laid down my mat as some sort of strange mutant combination of Scrooge and Eeyore, feeling both depressed and misanthropic and ready to find a puppy to kick, and rolled it up at the end of class as one of those over-optimistic people who is borderline obnoxious because of their excessive zeal for life. I simply cannot pinpoint any justification for this mental change. Did I sweat out any stress-inducing toxins? No, I barely sweat during class. Was my ability to shed away stress and tension amplified at all? Also no, at least not perceptibly so.

Before yoga, I was ready to kick Patches here in the face (Photo: http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/31100000/so-cute-puppy-the-puppy-club-31132519-1600-1200.jpg)

My session today, though less shocking since it was a hot yoga class, was equally relaxing to the point where I likened my mentality to that of Peter's in Office Space after he goes through hypnosis in occupational therapy and afterwards doesn't give a hoot about anything to the point where he nonchalantly watches the therapist die before his eyes and then decides never to go to work again.

Me before class, but with a little more anger in my eyes (Photo: http://images4.static-bluray.com/reviews/1017_1.jpg)

Me after (Photo: http://application.denofgeek.com/pics/film/lookbacks/office.space/01.jpg)

Modified 30 Day Challenge!

For any of you familiar with the clandestine community of Bikram yoga, you are already well-acquianted with the 30-day challenge. For those of you who are not (which I assume is the vast majority if not all of my readers), you will probably correctly infer that it is a challenge to do 30 Bikram sessions in 30 days. Very self explanatory. The goal of this is that you will feel so phenomenal and get so utterly addicted during the 30 days (which, not surprisingly, is usually the lengh of time that Bikram studios have introductory special rates) that you will never be able to stop, and will most likely cave in to the ridiculously high membership rates (around $150-200 a month, generally with no student/senior rates. Seriously...). I had always wanted to participate in aforementioned challenge and assume that I unofficially did while working at the studio in L.A. since I attended class so much.

After moving to Boulder, I found that there were two Bikram studios aside from the one at which I already used my intro rate- one in Longmont and one in Westminister, which offered a $49 membership for your first month. I thought, wow, how perfect! Now I can do my 30-day challenge. Yet going about 30 minutes out of my way in either direction did not appeal to me or my gas tank too much. So I decided to do a little cheating and make a personalized 30-day challenge. All it really means is that I won't get a commemorative T-shirt. Maybe someone will make me one.

As previously mentioned in other posts, other yoga studios have been essentially stealing Bikram yoga and simply calling it "hot yoga" to avoid paying for the rights to the name. This is much to the dismay of Bikram and his studios, naturally. However, the classes are literally the same exact thing. How this is legal, I'm not sure- you'd have to ask a lawyer or really intelligent law school student. Since Yoga Pod happens to be in the most convinient location for me, I plan to attend their hot yoga sessions for 30 days. Boom, problem solved. Don't worry, I will document everything on this page including before and after photos! Don't get too excited!

I fully plan to master all 26 postures below, even though I know I will be feeling like the thought bubbles in the image below the image below.

 

Photo from chocolateismylife-us.blogspot.com

Photo from theironyou.com