Why I love Hot Yoga , those 26 poses…..

It was 12.43 a.m. in the morning and I was lying there in my
bed, desperately trying to sleep. My mind on the other hand, had other plans, racing like mad… part of me was flying, and a thousand things were running through my mind, …  Well it was not quite a thousand, but a few subjects I could be writing about on my blog.

As I struggled to sleep, I went through my day and wondered why I was so wide awake? In fact, I was expecting to be dog tired and have the deepest sleep because I had been to Hot Yoga, after a long time. The special 26 pose Hot Yoga…

I am a regular Yoga practitioner, it’s one of those things in my life, that I think is a divine gift and I can never quite be grateful enough for it. I used to be a regular sportsperson, physically active – into Fitness, Running,  Tennis, and at competitive levels. In fact, prior to Yoga, Tennis was the love of my life. Ever since I started Yoga, for some strange reason, all other forms of “exercise” just dropped away. Sure, there was not enough time to do it all, but I had let go of all to do Yoga (cycling excluded)… The beauty of it was that, I never missed sports per say. Now, I do all sorts of Yoga, (All yoga is fundamentally the same) but I practice all forms – Ashthangha being one of my favourite systems.

So what of this Hot Yoga ?It’s something that I could never do everyday as most of its followers are prone to do. My easily bored personality always takes over, but it was also the one practice that I could not let go of. It feels like my weekly yoga practice is not complete, unless I have been to one of these classes. My body, my mind and even my soul yearns to do those 26 poses in exactly that sequence. Once I get my fix, I feel so much the better for it. It lightens me, sheds off all the negative energy I may be carrying around, lifts my vibration, but most importantly it lets me know exactly how I am doing!

My resilience to the poses and more importantly to the heat, is the ultimate indicator of where my mind is at. There are days when I completely forget that I am in a heated room, and there are other days like yesterday, when the heat is just too much, there is no oxygen in the room and last but not the least, the teacher’s voice annoys me!!!

There had been an uneasy feeling in me all day – it is an uneasiness which comes by me, in those moments, when way more is going on deep within, than I am consciously aware of. It usually happens when one is at the edge of making a breakthrough, a small leap in consciousness, the letting go of the old, to make place for the new… It showed up in my practice as the resistance to let go of the old surfaced. Post practice, my heart rate remained at high for much longer than usual…. But by the evening, all the uneasiness was gone, I was laughing more than I had laughed in weeks, and my mind was in that active energetic form raring to move ahead.  I had made the leap and landed safely on the other side….

(With humble apologies and much gratitude to all my beautiful Yoga Teachers @Pure Yoga)

(The 26 pose hot yoga is also known as Bikram Yoga, originated by Bikram, who I am sure was divinely inspired when he created this practice)