Yoga traitor

I pretty much consider myself a vinyasa kind of yogi. I began my yoga journey with Kundalini in 1992, because (oddly enough) that is what was being taught at my local gym, in what I have come to recognize was a very pure form with chanting and a variety of pranayama and arm waving and all the wonderful Kundalini kookiness which I still love.

Then I discovered vinyasa aka power yoga and was hooked. It has movement, it has strength-building, it has spirituality. I also discovered ashtanga and became a wannabe ashtangi, but with no teachers in the area I gave that up. Instead, I found vinyasa teachers I loved, both locally and on video, like Baron Baptiste and Bryan Kest. I went to Bootcamp with Baron to celebrate my 40th birthday and wished I could live there forever.

Somewhere along the way I also started doing Bikram. I think it's because a studio opened up here in Colorado Springs and I was curious. I kind of hated it, but kept going because I was training for a summer marathon and thought it would be good to get used to the heat. As if you can ever get used to that kind of heat. I've been doing a lot of hot yoga lately, which is my local studio's bastardization of Bikram. Same poses but you can drink more water. And, depending on the teacher, they might play music.

Yesterday I did a bastardization of a bastardization, Hot Power Fusion. This hour-long class is heated slightly less than hot yoga but is still very hot and follows much of the hot yoga sequence minus the horrible icky breathing exercise in the beginning (yaay!) and including a few vinyasa poses such as down dogs, some core work and kapotanasana (pigeon). It was pretty cool. Well, very hot, but I've always hated the breathing (did I make that clear already?) and felt that my arms and hips weren't getting enough of a workout in hot/Bikram, which this addressed. And core is always a bonus, although I've been doing some pretty awesome core exercises I found in Runners World's most recent issue.

The funny thing is, I will go to hot yoga again today, even with the horrible breathing, even with the feeling that I am being a traitor and I should be going to a vinyasa class, or doing a Kundalini or Baron or Bryan DVD at home. There is a lot I don't like about hot yoga. Sometimes it's too hot, although I think the heat is what has been drawing me lately. I felt really smelly a week or two ago, and I don't feel anywhere near as smelly anymore. Not sweat smelly, toxin smelly. So that would be a like, actually, not a dislike.

Dislikes about hot yoga:

Opening pranayama sequence
Lack of any arm strengthening
no inversions
Bizarre names for asanas. Like, why is tree pose tadasana, when in every other school of yoga it is vrikshasana?
Lack of any "yoga talk" or spirituality, even though the instructors showily announce every pose in really long, really strange sanskrit. Like dancers pose, or natarajasana, which they call dandayamana danyurasaha. Okay, I know that translates to standing bow pose. But it just seems so... arrogant to go against the tide of everyone else's names of asanas.
And that's another thing I don't like about Bikram. Him. Bikram. The man. Not that I've ever met him or attended a workshop with him or anything But he seems so arrogant and anti-yoga. Trying to patent the poses?

I will echo my cousin's sentiments that all of this just proves that the yoga does its job, because even with all of those complaints, I still primarily feel good after a hot yoga class and continue to attend. Quite a bit lately. And that is my dilemma. Why? Boredom? The need to switch things up? And yet I didn't feel sick of vinyasa. And in all my yoga research for my dissertation, Bikram is NEVER mentioned as having any western-scientifically authenticated health benefits.
Partly it's because the timing of the classes works for me. I wonder whether there are other reasons to continue to subject myself to something I find vaguely unpleasant.

Well, time to go make school lunches and hang out with my kids before the school bus comes.