Bikram yoga pt 1

If, on the vague off-chance that you're wondering why I rather randomly posted about how horrid I think coconut water is, what follows goes part-way to explaining why.

While I was down under a 'friend' kindly signed me up for a running club. As the saying goes, who needs enemies? But I knew she meant well, so I agreed to give it a go. Which was fine. Until I had to do some actual running.

That said, I can't in all honesty describe what I did as running. I can say that it was excruciatingly painful and effortful to do, and probably equally awful to watch. Plus it resulted in decidedly sore knees.

I stuck with it for a few sessions, and things did get better (including the knees), but my heart was never really in it and I never really hit my stride ho ho... I can laugh about it now but then I don't plan to go for a 'run' ever again.

However, it was definitely a wake-up call. I knew I'd let myself go, and had been gradually addressing the odd life-style choice: most significantly I finally quit smoking in January.

But the 'running' - or rather the fact that I couldn't really do it - made me face up to just how far I'd let things slip. The stiff joints in the morning, the permanently nagging lower backache, the huffing and puffing brought on by going up stairs, the 'old-lady-ooff' noise that accompanied getting up off (or down onto) the sofa/the bed/the beach...you know. Ooff.

I needed something to fend off the 'old' that seemed to have an uncomfortably firm hold on me.

So I thought I'd give yoga a try: low impact, lots of nice stretching and bending for those stiff joints.

I googled 'yoga Norwich' and the first thing that popped up was Bikram Yoga Norwich.

As it happens, I had come across Bikram yoga before, some thirty years ago, having found a book in the library. I took it home and tried it (without the recommended heat), and remember how quickly and dramatically it changed my body. I can't remember how long I did it for, and clearly it just faded out of my life as quickly as it arrived - most probably when I had to return the library book. And I can't say why I didn't pursue it, apart from knowing that there was certainly no Bikram yoga class available in Norwich back then, and maybe not even in the UK.

Anyway, coming across it again rang a bell so I decided to give it a try.

In case you don't know, Bikram yoga happens in a 'hot room'. Hot means 40+ degrees. Also humid. There are 26 things to do while you're in there, and you do all of them twice. It takes 90 sweaty minutes.

I have NO IDEA why I went back and did it again, because I thought I was going to die. Actually, I do know why I went back, because I'd paid for a whole month of unlimited classes and I was going to get my money's worth even if it killed me...which, as I previously mentioned, felt like a distinctly real possibility.

But I survived to tell the tale...which I will in the next post (and no I haven't forgotten about the coconut water thing, but that will have to wait till next time too...).