Gym: The Studio DC- Dupont
Address: 1710 Connecticut Ave NW
The Instructor Makes a Normal Gal Feel: Baffled
The Classmates Make a Normal Gal Feel: Like you’re being sucked into a cult
On a scale of 1 (waste of time) to 5 (bring the stretcher), for a normal gal this workout is a: 5. Bring the stretcher. Immediately.
Here’s the deal: Namaste Day! Once a month, Saturday classes are free all day. Check www.thestudiodc.com for details.
Hot Power Yoga at the Studio DC was the hardest class I’ve ever been to. Period. The second I walked in I could tell that these people meant business, and that I had no business being there. I also realized I was about to die, because I didn’t know beforehand that I had signed up for HOT yoga. I was in way over my head.
But luckily, everyone who works at the Studio is really nice. The way our interactions went is how I hope things go if aliens from another planet land a UFO in my backyard. Just because the folks at Studio DC might be from Mars doesn’t mean I don’t respect them or greatly admire their impressive talents. Hot Power Yoga, which I was told is the hardest class they offer, is taught by a tall, skinny gentleman with long hair and a mustache. He was dressed in a midriff-bearing top and some brown leather necklaces. I wish I was making this stuff up.
As the class started I felt okay. I’ve done yoga before, I can do this. One by one the army of toned sexy gays in the class took off their shirts, and the girl in front of me (whose yoga mat was personalized with her initials- must be the new thing at L.L. Bean) stripped down to her sports bra. I was not about to be showing off my belly in front of these extreme fitness freaks, so clothed I stayed, with sweat everywhere, including in my eyeballs, where it created a nice consistent sting.
Things started out okay, but then just got crazy. This class moves fast, the positions are incredibly challenging, and the temperature dial is set to “hell” in a sunny room that is absolutely packed with bodies. The teacher told us to be proud of our muscles shaking because it means they’re working. He told us to keep pushing unless our bodies tell us no. In these excruciating conditions, my body had lost its ability to speak, so I didn’t know if it was telling me to smack the butt of the hottie next to me or to leave immediately before I entered into a coma.
Eventually I realized that I was in urgent need of water, so I got up to grab my bottle. As I weaved my way through the sea of half-naked fitness freaks, my head was spinning and my breath was shallow. Instead of heading back to my mat, I walked straight out of there for fear of falling on a 105-pound, 60-year old shirtless yoga master as he perfected his crow.
I sat down on a bench in the lobby, drinking water and trying to get the room to stop spinning. I was joined by another classmate, also on her deathbed. The cute guy who works the front desk, busy carrying around tampons to stock the restroom, was very sweet, asking us if we needed anything and telling us that we did the right thing by leaving when we felt shaky. He let us know that we had made it through 40 minutes of class. Hey- not bad!
So the one other human classmate and I sat outside the “practice room,” declaring ourselves done and watching a beach yoga video on loop while trying to breathe again. After about 15 minutes I decided that perhaps I should go back in, at least to grab my mat that I had abandoned in the middle of the floor. What I walked into was scarier than the scene I had left. The room was rearranged, with my mat still smack in the middle, now crumpled into a ball (thanks, new friends). In two columns, everyone was doing handstands, unassisted. HOW DID I END UP IN THIS CLASS?
As I tried to grab my mat and make a run for it, the super nice cult-leader hippyman teacher stopped me and encouraged me to try a handstand. (UM did you not see me for the first 40 minutes? I may need an ambulance…) I looked at him like he was crazy, and being pretty used to that, he instead suggested a modification for me. Reluctantly, I stayed and pretended to try.
Thank God that after that it was the special time of yoga where you lay down on your mat and do nothing. Despite running out of class early, I really felt that I deserved this time. Those 40 minutes were some of the hardest I’ve ever endured, and I was proud of myself for that, despite the nausea. So there I laid, waiting for hippyman’s assistant to come by with a spray of some aromatherapy lavender water. Obvs. She did, and of course I opened my right eye just as she sprayed. I don’t think this cult is going to take me.
So begins and ends my relationship with hot yoga— an experience far more terrifying than I ever could have imagined. But this very eccentric yoga crowd was quite supportive despite my serious inexperience, and their fitness abilities are truly unbelievable. In this world of bench-pressers and tough-mudders, the strength of the yogi is seriously underestimated. That’s good to know, but PLEASE don’t make me do hot yoga again.
dededos
germansingergirl
blakekathryn
baratheonpilled
izzy806
annaxmalina
theartofmadeline
yousharknotpass
