Why I Hate Hot Yoga ~ Maya Devi Georg

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Now, please don’t get offended! I know that many fine folks love their hot yoga. They like the heat, and the… heat? Ok. I’m not sure why they like it, but they do! And more people doing more yoga is always a good thing, right? Right! And the beauty of having many styles of yoga is that there’s a style for everyone!

All I’d like to share is my personal experience in a hot yoga class. And even if you LOVE Hot Yoga, stick around for the story… It’s a good one.

Picture It!

Washington, DC, 2003…

Summer in the city… It was hot and wet before even stepping through the door of the studio. The instructor, a rail thin woman, with cheekbones that could stab you in the liver sat behind the reception desk. She was eating a triple bacon cheeseburger. I wondered if she was planning on throwing it up later – I could smell the practice space as I walked up the stairs leading to the entrance, and it was not pleasant.

She looked me up and down. Noticed my tank top and yoga pants and immediately said “You’re wearing too much.” I assured her I’d be fine. I had been practicing yoga for 4 years, I loved living and practicing without A/C in the summer. How hard could this be?

I entered the class and set up my mat. It was a full class. with no more than an inch between mats. I looked around and saw everyone wearing boxer shorts, rolled up at the waist. The ladies wore sports bras. The men wore nothing else. Being from New York City, I was accustomed to being over-dressed in DC.

The rail thin women from behind the desk entered the room and the door was closed. There was a finality in the sound of that door slamming shut. She wore a headset. That didn’t stop her from yelling every instruction.

It was hot. Someone was screaming at me through a stereo system. But the poses were easy. “Yeah!” I thought. “I can do this!”

And then came the next command for a wide legged, forward fold.

I was congratulating myself. “I’m strong! I’m Flexible!”

“LOOK UP” she barked into the microphone.

And that’s when I saw it.

The horror… the horror… No one was wearing underwear…

An exposed vagina was an inch from my face. It was untidy, with bits of toilet paper in the nooks and crannies.

I looked away! Quickly! And there I saw, in the hot damp, a man’s testicles descending lower and lower from his body. Again I looked away! But, look where? There were literally balls to the walls, cooters in the corners, vajayjays in the vicinity, tainted taints, johnsons and genitals generally looking like giblets.

“I’m blind!” I thought.

I lay down, closed my eyes, and waited for the class to end. I never went back.