By John Utah

Namaste! I heard it… but only from outside the room.

My skin felt remarkably smooth, I felt cleansed, I felt perplexed by this whole thing. I just survived my first yoga experience. And it was unlike anything I could have ever imagined.

--

I was back in shape. I was in the gym with regularity and started feeling good about my efforts. I was stronger today than I have ever been, stronger than before I had my two shoulder operations. My routine was far from strict but the results were measurable. I was doing shoulder presses double what I formerly could put up. My tris could support my entire body weight. I finally could see some anatomic definition. I felt great.

My job as a pharmaceutical drug rep meant I didn’t sit behind a desk and stare at the same three carpeted walls every day. Each day differed from the day before which differed from the day before. One morning I could be in a Level 1 trauma hospital in the city and by lunch time I could be on my way to a Napa Valley physician's office.

It’s a job that requires physical movement throughout the day— running between hospitals, doctors offices, and surgery centers, racing up and down hollow stairwells, darting through condensed parking garages, dodging loading dock crews, and doing so with samples, literature, and presentation aids—usually while wearing dress loafers. 

With the combination of weight training at 24 Hour Fitness and doing my job, I was aligned to be fit for my age range. The occasional Sunday spent at a surf break, hiking in Marin, snowboarding in the Sierras, and rock climbing with my old fraternity brother also contributed to a level of fitness I felt was at least one deviation above the average…so I thought.

“John you should come to yoga with me,” my Cupertino friend Rachel suggested one unassuming weekend afternoon.

I was über-comfortable on the couch watching Modern Marvels and passively browsing the Facebook multiverse. I had just finished a Vietnamese bánh mì sandwich with much gusto and was content with my accomplishments for a Saturday at two o’clock.

“Come on, it will be a good work-out. I’ll be by in an hour. I have a mat, towels, and a bottle of water for you,” she added before I could manage a legitimate excuse.

--

Yoga was something I never paid much attention to but I was fully aware of the “yoga stereotypes”— it was a soft-form of exercise if it could even be considered exercise. Creepy dudes hung out at yoga classes. It was for gays, hippies, health freaks, housewives, liberals, spiritualists, vegans, and those that don Kumbayah sandals while driving Subaru Outbacks.

I put all my pre-dispositions aside and agreed to participate. We made our way to the yoga studio in the Sunset District of San Francisco coincidently not far from the Haight district. I spent the twelve minute ride asking her a series of questions which she pleasantly entertained:

Will there be other men in this class? Yes, it will be a variety of different people.

Do I wear my shoes? No, you leave them at the door.

How about my socks? Only if you want to be wearing sweaty socks the whole time.

Am I going to look foolish? You’ll be fine!

We arrive at the diminutive studio embedded within vibrant storefronts, cafes, and restaurants along Judah Street. The front desk guy was thin and thinly bearded, wearing a plain white shirt and matching white pants. We checked in, removed our shoes and opened a semi-reflective door leading into the yoga room. Immediately I felt a blast of heat surrounding my body followed by the dense humidity presumably from the sweat from the previous session. I wasn’t warm, I was hot and we hadn’t even set our mats down yet.

My first thought was they didn’t allow enough time between classes to normalize the air temperature or they forgot to turn on the a/c, but I was sadly, sadly mistaken. We weren’t doing peaceful-zen yoga like I had envisioned. It wasBikram yoga, I learned. Yoga as I understand it, while being hot-boxed. The waiver stated that you must have had a physical within the past six months declaring you were physically sound— I didn’t. Item 'd' or 'e' of this liability waiver noted that temperatures may exceed 110 degrees. Growing up as a kid in Western Nebraska I understood humidity and heat, and somehow the owner of this place captured the essence of mid-July Heartland in that building.

Rachel and I were about the seventh or eighth people to have arrived and the room was designed for forty or so. We acquainted ourselves with the far back corner and laid claim to our spots. I watched as she unrolled her mat, laid her towel on the mat, and then I followed suit. The curtain of condensation streaming off my water bottle was a prelude of things to come.

I scan the room to try and qualify whether my narrow schemata of yoga ilk rang true. I witness a man and a woman, that appeared to be regulars, caressing one another while drinking some form of boxed juice in a bizarre pre-game ritual. Aside from that earth-love-couple, the attendees were actually fairly average and not the Burning Man crowd I was expecting. There were individuals of different backgrounds not atypical of San Francisco; Caucasians, Asians, and Indians, in that order, and pre-dominantly women— similar to my last semester in my advertising and marketing classes. Everyone appeared to be in their twenties or thirties and everyone appeared to be in shape.

The room was hot, something I’m not sure I can fully explain. It was hot, hot like standing behind a city bus in Phoenix, Arizona hot. The instructor explained though it was hot now, the temperature would continue to rise as more people filed in and as the class progressed. The sustained heat and humidity was suppose to provide warmth to the muscles thereby allowing greater flexibility and longer poses. Our instructor was young or at least appeared young, wore short brown hair, had zero body fat, and was great at what she did.

After quick intros with the first-timers from the around the room, we started with some simple breathing exercises in tandem with exaggerated arm movements. Our breath was to be audible, concerted and reflecting an ‘H-A’ sound. A sharp unanimous chorus of ‘HHHAAAHHHH’ filled the room as we pulled our elbows inward and tilted our head back to face the front again. The deep expiration and inhalation of the malodorous air warm up our lungs both figuratively and also literally. A few minutes in and I’m finally over my slight bout of OCD and the proximity I shared with my classmates. The idea of feet near my face didn't jive with me at the beginning but it became tertiary to the other things going on.

We carry on with some side bends, but not just side bends like warm-ups in P.E. but side bends where you gripped your hands together in a pistol shape and pointed upwardly and laterally, while sticking your pelvis forward, stretching the length of your opposite side, then holding for ten whole seconds. Repeat on other side. And two more for a complete set.

It was shocking in a way to discover that something as simple as a side bend, with specific instruction on focusing in on individual muscles and kinematics could become much more than that. I’m winded now, and it's only stretch two. I can feel my heart rate rise and my cotton t-shirt begins to adhere uncomfortably to my perspiring lower back and chest.

“Remember to breath in deeply through your nose and exhale completely. Empty out those lungs.”

Our following exercises emphasizing even more on the element of breath control. Observing and controlling my breath was not a problem, the problem was the ambient air we were inhaling felt as warm as the air surrounding a kitchen oven on Thanksgiving day.

We continue on with still manageable stretches but requiring increasing awareness of other body parts. I followed the instruction as accurately as described zeroing in on total body control. At times I would nail the main theme of the pose but forget a simple component such as not locking my knee or keeping my chin in. It was a progression of exercises with each pose building on the next.

Looking around the room some classmates demonstrated amazing form; sculpture-esque like something you would see at SF MOMA. Sometimes you forget how beautiful a human figure can be when shaped a certain way. Out of the six guys or so in the room I zoned in on the guy I believed to be the alpha male (aside from the aforementioned pro). He appeared to be most in shape. Driven by competition, I made it a personal goal to do the poses more accurately and holding the poses longer than he.

The start of the class included positions which were upright and stretched out and as the class progressed the moves required more close-body contorting, the inclusion of more extremities, and lower centers of gravity. Halfway into the session, we were grabbing our heels with our palms while bending our chest into our straightened knees. With more and more encouragement I was able to actually perform this human Swiss-army-knife-like pose. I look over at Rachel and she smiles and gives me a look like, “Hey, you’re doing it!” My zeal for this yoga thing was gaining momentum.

We perform a pose where we stand on one leg and extend the other directly in front of us while grasping the bottom of our foot with interlocked fingers. The idea was to extend completely out with one leg while maintaining balance and control on the other leg. This pose reminded me of my skating days, where I knew this trick as a rocket fishbrain or a fishbrain. The instructor throws out a few words of encouragement or critique, “Great job, James” or “Straighten out your knee Leah.” I was impressed she could remember names so well.

One of the final standing poses was absurd to the point that I could hardly contain myself. We started by crossing our upper arms then weaving our forearms into one another and somehow managing to have our palms touching again. This upper extremity pretzeling was challenging in itself. Then came part two.

“Bend your left knee slightly. Now cross your right thigh over your left thigh. Take your right foot and hook it around your left calf. Higher. Keep your back upright. Now hold it. Lower your entire body onto the ball of your left foot. Sit lower. Hold.” Meanwhile, all I could think about was the yoga scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

The easier way for her to have described this maneuver would have been to simply say, “Wrap your arms together in the most f-cked up way possible and then do the same with your legs, for the males— be careful not to mash your testicles, now squat down.”

As she was dictating these steps, I look over at Rachel to see if she could decode the instructions and she was right with it. I told myself I could do this. I was great up until the “lower yourself.” I glance over at the guy two spots down from me (also a beginner and happened to be of Indian descent). We were both struggling in the strained pose trembling madly, a deluge of sweat streaming from our heads, and we exchange looks as if to say, “Are you kidding me right now?” I wanted to say, “Hey man, your people thought this shit up.” My muscle fibers exhaust and I feel my heel drop onto the mat. I lift up again, my body shaking like a jonesing crackhead in the Tenderloin. I held it. I held it until she allowed for us to relax. The fifteen seconds felt like fifteen minutes.

Tree Pose, check.

Triangle Pose, check.

Lord of the Dance Pose, check.

Eagle Pose, check.

We rest for a brief two minutes and I realized I failed miserably at rationing water for the duration of the class so Rachel offers me hers. Truthfully, I wasn't aware it was a 90 minute session. I swig the water down like Bear Grylls trekking the Sahara. They say water is life and I can say it felt like liquid vitality at that very moment. I wipe my face off and prepare for the final series of poses.

The remainder of the class focused on ground exercises. As we delved deeper into yoga world, my medical maladies of Christmas past became more and more apparent. My shoulders were once again noticeably incongruous, my right ankle I rolled in the 10th grade returned to say hello, my heel was still not healed completely from a surf accident in Santa Cruz last summer, my sternum popped from a wipeout in Tahoe last winter, the arches in both my feet were weak. My yoga experience was unmasking the imbalance in my body like never before.

Cobra Pose, Bow Pose, Cow Pose and…

…and it was one hour fifteen minutes into yoga Hades. Seventy-five minutes in the metaphysical hurt locker. My heart rate was well above its target fat-burning range and had been that way for an hour. The heavy blanket of heat became more unbearable by the minute; I discarded my shirt which only provided a short moment of relief. I sat out the next pose, then the next one. I lay face down on my mat staring into the mirror and I could feel my heart beating out of my neck. My hair matted down. My eyeballs were sweating. My vision became foggy like a morning drive across the Golden Gate. My breaths shortened. I tried one last time to get into the current pose but my rapid syncopated heartbeat was far too much of a distraction. This was nearing borderline dangerous I said to myself. I peeled myself off the floor and begrudgingly skirted out of the studio.

I open the door and make my way to the front entrance and feel the cold air latch to my body. Instantly I feel better. Chest heaving, I sit down and wipe my face down with my dampened shirt. The air felt thinner and tasted better. I savored in the sweet embrace of the air flowing in from outside.

“Is this your first time?”

I look up to see the one guy I thought could outlast me already sitting out. I didn't even realize he had left the room earlier.

“How'd you guess?” I quipped.

“Mine too.”

We chuckle and I realize I beat him out which was a small moral victory. I sit there to contemplate what I just went through. Thoughts of Abu Ghraib and CIA training in Langley came to mind. I wondered to myself how people could routinely subject themselves to this kind of activity. And before I finished my thought the owner from behind the front desk interjected as if reading my mind to say, “It takes time to get acclimated to this environment. Your body will get used to it. Next time make it a goal to try and stay in the room and kneel down if you start to get light headed.” "Easier said than done lady," I thought. I was already collapsed on the mat with heart pounding like a four-on-the-floor Tiesto tune when I made the call to end it prematurely.

Namaste! I glance over into the room and the bodies that were once in unison were now independent and moving about. Mats begin to be rolled up and the rest of the class start exiting the glassy sauna.

Bikram yoga is the union of physical and mental unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I didn't get the enlightenment some seek, but it was eye-opening. It wasn’t about pain or strength. It was mental endurance, concentration, balance, and it was everything yoga was meant to be. It was great.