Masked Hot Yoga: 2021

You ever do hot yoga in a mask? I have. I have to be a honest it wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong it was horrible. But on the inside I was still doing a happy dance that I could be doing hot yoga again. I finally was warm. 101 degrees warm with 58% humidity.

I also got into this pose recently that I have never been able to do. It’s called Bird of Paradise. You have to start either in Lizard or Warrior II and then you take a bind with one arm looping under the bent leg and one arm going behind your back. You hold your hands now looped under a bent leg. Take a big step forward with your straight back leg. Then keeping the bind you stand up and raise the leg that was bent and still bound.

The thing about yoga is that no one knew the first time I did it in a class. Because I’m often in class with different people. This year I’ve been in Zoom class in my living room and I can barely see any one else in their little rectangle on my iPad.

So as I first bound my hands together I was surprised I could actually bind them because I never could before. Then when I clumsily stepped forward and attempted to stand I was so excited that I could do it I almost fell over and then I did sort of fall over but I had this stupid grin on my face because fuck yeah. Year three of yoga and I finally nailed Bird of Paradise.

I think there were a lot of contributions to this success. One- my perseverance. Every time we would go into extended side angle I attempted the bind. For three years. I could feel my hands getting closer and closer and then touching my fingertips was a small victory. Two- I lost fifty pounds in the last two and a half years. I don’t know how having a small stomach helped me bind my arms behind my back but I know it did. Three- Fuck COVID.

I wasn’t going to let the pandemic stop my yoga practice. It was the one thing I have engaged in during my thirty’s that I loved. I felt so connected to hot yoga. I felt empowered. I felt warm; literally. I felt challenged physically and mentally and finally an hour of intense physical work out that also let me zone out of all my stress. I don’t have my phone during yoga. I am completely disconnected.

In March 2020 when my studios closed I moped and pouted and found the Zoom classes. I kept practicing. With my cats. With my sons. Through a separation. Through possibly the most stressful year of my life. I kept practicing. While other people were expanding their waistlines (I say that with love because no shame in an expanding waist line I’m just not a stress eater. I’m a stress non-eater) I was reducing mine.

Then my studios were open. Then I was vaccinated. I attended cold yoga first with my sister-in-law. That was actually where I first got into Bird of Paradise. With multiple layers, feeling chilly, I smiled as I took the bind and had to stop myself laughing from joy as I stood and attempted to extend my leg.

Then I stepped back into a hot studio. There’s not really a way I can describe it other than a sort of coming home. The first class kicked my ass. So did the fourth one. I’ve clumsily still been getting into Bird of Paradise trying not to grin like an idiot as I’m doing it.

I’m proud that 2020 was not lost. I’m so relieved that I can see the actual growth in my practice over the last year.

I videotaped myself getting into it. I asked my son to hold my phone to “videotape” me and he asked me what a videotape is. I didn’t really know what to say. I said just hold the phone and record me. He did. I felt old. But I also felt cool. Because I got into a pose that I wasn’t sure I would ever grow and fold and bind into.

Post-COVID life will never be the same. People have died. People were born. People divorced. Married. Loved. Hated. And for me, I’ve been through a lot. My therapist validates that it’s been a little extra. But through it I’m grateful for my constant practice of yoga. The poses don’t change but every time I get into one or out of one I change. Yoga has helped me understand that change will happen. That sometimes it’s scary but ultimately through change we grow.