I love flowing, mind you. I love moving through a series of postures. I love the sensation of my body warming to the movements, the way my muscles and joints begin cold and stiff and finish open and pliant. Flowing makes me feel awake and stimulated and focused. But flowing at my own pace, to the heat created by my own inner fire. Not the fire created by an impossibly overheated room, crammed in like a sardine with 20 or 30 or so other practictioners who, it would appear, really love slicking around in a bath of their own sweat and getting a bit delirious from dehydration.
So why do I keep going? I might have finally admitted the truth of my lovelessness but it doesn't mean I haven't known it in my heart all along. (And I really do drink plenty of water, before, during and after). Still, I am totally wrecked for the rest of the day. I don't feel rejuvenated and calm like I do after my own daily practice. I feel like crap. I am shaky and stinky and my muscles quiver and all I want to do is lie down.
After a tad of introspection, it is my current belief that I keep going because I (must be) a bit of a masochist and am driven by a little too much ego. Everytime I think I am learning to put those qualities aside (is masochism a quality?), I then find that competitive part of my personality that refuses to be ignored. The part that was never an accomplished athlete, dancer or gymnast but must have really wanted to be.
That's the chick that keeps going to sweaty yoga, who gets an ego feeding thrill out of being strong and flexible and possessed of focus and stamina. The woman who stubbornly (and it could be argued, stupidly) insists on practicing headstand when her feet (towel to wipe with is, by this time, hopelessly drenched), mat (ick) and the floor (so ick) are so slick she can barely walk her toes in close enough to properly raise up into said posture.
Just in case there is a sweaty yoga lover out there who stumbles across this and gets this far into it, please don't be offended. I love yoga in all its forms. Its just that sweaty yoga is well, sweaty. And I have actually experienced severe dehydration (more than once) totally unintentionally and it finally seems insanely foolish to keep seeking out what was an awful experience again and again, on purpose.
And yet, that is what I am doing. Knowing myself, I probably still will again, even after confessing here that I am drawn to sweaty yoga for all the wrong reasons and it causes me suffering. So there must (there simply must) be something redeeming about the practice, even beyond the ego feeding and strength building aspects of it. Some part of my energic layer must reap a twisted morsel of satisfaction from it or I would not ever go back to it. Right?
I really don't know. Surely, there are a million heated flow devotees and teachers out there all better acquainted with the positives I am struggling to find. Other than the obvious muscle softening, joint relaxing ones. I think I am really just bummed out that my body is rejecting this form of practice. I admire and yes, envy the slew of folks out there who claim to feel good after such a practice, who feel as though their life has changed in a beneficial way because of it.
Maybe I am doing this kind of yoga all wrong. Maybe I don't use my ujjayi breath correctly or I am just too toxic of an individual and that is why I sweat myself to sickness. Or, maybe there is a lesson here for me in this particular struggle. Letting go? Loving myself enough to accept where I am and where it may be no good for me to go? Honoring the body and it's true needs rather than pushing it to an extreme it cannot appreciate and always rebels against?
Makes you realize we're all a little crazy when you think about how often we cause ourselves pain trying to "prove" something about ourselves in our own little worlds. Exactly who are we trying so hard to impress or make notice us? Truth be told, even in a sweat slicked, overcrowded yoga room, you really are all by yourself. Nobody's watching. Nobody, except hopefully the instructor, is paying attention to the quality of your poses or your breath. Everybody else is there for their own self, just as they should be.
That's kind of the case in real life too, more often than not. We want others to think good things of us, to like us, to accept us, to validate our existence. We want to be thought of as valuable and relevant. We often want to be what we think we should be, rarely what we are. I think the next time I feel compelled to go sweat it out in a heated yoga class I should give a moment's thought to what I think I need to punish myself for. What is it in me I think is so lacking that I need to atone for it through what my body clearly regards as torture? Maybe next time I'll stop in my tracks and high tail it for the nearest pedicure...
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