Sweating It Out With Hot Yoga

Hot Yoga class has not been one of the classes that I would like to go to but Beyoga had recently started the Hot Yoga classes and with Lila teaching the Saturday morning class at 9.00 a.m, my sister and I decided to join the class last Saturday and yesterday.

Hot Yoga is conducted in a heated room and promotes profuse sweating, which is believed to help rid the body of toxins.

For the two classes I attended, Lila had started the class with a breathing exercise. Last week's breathing exercise was Standing Deep Breathing while yesterday’s class started with Kapalabathi. These pranayama exercises helps to cleanse our body and brings fresh oxygenated blood into the body. I felt a bit light-headed while doing the breathing exercises as I was not used to the heated room and doing the pranayama exercises after such a long time (I have done them while practicising in YZ). Lila had advised us to stop if we felt dizzy but I felt alright after a while and managed to complete the 2 rounds of the breathing exercises.

After the breathing exercise, Lila guided us through some standing, stretching, balancing and forward bending poses which included different variations of the chair pose and balancing stick pose. The poses are quite challenging but the heated environment helps us to go deeper in the pose as the heat helps to warm and stretch our muscles and makes us more flexible. After the standing poses, we laid down on our stomach and did poses that help to strengthen our backs such as the sphinx, locust and bow pose. After doing some twisting poses, the class ended with savasana, the total relaxation or corpse pose.

I find the hot yoga class quite draining when it ended and last week, my sister and I had actually signed up for Azmi’s Hatha class after the Hot Yoga class, but we had to skip the class as we were too exhausted to continue another class. So it was also just one class for us yesterday.

The surprising thing about doing the Hot Yoga class is that after taking my shower, my energy level came back and I actually felt good throughout the day (I went shopping last week and yesterday after the class and did not feel tired).

Here are some tips when attending a Hot Yoga class:-

- Bring a towel to mop off your sweat as you will be sweating profusely in the heated room.
- Make sure to drink plenty of water before and after class so you don't get dehydrated.
-Rest in child’s pose if you feel dizzy and then join back the class when you feel better.
- Let your body cool down first before taking your shower.

Some practitioners like to go to the Hot Yoga class as they think that it will help them to loose weight which is a debatable issue. For myself, I will go to the Hot Yoga class once in a while to get rid of the toxins in my body and moreover, Hot yoga is considered to help correct and improve sleep patterns, promote better digestion, improve cardiovascular functions and metabolism.