Why We Don’t Offer Hot Yoga
Hot yoga. A good sweat, a fad, something that feels nice in cold winter months. Why do we not offer it at FlowFit? I’ll tell ya.
I used to teach almost exclusively hot yoga. All the formats, all the time. I loved it and I loved the sweat it gave. After a few years of this practice I noticed some interesting things. For one, nothing about my body was changing. I wasn’t getting stronger or fitter, even though I sweated my absolute tail off in every class. Two, my skin started to change. At one point I had such bad eczema over my entire body that I literally had to douse myself in Vaseline before teaching or taking every class. I was a shiny, slippery mess, just so I could keep sweating in excess. The third and scariest thing that started happening, was that people were getting hurt in class. Fainting, falling in sweat puddles and dislocating their shoulders, and even having seizures (yes I honestly saw every one of these things happen, and on more than one occasion). Now let me say that even though these things were happening, I was in denial, and I had no intentions of changing anything about my routine. Then 2020 happened.
As soon as the studios shut down and I lost my ability to teach and practice heated formats, I decided to dedicate myself to my first ever home-practice. I didn’t have heat, just my mat and my body. It was pretty insane how fast my opinions then changed. About 3 days into being in lockdown my eczema COMPLETELY cleared up. 100%. I have to this day never had an outbreak again in my life. About a month into lockdown, I noticed my body changing drastically. I could handstand for the first time. I carried more muscle tone than I had in my entire life, and I could do postures I had never dreamed of before. Now, the third thing took more time to notice, it took teaching virtually and in unheated spaces for a while, but I noticed that NONE of the injuries that I thought were normal, were happening anymore. Who would’ve guessed, the practice I had been passionate about for so long actually had held me back and hurt me.
Now I am not saying that you should never do hot yoga, if you like the way it feels, take a Bikram class every now and then (please no heated sculpt though OMG). Remember that the heat is suited much more for a class like Bikram than it is for all the other formats that us westerners decided it was for. But honestly fam, I know from experience and from watching this community, you are not missing anything by not attending a hot studio. I have brought the best of all my experiences together here for you in this cozy 75-78 degree space so that you can become your strongest and most confident self. It works ya’ll, I promise. - Alex
