For the past week I’ve done a little yoga experiment. I suspected my hypothesis was true last Thursday, but I wanted one more class to check it.
In the summer there were days I had to go to afternoon yoga in ninety degree weather. One time I took an outside shower before class because I had just gotten back from the beach. I felt so good during that class, I started always taking showers before afternoon and night yoga. Since fall, other than muscle problems due to fit club, I haven’t had a class where I was extremely hot and had to sit out. Last Tuesday I had the worst class since fall. I wondered what was wrong. I was so hot and fell to my knees almost every other pose. I thought back to what I did differently that day. Ah..ha. I took my shower at noon and put face cream and body lotion on, thinking it’d be fine since night yoga was hours away. When I shower for night yoga I do it ten minutes before leaving and don’t cover my skin with any lotions or creams. During last Tuesday’s class it was like I was wrapped in plastic wrap. My skin couldn’t sweat and breathe and do it’s job keeping me cool in the hot room.
Thursday and tonight I showered as usual just before leaving and didn’t use any lotions or creams. Both classes were great. I wonder if anyone else who does Bikram discovered this? If so, I wish someone would’ve told me this when I started because I went to class for the first year and half with all that lotion on and had a lot of horrible, hot, classes where I thought my body was going to burst. I can only attribute it to all the lotion.
And so, as another day goes by, I’ll remember the old saying – “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – especially with body lotion, I learn something new everyday, and …I have written.
I can totally relate…. remember me complaining about realizing early in a bikram class that my body was covered with moisturizer left over from a massage the day before??? It was horrible… so much more difficult to hold the poses. LOL!!!
I agree about it being too slippery, but all that time it was also keeping the heat in and not allowing the sweat to cool me down! I bet I could’ve avoided a lot of those nasty classes! Lol!