to wonder why yoga has to be so wanky!

[Tanyaaah]

I love yoga for the stretching and exercise. I like how I can feel my body stretching more each week and it makes me feel really good.

But, I've just been to a class with a new teacher and she kept trying to make us do stupid noises ummmmmmm and oooooooooo and ahhhhhhhhhh. Really bloody annoying!
I found it off putting and the opposite of relaxing as I was too busy getting annoyed to relax. Grrrr.

And then she started ringing a bell when we should breathe

I'm sure this is MY problem, just wondered if I was the only one who thought this!

Do Pilates instead?

Ha! My Pilates class was invaded by an under employed yoga teacher, who made us put a big stick on our heads and wander around the room balancing it there while "expressing" ourselves with our arms and legs.

The only wholly honest way of expressing myself at that moment would have been to ram the stick up her arse.

But instead I just waggled my arms like a chump, doing my best impression of an embarrassed stork with indigestion, and have refused to go back till the hot flush of mortification has subsided (five years and counting).

Ha ha! I've always wondered if everyone else is as irritated and unspiritual as me, turns out most are.
I'll try Bikram then. ta.

Good luck and have fun with it :)
Just one bit of advice - really do drink lots of water before and after, and if you can, put a bit of sea salt in your water. Not enough to change the flavour, just enough to change the texture. You can get the most frightful dehydration/electrolyte depletion headaches from Bikram. I had one last week, just wanted to bang my head against the wall, it was awful. Sea salt (the good stuff) replenishes electrolytes.

Do you reckon that Bikram is the easiest way to catch any bug going round or is there a spiritual balance of temperatures happening which somehow cancels out the contagiousness? Also, do you need to wash your Yoga Mat afterwards? I am on the verge of signing up

I did a kundalini yoga class once and could not believe the amount of absolute rubbish being spouted in all seriousness by the woman in charge - one exercise cleansed our livers of anger, another had something to do with auras. There were crystal pyramids at the front and shakras were mentioned a lot - it ended with her putting a crystal on my forehead that kept falling off - it really freaked her out - I think she thought I was possessed!

I don't wash my mat. I put a towel on it to catch the steady stream of sweat running off my body any drips.

I don't think, actually, that you'd be likely to catch any bugs - I have no scientific proof of this but I think 40 degrees C is too hot for most of them.

Actually I've never heard of anything like that. Have you?

No - but I have to say, regular Yogi probably do have better immune systems - mine has certainly strengthened since I started Yoga. My only other concern was about the showers - I was contemplating whether a superficial wash would be better followed by a proper shower at home -this would allow the body to cool down naturally. What do you think?

I live quite close to the Bikram studio so I tend to just towel off and head home snd have a shower there.

I'm just curious what you meant in your post about contagiousness? Sorry if I'm bring dim, I just don't quite know what you mean?

Oh, I just thought that diseases are more likely to spread in hot humid places esp with people packed in as some of the London evening ones

Proper breathing is essential to any form of YOGA; otherwise it is just stretching!
I know it can be annoying at times, though.

Agree it's a lot about the individual teacher. I went to one class which was led by a very, very strange woman: she did most of the class with her eyes half-closed but kept nipping out to yell at the reception staff for some imagined misdemeanor. We ended every class with a reading from her favourite book and her idea of 'assisting' new members was to give a painful poke in the stomach and say 'you're not very flexible, are you?'

I think the bit that surprised me most was when she suggested we should 'use the prayers from whatever religion we follow' for one exercise - which was fair enough and everyone was happy with.

When she then said "..and just replace the word 'God', or 'Buddha', or 'Allah' with 'Ganesh'" she managed to offend pretty much everyone.