What Is Hot Yoga For?
As the temperature drops and the stress of school, darkness, and squeezing back into fall jeans closes in upon us, I’ve been on a streak of showing up to a very (very) warm room to do yoga. It is calming, and exceedingly pleasant. And it has me wondering: Why did we start doing yoga in a hot room? Is this a wellness trend on the level of, say, Peloton or working out in a cold room, that is expensive and gimmicky but perhaps worth embracing nonetheless? Or is the “hot” in hot yoga actually doing something for you?
Hot yoga was invented by Bikram Choudhury, a man from Kolkata, India, with a directive to spread yoga throughout the world and a distaste for shivery rooms. He opened up a studio in San Francisco in the ‘70s, made his name synonymous with the exercise, and gathered followers from Lady Gaga to George Clooney, according to a 2011 GQ profile that dubbed his “cult” both “overheated” and “oversexed.” With a penchant for yelling things like “Miss Teeny Weeny Bikini” (and more explicit) to address students, Clancy Martin writes, Choudhury’s persona made some sense for popularizing his take on yoga in America, where we love a personality shouting at us to move in a certain way.
Choudhury has been embroiled in scandal since allegedly raping a student, and then in turn allegedly harassing his former attorney for trying to look into it (the attorney was awarded $7 million; Bikram has since decamped to Acapulco, Mexico—where he still teaches, according to HuffPost). But there a[……]