Last night I took my second heated vinyasa yoga class since signing up for 10 of them last week (thanks, Groupon!), and I feel amazing.

Have any of you ever done hot yoga before?  Let me paint you a picture.

We’re in a small, clean studio, with a big multi-paned window on one side, opening the studio to the lively Thayer Street below.  Yogis contort on sweaty mats, the smell of incense in the air.  Bright, penetrating heat lamps reach down, tickling our bodies with the salty drops of sweat they gift us with.  With the gentle voice of our instructor captaining us through, our breaths begin to match up, raising our bellies up to the sky, and sinking them down past our spines and into our slippery mats.  The room gradually fills up with our air, until it seems every molecule floating around us has made the journey through at least one set of lungs.  As the practice progresses, the room melts together, becoming one mass of contracting and releasing muscle.  We work hard.  We feel good.

By the end of class, the lump of muscle and sweat crumbles into distinct bodies, laying flat and calm, surrendering to the silence of the room and the renewed energy in their palms.  Three tolls of a bell and my human mind reenters my body.  Class is over.  I am sweaty- and I mean dripping.

It feels so good.