It's Gettin' Hot In Herre...

This didn't happen in my class but part of me kind of wishes it had.

In college, when my roommate & I would get overwhelmed with writing papers about the plight of the migrant farm worker & the patriarchy, we would head to the on-campus dance club ("Tha 'Sco" = short for "Tha Discotheque") and dance horribly to Nelly's 2002 hit "Hot in Herre."

It's not that we found Nelly particularly aesthetically or lyrically pleasing; it's that we didn't have to freaking analyze it in its historical, sociological, & ethnomusicological contexts. When Nelly says "It's gettin hot in herre / so take off all your clothes," what he is in fact saying is, "It's gettin hot in herre / so take off all your clothes," and that's really as hard as your brain is expected to work while listening to it.

It is not about the plight of the migrant farm worker.

So, in a way, "Hot in Herre" is like a zen koan. Focusing on the words allows you to enter into the mushin "no-mind" state and, paradoxically, not focus on them.

Which means that, in a way, the fact that the lyrics to "Hot in Herre" were all I could think about during my first Bikram yoga class Monday night was....not entirely inappropriate?

After three different friends had recommended Bikram yoga as a way of helping to loosen up the muscles in my hip, I decided to give it a shot. I found a studio fairly close to my house with not-insane prices and really great reviews & decided I would try to go three straight days in a row. (Now, I don't think short muscle fibers is the entirety of my problem, so I'm combining this with a daily 20-minute smashing of my quads on the roller & some other mobility work for my hip capsules, but I'm open to the idea that it might help.)

I've only been once so far, so I'm not going to try to draw too many conclusions, but here are some observations from my first class:

1) After nine years in the Bay Area and five in Northern Ohio, I am a total heat wimp, so I was stunned to find that it didn't feel all that hot to me in the room. Yes, I was sweating buckets, but I didn't really have the sensation of feeling hot until maybe an hour in, and I never felt uncomfortably hot.

2) I never felt thirsty.

3) I am not amazing at yoga, but I no longer suck at it. I could do most of the poses at least as well as ~80% of the people in the room, with the exception of ones that require quad / hip flexibility & ones that required lunging / squatting on the right leg.

4) Eye make-up should be removed pre-Bikram, because, ew.

5) Post-Bikram, a seemingly ridiculous number of towels suddenly seems like about the right number of towels.

6) We are talking end-of-marathon, oops-I-just-fell-in-a-swimming-pool amounts of sweat here.

7) Breathing skizznillz for the win once more. After the class the instructor told me I did well for my first class & asked me what I thought. I mentioned how I hadn't noticed the heat almost at all for the first hour, & he said that was because I was breathing well. Again, I don't claim to be good at very much of yoga, but if there is one thing 11 years of martial arts teaches you, it's how to breathe.

8) French braid = good call.

9) Heat does surprising things to your heart rate, even when you're not exerting yourself all that hard. I'm really curious to know what ballpark mine was in, but I feel like wearing a heart rate monitor probably doesn't jive with the vibe.

10) In Bikram, modesty is not a thing. Next time I am going as close to naked as possible without making it weird.

• Bikram: Love it / hate it / never done it / don't care?
• Nelly / early 'aughts zen hip-hop: Love it / hate it / never heard it / don't care?