This week I stepped back into the…
…sizzle of a Bikram Yoga studio – my first class in 11 years.
For the uninitiated, this class consists of 26 poses in 90 minutes. And the room is heated to a Faust-friendly, 40° Celsius.
Taking us through our paces, was Darren – a ridiculously bendy and upbeat Bikram veteran who knows how to soothe tired bodies and monkey minds.
With mats unfurled and the mercury rising we began, pushing, balancing, bending way back, more back. But no hack in the world was going to calm the mind chatter that insisted I was going to hurl bile at my sweaty neighbour if I sipped more water.
Still, as we lay in corpse pose (or ‘savasana’ for the fancy), Darren dropped a gem that landed like a delicious bucket of ice on my head.
“You’re doing something special here. Something extraordinary. Out of your day-to-day existence where…”
You wake up. Stretch. Maybe jog. Or walk the dog. Grab breakfast. Start work. Then lunch. Work’s done. Dinner follows. You watch TV. Scroll. Go to bed. Wake up. Stretch. Jog, dog. Breakfast. Work. Lunch. Home. Dinner. TV. Scroll. Bed. Wake…
Lost in the fog of routine is the stuff that makes you feel extraordinary. It’s where you shine, shatter an expectation, detonate your comfort zones. It’s something, anything that circuit breaks the treadmill so many of us pound daily.
And no. You don’t have to look like a human pretzel in a giant air fryer to feel it.
© Phyllis Foundis 2025