Hot Yoga Is The Cure For Me

Back in 1986, I didn't like my first yoga class.  Already practicing karate and working out at the gym, I thought I was too manly for yoga and never went back.  Fast forward 16 years to 2002.  I started having horrible lower back spasms and hip pain.  My girlfriend at the time was practicing Ashtanga yoga and strongly encouraged me to give it a try to help.  It definitely did.  The girlfriend is long gone, but I've stuck with the yoga.

Although my back and hip issues improved, they still nagged me when I first tried hot yoga in Oregon in late 2004. Shortly after, I moved to North Carolina and found a local hot yoga studio.  Before a class, I showed the teacher that I couldn't lift my right heel off the floor while sitting on the floor because of intense pain in my hip. She advised me to do as much as I could without pushing too much. When the class was over, I was easily able to lift my heel off of the floor while sitting down without any pain in my hip.

After that, I knew hot yoga was what I should be doing and practiced 4-5 times a week for months. My hip pain has been gone since, and I can count the back spasms I've had since then on the fingers of one hand. Before practicing hot yoga regularly, I would get them several times in a year.

When skiing, I tore up my left knee in 1988 and again in 1991 and wasn't able to move well laterally after that for many years.  Then, one day after a hot yoga class, the knee noticeably popped when walking down stairs. Because it was sore after that, I had it checked out by a doctor who told me that everything actually looked really good. After the soreness passed, it's been as good as it was before I hurt it ever since.

Other than skiing, the problematic conditions developed in my body due to sitting at a desk job all day for decades.  Some muscles weakened and atrophied which meant others got stressed and overworked compensating. Plus, the vertebrae in my spine were compressing and pinching nerves and the pain in my hip was coming from a pinched sciatic nerve. Through a regular hot yoga practice, especially rabbit pose, I've opened my spine and don't have pinched nerves anywhere anymore.  I can't stop doing yoga because, if I do, everything bad slowly but surely starts to come back. I know. I've tried quitting a couple of times over the years.

I have flexibility I never dreamed of before I started hot yoga and more strength. I feel better in my mid-fifties than I did in my thirties and forties and it's been nice not to have to deal with and worry about the health issues that I used to have.  Hot yoga's positive impact on my health has been dramatic. It's not for everyone, but it's right for me.

For me, having a consistent practice is the most challenging thing about hot yoga, but my back and my hip make sure that I keep practicing. I find it interesting that I never know how a class is going to go. Some days, my body can't do things it normally can.  I might not feel like going one day, but I go anyway and have an awesome class. Then one day, I might feel super walking in the door but struggle in class. Regardless, I'm always better off for getting to a class.

Plus, classes can be fun. While doing locust pose one day, the teacher said, "This pose cures tennis elbow and carpal tunnel syndrome. They don't have machines at the gym that can do that." A little voice in the back corner of the room said, "They don't have wind removing machines at the gym either." The teacher replied, "I have a vision in my mind of a gym with some happy old men sitting under a sign that says wind removing machines."

This is Martin Price's yoga story.

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