The Pose You Like The Least Is The One You Need The Most

I practiced regular yoga consistently for two years but fell out of the habit about three years ago. The group of friends that I was practicing with stopped going and so did I. Earlier this year, a friend mentioned that she was going to a hot yoga class at Revolution Hot Yoga (RHY), and I decided to give it a try to see if it would re-energize me.

Never having done hot yoga before, in all honesty, the first class was really tough, and I left thinking, "Wow, I'll never do that again!" But something drew me back the next week and the next... The fourth class was the magic number, and I left that one feeling fabulous! I've been in love with hot yoga ever since. My goal is to practice twice a week.


For some reason, I find that hot yoga is different for me than regular yoga.  The practice makes me really concentrate on myself and the poses. I wasn't into watching myself in the mirror in the beginning, but now I get it. At some point, I began concentrating on the poses and lost sight of everyone else in the room.

Since starting a hot yoga practice, I can really tell a big difference in my core strength, and I never realized how beneficial that is. And an unexplainable but great benefit is that something about practicing yoga also makes me intuitively want to eat healthier.

I find the heat so cleansing. In the beginning, I would have to ask that the heater closest to me be turned down to level 3 but now, I do the whole class with heaters on 5, and love it! I find that I don't sweat as much as I did in the beginning. When I leave class,I feel refreshed, rejuvenated and exhausted all at the same time.

It's great to feel like I'm a real yogi. In the first few months, there were some poses that I thought that I would never be able to do. Remarkably now, those same poses are some of my favorites like standing bow pose. When I started, I had to place one hand on the wall and still could barely hold the pose. But now I've mastered it and love it. I'm still not fond of the warrior poses, for some reason, but I keep in mind what Jane and Rebecca always say, "The pose you like the least is the one you need the most."

The RHY instructors are phenomenal. Due to timing and coincidence, I usually take either Jane's (Cable) or Rebecca's (Jordan-Tuner) class which I find so encouraging and inspiring. I actually look forward to yoga class, and I have NEVER been able to say that about exercise of any kind before.   

This is Lisa Caldwell's yoga story.

Go to the RHY website.