Tuesday 16 April 2013

Writing is... like Bikram Yoga

Hello my dearies!

Welcome to my second post on Writing is...

(First post: Writing is...like doing sports)

I've recently started going to Bikram Yoga classes (that's the one in the 40 °C room). A friend of mine dragged me along, and let me tell you, I was highly sceptical... and slightly worried. While I'm not precicely UN-sporty, I'm not particularly bendy and I've never done yoga before (other than as part of aerobic-like stuff). And an hour and a half doing stretchy bendy stuff in a room hotter than a beach day in July?

Yea, sure.

So I went in there, more or less ready to die...

Needless to say I didn't. I survived, having sweated buckets along with all the other yogis, and felt rather cleansed. So here's why I think writing is like Bikram Yoga:


  1. It takes a certain amount of bravery to do it for the first time. With Bikram Yoga, it's the first session. With writing, it's that dreaded Blank Page. 
  2. It's meditative. Yes, (Bikram) Yoga is a lot of sweaty work, too, but it is a meditation exercise at its most basic. So is writing - when you get into the 'zone', or whatever you want to call it, that's probably what most writers think of as a higher plane of consciousness. Well, I think so, at least. 
  3. You sweat a lot. With writing it's mostly mental, true, but tell me honestly you've never sweated over a word, sentence, paragraph or plot line - I won't believe you. 
  4. You come out of it feeling a whole lot lighter. 
  5. An hour and a half in a really hot room can feel like half a life time if you can't find the right mind space. Writing can be just as painful. 
  6. It takes practice, and oh dear, do I need more of that. In both categories. I'm still not particularly bendy...
So, my dears, what do you think? Have you ever done Bikram Yoga? 

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3 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I've never even heard of it!

Unknown said...

It's great! Kills you but in a good way. The heat makes the asanas easier on the muscles.

Hart Johnson said...

Man, I have friends who swear by that. It doesn't sound that appealing to me--I sweat more than I should in a plain old normal-temperature room. But I can see how it would work that way.

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