“You’ll feel as though you were dying,” several people promised me, laughing as they fondly recounted their first experience of Bikram Yoga.  By the end of mine, I knew what they were talking about.

It started innocently enough. I was planning a few weeks of conference travel in Auckland from Dunedin, and as any academic knows, conference conversations keep one in their head waay too much.  I thought that maybe Bikram Yoga would be the perfect way to get me out of mine and back into my body.  Bikram is a form of yoga that goes for 90minutes in extreme humidity, temperatures of more than 40°C (104°F).  I once had a friend of mine from Ireland describe Bikram to me as being “like a Native American sweat lodge.” Since I am part Native American and her description resonated with me (enough to drown out those warnings from my laughing colleagues), I was keen to try it.

It was early on a bright November Saturday morning, the last of spring, 2014, in fact, when in Auckland I walked into Bikram Yoga. The instructor standing behind the desk checked us all in before class.  When I got to the counter, he asked if I’d ever done this before.  I foolishly told him “yes.” I’d just attended a 60minute yoga session at his studio, albeit with a different instructor, two days before.

I was about to find out the hard way though that that 60minute yoga session, although done in the heat, was not Bikram. Blissfully unaware, I grabbed my towel and mat and headed into the studio. As the class began and the yoga teacher gave instructions in mellifluous tones that flowed us like a lazily winding river, carrying us along in peaceful postures, I focused on form and fitting in, as one does.  I stole glances at those around me.  Doing what they did took effort since some of them had clearly been doing this a long time. I refused to feel intimidated, however, especially during the one-leg stands when I managed to hold my balance while a few other, far more seasoned yogis around me didn’t.  They showed their experience though when they managed to make their few unbalanced postures look graceful.  Still, I allowed myself a little arrogance.  Carried gently along by the instructor’s directions, I not quite-so-effortlessly strained to keep up.  So far, so good.

The arrogance segued when at the end of 60 minutes, I began priding myself on my endurance.  My thoughts went something like this:

I may not be the most agile or very quick, but by golly, I’m still doing these postures!

I chuckled to myself; no sweat.  Well, not literally.  I’ve never sweat – excuse me – glowed so much in my life.

But suddenly, I hit some internal threshold.

Oh god, I think I’m going to vomit.

Which eventually led to,

Does this instructor never shut up?!

And the final step in that parade was,

I’m not going to vomit but I am going to lie here and whimper.

Great big crocodile tears squeezed out the sides of my eyes while I blinked in rapid profusion, the yogis around me all serenely dripping and following the instructor in fluid movements that made my great lumbering attempts look like the bull who came to tea in the china shop. I’d been told by those laughing, reminiscing colleagues of mine that sometimes you can spot the newbies.  They’re the ones lying on their mats, gasping for air like dying guppies.  I was determined not to be one of those.  I managed to make it to the end without giving in to the screaming of my muscles, begging for me to stop.  When the instructor’s gentle, soothing tones – so grating on my nerves – flowed away, he bade us “good day” and released us to our lives.  I collapsed on my mat, trying to whimper in sotto voce.   Out of a class of about 50, I was literally the last to pick up my mat and (eventually) leave the room.  But at least I got up.

Bikram Yoga, I learned, is not for the faint of spirit.  Neither is the PhD.  I think I’ve found the other’s perfect complement.  In fact, it seems that Bikram is a great metaphor for the PhD process.  Sometimes it feels as though the writing is flowing well and I’m rushing along the river of ideas streaming from my head through my fingers onto the page.  But then I hit some internal threshold and it all comes to a sudden, blinding and dramatic halt, leaving me…well, whimpering and begging…words, please, just come!  Bikram is a good way to condition my mind and body to handle what the PhD throws at me.  Or is that vice versa?

Whichever way it goes, I am going to be incredibly conditioned by the end of this thing.  Why, I’ll just pick up my mat and serenely leave the room.  No sweat.