Bikram yoga review

Close your eyes and you'd believe you'd just stepped off a plane into a humid South East Asian country. The difference is that there is no air condition to welcome you. This is destination Bikram and for the next 90 minutes your body will be pushed to its limits, physically and mentally.

Concentration is the key with yoga, especially under these extreme conditions. You lose focus and you'll be in a molten heap on your yoga mat; drink too much water and you'll be chucking up your lunch over the person in front; breathe through the mouth and injest a room full of sweat; wipe away your sweat and spoil the detoxification process. There really is a lot to remember whilst trying to strike a pose or twenty-six but as the sweat pours off you, the stress goes with it and somehow you just get on with it.

The relief of leaving that humid room is phenomenal. You feel yoga drunk as your bodies adjusted back down to the normal temperature; a combined feeling of elation and utter exhaustion. Some people were close to tears at one point in the class. That'll be the pleasure and the pain. Unlike other forms of exercise, yoga gives your mental capacity a work out too.