Hot in the City
While we’re in Singapore we’re trying to improve ourselves. Jo’s walking to work along the river, I’m working on various secret web ‘projects’ and as you can tell our photography is coming on leaps and bounds (we’re not just taking more and throwing out the rubbish ones, honest).
However on Friday evening Jo and I undertook an extremely arduous physical task, which given that I’ve taken to playing two hours of football in tropical temperatures in The Cage and Jo has walked 4,000 metres up some of the Himalayan foothills, is saying something.
The twisted physical torture to which we submitted ourselves was invented by a man named Bikram who came up with the bright idea of doing Yoga in a room heated to forty degrees centigrade. The studio was offering a beginners tryout for only S$40 (about £13) so we thought we’d give it a bash.
So off we went having drunk a shedload of water throughout the day and dressed in the requisite skimpy gym attire we made our way to (where else) a shopping mall in central Singapore. Upon filling out a form and directed to remove our flip flops we were led into the hot room. The heat is alleged to assist in warming the body enabling bendiness and a stronger workout.
Jo’s immediate reaction was to utter a loud, “my god!” in direct contravention of the ‘Silence requested’ sign on the door through which we entered. We then scuttled quietly, our bright orange toweling mats in our already sweating arms, to the far side of the room. We were joined by various locals and a terrifyingly buff and clearly experienced lady who took pride of place in front of the little platform that was to be the location for our guru of bendiness.
Our guru introduced himself with Essex vowels and a removal of his towel exposing some of smallest speedos ever created. Simply saying to his ‘new friends’ that should we see colours, lights or feel faint this was perfectly normal and we should simply sit down, catch our breath and join back in when we were ready. Lights? Colours? I’m assuming this was meant to put us at ease.
Given that breathing in the heat was hard enough, contorting for ninety minutes proved plenty of time for me to actually take on liquid form and dissolve into a puddle. Jo similarly spent some time lying down, whilst the rest of the room twisted and turned, contemplating the fastest route to the door. However we both were able to walk away from the room. Which was more than could be said for one poor local who seemed unwilling/unable to move from the floor until brought some sort of re-hydration therapy.
In the hallway, experiencing a bizarre euphoric state (Jo believes due to her escape rather than any yogic effect), we were approached by the teacher who seemed slightly taken aback by Jo’s honest assertion that after about 70 minutes in she wanted to burst into tears. If only she’d had some liquid in her body that hadn’t already been expelled through her skin.
We were advised that the best action would be to return as soon as possible to continue to experience the benefits of the exercise and toxin removal. Unfortunately we’ve had a busy weekend and have yet to return.
Our initial reluctance has been tempered by new found miscellaneous ‘good feelings’ and extra toe-touching ability so we’re considering giving it a bash for three months and seeing if it turns us into perfect physical specimens. Plus it’s about a third the cost of doing it in the UK and despite the heat, straining and pure fear of going back it’s still less soul-destroying than the gym.
Andy 11 February 2007
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