In January 2017 I was coming off the worst year of my life, and we were beginning the first rendition of new year new Eric. (We are currently in the third rendition, the second was “the year of Eric” which started Nov 2019 and ended the day the pandemic hit, very summer of George vibes.) With new year new Eric, we were looking for new opportunities to try new things! The first one that arose was when my friend Kristin asked me to join her at hot yoga.
Before we jump into the story, I need to give a little backstory on Kristin’s and my friendship. One time for her birthday, we went to a Stampede game (minor league hockey) where her brother and I (the two most interesting people there) had a little one night best friend bromance. Kristin loved this! I think this was the fourth favorite day of her life, next to her wedding and the birth of her two children. Anyway, for years to follow, she’s been trying to create situations where Scott and I are in the same circle.
So Kristin‘s brother, Scott, teaches a hot yoga class, and she thought it would be fun if I would go. Do you know what? New year, new Eric, why not? Let’s try it! If nothing else, it will be a good story, and in five years I can write a blog about it.
So the first strike for this yoga class was that it started at 5:30 in the morning. Oh, my alarm goes off at 5:30 in the morning every day, and anything before 6:00 is miserable. Having to get up 45 minutes before that and get my stuff ready for the day it’s just disgusting.
So the second strike is not on yoga, it’s on me. It was a disgustingly early time in the morning, so my natural instinct is to drink coffee. It was only like half a cup to wake me up, but still, it was half a cup too much.
The third strike (there’s like 15 more, we were playing a full game) is that I was wearing a long sleeved Nike dri-fit shirt. So, Kristin thinks I’m an idiot because of this. I disagree! The moisture wicking technology keeps you cool, and normally I’m wearing this when it’s 95° and wearing jeans, so why would I get annoyed wearing a long sleeve T-shirt for an hour?
All right, enough baseball talk. Let’s get onto a real sport like yoga. You have no clue how many white women you can pack into a yoga studio at 5:30 in the morning. Luckily, my friend Kristin saved me a spot, and I put my mat, my towel, and my Batman blender bottle down and was ready to go. What happened next is disputed, depending on who you ask. I say it was like 15 minutes. Kristin says it was like five. Regardless of the time, I was not feeling good. Shamefully, I walked through row after row of white women to the back and quickly headed to the bathroom. Good news: I made it into the bathroom. Bad news: I did not make it to the toilet and threw up on the floor of the first stall. I am now presented with a dilemma. Do I just leave everything that I own in the yoga studio, go home and never acknowledge the puke, never talk to Kristin again, and possibly move to a different state? Sadly, my Dutch guilt got the best of me, and I went back into the yoga studio to get my towel to clean up my vomit. I didn’t clean it up as well as I could have, but I got the majority of it. I threw my towel in the trash and walked out. As I am walking out, the janitor walked in. I have never been more terrified of a stranger yelling at me than that moment. Like the idiot that I am, I didn’t take my water bottle with me the second time, so I had to go back into the studio.
As I frantically gathered my things so I can get out of there before anyone realizes that I puked, I apologize to Kristen and say, “Sorry, this is not gonna work today.” She, having no knowledge that I just threw up, is adamant that I can stay and just do what I’m comfortable with. Nope. I’m going home, taking a hot shower, crawling back into bed, and calling in sick to work.
End of story, right? Wrong! Today we spell redemption RIC!
Five years later and after losing in Fantasy Football to Kristin, I had to pay my debt and go back to hot yoga.
This time I was one of 4 guys in the class! (Only one that didn’t take my shirt off; maybe when we lose those 30 lbs we can get these boobies out and flying around.) I made it 25 minutes before I realized this wasn’t my high school football team, and that if I half-assed it, I wouldn’t be letting anyone down but myself. I dogged it the next 20 minutes, took a 5 minute break outside to cool down, came back in, and basically sat on the floor like a sack of potatoes for 5 minutes before Kristin said I could be done. She took me into the hallway and gave me the greatest “I’m so proud of you speech” like I was a third grader who tried out for community theater, had one line, and didn’t even have a good delivery on it.
And before you are like, “It’s hot yoga. How can it be that hard?” It’s hot yoga in name only. It is a cardio circuit with a downward dog in between each set.
Moral of the story: Try something new! And if that new thing makes you vomit, try it again in 5 years.
bteamballer 