Bikram Yoga Five Dock

This was my first time to try Bikram Yoga. I’ve tried yoga a couple of times the past few years, but never really stuck with it. I think the last yoga I did was Diamond Dallas Page yoga. :P
Drove past their studio the past couple of months, but it was only when a friend of mine suggested coming here I decided to finally do it. (I guess the cold winter weather helped, too…)
I think this place is relatively new. It’s clean and shiny. There are changing rooms, bathrooms, and showers available. Since it was my first time here, I was able to avail of the unlimited classes for 10 days for $ 20 promo. On their website they suggest bringing water, a bath towel, and a yoga mat, but if you don’t have ‘em you can rent.
OK, so I’d heard that Bikram yoga was hot — like a sauna — so believe it or not I thought you’d do yoga in sauna-​like conditions, bathroom tiles and steam vents included. Er, I was pretty wrong. The room was large, with mirrors all around, and it was carpeted. The room was hot, true, with the hot air coming from the ceiling — nothing steamy, though!
I was a bit intimidated to begin with, but the instructor, Jane, made me feel at ease. There was an elevated platform up front and it was easy to see her even though I was in a far corner of the room. There were a lot of students, but the room didn’t feel like it was too full or cramped or any of that. She’d also walk around giving tips. There was one pose I didn’t want to dive headlong into doing (knee injuries from way back when, aggravated the day before by landing wrong doing a jump turn in jazz class) and she kindly sat beside me and taught me an easier version and told me we could work on it. Also, doing some of the poses seem to have reactivated an old arch soreness… I have fallen arches/​tendonitis from my track & field & inline hockey days which I hadn’t really felt in years. I guess they were using certain foot muscles I hadn’t been super actively using lately!
The class was over before I knew it. The nice thing about it is it’s one of those things you can totally lose yourself in because you’re concentrating on your body. Some poses I was able to do much easier than others, though there’s always somewhere further you can go. I like it because it wasn’t fast paced like the other yogas I tried where I’d be scrambling to get from one pose to the other. It was very controlled, the heat definitely made it more challenging, and I was still surprised that my heart rate was going up up up.
At the end of the class, I felt quite relaxed and sleepy, hehe. I could’ve just lain there for ages, but it was past dinnertime and I was hungry. I loved how I was just soaked with sweat — I’m not the kind of person who sweats easily, which is good for the most part, but on the other hand it always feels awesome when I AM drenched with sweat.
Since I’ve never been to a Bikram yoga place before, I can’t compare it, but my friend DID say that this place was a lot nicer than the other one she’d gone to because:
— it’s less cramped
— the studio smells fresh and NOT like smelly gym socks (can you imagine how horrible this would’ve been, combined with the heat?)
— it’s hotter
S’anyway, whether you’re an old time Bikram yoga practitioner or a newbie like me, I highly suggest checking this place out. They have a $ 20 for 10 days unlimited yoga deal if you want to give it a go. They have 3 – 4 classes a day, including classes that are schedule-​friendly for working folks.