The Benefits Of Hot Yoga | Val Sklar Robinson

Why do people walk out of hot yoga feeling like a completely different person?

In this episode of The Health Curve Podcast, we explore the science, psychology, and real-world impact of hot yoga, and why it’s become one of the most addictive and enduring practices in modern wellness.

Host Dr. Jason Arora is again joined by Val Sklar Robinson, his own first teacher in this style, and a former student of Bikram Choudhury. She draws on her nearly three decades of experience to unpack what actually happens inside your body and mind in a hot yoga class. From the iconic 26-posture sequence to the intense heat and structure of the practice, we break down why this method has stayed so popular for so long, and why so many people swear by it.

Together, we explore how hot yoga builds strength, flexibility, and balance in ways that traditional workouts often miss, while also training something deeper: focus, discipline, and the ability to stay calm under stress. We dive into why the same class can feel completely different every day, how the heat changes your physiology, and why the practice often leads to mental clarity, emotional release, and unexpected insights.

We also discuss who hot yoga is really for, why it’s surprisingly accessible to beginners, and why it has become a powerful tool not just for physical health, but for mental resilience, stress reduction, and even habit change.

At its core, this episode is about more than yoga. It’s about learning how to sit with discomfort, regulate your mind, and come out stronger on the other side. both inside and outside the studio.

If you’ve ever been curious about hot yoga, or wondered why people keep coming back to it, this conversation may change how you think about it.

Follow The Health Curve for evidence-based conversations that help you navigate your health with clarity.

Transcript

What “Bikram Yoga” Means Now

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hi, Val. Great to have you back again. Can you tell us what Bikram Yoga is, also known as original hot yoga or 26 plus 2 yoga?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

So definitely for many, many years, and in many parts of the world still today, the series we practice was created by Beakram Chowdhury, and many people still refer to it as Beakram Yoga. As our community started to fall apart in the late teens, many of us evolved the name to really make it clear that we were not giving him money, which most of us never did. We could get into that. We were never a franchise, we were never a pay-for-play situation. We just, he wanted us to use his name, which made sense in my business for the first 17 of the 27 years. It was about 10 years ago that most of us, most studios made the choice to call it something else. For me, it was very simple just to change from beaker yoga pasadina to hot yoga pasadena. A lot of studios may call their name, you know, they have different brands and different names. Some people still use the name of Beaker Yoga as the creator of the original Hot Yoga Association. What I think makes the most sense is to call it original hot yoga. Other people call it 26 and 2, and any version of that you may find. And basically, it is a set series of 26 postures and two breathing exercises. There's some controversy whether Beaker actually created it. I think most people in our community would say that he had. The documentary even brought that up into question. But he certainly is the one who brought it into the West. He's certainly the one who taught it, first in Hawaii, then at San Francisco, and then for many, many years in Los Angeles until he left the country. So it is a set series. It's meant for anybody. There is no chanting, there is no meditating, there's no vinyasa. You're never on your wrists, weight bearing, which is one of the main reasons. It makes it incredibly accessible to anyone. And whatever you want to say about him, the series is a brilliantly designed series that really moves the entire body, all the joint ranges, all the spine ranges, full range of motion in a beginner accessible in a beginner-friendly way.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Great. And I was going to ask you about where this series had been adapted from. And I think it's generally known or believed that this was a condensed sequence that was put together by Bikram Chowdhury from, I believe, someone called Vishnu Ghosh, who was a bodybuilder and had used over 300 different poses as part of his own practice. And these poses, these 26, in the order that they were put together for the time a person has to be in each pose, became the sequence. Can you talk a little bit more about the poses in the sequence? How long you hold each pose, the instruction, the temperature. There are so many different aspects of this particular style of yoga that are very specific. And it is the same thing that you do every time. Can you talk a little bit about those different facets and why each of

Lineage And How The Sequence Formed

SPEAKER_00 2:42

them is important?

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Well, so I just I want to go back to what you just talked about because it is important because lineage in yoga is important. So Paramatsa Yogananda, um, autobiography of the yogi is a very famous text. Self-realization fellowship still exists today. It's more I've read it. Yep. Most yogis have. It's more of the meditation side. His younger brother was Bhishnu Changosh, who was a great, this is all according to Bikram. I don't, I'm not a, I don't know all the history, but for the years and years I was around, he was a great physical culturist of the time. He was a bodybuilder and kind of the opposite end of that. And the yoga was very physical. It was a physical practice. It wasn't a meditating practice. There were tricks and all these other things as well. According to Beekram, the stories he always told us is back in the day, you know, you would be, you know, you'd almost go to Bikram or any of his other teachers and you would be assigned yoga postures. You know, what's ailing you? And they would give you a prescription of yoga postures. And Bikram didn't find that efficient. And from there, he put together, you know, this is according to him, this 26 sequence that everyone would benefit from and ever was kind of more of a medicine for everyone. That's the lineage we understand. That's what he's he had taught since the late 70s in the United States. And prior to that in Japan, he did speak Japanese. It was pretty incredible to hear him speak Japanese. At least he was there for enough time to speak at least conversant Japanese. And this was a series he created.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Can you talk a bit about the different aspects of the style, the specific poses that were chosen, how long you should be holding each pose, the instruction from the teacher, the temperature in the room, all these different facets that make the practice what it is. Why is each of them important? And why was each of them chosen to be part of the practice?

Why Heat Replaces Fancy Breathing

SPEAKER_01 4:21

So it's a great question. So there's, I don't want to go, if you don't practice yoga, some of this gets a little off the track. But in a lot of yoga practices, ashnanga, all the vinyasa practices, there's something called ujaya breath where you're going to constrict your throat a little bit and create this breath of fire to create internal heat, which is going to help warm you up to start going into these postures as you start going along into vinyasas as an added tool to warm you up before you start going into the postures. So in the Beakrim series, and it's hard to imagine because it's so comically popular now, the idea of heating the room to 105 was so outrageous back in the 70s, and even when I was practicing in the 90s, the idea of that is it was doing some of the work for you. So we're actually in this series going to breathe normally because we had the heat as the help outside. So we still start with the pranayama deep breathing exercise meant to get that prana, get that circulation to get things going. Then you move on into a half moon, which is different than other styles of yoga, which is bending your spine in four directions, then warming up your legs with three different series of awkward, and they get getting into the joints a little bit with Eagle, which in a 90-minute class takes you through 25 minutes. At that point, there's a tiny water break. That's kind of the additional warm-up. They he then takes you through three different balancing postures, working your spine in flexion and extension, or say forward folding, back bending, and then a balancing posture, which you know is a very quick

The 26 Postures And Class Flow

SPEAKER_01 5:40

10-second, which is meant for the cardiovascular kind of heart rate, cardiovascular. Then he goes back into being on two feet, where you're doing a forward-bending posture, getting into the hips and upper body and triangle, into a compression posture and separate leg forward to knee, and finishing the standing series with some external hip rotation and kind of realigning the spine and kind of resetting and tree and toe. Moving on to the floor, which many people would call the quote unquote real yoga, where you're now getting much deeper into the body with four postures in the spine series, working in lower spine, the upper spine, the middle spine, and then the whole spine. It's what some people feel is the most powerful part of the series is the spine series. Then working through the front of the body and fixed firm, working through knee flexion, coming into article masana, extending the spine and shoulders, then working even deeper into the spine with camel, which is in art a beginning, but is a full, you know, beginning back bend, a full forward bend and camel, where you now don't have to work through your hamstrings, a separate leg stretching where you're actually getting into the left lead inside of the spinal muscles, and then finishing with the spine twist. I would argue one of the big lapses in this beakroom series is the lack of spine twisting, but we do get one at the end. In the 90-minute series, it's the only posture we do once. And then final breathing kapabati, which is a more powerful kind of, he used to call it like almost a flushing of the toilet, really strongly using your abdominals to exhale. So that's kind of a brief, and once again, if true beakroom practitioners, original high yoga people might have opinions about things I just said, but that's a pretty good overview of addressing every range of motion in a beginning way, moving your spine, moving your hips, moving your ankles, moving your toes, moving your wrists, moving your shoulders, moving your scapula, strengthening your core. It really is incredibly accessible. And the thing about the series, it's actually pretty simple. It is not complicated. It just takes time. The heat is overwhelming for people at first, but when you learn to breathe, when you learn to get used to that breathing normally, I call it balancing effort and ease, which is something I've learned over the years. It's very powerful and it's very accessible, and that's why people do it for decades often.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

And the instructor, the teacher, the style of instruction is normally relatively intense in that it's not always a forceful style of instruction. I've had a few different teachers, but it's always very specific. You do need to be looking

Mirrors, Dialogue, And Self-Control

SPEAKER_00 7:50

in the mirror, and there's an etiquette in the yoga class, which people who don't do this style of yoga, when they first find out, it's often from another student who has to point out you're you're blocking my view in the mirror. But there is this sort of piece around self-correction continuously where you are listening for every detail of instruction from the teacher and you are looking in the mirror to look out for those things as well. And you're in this constant loop of I'm calling it self-correction, and you're going to tell me it's not quite that. But that's it, that's that's essentially what seems to be going on. Why is that so important for this particular sequence?

SPEAKER_01 8:23

So, for this particular sequence, it really is a practice of discipline and self-control. You're calling it self-correction, and I would call it self-control, which is a journey which takes time, which is different every day. So, our teachers have a different role than in some of the other series, where we're trying to use our voice in a very direct way and a very specific way. So you can calm your mind and focus on you and to create this mind-body connection, what I would call the balance between effort and ease, to find the maximum opportunity for healing, strength, and balance all at the same time. So the dialogue, which we've evolved in the Regional High Yoga Association, but the concept is still the same. We want action verbs very specific. It's very, it's in sequence. There's a setup, there's an execution, there's a finish. And the better, what takes the most practice for new teachers is avoiding like this flowery language that doesn't allow you to relax your mind, but instead is gonna not teach you the same kind of self-control. So it's very different if I say, hi everybody, have a great class. I hope you experience love of the universe and flowers everywhere, kind of stand together. Now we're gonna bring our arms up, now we're gonna interlace our fingers. The next thing we're all gonna do, it starts to become very diluted. When it becomes very direct, we say toes and heels together, bring your arms up sideways, bring your palms together, interlace your fingers, cross your thumb, look at yourself, take a breath, stretch up. It's meant to be very direct, it's meant to use action verbs, and it really is an opportunity and it takes time like anything else. Can you just listen to me and do what I tell you to do? Which is gonna teach you discipline, it's gonna teach you self-control, it's even give you the ability to calm your mind to listen more and more. It may take you a year to understand that you're still not bringing your left hip forward. But the more you can calm your mind and use that mirror as a tool, the more you're gonna bring your body into even better alignment, especially as your body changes and gets stronger and more flexible. You're able to create more connections. You're able to see where you're cheating. I call it quote unquote cheating, meaning you're working around an area that you need to work through. So it's an incredible gift over time, and it's why people stay. Is I can start hearing what the teacher is saying and literally do a body scan to check in that I'm doing all of those things. It's kind of I call the upward spiral. It feeds itself the more you straighten your legs, the more you can relax your shoulders, the more you engage your core, the more you can lengthen your spine. So you're able to develop more self-control while you're building a stronger body, a calmer mind, and really creating all of this opportunity for healing.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah, you know, what I found interesting about this sequence, it's one of my favorite styles of yoga. It's very addictive. It is done more for my physical health, at least, also, you know, my mental health, but more for my physical health in recent years than anything else I've tried. And these are things around not just flexibility, but also alignment, posture, you know, sort of, let's call it your total body strength and balance. You get into muscle fibers that you just wouldn't get into otherwise in the gym. It is a phenomenal sequence in my view. And what's interesting is that every day is different. It's the same sequence every time. And, you know, there are variables like, okay, when did you eat? How hydrated are you, how well did you sleep last night that impact athletic performance, if you want to call it that, no matter what. But it can be very unpredictable. Like I can have a very poor night of sleep for some reason, and I can have, quote unquote, the best, you know, the best session ever the next day. Like you, I do run this body scan while I'm doing the poses and I'm listening to instruction from the teacher. And there's always something I can work on or lean into to continue to advance my practice. Why is every day different when it's the

Why The Same Class Changes Daily

SPEAKER_00 12:01

same sequence and it's the same thing that you're doing every time?

SPEAKER_01 12:04

I think it's actually one of the greatest gifts because when we make our wellness, our health, our physical, mental, emotional wellness a priority, we detach from the actual what a posture looks like, how deep we went today, how long we were able to balance. The fact is, every day is different. It's one of the most, I think, entertaining things is there are days I am so excited to practice, I'm ready for this beast of a class, and I am lightheaded and dizzy, only barely gotten started, and the whole class is a struggle just to stay not dizzy. There are days, like you said, where I haven't slept, there's no reason, I'm kind of pissed off, I don't even want to be here. I'm almost mad that I'm doing this. And then I have the most like my half moon, I have these it's like the zone. They used to talk about the zone. I like have the most incredible class because I'm so unattached to what it was gonna be. And then there's everything in the middle. And the fact is, I think what we learn, especially over time in years and years, is the one thing I can usually guarantee, unless you're coming down with something terrible, you have a stomach thing, you will always feel better when you walk out than when you walked in. And showing every single time. Every single time. And just showing up, trying the right way, doing the best you can, which is something my teacher always said, it is unbelievable. When you start detaching from these specific things that you think are what make a practice, you feel better and you live better without a doubt. And I think, you know, whether it's religion, whether it's yoga, whether it's any discipline, you're so influenced sometimes by what people say. But over the years, when you have different teachers, different perspectives, you really do kind of learn. You show up. You know, you do try to do all the things. You try to get sleep, you try to eat the right way. And in this style of yoga, you want to eat enough, but with enough time to digest, you want to be hydrated, but you can't down a bunch of coconut water before class, or you'll that's a great way to throw up. So you figure out all those balances and then you just show up. And I also find as a woman who's you know menopausal and getting into my later 50s, I seem to have a few weeks out of time where, you know, once again, I'm not ovulating, so it's not that, but I'm just struggling. I just feel weak. I feel my energy is off. You know, we could go deeper into what's happening. And then I'm in a phase right now where I'm just powerful as can be. And I'm not doing anything that different in terms of hormones or eating or coffee or hydration, but we do go through different cycles. Yeah. And so the point is you show up, you do it. When you're going through the rougher times, you get to benefit from when you feel strong.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

As someone who's done various styles over the years, I'm doing advanced instructor training now. You know, I'm I'm fortunate to be able to spend some time reading about Vedic philosophy and the older, you know, philosophies behind yoga and its origins. And it feels like every yoga session is a metaphor for life in many ways. And this particular sequence does that very well every time, because of the various things we've talked about, effort and ease, and something that a lot of yoga practitioners and instructors talk about a lot, which is trying to quieten the mind, you know, the monkey mind, and trying to remove expectation from how well you're going to perform a posture, trying not to be distracted. And this other very specific thing in this sequence, which is to alternate between compression and relaxation, chaos and calm. And one of the things that I find it's very helpful for is knowing how to stay calm when you come out of that chaos. So the chaos being the compression postures where you really have to, you really have to squeeze. Let's just put it that way. You know, you're really compressing joints and muscles and putting in a lot of effort. Whether you're in a state of effort or ease, as you put it, physically it's still demanding. And then you go into a corpse pose or you go into a relaxation pose and you don't fidget and you don't mess around. It's time to be still in your mind and in your body. How do you look at a yoga session as a metaphor for life? And

Follow, Subscribe, And Share

SPEAKER_00 15:56

you've seen many lives come through your door.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

It's a great question. It's also an ongoing lesson, both personally and what I witnessed for other people. I think for some of us who grew up in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, our idea of a yogi person was like sitting under a tree with their leg behind their head meditating. There was a very strong, that's kind of what yoga was. I mean, when I went to opening up my yoga studio in 1998, people thought I was opening a yoga shop. Like no one, it's like yoga, what? You're not that kind of person. Also, sometimes people will meet me and they're like, you do yoga, you're so hyper. That is my nature. I'm a barren high energy. You could call me a hyper person. So yoga doesn't change who I am. What it does is make me a better version of myself and give me the tools to know how to calm down in intense, stressful situations. Doesn't mean I always do it, doesn't mean it always works, but it's certainly something, it's what you learn in that room and you try to bring into your life. And it's once again, it's an ongoing thing as life gets hard, as things get stressful. That yoga posture is stressful. And one of the hardest things, the reason it's so hard to quiet your mind is it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to be in a hot room, it's uncomfortable to create compression, it's uncomfortable to open your heart and back bends. It's just uncomfortable. And learning to breathe through discomfort. We're not talking about pain. The yoga shouldn't be painful. Hopefully, life's not painful, but even life can be painful. I tried so hard to have a home birth for my first baby by just knowing the power of let's breathe through it, right? Or when I sometimes those nights where your mind starts to spin out, you're like, I have the power to calm down through breath and to know that it is in my power. So it's something we practice all the time, but it starts in that room and you try to bring it out into life in lots of ways.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

We'll get back to this conversation in just a moment. But if you're finding this episode helpful, here's a quick ask. Take a second to follow or subscribe to the Health Curve Podcast wherever you're listening. And if someone else in your life would benefit from this episode or any of the others you've heard, please send it their way.

The Mental Reset And “Reborn” Feeling

SPEAKER_00 18:00

And this is essentially what is at the core of the broader yoga practice, you know, where we talk about the eight lems and we talk about the asanas, the poses being one aspect of it and one channel for accessing this broader approach. So I'm gonna be doing the style of yoga later today, and I find the beginning is a little bit like torture. And it's because, you know, I've been sitting at a desk, my body's all crumpled and creased, even though I stand up several times a day and try and move and all that. And that stretching sensation that I'm getting and the discipline and the focus, all of that, at the end of a hard day, it's not really what you want to do. You know, you kind of want to go for a massage, or you want to be able to move your body in a different way, whether you're running or lifting weights or something like that, right? Like something where the direction your mind is leaning in is the same one it's been leaning in all day, which is do something, be proactive, you know, A plus B equals C. You're gonna do something that makes sense and that has an outcome that's immediate and obvious. And this is different. This is very much a, okay, this is uncomfortable. I'm stretching my body out, I'm focusing, you know, I'm instilling discipline at the end of a day of discipline normally. So that's how it starts off for me and maybe for others. And then by the time I get to the latter part of the standing series, you know, pretty much by the time I've done my standing head to knee and I've gotten sort of past that stage, it starts to become hypnotic. You're kind of in that zone, hopefully. And the rest of it, you know, by the time I'm on the floor, I very rarely look around because I'm in that state. But when I do, I know and I've been there myself, people are people are exhausted, you know, and they're they're really feeling their body stretch out, and you can see it. By that stage, I'm definitely feeling like, okay, I'm deep into this now. But there's a much more thinking going on than that. You know, you're just doing it. And then by the time you get to the end, you're spent. You're kind of like, okay, I kind of feel like I've almost been reborn. And you leave the yoga studio. And I typically leave my session with a new insight. Some sort of insight. It's the kind of insight you might get, you know, when you get up, you go for a shower, you come back, and then something just emerges in your mind. So it may just be something as simple as that. As, hey, you know, when you move around, we know that there's more brain activation, and you know, you start to get ideas and this sort of thing. But I normally get a deeper insight at the end of a yoga session, particularly this sequence. Can you talk a bit about the journey through the sequence and what you experience and what you heard your students tell you?

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Like a lot of things, it's very personal. But the fact is, as I mentioned, you're in a pretty hot room. Sometimes of the year it's incredibly humid. Sometimes of year, like in LA, it's drier, starting to be November to March. And no matter what year day is, you start with your feet together and start ponding on my deep breathing. And every day is also a little different. Can you quiet your mind? Can you listen? But it is an incredible relief. I mean, what I love about this series is it doesn't matter. You stand there, you start the breathing exercise, and you are now just listening and following along. You almost become in a way, your mind clears all the stresses of the day, the stress of your partner, your kids, your parents, everything that's going on in the greater world, whether it's political or personal, you just clear your mind. And from that clearing, incredible things can happen. For one, the just anxiety, your cortisol goes down. There's incredible physiological benefits. You're the doctor, not me. And there's incredible benefits to that. There's incredible lowering of your blood sugar. There's incredible benefits that happen with your heart rate and your cardiovascular health. All of this is part of the journey of quieting your mind. It's one of the greatest gifts, is we're not asking you to a lot of yoga styles lift your this into that, and you don't even know what that means half the time. We use English, we use in terms of simple, that anyone can understand language. That's the point of the teacher, is not to get flowery. We're not going to show you how fancy we are, so you can quiet your mind. And that journey, like any type of quiet revelations happen. In fact, I'm going to be honest, I feel like I sometimes solve the world's problems in a yoga class, which is not appropriate, but it sometimes just happens. I sometimes wish I had a pen and paper to take notes. Right? I sometimes I just, whether it's business, whether it's my life. But what you do find, I think at the end of that class, like you said, is you've just been Stripped bare, and I'm not talking physically, I'm talking mentally and emotionally. And all of the stress has left your body, all the angst, all the anger, all the frustration. And that is when we talk about really coming out of that class is the best version of yourself. Now, Jason, there's days I finished a class and I could almost go back and do another one, right? Some days it almost gave you energy right then and there. To your point, most days I'm kind of done. I'm physically spent. I've gone through top to bottom, inside out. I have been wrung out. I've been worked out, I am done. And I am mentally clear. I'm ready to love the world. I'm ready to just be kind to everybody, be a better wife, be a better mother, be a better boss, be a better friend. That is an incredible feeling. And it doesn't, I don't want to say that only comes from this series. It's just the heat and the way we work, it tends to be a tremendous benefit of this series. And it's why when people have done this and they go on vacation and just do some little gym yoga class, they're like, that was not enough. And quite honestly, the people who this yoga doesn't work for are the people who just want to come in and lay down and have a big rest. We do ask you to work. We ask you to focus. We ask you to think, we ask you to have self-control and discipline. And that's uncomfortable, but the benefits on the other side are the things you're describing.

Accessibility Stories And 60 Vs 90

SPEAKER_00 23:11

What's interesting about this sequence and about many styles of yoga, but particularly this sequence, is that it's really accessible, like you said earlier. Like pretty much anyone can come in and do something. What is it about this sequence that makes it so accessible to most people, whether they're first-timers, whether they have a physical disability, or they've been doing it for decades?

SPEAKER_01 23:31

So it really is one of the most miraculous parts of this series, is truly almost, when I say almost, there are a small percent of the entire population that this isn't appropriate for. Much past 80, the balance becomes pretty challenging. And just being in the room, there's obviously other very limited situations, but I believe almost anybody who wants to benefit from the series can come and benefit from this series. I've told you about a woman I had in a wheelchair with very severe cerebral palsy and just doing what she could to straighten her elbows, to move her spine. She felt incredible pain relief. And she's not even verbal. She had to kind of type it out to me to explain it to me. I had a woman for several years who was about 100 pounds overweight, who started in the chair. And this is also where, you know, snobs in our community start getting into, well, it's only the 90 minutes, and I'm really going to push back on that. The 90 minutes are great, and I'm not saying 60 minutes is the same. But once again, by having 60-minute classes, we have opened an avenue of so much more access to so many people who are just too intimidated for whatever reason right now to do 90 minutes, or don't have the time, or don't want to do a class for 90 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

It really is amazing. And I think it's so important that we recognize that this sequence and others in yoga are accessible to most people. And we we talked about this a bit in our last episode, taking it out of the wellness bubble and talking about it as a, you know, the asanas themselves just being a channel into something deeper that we can and should perhaps all tap into in some way.

“Yoga Miracles” And What Drives Them

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Just moving us on, why do you think so many of these, let's call them quot-yoga miracles occur? Things like pain reduction, mental clarity, emotional release, etc. Like, dare I say what's the science behind that? But what's really going on there? Why is it so consistent that we see this?

SPEAKER_01 25:14

So to your point, I'm not saying it's only this original hot series that brings you all those miracles, right? I've done a stronger yoga, which is an incredibly intense practice that can bring some of those benefits as well. I've done a really intense hot vinyasa practice that can bring some of those miracles as well. But there's something about this series. The heat is meant to be intense, and it is. The heat is meant to challenge you mentally and make you uncomfortable, which it does. There is something, and once again, but there's there's a factor we haven't talked about, which is why I think there's a difference between the people like, that was damp, I don't like it, and the people who benefit. Are you walking into that room open to the possibility of change? Are you walking into that room because something in your life is not working? And even if you think it's because you need to lose weight, which is never why people stay, it's sometimes what brings them. But are you open to just have the experience to see where the miracles can happen? When I say miracles, I say it in quotes because they're different for people. I told you about a student, I think, in our last or one of our discussions, who wore knee braces. I mean, he was bull-legged, his knees were obviously a challenge. He was an athlete. That sort of structure is going to cause problems. And I don't expect people to share their intimate personal details, although people tend to with yoga teachers, when there's a relationship and trust there. And I did in class say, are your knees feeling better? He's like, they do, but it's more interesting that I came up with my anti-anxiety and antidepressive medicine. Now, I would never put on a website or in an ad or on social media that we can get you off your antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication. I'm not a doctor and I would never say that. But this is someone's actual experience.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Is the temperature and humidity supposed to mimic the climate of India? Is that one of the reasons this is important in this practice?

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Well, I will say that is what we were told. That's what he was mimicking. And what I will tell you quite honestly is when I went to India the first time where I was there for nine months, not doing the original hot series, I was doing Ashtanga yoga in this heat and humidity for about an hour and 45 minutes a day, is the thinnest I ever was, with the leanest I ever was, was the healthiest I ever was.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

You have to work harder for sure.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

You absolutely like to work like that in that heat. And the muscle, I mean, I look back, I was 31 and 33. It is the best shape I was in because it was even just that next level. I mean, I've been in pretty good shape my adult life. I started the yoga at 28. I'm coming on in a year, it'll be 30 years, so I can say almost 30 years. And I just cannot live without that heat. It facilitates so much. It gets you moving, it allows you to build internal heat and get your body moving in ways and create strength, right? If you're too flexible, I've got some dancery ranges of motion. But the strength and the support is so important as I'm getting older and really inspiring other people to stay strong in their bodies throughout these later ages as well.

Heat, Athletes, Celebrities, And Addicts

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Why is hot yoga so popular with athletes and celebrities?

SPEAKER_01 28:04

I would say with athletes, you know, people love something hard. Even if I joke too long, I say, don't beg people in your life to come make them beg you. You have to be ready for this. And athletes, they just cannot believe how hard this is. One of the hardest things for these athletes to come into is to deal with their ego. I once had a big, huge basketball guy stand next to a jockey. Actually, wasn't a basketball guy, he was an NMA guy. So you had tall and big and little and short. And to watch them both next to each other was watching what's so funny about the yoga. It doesn't matter how big, how strong, how small, how flexible. The yoga is hard. And it's why, you know, a lot of the jockeys used to come here. We live very close to the racetrack here, because part of it is, you know, they need to get their weight down and keep their weight down and also keep their knees healthy and their hip healthy. People like a challenge. They like something hard. But why they keep coming back and why celebrities came so much in the 70s, you know, celebrities are here and there. It's I'm not gonna talk about celebrities or how many, but like anyone else, they want to come to what's hard and what's effective. How you feel. I talked to an athlete, you know, I'm not a sports fan, so I never know who people are, but there's a big basketball guy, I think he's basketball, I'm not even gonna say his name, who opened in Georgia. And he's got partners and he's got other teachers because the yoga saved him. Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Bikrim talked about him a lot. And I he showed us an interview when I was like, he really did give Beakrim credit. And even in the 90s and the early 2000s, we saw Karim. There was a real relationship there. And he really believed he told Beakram that you kept me playing those seven extra years. And when they they did that, I don't know if you watched the HBO show about the Lakers, they showed Karim doing yoga in the backyard. And I was like, that's not the yoga he did in the backyard. He did it in.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

That's a good point. That's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Yeah, yeah. I kind of wanted credit. I was like, come on, that's not the yoga Karim did. He absolutely did Bekram Yoga and really got tremendous benefit, as did Martin Sheen, who really loved it, etc. And I met many times because it makes you feel great.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

It was Martin, not Charlie, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Charlie Sheen was just on the podcast with Joe Rogan talking about it as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Talking about this.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Yes, and I believe they build rooms in their houses. And Martin really liked the last time I saw Martin Sheen, I mean, 20 years ago at Beacrim's house, he was like, Can you guys like who's coming over to help Charlie? We need to get him doing some yoga. My family needs to do more yoga. I mean, Martin Sheen really loved the yoga. And Charlie Sheen was just talking about it. I don't know if that's it's the one thing we have not talked about, I'm gonna bring up. I'll tell you who loves this yoga, Jason, are addicts. Alcoholics, people getting off smoking, drugs. I've seen, I won't mention it, there was one of the jackass guys. There's a lot of rehab places here in Pasadena. And so people tend to come, and this is incredibly beneficial for addicts. And like you said, it's addictive. This tends to be a very positive thing for a lot of people who coming off any kinds of addiction get really into the yoga and it becomes a much better instead of smoking, which a lot of people take up smoking, the very positive addiction. That is a really important point. A lot of people have kept their sobriety through the yoga.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

That's amazing. We should dig into that more in a future

Why The Series Has Staying Power

SPEAKER_00 31:02

episode. One more question for you today, Val. There are lots of fitness and wellness things that come and go over the years. What is it about hot yoga staying power and what can other wellness practices, I guess, learn from it?

SPEAKER_01 31:14

It's a great question. There's literally three, well, two specifically, hot yoga corporations who were basically started to compete against us, and meaning our small businesses of our original hot yoga studios around the country. And what you've seen in most of those studios is because I'm nosy, I had to go check them all out. They basically, I actually can think of three different corporations. They kind of took out all the hardest parts and to make them easier. But what's funny is none of them do the series anymore. Because people who want this series and would want it top.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

100%. I've tried so many of these modified sequences. It's not the same. It's not natural. It doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Right. And it's why the original Hot Yoga Association is such an important part of our community. It's why so many people get their trainings approved under our umbrella because good teaching is the difference. And keeping the series, even in 60-minute classes, is critical. And people don't want this other stuff. At that point, just do a vinyasa in a hot room. Just do bar or whatever you want to do in a hot room, and you'll go have a good time. I call it party yoga, but you know what? It's all good. Whatever makes you feel good and adds to your overall health is great. But this series has staying power. I've done it almost 30 years. I have a teacher named Jeff who's been with me like 26 of those, almost 27 years. We've had the studio. It's something you can always come back to. So, like Jeff loves to go swim in the pool. I like to do this mobility work. I really love our Hot Pilates classes and weights to do something different with my heart. But this series is still part of my foundation. I still do it twice a week. We just changed one class. I'm going to try to even do it three times a week. It is an incredible foundation of health, of stress relief, of mental relief, and of empowerment, of being in control and having so much proactive incentive to your own health.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Well, as always, thank you so much for joining me. Look forward to our next chat and looking forward to my book from Yoga Session later today.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Have a great class, Jason. Thanks so much.