This week I went to Hot Yoga (Bikram) for the first time.
It was a fascinating experience.
My left calf is now as tight as a innocent man's bum at his first prison shower but, overall, I think it did me good.
As we filed into the room I was struck by a thick, soupy smell. The previous class was filing out and it was like walking into a steam room that had just been vacated by a very smelly football team. It wasn't pleasant.
There were rows painted on the side of the room, numbered Zones 1 through 5. They have more heat at the front of the room. I guess you have to build up slowly.
One thing I have learnt - the hard way - about Yoga is not to push yourself too far too fast. I once tried to contort myself too much in an advanced Yoga class (which I shouldn't have been in, in the first place) couldn't walk (I'm not kidding) for two days. I set myself up in the back row, against the frosted windows, in the coolest "Zone".
Around me people set up their mats, towels, water bottles... Hot Yoga means you bring a bunch of crap with you.
And then I saw them.
The yoga geeks. The teacher's pets. The A team.
One man, one woman.
Front row. Practically naked.
This was not a good thing.
He was wearing that rectangular underwear that's currently en vogue with gay men... there's a store near me that sells just those, in various colors and patterns. It's like they have a rectangle on their butt - like someone tried to airbrush over one of those squares that cover nipples in censored nudie pics.
His were blue, with a white waistband.
I have to admit, they made his butt look hot. Well, his butt was hot.
Naturally he had a few tattoos here and there - nothing crazy - just black ones. You know, the kinda tatts that portray a suburbanite who dreams of being wild, not someone who actually chooses to live outside mainstream society.
His body was good or, at least, it had been.
Sadly, nature is cruel to us, even those of us in good shape.
The muscles may be strong, the body fat may be non-existent, but the skin sags. Just a little. Losing tone, losing shine, losing suppleness.
Middle age was written across this man's chest in a slight dip of the pecs, a minuscule slackness pulling the nipples down and a tiny loss to gravity at his belly.
And then there was the woman.
I have no idea where she found them, but she was wearing bikini bottoms the shape of Bridget Jones' no-sex pants. They were HUGE, spreading across her tiny torso.
Time's cruelty hadn't passed her by either. She was thin, but had that butt and boob shape that has lost it's perk. Sometimes I think that, as a large woman, I get away with the disguise of the sag. My sag is covered in a layer of fat, my curves go out as well as down. For thin women, their small butts and boobs have no curve, no softness, just a downward orientation. Nature is a Bitch.
I'd glance across at the Supple Couple periodically during the class because, that way, I could see where I was heading, what I MIGHT be able to do in three, or four, or five year's time.
I was sitting with my knees in front of me, my feet next to my hips, leaning back, trying to get my butt to meet the floor between my feet. The Awesome Twosome had legs absolutely flat and were all the way back, lying down on the floor.
I was wobbling in a basic Tree Pose, falling left, getting back into the pose, falling right, getting back into the pose. The Dynamic Duo were standing strong on one leg, other leg held up up straight in front of them, holding onto the big toe.
Ah well.
I reminded myself that Yoga is a process. They call it a "practice" for a reason. You're always a pupil, always learning. There's no point at which you get a black belt.
Apart from the entertaining distraction of the Double-jointed Duet, the class was interesting in that was very different from any Yoga I'd done before.
Even though I was in the coolest zone, I felt like the heat did actually make it all a little easier. My muscles were a little slacker than normal, resisting the stretches less.
The teacher did combinations of two poses, all repeated twice. The second time around, knowing what I was trying to do (having seen more experienced people around me get it right), I was able to actually really try to do to the pose as best I could. Get into it, feel it, work for strength through it.
The pace was reasonably slow, and there was a whole sequence where we rested briefly lying on the floor between poses. The class was 90 minutes, and so it seemed to me I had more time to think, to breathe, to get the poses right.
I am not sure that hot Yoga will replace the classes I normally do at my gym. I think it'll just be something new, something different, that I add to my repertoire.
And how can I resist going to a place where there are practically naked men?
Maybe, next time, there'll be a guy who's a little younger.
Hey - I might even move closer to the front of the room.
Closer to the REALLY hot zone.