Hot Yoga

So I went to my first hot yoga class at the studio and it was great!  I quickly realised that I'm a big ball of tightness and it's going to take a lot of yoga to get back any sort of flexibility.

Studio
Image from Abundance

 The studio was pleasantly warm and it was a dry heat.  I think they heat it to about 30 degC, but it didn't feel uncomfortable.  It didn't take much movement to get the sweat flowing and I had to wipe it from my eyes a couple of times so I was glad I had a towel with me.  I saw another girl had a wide headband on and she also had a thin towel on her mat and I think these are great ideas to manage sweat so I'm going to Lululemon to purchase a towel and headband.

Image Lululemon Headband

Image Lululemon Towel

I initially set up my mat in the corner, but I realised that was where the heat source was, so I moved to the middle of the room in front of the instructor.  There were about 8 of us in the class, which felt like a nice number, one of which was a male who was about as inflexible as me so I was glad he was there.  I think next time I will set up my mat over by the mirrors so that I can watch my positioning in the postures though.

I left the class feeling light on my feet and much more aware of my body and I felt really pleased with myself for going.  The mind creates a lot of reasons for inaction but it sure does love it when you take action!  Anyway, my new found body awareness has detected some postural imbalances that I'm hoping yoga will correct.  I was going to start doing some strength training, but I might leave this for a month or so and give yoga a chance to work it magic.  I'll still do the odd barre class and I might give pilates a go too but I don't really want to build muscle if I'm building it in the wrong place.

Anyone ever tried hot yoga? and did you like it if you did?  Do you strength train? and if you do, do you have any recommendations?