If you are looking for ohm, incense, sitar music, bells and a new-age spiritual vibe, this place is not for you. However, if you just want to get through the 26+2 hot yoga postures with your dignity intact, feel better afterwards, and live a little longer, this might be your studio. I really liked Hot Yoga A2.
The staff is friendly, professional and well trained. I've been to many Bikram and Bikram-esque studios around the world and this is one of my favorites. Why? Many reasons but the biggest one for me: NO STINK. Why does this place smell, well, odorless, but many other studios smell....I can't even describe it....like an amalgam of sweaty gym clothes, rotting carcasses, and Eau de Landfill?
The room temperature is hot, indeed. Yes, the heat is challenging. A teacher once told me that hot yoga is just like a game of Simon Says....In Hell! But for those who have never tried it, I suggest that you try it for a month. Save your questions, reservations, caveats, excuses and alibis for a month and voice them all after a month if you still have them. That's because the whole thing sounds pretty hokey and if you act like Spock and examine it too rationally, you'll dismiss it and do crossfit or Zumba or ballroom dancing instead. But just try it without judging first. After a month, my guess is that you'll feel better, have improved balance, will sleep better, and have more flexibility. But it needs time to work. I can't explain it. I'm not sure why. But others say this as well.
I feel confident in telling you that after going regularly, you'll develop many new talents such as putting on a sock standing up while balancing as gracefully as a ballerina on one leg. In addition, you'll be able to visit Death Valley in July and be very comfortable (who needs air conditioning?). Finally, you be able to amuse family and friends by drinking liters of water to re-hydrate after class and then excuse yourself every 15 minutes to pee for hours.
The studio just opened in June and is very clean and modern. The floor of the hot room is made of some kind of great cushy stuff probably invented by NASA. I used a mat but I really didn't even need one on this floor. The locker rooms are fine with showers and lockers. The only negative is that the bathrooms are right outside of the studio in a hall.
Tip: The studio is located in the complex next to the Whole Foods on the far end of the Barnes & Noble building. There are signs for several salons, estheticians, other dubious enterprises and you go up one flight of stairs and walk all the way down a long hallway reminiscent of "The Shining" and then you turn left around the corner and "Voilà," there it is. read more