Burn, Baby, Burn

9:30 am class: Jim Kallet, owner of a studio in San Diego.

Jim is probably in his 40s, has a long gray ponytail (with receding hairline) and a huge tattoo covering his entire back. I'll try to find some visual approximation, but it resembles an abstract fountain. It often appears as a graphic for apartment buildings. I do not believe Jim is an apartment building, so it must have some sort of significance in the karmic world as well.

I would love Jim's class -- he explains every pose, its purpose, the health benefits -- had I not put my mat in the path of the heating vent. I should have known when I saw a huge empty space around it on the floor. But I was feeling all studly and bad-ass. Yeah, it's hot, but I've had lots of really hot classes. I can take it. And it probably won't blow like that the whole time.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG on all counts.

After trying to bust out the first 3 poses, I sit out at least one set of everything. By half-tortoise (approximately 70 minutes into class, 6 poses from the end), I'm toast. Out flat. I have never laid out that much of a class in my life. I can feel my feet burning off my body. The water in my bottle is hot. (Nalini, who has her mat nearby, said later she could have dropped a tea bag in her bottle and had it brewed by lunch.) I think I'm going to die. Not really, but you know.

I keep thinking, don't leave the room, don't leave the room. I have never left the room, in two and half years of practice. When you first start practicing, all you want to do is leave the room. Crawl out of your own skin. Anything but stay in the heat, which is surely boiling your brain in a nice au jus (it isn't, really). I have never done it, and I am NOT about to be beaten down by my own cavalier stupidity and a moment of ego.

Meanwhile, I watch people leave the room to throw up. I'm jealous. They are heading to cool hallways and a bathroom with cold water. Maybe I can just crawl to the back of the room... Someone's crying and I figure it must be Julie. It just fuels the desire to bolt. By separate leg stretching (2nd to last pose), I mentally declare that I am a punk and I just need to GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. I try to get up on all fours, and fail miserably. I flop back on my mat and turn into a cranky 5-year-old. I want to cry, but no tears or sound will come out, so I pathetically shake my hands, put my arms over my face and generally flail like some sort of diseased seal.

When class is over, I drag myself to the changing room and suck on a water bottle while the room turns blue and spins. My head feels like a bowling ball. After about 10 minutes, I make it to the showers. At lunch, all I want is fruit. I'm jealous of all the salads I see around me. Lara told me that when she was at training, all she wanted was cold food and lemonade. I now understand. I have completely miscalculated my grocery shopping.