yoga

I’ll be honest: Inner peace, or even increased flexibility, wasn't high on my agenda when I signed up for my first Bikram yoga class. I was looking for some heat. It was February, and I was living in England. It had snowed 15 centimetres one night, and I was a scruffy student who refused to run up my own heating bill. The thought of sitting in a yoga studio, heated to 40 degrees Celsius, sounded like heaven.

If nothing else, preparing for a triathlon has given me an appreciation for cross-training. Over the years, I've been a dabbler: a hatha yoga class here, an evening jog there. But I've never kept up anything for very long, or with any consistency, let alone alternated between more than one activity.

I know couples are supposed to have different interests but what happens when your interest becomes his as well? In my case, I introduced my boyfriend to yoga and now he can’t get enough. It’s yoga talk all the time (which I actually don’t mind.)

I’m not really a meditation kind of gal. After literally falling asleep in a yoga class I tried, I’ve always just assumed it’s maybe a little too slow for my borderline-A-type-personality.

Fitness expert Barb Gormley breaks down the different types of yoga to help you pick the right one