Hot yoga is a growing fitness trend on the block, with classes and studios popping up on Melbourne street corners across the city and suburbs.
But don’t assume it is simply aimed at making people sweat. The convenience and spirituality of hot yoga practice has contributed to its boom.
Founder and director of Yoga Corner Amy Leonard-King believes it is the intelligent and progressive nature of Melbourne as a city that has caused this rapid expansion of hot yoga in the local market.
“Melburnians are very interested in their health and wellbeing, whether it is what they eat, shopping local, or just genuinely being more conscious about the choices that they make,” she says.
“We live in a fast-paced city environment, and it becomes increasingly important for people to find something that helps them to slow down and reconnect.”
It is this philosophy that determined Yoga Corner’s location among the skyscrapers on Little Collins St when it opened in April 2014.
The broad term “hot yoga” refers to the practice of yoga in a heated environment. It has grown out of the Bikram yoga movement, which is also based on yoga in a hot room, but with a number of significant differences.
Bikram typically uses a specific set of 26 postures done in sequence with pauses in between, in a specific heat and humidity, with classes running over 90 minutes.
Hot yoga takes a freer approach. Each teacher can draw on their own teachings and experiences to develop a program, and every studio has their own philosophy on how they share the practice of hot yoga. Often the style is flow yoga. The room is a bit cooler, the class length can vary, and sometime music is introduced.
Ms Leonard-King says her city venture grew out of her own search for a way to reconnect with her true self.
She drew on her corporate background to create the studio, hoping others with similar needs would be drawn to it. Her practice attracts city professionals, as well as students, and a growing number of city residents.
Hot Yoga Mix Point Cook owner/director Alisa “Ice” Steens started practising hot yoga because she needed an escape from some of the darkest times in her life – a struggle with depression.
Ms Steens has sustained her love for hot yoga through 15 years of practice and five of teaching.
She believes that it fosters a “love within yourself” through mind and body awareness, gaining a new perspective and developing compassion and kindness for others. It also has a range of other benefits, she says, that include helping with sleep cycle, immune system strength and even weight loss.
Ms Leonard-King agrees that the practice has a number of physical benefits, both obvious and subtle in nature.
“Adding the heat and increasing the temperature adds an intensity to the yoga practice," she says.
"While the body becomes more supple and the practitioner able to access more depth in the physical postures, the mind learns to focus, concentration is improved, and we learn to stay present with the breath, as well as learning about ourselves on a deeper level with every challenge that we meet.”
But hot yoga enthusiasts will tell you that its benefits go way beyond the physical realm.
“The focus of hot yoga practice is moving from the more obvious physical, towards the subtler layers of ourselves such as mental and emotional,” Ms Leonard-King says.
“There is always going to be that initial physical change, but over time and with consistent practice, we begin to benefit from the mental, emotional and spiritual shifts.”
The constant challenge that hot yoga practitioners face in every class is considered to be one of the practice’s most attractive qualities, with the experience being one that is intensely personal.
Ms Steens says hot yoga fosters an “inner peace within people [with] nothing but you, your body and your breathing”. She also believes the practice becomes a spiritual journey with different challenges every class that ultimately helps people “from the inside out".