Hot yoga has become popular among health enthusiasts in recent years. Since learning about Santosha Hot Yoga in Sioux Falls, I have been very eager to give it a try.

So I grabbed my yoga pants, a bottle of water, and a large towel and headed to my first hot yoga class. The class began normal enough: downward dog into high plank and so on and so on. I was told that the class “Yoga Sculpt” would have more cardio in it than other yoga classes I may have been apart of.

That was an understatement.

For an hour, my body was pushed through one of the most intense workouts ever. Oh yeah, did I mention the room was 95 degrees? I worked out every part of my body while sweating what seemed like liters. During the workout there were a couple times I felt like I could pass out. I had to put my pride on the shelf and sit down for a minute. Afterwards, I was able to finish the class and gained an enormous amount of self-esteem. The endorphins that that workout gave me made me feel GREAT for the rest of the day.

During the $5 special, I went to Santosha three times. The second class I took was much more of what you would expect from a yoga class. Soft, relaxing music accompanied me while I changed poses for an hour. This class was labeled “Hot Vinyasa” and was definitely a favorite.

My last class was “Yoga Barre,” and with my history of ballet, I was most eager to try  it. Because there were so many people in the class, barre work wasn’t part of the class unfortunately. Instead, we did everything we would’ve done at the barre on our mats. Dancers would know this as “going center,” and definitely brought me back to my ballet days. The workout was well worth the $5 I paid.

All in all, my experience with hot yoga was a great one. I love that in one hour I can get a total body workout while sweating out toxins and leave feeling relaxed. I would definitely recommend everyone try hot yoga at least once, if for no other reason then to say you’ve tried it.