I have received an unusual amount of messages from you, Readers, enquiring about the aforementioned “Maha’s Six Week Hot Yoga Challenge“. You are seeking both the how, and more sincerely the why, as I guess my initial explanation does not your curious minds satiate.

In other words, and as the lovely C investigated today: Why the hell are you doing this? Why? And when you say ‘every day’, do you also mean Saturday and Sunday?

Getting the easy out of the way first, let me say that yes, I do this on Saturdays and Sundays as well. The formula is simply one hour of hot yoga, per day, for six weeks (= 42 days = 42 hours). If, under any circumstance, you are not able to go on one given day, then make up for that missed hour within the coming seven days. (i.e., If forced to miss a Monday, then attend two classes at 1.5 hours each or attend two one hour classes on the same day.)

It’s really that simple.

Now. As per the why. On the surface, it is because I tend to exist and live in extremes. I am either all or nothing, and so I couldn’t merely start doing yoga whenever I felt like it and without clear structure. That would have made me a normal person, and seeing as how I am in fact a figment of (the best of) your collective imaginations, I went full throttle.

Someone asked “why not 30 days? Or just four weeks?”, and the simplest response to that is two-fold: (1) Moksha already has a 30 day challenge, completed by many (and so it’s not really and truly a challenge if hundreds of people are easily making their way through said sitch); and, (2) I fast for that long yearly, and so already implicitly understand that I can do anything – pertaining to mind & body appetite control – for a minimum of 30 days. Leaving me, once again, with no real personal challenge.

And I required a challenge.

More importantly, I required something which would force upon my life a healthy state of being, inside of which my focus and end-game was both healthy body (visually and internally) and strong mind.

Let me tell you that it has not been easy, though always an absolute pleasure once class over. There was one day when all I wanted to do was lay on my mat and cry while everyone else saluted the sun en route to sticking their bums in to the air as a way to downward-dog…but by the end of that particular class, after having sucked it up and pushed my way through my own walls, I felt refreshed, thankful and stronger.

Case(s) in point; I can now Plank, Pigeon Pose, Camel Pose, Dancer’s Pose, Sleeping Hero and low push-up like no one’s business.

Some of you have written and stated that you too would like to face this challenge, and I would – only 13 days away from meeting my own – strongly support any and all of your adventures in to this particular world.

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(1) This is a direct reference to the brilliance that is “Modern Family”.

Photo courtesy of the amazing B Tal.

Finally: I have not written much only because I have had an overwhelming social calendar, nothing more. (Thank you for your concerned and loving messages. xo)