Don't Sweat It

One of the coolest things about the blogosphere is running into other writers and like-minded individuals that I would never otherwise meet because of geography. With that I am very pleased to have my first guest post from a fellow yogi and writer. I appreciate her honesty and the lens through which she writes. It is a unique voice and I excited to share it with all of you.

A little about the author: Tori is, among other labels, a yogi and a teacher in Southern Arizona. She works with her school to make yoga more accessible to students and staff and blogs at Anytime Yoga to do the same for readers online. 
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Horses sweat.
Men perspire.
Women merely glisten.

If that is true, then I glisten with the force of a thousand roaring waterfalls.

Okay, fine. I sweat. Buckets.


It's always been the case for me, since I was about ten years old. Compared to other girls and women around me engaging in the same level of activity, markedly greater amounts of perspiration drip from my body. Throughout my adolescent years, friends repeatedly informed me, "You sweat like a guy."

I'm not sure why this is, exactly. I sweat before I start to feel hot (though, living in the desert, I appreciate that it might actually be hot, and I've just accepted burning hellfire as the new normal). It's not a function of body size; I've been this way since I was borderline underweight two decades ago. And it doesn't track directly with exertion: I'm drenched in sweat long before I'm tapping into reserves of strength.

Of course, sweat has some physical implications for my asana practice. Most of them involve turning my mat into a giant black banana peel.


Sweat is the foot sliding down my groin in tree. It's the perfection of three legged dog, not because I'm purposefully trying to challenge my balance but because there aren't four dry spots on the mat. And it's the decision that entering upward facing two foot staff would be about as safe for my neck as practicing on a Slip N Slide. 


Sweat is one physical boundary that I have to respect when deciding what's most appropriate for me in any given moment. It's not the only boundary, certainly, but it's the one that is perhaps most visible to others -- which explains why sweat also affects the way others perceive my body. 


I've been to yoga studios where the expectation is to glisten and where daring to sweat is unspoken taboo. Perhaps they were further along on their spiritual purification process and were therefore shocked by the cleansing -- and, you know, core temperature regulation and cooling -- going on in my body temple. Or perhaps they just viewed sweat as unladylike, gross, and smelly. When one woman actually sneered at me and another inched her mat away from mine, I decided I did not much care for either their line of reasoning or their studio. While it's certainly true that not every person or every yoga studio is like this, neither was it an isolated event.


Even when folks have kinder intentions, they sometimes misinterpret what my sweat means. I understand that, because they can't necessarily feel how much stamina I do or don't have, whether my muscles are just getting warmed up or are already fatiguing, whether I have bodily pain and tightness that I still want to work through. Possibly they are not close enough to hear whether my breathing is ragged or steady; possibly this is mixed in to the rhythm of their own breathing. Or possibly -- particularly in non-yoga settings, where I'm likely to be running -- they aren't conscious of breath but do pick up on sweat as a cue. 


However, unlike the sweat itself, the reactions are something that have changed with my body weight. When I was thinner, the tendency was to assume that I sweat because I was engaging in a lot of vigorous activity or that it was simply a natural variation in what people do. And by and large, people who didn't know me did not comment on it. Now, though, strangers do comment, and when they do, it's generally in the vein of "doing too much."


"It's okay to take a break," they'll say -- which is one thing when it's a general class reminder and another when it's directed toward an individual. Or, "Hey, take it easy. You don't want to overexert yourself."


As a yogi, I do appreciate the reminder to be mindful of my body's needs moment to moment. Sometimes I slip into doing too little; other times, I want to do too much. Questioning that, honestly and routinely, has become an integral part of my practice. But there's a difference between honest questioning and assuming based on appearance. Yes, guiding a larger body through vinyasas might require more power or endurance, but since I'm the one who lives in my body, I'm the person best able to decide whether I have that strength today.


For me, sweat isn't an indicator that I'm working too hard, that I'm struggling, or that I'm not enjoying myself. It is a sign that my focus is on how my body feels rather than on what it looks like. And sometimes when I'm sweating waterfalls, I feel like I'm made of pure awesome. 


Until a drop slides into my eye. Because that shit stings.