I’ve made a lot of choices in my life. I’ve chosen to change careers. I’ve chosen to travel to distant continents. I’ve even chosen to pick up, pack up, and move my life clear across the Atlantic Ocean. But this is by far the most challenging choice of my short yet significant life.

It seems every day, for three days now I escape the brisk air of London’s streets by finding refuge in a 40 degree room. This sounds lovely at first. After all, golden tans can be acquired in the hot summer sun. Super slushies can’t cause brain freeze when the mind is nearing its melting point. Bodies glisten in a permanent after sex glow when the sun chooses to slip a little tongue into that notorious kiss. All in all, 40 degrees Celsius sounds scintillatingly hot. And in London, hot is good.

Okay, so maybe the hot summer sun burns pale English skin, slushies have enough sugar in them to induce a diabetic coma, and there’s a fine line between glistening and sweating like a paedophile in a playground. But it still seemed like a good idea… three days ago. You see, that’s when I decided to take up Bikram Yoga. Balham houses a brand, spanking new yoga studio and with a 30 days for £30 introductory offer, I figured I could bend my body into shape for a pound a day. I’ve always been unusually bendy. How hard could it be?

Cue the heat. Upon entering the studio, we are invited to remove our shoes, change in the far too tiny for twenty curvaceous women dressing room, and enter the studio which shall heretofore be known as the Devil’s Armpit. The room welcomes us with a gentle persuasion and the feeling of loving hands seduces us with warm caresses. Soon its strongly scented arms lift us up to the initial warm up poses. Our minds reel with dizziness as there are very strong physiological messages shooting through our synapses that we are, in fact, plenty warm. The fiery pit of perdition invites us all to have a sip of water now and again, but not a gulp, because THAT would make us ill. I barely made it through half the poses without sitting through the first set for fear of passing out. The room, now ripe with the stench of forty eight armpits, almost pacifies with fleeting blasts of air. Oxygen. Sweet, stinky oxygen.

No sooner am I praising the heavens for that bittersweet air then the room heats up again. For ninety minutes we are lead through twenty six poses, from forward stretches to backward bends, all in an intense heat meant to relax our muscles and oxygenate every cell in our bodies. Those bodies drip with enough sweat to put out the fires of a hell I now feel I know intimately.

Gorgeous positions are held amidst a backdrop of crumpled pools of sudoriferous flesh. Throughout the class we exercise the concept of Savasana, a quieting of the entire body achieved by lying flat on one’s back, heels touching, palms facing outward. After some of the more gruelling postures it’s only too fitting that the easiest position for me translates as “the corpse pose”.

It’s been three days now. I felt a lot less dizzy at this afternoon’s class, and the room no longer overwhelms me with its warmed fetor. I can actually hold more of the positions now and my entire body seems to be enveloped by a feeling of heightened relaxation. That said, whilst I am happy that I’ve made the choice to stick to Bikram, I know that tomorrow I’ll once again stride headlong into the Devil’s Armpit.

Hot, sweaty yoga. I may end up liking it... just not yet.