Photo: Anna

A tongue-in-cheek look at my long-running love affairs with Bikram and Vinyasa yoga

I spent six years entwined in a sweaty love affair with Mr. B.

B was challenging; he was athletic; he was intense and confident, a wildly charismatic jackass, and he cracked me open. He was addictive the way the most toxic affairs are: I’d drag myself out of bed at 5 a.m. just to be with him; I’d save my nights for us, rushing out early from happy hour, tequila-buzzed and ready for action.

B was a drug, a fix. He stretched me and shot me down, and yet every day, I came crawling back to him for more, because the high was so good, the rush so great, the shattering so profound.

But eventually—hello, dysfunction!—things soured. B was all flash, all flair. I wanted ratty sweatpants and chill mornings drinking coffee together listening to NPR; he wanted money and fame, dreamt of hobnobbing with the rich and Botoxed in SoCal.

Ever the salesman, his heart was in industry, while mine was one big Marxist power-to-the-donation-based-pipe-dream. Wasn’t gonna last.

So, in spite of our daily trysts, my eyes began to wander.

That’s when I met V. And, Jesus, V. He was scruffy authenticity where B was flimsy artificiality.

He was salt-of-the-earth where B was oblivious and money-hungry.

And he sang. And he sweated. And he could ramble on for hours about philosophy and books and history.  And he had a bangin’ sense of rhythm.

And I was hooked. Big-time. Gone.

But you know how sometimes the ones who really hit your core—those few-and-far-between types who meet you where you’ve never been met before—well, they tend to stick around?  Yeah. We’re talking six years, folks.

So now and then when V wasn’t looking, I’d sneak in a quickie with Mr. B, for old times’ sake, because, honestly, I hadn’t forgotten him. Craved him. Like a drug.

(This story first appeared on Recovering Yogi.)

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Rachel Meyer is a San Francisco-based yoga teacher and writer with roots in musical theater, theology and the arts. When she’s not jumping around in leggings and chanting in Sanskrit, she loves a good foggy wander up and over Nob Hill in search of  cocktails or used books.  You can find her bio and teaching schedule atfacebook.com/RachelMeyerYoga, and further ramblings on yoga, the arts and more at her literary practice mat, rawrach.blogspot.com.