Hot Yogi Centenarian

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​Last year, we celebrated a group of dedicated students who maintained a consistent and regular practice throughout the year, successfully completing more than 100 classes - officially becoming our 2023 Centenarians! I sat down with one of them, Steve Darroch, to learn a little more about his journey and what it took him to become a hot yogi centenarian! 

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Steve, you started in Jan 2023 and have completed over 100 classes (124 in total), so what brought you along to hot yoga in the first place?

​I was looking around for something to help with my flexibility and support my running amongst other things and so came across this and decided to try it. I had heard of people doing it and vaguely knew it was hot, but didn’t know a huge amount beyond that. 

Do you remember your first class? 

Laughs! I can remember a lot of things that I couldn’t do and you do have to stand back and look at it and think, actually that feels like progress and it is progress because I literally couldn’t do some things or come close to it and even though you might not be perfect now, you can see a clear line of improvement… its been a journey! 

As teachers we get to witness the progress and for Steve, its been consistent and gradual. 

When Steve first started he could only reach back and grab one foot from behind and had to use the wall for balance in Standing Bow Pulling Pose. Today he can stand with no assistance on one leg at a time and grab the other foot from behind and starting to improve his range of motion in his spine. While this may seem small, this feels huge for someone who was unable to do it previously! And it is!

What would you say has been the most noticeable change on a physical and emotional level over the year?

On a physical level the observation around what I couldn’t do when I started and what I can do now is really reinforcing and feels good. Learning to breathe through my nose has helped me to be calmer in the class and I’ve actually taken that outside of the class.  When you think you are getting stressed, just breathing through the nose does actually seem to calm me down, so that has been a good practice to pick up. 

Obviously flexibility is one of the reasons why you come to class and that has really improved for me, a lot of the poses that felt unimaginable a year ago feel like they are within my reach now. I have more confidence - given the things that I’ve seen and improved on, you will get there and there will be some real benefits to that and achievements that you want to hold on to. ​Yoga really gives you that mobility and flexibility and its a wonderful complement to the other things that you may do- for me it supports my running.

How you would you describe this practice?

It’s challenging but challenging is a good thing - there is no point doing something that’s not challenging and doesn’t have some depth to it. When it’s challenging it has a long-term trajectory and you can go as deep as you want to go with it and you can always finds things that you want to improve. 

When I see new people I want to care for them and tell them that this is going to be tougher then you think it is, don’t be shocked, just bear with it and its ok to be on the floor (take breaks). Start from wherever you are at and get to where you need to be.

 What advice would you give to someone just starting out?

It will probably more testing then you think it will be, unless you are a very fit person that has done a lot of hard stuff, and even then it could still be challenging. Managing the heat, humidity, sweat, distractions.. it’s all part of the journey, and the benefits are worth it. 

I’m 60, in 10 years I will be 70 if you don’t use it you are gonna loose it, I want to keep using everything!

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We couldn't say it better ourselves, thanks Steve for sharing your story with us, and for being a hot yogi centenarian, we look forward to watching your journey this year!