Fast forward to last weekend. I saw a class at a new studio that met my three preconditions for attendance: cheap, nearby, and at a convenient time. Now, usually hot yoga places are like furries: pretty up-front as to what they're all about, since if you’re not into it, you’re really not into it. With this place, though, neither the class description nor studio name said anything about temperature. I realized my mistake as soon as I showed up and an attendant handed me a towel.

“You're gonna need it!” she said.

“Oh no,” I thought.

It was too late—I had signed in, and the class was starting. I figured I’d give it a go. Tiny puddles of sweat were already pooling on the parquet floor, and the thermometer read 94 degrees. Then the heater clicked on.

At 20 minutes, I felt like someone had put my kidneys in a Crock Pot. At 40, someone nearly kicked me in the face during half-moon pose, and I felt grateful for the rush of air. At an hour into the 90 minutes, I ran for the door.

“You okay?” the front-desk guy asked as I aggressively dabbed myself with my towel.

“Yep, but I think I’m done for today,” I said.

“Maybe you should just go back in there and lie on your mat,” he said.

I felt too woozy to suggest something I thought he could go and do. Instead I just rolled up my mat and wobbled out into the cool, 90-degree morning.

This appears to be a common quandary. Yoga is so soothing, yet hot yoga can be excruciating. You like feeling enmeshed with the group, yet you’re sure you’re the only one who feels like a Ballpark frank (“They plump when you cook ‘em!”). This yoga instructor seems to be handling the heat well, but then again his BMI seems to be lower than the legal drinking age.

I consider myself lucky; others have reported that attempting to leave hot yoga—or any yoga—before it was over earned scornful glances, and worse, from their instructors.

“About 50 minutes into the 90-minute long class, I broke: I was dying for my inhaler. And for a sweet, sweet taste of air-conditioning,” writes Adjua Fisher in Philadelphia magazine. “I’d almost made it to the door when a loud voice screamed, ‘You, stop! You’re. Not. Going. ANYWHERE.’ I turned to see the instructor pointing at me, and I quickly realized he was not joking. I felt like a teenager who’d gotten caught sneaking out after curfew. Embarrassed, me and my beet-red face scurried back to the mat and suffered through the remaining 40 minutes of class.”

ostill / shutter stock / Elisa Glass / The Atlantic

Blogs and Yelp reviews similarly brim with stories of “Yogi Drill Sergeants” who berate anyone who tries to slip out early.

“Patrick was extremely rude to me as I exited the room 15 before the … class ended as I started to feel very sick from the heat,” one woman in Massapequa, New York, complained. “I was actually quite proud of myself for getting this far! But Patrick made it a point to humiliate me for leaving the class early. I just turned to him and said: I thought yoga wasn’t about ego?”