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way I could win a competition. I wasn’t flexible like Sarah Baughn. But then, embodying a rock wall wasn’t about winning. Was it?
    The second thing that happened that year was my beloved ultra-devoted, ultra-tanned, ultra-Bikram instructor had a stroke.
    In all things yoga, Hector was my mentor. Handsome, gracious, modest, muscular, it seemed like he occupied the very pinnacle of health. In many ways, he also represented the very pinnacle of what a Bikram practitioner could be. Hector owned two successful studios, practiced the yoga six days a week, and quoted Bikram liberally in conversation.
    To Hector, Bikram was “my guru.”
    To Hector, who began practicing after an unsatisfactory knee surgery and had used the yoga to heal what his doctors had not, there were no excuses for doing the postures half-assed or incorrectly.
    To me, Hector was everything I hoped to get out of the yoga.
    Whenever possible, I’d alter my schedule to attend Hector’s classes. This was not as easy as it might seem, because the studio had a policy of not revealing when Hector was teaching to prevent overcrowding. In Bikram, all classes are supposed to be identical, and having popular teachers underminesthis effect. So I was feeling pretty lucky to find Hector behind the desk checking students in as I bounded into class on this particular day.
    “Hector! I was hoping to see you here!”
    In response, Hector grimaced back and handed me my usual two towels. For a man who typically walked around with a serene smile, this was unexpected enough to be noteworthy but nothing to dwell on. I grabbed a mat and headed to the locker room; even master yogis were allowed to have off days.
    During class, I realized Hector, far from grimacing, was in a great mood: his voice soaring through the posture descriptions, his arms conducting like a maestro. As with all Hector’s classes, I pushed myself harder than normal; his enthusiasm was inspiring, his devotion reassuring.
    By the middle of class, as usual, I was practically submerged in my own sweat, feeling great. But coming up to my most difficult posture, Tuladandasana, the Balancing Stick, I noticed Hector dropped one of his usual lines. Tuladandasa is a killer posture. Every muscle in your body is tensed and holding you aloft on one leg while the rest of your frame stretches perfectly flat, parallel to the floor. The combination of muscular exertion with the lowered position of your heart is tremendous. Generally, Hector loved quoting Bikram after we finished it and were recovering: “I give you a mini heart attack now, so you don’t get the big one later.” I’m sure I never would have remembered this absence, except for what he inserted in its place:
    “You might notice, I’m having trouble pronouncing the names of several of the postures.”
    I hadn’t.
    “That’s because I had a stroke recently and lost the use of several muscles in my face.”
    Say again?
    And then he was on to the next posture. No further comment.
    I stayed behind. It wasn’t that I expected my teachers to be immortal or even flu-resistant. But Hector was a young guy, mid-thirties to my eye. And he was healthy! More, there was something about the idea of a stroke. It seemed so … so … Bikram appropriate. If Hector had bounded into class and shared his battle with leukemia, lockjaw, or multiple sclerosis, Idon’t think I would have blinked. But a stroke hit me differently. From my very first class, I had wondered about the intensity of the postures: the extreme heat, the pounding in my heart during class, the pain that resulted.
    It was easy to write off those aspects if I was making myself healthier. But now I began questioning everything. I had changed a lot from the yoga. But what was the cost? What if the backaches and pulled muscles were warning signs? Had I been so caught up in weight loss and the newly muscled man in the mirror that I was ignoring basic messages my body was sending?
    Messages such as, This yoga