By Emily Landes

LYING ON MY back on the yoga mat, palms facing up, legs hip width apart, sweat dribbling onto the floor, I've never felt so good about just breathing. I am only allowed this moment of peace for about 30 seconds, however. Then two authoritative claps bring me back to the task at hand: Bikram yoga. Katite Gumucio, owner and instructor of Inner Sunset Yoga College of India, is an encouraging taskmaster, but a taskmaster nonetheless. The whole class sits up quickly, giving a collective "shuuhhh" as we exhale into a forward stretch.

All this happens in the second half of the 90-minute 9 a.m. class, by which time I have almost forgotten about the searing heat in the room, much to my surprise. Before today, all I'd really heard about Bikram yoga was how hot it was – the room stays at an awe-inspiring 106 degrees. Despite this daunting temperature, Bikram is incredibly popular. In the past few years Bikram yoga studios have sprouted up all across San Francisco, and all across the country. When Gumucio opened her first studio in the Castro six years ago, she was the second to do so in the city. Now the studios are everywhere.

There's a good reason for that popularity, Gumucio says. The workout was designed specifically for Americans by Bikram Choudhury, a yoga guru from India. "One really doesn't cultivate a thought long enough to make it happen," Gumucio says of Americans and Westerners in general. But the heat, the deep stretches, and the balancing required necessitates a lot of concentration. So much concentration that Americans who have had the need for multitasking ingrained from an early age have no choice but to sit back and focus on something as simple as their breath. Ironically, the discipline has gotten so popular that it is now being shipped back to India, taught by Western instructors.

I notice a change in my own ability to concentrate almost instantly. When I walked into the heated room, I was conscious of everything: the toned man in front of me wearing only some kind of Lycra boxer-briefs, the way my ponytail was frizzing out in the heat, other people's brightly colored towels. But once Gumucio starts leading the class, all those external distractions slowly begin fading away. This is not to say they vanish completely. It's hard to ignore sweat actually flowing off the outstretched fingertips of the person next to you. And a few times I'm deeply involved in a pose but abruptly woken from my trance by the smell of my own funk. There is no deodorant out there that can sufficiently battle Bikram B.O., I promise you.

A Bikram yoga class consists of 26 postures, performed twice, in the same order each class. Standing and balancing exercises take up the first half of the class. Initially this is really hellish. One pose, so unwieldy it is actually called the "awkward pose," involves balancing on your toes while holding a crouched position with your arms out in front of you. It's followed by the "eagle pose," which is the closest I've ever come to empathizing with a pretzel. And remember, we do each of these poses twice. But taskmaster Gumucio keeps us holding on with bizarrely encouraging mantras. "Come on, everyone. You are building a new relationship with pain. Happy faces!"

After the standing postures, we move down to the floor. We start by simply lying on our backs in the much needed "dead pose," which pretty well sums up how I feel at that point. Gumucio tells us this is our reward for getting through the first part of the class. Then it's on to a range of spinal twists and stretches, as well as forward and back bends. In between each pose we go back into the dead pose just long enough to appreciate it, before it's snatched away again and we move on to something else.

The class ends with a quick breathing exercise that strains my abs more than any crunches. Then it's time to embrace the dead pose again, this time for as long as it takes you to peel your stinky, slimy body off the mat before changing into some dry clothes. After the class I walk to my car with a whole new appreciation for the constant San Francisco chill. My legs wobble, my heart pounds, and I wonder when I'll be able to find some time to put myself through that hell again.

While we're all running around trying to do nine things at once, it's rare to find an activity that so consumes all our senses that we can't help concentrating on one thing at a time. Gumucio says this increased emphasis on concentration has improved not only people's health but also their relationships. "Any kind of relationship is built on follow-through," she tells me. In fact, she says, the program is a big help for recovering drug addicts and paroled prisoners who desperately need to "link up relationships in a healthy way." Before taking the class, I would have been a bit hard pressed to believe Gumucio's lofty claims. Even now I can't say my first class changed my relationship with my fellow man, but it did force me to focus my energies inward and stop thinking of all I have on my plate for at least 90 minutes. Who knows what two classes could do?

Hothouses

A selection of Bay Area Bikram studios

Bikram's Yoga College of India 910 Columbus, S.F. $10 for the first week; call for additional information. (415) 346-5400.

Funky Door Yoga 1336 Polk, S.F. $10 for the first 10 days, $15 a class after that. (415) 673-8659.

Global Yoga 2425 Chestnut, S.F. (415) 292-9774; 6300 California, S.F. (415) 751-6908. $10 first class, second one free; call for additional information.

Inner Sunset Yoga College of India 455 Judah, S.F. First class $12; second class free; call for more information. (415) 753-8694.

Yoga Haven 3305 Buchanan, S.F. $10 for the first week, $95 for 10 classes, $110 for one month of unlimited classes. (415) 775-9642; 301 Eureka, S.F. $10 for the first week, $85 for 10 classes, $110 for one month of unlimited classes. (415) 821-9642.