I opened the door to the sauna and squinted through the steam.
This was phase five of my Sunday morning routine.
Coffee. Paper. More coffee. Swim workout at the YMCA. Sauna.
I do enjoy my Sunday mornings.
Except for the weirdos.
We’ll get to them in a minute.
The sauna is a relatively new addition to my ritual.
I’d been aware of the benefits of immersing oneself in steam for some time.
Improved circulation. Lower blood pressure. Healthier skin.
What’s not to like?
But I couldn’t figure out where to fit it into my schedule.
Then it hit me one day after an hour in the pool:
I’m already wet. I have a towel. And flip-flops. And the sauna is right on the way to the locker room.
Thus, the sauna became an addendum to my pool routine.
And Sundays are ideal, because I can take my time.
I don’t like to rush the sauna.
It took me weeks to build the necessary tolerance to really enjoy it.
The first time I tried it, my heart rate went through the roof in less than five minutes.
I staggered out, panting, unable to catch my breath.
You have to respect the sauna.
Or it will hurt you.
The Korean lady understands that.
I see her in there every time.
She sits perfectly still, legs crossed in the lotus position, eyes closed.
It’s impressive.
She’s there when I walk in. And she’s still there well after I’ve left.
It’s like she’s been soaking in saunas her entire life.
Perhaps it’s unfair to generalize, but it does seem the Asian cultures are far more advanced when it comes to sauna-going than the West.
My time in Japan confirmed that.
That’s a great sauna country. Lots of steam-soaked history there.
And the Japanese are staunch adherents to proper sauna etiquette.
Americans? Less so.
And that’s a problem, because the steam room at my local Y is about the size of a walk-in closet.
I stepped into the sauna a couple months ago and took a seat next to a normal-looking guy.
I gave him a polite nod as I sat down, which I consider the full extent of acceptable sauna discourse.
You aren’t there to chit-chat.
You’re there to think. To contemplate. To breathe.
And to sit. Just sit.
Not this guy.
After a couple minutes, he gets up, stands right in front of me, and launches into this full yoga routine.
He’s warrior-posing. Downward-dogging. Forward-folding. Child-posing.
The whole act.
About six inches in front of me.
And I didn’t appreciate that, because you can’t bend at the waist more than about fifteen degrees in the sauna without sticking your ass in someone’s face.
My face.
Now, I’m no expert, but I have heard of yoga being practiced in high-temperature rooms.
It’s a thing: Bikram yoga.
Maybe that’s what this dude was after.
But, the whole time, I’m thinking, how is this not awkward for this guy? How could he possibly think this was okay?
I eventually managed a curt excuse me, but it didn’t even phase him.
He kept right on downward-dogging.
Thankfully, about the time I was ready to tell him get the hell away from me, he finished his final pose and left.
I try not to let stuff like that bother me.
But it does.
I know, I know. I need to be more like the Korean lady.
That was especially true this past Sunday morning.
Like I said, I opened the door to the sauna and checked out the seating situation through the fog.
It’s theater-style in the sauna, with two levels.
It was a full house, except for a single seat in the corner of the bottom row.
On the row above the seat, there was a guy lying flat on his back, knees bent.
He looked to be about five-eight and three hundred pounds.
My first thought was, what an incredible ass for lying down and taking up more than his fair share of sauna real estate.
And my second thought was, who’s going to resuscitate this dude when he goes into cardiac arrest?
He wasn’t exactly the picture of fitness, after all.
So, I took my seat in the row beneath him and started slowly inhaling the steam.
I intended to enjoy the experience, as I did every Sunday morning.
Suddenly, my quasi-meditative state was broken by the sound of grunting.
Grunting?
I turned around, following the sound.
It was the three-hundred-pound guy behind me, furiously doing crunches.
Well, attempting crunches.
He had his fingers locked behind his head and was throwing his face forward, barely managing to pick his neck up off the tile.
The guy looked serious.
And sounded serious, what with the grunting.
But maybe he was just being ironic.
Maybe he was thinking, I’ll have a large pizza and a two-liter Mountain Dew every night for dinner, but then I’ll do crunches in the sauna on Sunday morning. So, you know, it’ll all even out. And if it doesn’t, it will at least be amusing.
That’s conjecture on my part.
But what isn’t conjecture is how uncomfortable it is to be anywhere near a three-hundred-pound man doing crunches.
Especially in a sauna.
Trust me.
The guy kept at it for a good five minutes, grunting the entire time.
When he was finally finished, he lay there, chest heaving, thoroughly exhausted.
I turned back around, trying to remember the proper ratio of breaths to chest compressions for CPR.
I remained convinced a heart attack was a very real possibility for this guy.
He sat up after a couple minutes and looked around at the rest of us.
His expression suggested he sought our approval for his noble effort.
I, in turn, gave him a look that said, you’re an idiot.
And then he stood up and walked out.
Now, I make it a habit not to comment on our current state of incivility and all that.
But come on, ‘Merica!
Yoga in the sauna? Crunches?
Some things are simply unacceptable.
We need to do better.
Much, much better.
So, thank you in advance, prospective sauna-goers,
For keeping your ass out of my face.
And please do the same for the Korean lady.
Even though she doesn’t seem to mind.