Hot, hot hot: Is this oil bath working or not?

On Saturday, for about the third week in a row we figure, we both managed the Ashtanga Saturday Oil Bath (ASOB). We cheat, if that’s the right word, by using coconut oil instead of the uber-traditional castor. After all, we own our home and are responsible for the plumbing.

We’ll say a few things in favor of coconut oil, beyond the fact it doesn’t ruin plumbing. It is awesome for dry skin and hair. It can almost just disappear if you are dry enough. In other words, if you’re vata, coconut oil is for you.

It also is good for the bath because it has a really low melting temperature, so hot water in a sink will melt it fast. And it also washes off easily, even from hair.

Via http://www.tropicaltraditions.com

Speaking of hair, if you’ve got curly hair, watch out. You’ll come out CURLY.

Finally, coconut oil smells nice. But make sure you get oil — not coconut butter. Both are out there.

With this week’s bath, it may have really started working. Although we remain partial skeptics.

In many ways, it seems the massage equivalent of self-practice. You are going to get the benefit of giving extra attention to parts that have been bothering you all week. There’s 10 minutes or so of quiet to work out the kinks.

How much the benefits are just from a self-message, in other words, we can’t judge.

But, again, this week we felt something different — and we both felt it separately. “I feel hot,” Steve said. (He did the second of the two baths.) “I did, too,” Bobbie responded. “That’s weird.”

Of course, pulling heat from the joints is what the bath is supposed to do — so was that the ASOB doing its job? Or was it suddenly hot in our house?

We can’t quite say. But the ASOB certainly isn’t doing anything bad to us — and our skin’s looking great afterwards.

Posted by Bobbie and Steve