Sauna Talks
After months and months of COVID precautions, something beautiful has happened in the gym which I attend: the sauna is back up and running! This was in April mind you (Scottish April still felt winterish), but since the grand reopening, I have probably been doing more sauna than I have a gym. It seems reasonable to treat it like a workout no? workout value is measured in sweat is it not? All this sauna time has led me to think about what a curious species of space these wooden dry-hot rooms are.
I’m not saying I’m a sauna fanatic or anything, it’s not like I know anything about them or have sauna techniques or utilize them in any designated way. But I do like to spend time in them. There is definitely a more than subconscious intention for me to seek their presence when I choose my gym, however. So here are a couple key reasons why I value them so much:
1) I think there is something meditative about them; you need to become very aware of your body and the body as a thing that sweats. And as a chronic over-thinker, it’s so valuable for me because it really removes all thoughts from noggin’ except for “it’s hot as fuck in here”.
2) The health benefits (I don’t actually know the health benefits or what they do to my bod; but it’s such justification for all the other sauna reasons. Being able to say “something is healthy for you” as justification for “this is fun” is always sooooo great in this capitalistic system where sitting in a hot room for a period of time can be viewed as “unproductive”).
3) Definitely linking up to point 1) here, but there is such a ritualistic element to the sauna the getting ready for it, the taking the time to do it, the meditative elements, there is something almost sacred about the sauna despite the fact it is a rather profane space.
But point 4 is really the whole reason why I am writing this whole jawn in the first place. And that is sauna as a social space. A venue for conversation. And it really does fascinate, because there are few spatial forms that have the same dynamics which facilitate conversation. The spatial boundaries of a saunas (and this is from my own perspective and observations; it may be important to note I’ve only really engaged in saunas as part of a fitness club rather than in spas, and I’m sure the dynamics are very different) is that if there is a conversation, everyone in the sauna become a subject of the conversation. While there is nothing wrong with a silent sauna (for example if I’m in the mood for point 1 meditation then nothing is better than an empty sauna) a crowded sauna is where things get sociologically fascinating because whether you want to, you will get swept up in the conversation, either as speaker or listener. The size of the sauna means that there really is only room for one conversation to happen at a time. Here are some examples of conversations that I have overheard in the sauna over the past couple of weeks:
The socio-economic history of Poland
A heartbreaking tale about the messy conclusion of a 5-year long-distance relationship
Basketball
Alcohol and dehydration
Awkward flirtations between two late-stage teenagers
Peyote Ceremonies
Publishing in Marine Biology Journals
The rapid progression of aging and time
Why are Italians generally so skinny when they eat so much pasta?
And getting wrapped up as a speaker is even more illuminating because you recognize that you are on a public platform where everyone can hear you, and will likely judge you. For example, in one sauna sesh I got asked the question: “so what exactly is critical race theory”, and I was on the hot seat in more ways than one. My friend and I would often have Sauna chats after our workouts where we would talk about a range of topics, usually somewhere in the span of Survivor to Chinese Food – and we knew that everyone would be forced to hear about our silly conversation. But we kind of relished that.
The sauna and the chats that happen within saunas are fascinating sociological spaces because they tend to bring together people from different walks of life (with the caveat that all those people attend the same fitness club). Therefore, sauna talks are often spaces of clashing ideas and ways of thinking about the world. And even from the perspective of a “public forum” saunas are unique, there are so few places in the contemporary world where people are actively forced to participate (either as listener or speaker) in conversations publically and irl. I find there something very nice, very retro about this. Something very, as said earlier, ritualistic. In the sauna, everyone is having the same (or as close to the same as people can have without getting all ontological) experience. All saunists are subject to the same conditions: the heat, the sweat, and if it’s a chatty group, the conversation. And, unlike most places in the contemp world, you cannot escape the inner reality of the sauna. You cannot use your phone, you cannot turn down the heat, you cannot change the sauna’s reality. The only way one can leave the conditions of the sauna is to, believe it or not, leave the sauna. And I think that’s why I value the sauna so much, because, unlike the rest of the world we are in, you have to be, in the most fundamental sense, present within the space that you are held in.
コメント