by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Miranda Gatti

Age: 18

Occupation: Yoga instructor

Bio: This honey-sweet Lachine nubile first discovered yoga at age 15 when it became apparent her hypoglycemia was threatening to turn her into a diabetic. “I was really sick, had the sweats, I’d faint all the time, my eyesight, which had been 20/20, went to –/3. They were planning to put me on all kinds of drugs, but come on, I was 15, I didn’t want to be on insulin the rest of my life.” After hearing rumours yoga might help her condition, Miranda sifted through the Yellow Pages and enrolled in the first yoga school she saw, Bikram Yoga Montreal in St-Henri (www.bikramyogamtl.com). “Within a week I could eat what I wanted again, do gym, do all the stuff that 15-year-old kids do. Eventually, all my symptoms went away.” She has since studied yoga under master guru Bikram himself in sunny California and today holds the distinction of being the youngest Bikram yoga instructor in the galaxy. She says many of her students at BYM are professional athletes, “mostly pro hockey players, because yoga gives them an edge.”

Something you probably want to know about Bikram yoga before signing up: That it’s conducted in room temperatures ranging from 95 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit. “But it’s usually set around 110—depending on the humidity.”

Why the sweltering heat? Lots of reasons, apparently, but “the heat loosens up your joints so you don’t hurt yourself stretching, so you can push yourself further.”

Is she prepared to admit that despite what she claims, her primary motivation for studying yoga was to learn how to pleasure herself orally? No, she’s not, “but it will help if you have problems in bed.”

Does she see herself as a spiritual kind of chick? Not especially.

What it costs to study under Bikram in Los Angeles: 11 grand U.S.

Is it possible Bikram might actually be God, only disguised as a sweaty—albeit limber—middle-aged Indian dude? “I don’t know if he’s God, but he’s pretty impressive. He’s not what you’d expect a guru to be like. He’s a little bit out there, but he knows what he’s talking about.”

Is he un-guru-like in that he didn’t suggest the best way for a teenage broad to truly understand Bikram is to learn the poses privately, with Bikram himself, in the nude? “Oh no, he’s not like that at all. Learning to become an instructor is a process—you hardly sleep, you’re always hungry and you always feel dirty because you’re sweating all the time. Basically, it tears you down until you’re nothing and are forced to look at yourself and accept who you are.”

Do all the chicks at his school want to do him? “Oh no, Bikram is too much to have a crush on. I mean, come on, he’s Bikram, and his wife’s there anyway.”

Musical preferences: My Chemical Romance, Tchaikovsky, the Used.

Last book read: The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown.

Words of wisdom: “Never too old, never too sick, and never too late to start from scratch again.”

Comments? dimwit@openface.ca