Triple-Digit Heat, and Scolded for a Sip of Water Triple-Digit Heat, and Scolded for a Sip of Water

Online grandstanding, intergenerational head-butting and a lost job, all thanks to one inopportunely timed water break during a hot yoga class.

After nearly 20 minutes of intense yoga in a 105-degree room, the influencer had grown thirsty.

She dropped her pose, leaned down to pick up her Fiji water bottle and took a sip.

She didn’t think it would be a problem. She certainly didn’t think that within days, hundreds of thousands of people would have seen a video about her impromptu water break.

But that small decision, to take a drink of water partway through a 90-minute hot yoga session at Bode NYC, touched off a series of events — and one widely seen TikTok video — that resulted in an instructor losing her job.

And as with so many other moments of consumer outrage, broadcast by indignant shoppers or travelers (or yogis) to the riled-up masses on social media, this one also found a large and often sympathetic audience.

How could drinking water be a problem? In a yoga class?