We don’t take no shit in the sauna: Jorma steps into the sweatbox

Slow and steady wins the race, and if the race is about kicking back at over 100 degrees then by golly it’s all gone very Charlie Sheen up in here.  We’ve got another guest reviewer in the form of Jorma Humisevaharju, all the way from Espoo, Finland.   Here he is with his own personal introduction on how to have a sauna.  Although I must admit I was quite surprised, nay, shocked even, about the “5 minutes is good” part.

I’m very much looking forward to Jorma’s reviews.  I dare say they will absolute no-nonsense affairs.

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Introduction to Finnish sauna

This is a short introduction to Finnish sauna for foreigners. There are really too many different things called “sauna”, so I decided to write a short description on it. This document is mainly about Finnish sauna, but Finnish sauna differs not much from other North European (i.e. Russian, Estonian, Latvian etc.) saunas.

A typical Finnish sauna is a wooden room. It has a special stove in a corner. This stove is usually heated with electricity or wood. The stove has stones which are heated and very hot. Water is thrown to stones to get heat, “löyly”. The word “sauna” could mean this single room or set of rooms (or a separate building) including sauna, washing room and dressing room.

How to enjoy sauna?

Strip. Yes, remove all your clothes. All. Yes, really all. Don’t be shy, this is sauna and we are all born naked.

Take a shower. Rinse yourself. Wash your make up. The reason for this shower is not the clean you, just rinse the carbage from your hair and skin. Wash your ass not to get shit on benches.

Now you are ready for sauna. Open door and step inside. Take a seat in the highest level. Yes, highest. It won’t kill you. In Finnish sauna the highest level is usually the only one meant for sitting. Often in Russia you may sit lower level also.

Take a small cotton or linen cloth and put it in to bench before sitting down. Towel is not used in sauna. No, towel is not between bench and your ass and it is not covering your genitals. Leave your towel outside.

In private saunas there may be one large linen sheet covering whole wooden bench. That is for protecting bench from dirty asses. Also in old-style smoke (black) saunas it is for protecting your ass not to become dirty. Nowadays when everyone will wash their asses these sheets are not so common. In swimming hall saunas they are not used at all. In other public saunas you may have one.

Seated well on your cloth? Okey, ready. There is a small barrel of water and a small bucket. Take the bucket and throw one bucketful of water to the stones. If you got too much steam (löyly), bend lower for couple of seconds. Don’t be afraid, the stove won’t go broken. The stones are hot and water will evaporate and not get touched with electrical parts of the stove.

You really have to throw water to stoves – sitting in dry sauna is not Finnish way! But how much and how often to put water to stones? How do you like it? For most of us, one bucketfull every 30 seconds is way too much. If you have to lower your head and back all the time it is too much. Of course this all depends on the temperature and size of the bucket. Do as you feel good.

How long to stay in sauna? Maybe five minutes. If you are bored, come out sooner. If you are chatting with your naked friends, stay longer. Usually about five minutes is good.

What next? Take a fast shower and go to cool for little bit. Drink something like water, juice, cola or beer. If possible, go outside to get fresh air. Remember to wrap a towel around you when going out! After cooling down take a fast shower and go back to sauna.

After you have enjoyed enough, for example visited sauna 2-5 times, it is time to wash yourself. Then you may put clothes on. I hope you enjoyed your time in sauna!

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Tuesday night quickies: mid week reboot

I wish I could retain the feeling after a 20 min quickie on a Tuesday night succeeding 3 hours sleep.Soles of my feet on the ground on which i am lying,facing a concrete slab next to my head, barely able to move, heart trying to stop itself… it’d be nice if death felt as nice as i imagine it to be right now. Probably doesn’t. But a guy can always dream.

Good news, great times

Fancypants now has access to a 24 hour sauna (via his cheap’ass gym) on Johnston street.

That is all.

Some more education from the 3070 area

I must have ‘school me’ burnt into my head.

There was a fella the other day who tried to pass off some nonsense about letting in fresh air as a way of increasing the temperature.  He stood with the door held open for about 1 minute.  I was going to lose my shit but seeing as I wasn’t doing a session I thought I’d entertain the fool. Sure, fresh air was in, but his horseshit about there being more oxygen in the air allowing for greater steam penetration (*my words) stank more than the time I stayed in the same clothes from a Richie Hawtin gig for 3 days (that’s quite stinky).

This renegade soaker was also a firm believer in wetting the walls rather than the rocks…. there might, however, be something in this.

Just a few notes from the Bitch

I have been having decent chats in The Bitch, about stealing cars and following GPS back home and with a girl that celebrated Australia Day a week before because she knew she would  end up in detox afterwards a week later. But a couple of strange things have also been happening down at the Northcote Baths recently.

1) I was introduced to a fella called Sam yesterday who chewed me up for putting too much water on the sauna at one time.  To be fair, he’s probably right: I have been dousing it like a right asshole.  He then proceeded to show me how to do it, in shorter bursts, albeit with a greater amount overall. He’s quite a fan of throwing water against the walls.  I noticed the temperature then dropped down to 80, which brought up a whole debate surrounding the veracity of the thermometer.

2) I am quite concerned that they may have changed the energy patterns on the stove. This week it has been sitting on 90 every time I go in.  The other day when I walked out to ask if they had already turned the stove off 45 min before close, I overheard some fella making a complaint that it was too hot. When i mentioned that it felt colder, that mutha checkmated me by saying “see, it’s probably broken”.   I have not been putting enough positive compliments in the feedback box, and now I guess they will have to be complaints. Goodtime Glen just turned Negative Nancy real quick.

3) The other day I asked a dude, who I assumed both to be relaxed and also a teacher, if he minded me putting water on the rocks.

“Hey, you mind if we give this one last blast before close?” (pointing water bottle at stove)
Long pause. “Um….. I never know how to answer those questions.”
Short pause of my behalf… (interior thought: feck it, i’m bored. I’m gonna bite)
“What is it about the question that you don’t understand?”
Longest pause in the conversation thus far.
“well, there is a sign there telling you not to pour water on the electrical element, so if i yes say, i’m condoning it”
No pause at all. (note to self at time: that logic is just boulderdash) “Oh, well the way I put the water on,it evaporates as it hits the rocks and doesn’t get down to the electrical part” (blatant lie, esp. in light of #1 above)
Yep, you guessed it, long pause.  “…….. Good answer”
And with that he walked out.

Oh, the tangled web we weave when we’re trying to relieve.

Saunameisters and the only rule that I ever want to hear

I know your man over at Sauna Times says that the only rule should be about shutting the door, but when I read that in Finnish lore it is the man on the top row of the sauna that decides if and when water should be added to the rocks, I was very much in flavour country. If I had to chose between the two rules, I reckon the latter wins hands down.

Flavour country was visited less than 24 hours later when, drinking mulled wine according to a J.Oliver recipe, the Funny German suggested that I should “become one of those sauna dudes that krank up the shit out of the saunas then you get in there for free and they even pay you for it!” When i asked him what the heck he was on about, he referred me to some bad translations of the word “saunameister “. MC of the Sauna? Sounds like a calling.

I know I could read a book about saunas n shite, but I much prefer the slow release of information like this.

One for the hitlist

Latvia, hammams and saunas on public holidays

Some recent conversations have revealed that: a) some girls do not think that a being in a dark and sweaty place is the right forum in which begin talking to strangers b) A Turkish lass informed me that the hammam is be the respite merely for tourists and old men. c) Latvians also continue the tradition of the sauna and branches ala the Finnish, called a pirts.

a) I can’t help but feel that if more girls were confortable with looking like a mess (that was the girls’ implication) we could make a bit more of a dent in this body consciousness thing.  Moreover, looking like a sweaty mop might encourage men less to ‘chat one up’.  However, this did not seem to work for me in the largely gay attended Japanese baths where nudity is a must, so I could be very wrong on this one.

b) This bothers me not.  Oh, it seems that to be qualified to be a masseuse (sic) in a hammam you either need a big moustache or long drooping tits. And yes, the echoic sound of water droplets is as integral to the zoning out as I thought it was.

c) The boyfriend and the girlfriend soon began squabbling over whether the countryhouse tradition of Latvian saunas was better described as a country retreat or a good place to go out and get shitfaced. But this debate was soon replaced by efforts to find a sauna open on a public holiday after 6pm.  These efforts, (including  trying to convince someone to empty their flatmate’s jacuzi and fill it with hot water, and trying to get hold of someone whose apartment block had a sauna in it) were very unsuccessful.  Which, if nothing else, reminded me that the sole reason for me to ever own a house is so that I have access to a sweatbox 24/7.

I’d like to play squash in a sauna one day. Or take hotrocks to the squash court. Yes, that’s more realistic.

I feel very happy that on a lovely Saturday afternoon ( I know, right? Saturday afternoon saunas? What a way to fuck over your plans for the night) I not only initiated a high school bud into the sweaty domain of the hotbox, but said bud had me beat and I was the one to call it a day.  Moreover, it was at Terry’s.

As a newcomer, he had a lot of questions.  About the burning sensation as felt when breathing through the nose, but generally as to what was so good about saunas.  Perhaps the only reason I felt like answering him was because he and I both knew that he was already hooked, and that he was looking more for tips than explanations.  Not to say that I answered him.  I told him to pump his brakes, enjoy the cool breeze and the sunshine, that the hotbox would speak for itself, and we just continued our conversation about developmental psychology vis a vis my mum. He said that the hardest thing for him was not so much the heat but worrying about talking out of line in the sauna. Being some kind of sociopath, I couldn’t really help him on that one.  Like the burning nose hairs, I guess you just get use to it.  And i like to think of saunas like Vegas, or bandcamp, or wherever shit stays where it happens.

Oh, something else: a sagacious pal of mine recently consoled me when a previous sauna buddy bailed on our scheduled sweat.  “You know how you never regret a swim? That goes double for saunas”.   So very true, and more on going solo in saunas later.

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