"Welcome to the Aufguss USA Nationals, America's first Aufguss World Masters event, a two-day competition held at Brooklyn's Bathhouse. It was late June, and the nation's best sauna experts had flown in to show off their skills in aufguss, a blend of dance, sport, theater, therapy, and aerodynamic manipulation so odd it could only come from Germany. I was witnessing, for lack of a more succinct description, competitive sauna-ing."
"To learn more about aufguss, I was spending the city's hottest day in what was probably the city's hottest room. I was hot. I grabbed my Nalgene bottle. Years of reading Jon Krakauer have instilled in me a fear of dehydration-a kind of hydro-hypochondria, and drinking enough water over the next eight hours felt like my own personal Waterloo. Midsip, I was startled by an omniscient narrator over the sound system. "TWO SISTERS, BORN OF A CELESTIAL MOTHER," she said."
The Aufguss USA Nationals served as America's first Aufguss World Masters, staged over two days at Brooklyn's Bathhouse in late June. Sauna experts performed aufguss, a German-derived practice mixing dance, sport, theater, therapy, and aerodynamic manipulation, inside a 175-degree event sauna. Performances were interpretive and theatrical, supported by sound and lighting, with a custom 700-square-foot event sauna built for the competition. More than 1,000 spectators attended, and winners would advance to the world championships in Italy. Attendees navigated intense heat and hydration concerns as performers combined choreography with steam and narration.
Read at Slate Magazine
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