Fifty shades of yoga
I’m the most annoying yoga student ever: I go sporadically, with no commitment to a particular class, instructor, or studio; I usually stop paying attention to my breath or any zen feelings and instead enthusiastically plan meals, blog posts, or works of literature I will likely never write; and worst of all, I’m really hoping this is going to pay off in the form of awesome abs and killer (but still feminine and sexy) biceps. But you know what? I’m a paying customer, and this is America. Don’t take away my freedom to half-ass my way through your yoga class.
Predictably, my favorite place to ‘practice’ is Yoga to the People. (All of the New Yorkers who read this blog are laughing at me right now.) All YTTP classes are structured in the same way, you don’t have to do any wacky headstand/backbend shit if you don’t want to, and since there are rarely a lot of chances for the instructor to veer off script, you can (usually) avoid a lot of the wacky ‘spiritual’ journeys that yoga instructors elsewhere (see below) are so fond of. However, they do tend to pack as many people into the class as they possibly can (“rows of ten, everyone!”) to the point where you could reach back in Warrior One and high-five the person behind you. Nevertheless, Yoga to the People has taught me something very important about myself–that I like my yoga like I like my religion: comfortingly routine, with as little expression of feelings as possible. I like that if someone gets way too into their deep exhale and sounds like they’re maybe getting a blowjob, I’m not the only one who kind of laughs. And even if the guy up front goes around touching all the other girls kind of sketchily (seriously, you’re not fooling anyone with your ‘adjustments’, Mr. Instructor Guy), I still leave my YTTP classes feeling pretty content and better about myself. And also my abs.
Since I work in publishing (a notoriously high-paying industry), I appreciate cheap yoga. Especially free yoga. I’m always on the lookout for inexpensive yoga studios, especially around my neighborhood for the days where I (devoted yogi) am feeling too lazy to trek to a Yoga to the People. However, not all yoga is created equal.
My roommates and I got excited once about a free yoga class being offered in celebration of Yoga Week in Williamsburg. When we got there, we were psyched that the yoga studio was located on the top floor of an old industrial loft, in true trendy Brooklyn style. The space was beautiful–hardwood floors, big square warehouse windows, artfully placed chairs. We only started to become concerned when no one else showed up for the class. The owner, a predictably very thin, young white guy with glasses, calmly informed us that our instructor was late because of traffic coming from the city. What yoga teacher drives a car in Manhattan? “It’s great that you guys came out for Yoga Week, though,” he said. “I just got back from an event on the Lower East Side where we did a hundred sun salutations to greet the sunrise. It was amazing.” My roommates and I smiled and nodded politely. For those of you who don’t know, a sun salutation is a basic yoga move where you bend down to touch your toes, stretch up to standing, lean back, and then go back to bending to your toes again. The thought of doing a hundred of those makes me want to throw up.
I really wanted to know who decided that this week was Yoga Week, and if he or she had been elected by headstand contest or something in order to do so, but the situation was also rapidly becoming extremely awkward, so we peppered the guy with basic questions. He was from Alabama. He lived in Williamsburg with his cat. His studio has been around for a few months, but it was really more of a “healing center” than a yoga studio, though he was an avid practitioner. “Last night we did the Dance of Liberation,” he said proudly. Apparently this is a widely adopted practice where a group of people blindfold themselves and flail around in a room for a set period of time. Don’t worry, a few non-blindfolded healers are present to “direct the energy,” which I’m pretty sure is code for ‘make sure people don’t accidentally flail into each other.’ Thankfully, the teacher arrived around then. Her class was fine and uneventful, except for that fact that I had tried to clean my yoga mat with some cleaning spray the night before and kept slipping all over the place. In Yoga to the People classes, no one would have noticed me, but in this class of four, my repeated giggling was not appreciated. At the end, the instructor came around and sprinkled lavender oil on our faces. All yoga teachers should do this. If I could bathe in lavender oil, I would.
Elsewhere in Brooklyn, I’ve had great luck finding cheap yoga classes at small for-profit studios that focus on yoga teacher training. The main problem is that you have to make sure to get there really far in advance, because these yoga studios were usually former Brooklyn storefronts or studio apartments and can fit like eleven people per class. Some of them are very keen on emphasizing that this is their only donation yoga class, and make you sign in and write your donation out on a little log that they carefully watch. Not very zen, guys. Also, these studios are all obsessed with headstands. Obsessed. I hate headstands; they hurt and I don’t feel any stronger or more in touch with anything after doing them. Mostly I have a headache. I guess I’m more in touch with my headache. In small classes, it’s a lot harder to avoid the headstands. Like half of the class gets really into helping you and handing you blocks and sketchy wool blankets to prop up on. Guys, I just want to do a bridge and then the end pose where you nap. Let it be.
Lately, I’ve been a fan of this (very) tiny yoga studio nearish my apartment on the days I’m looking to avoid the subway ride to my usual yoga place. The kind of yoga they do there is very different from the kind of yoga I’m used to (I honestly couldn’t tell you what kind it is, but it’s a lot harder, and I am not flexible enough) and afterwards I feel sore in the best way. The fact that I keep going is a testament to the awesomeness of the yoga itself, because everything else about this place is super weird.
The teacher emerges from a hidden cubby above the coat closet, like totally of nowhere as you’re hanging up your stuff, with his feet almost hitting you in the face, and he starts class by whipping out a tiny accordion that he plays as you get into child’s pose. He begins class with a simple breathing exercise. “Everyone make a Y with your fist. Ok, now, hold your thumb over one nostril and breathe through the other.” We all, for some reason, do so. “Now switch, so that your pinky covers your open nostril and your thumb peels back.” This is called alternate-side breathing (I think) and we did it for thirty seconds. Thirty seconds is a long time to not accidentally spew snot out of your one open nostril while laughing. Most of these classes are centered around “not having thoughts” and “concentrating.” Which would be nice, except the room is painted salmon pink with bright gold trim and literally every surface is covered with photographs of famous yogis. There are like thirty-seven Indian men in various stages of balding staring down at you at all times.
“Do not be distracted by mere objects,” the teacher intones. I notice that the man on the poster next to me, who was photographed in a loincloth doing one hundred and fifty different yoga poses, closely resembles him. As we come up into Warrior Two, I’ve only got one thought: “What is going on?”
But then I start thinking about my abs. And all is well. Om.
Inter.gazing 