If there’s one thing I hate about “fitness speak” (These are the soft, stupid, undisciplined things that people say about exercise) it’s the phrase ‘I’ve got a love/hate relationship with…’ You don’t have a love/hate relationship with burpees or scones or squats, you simply love indulgence and hate discipline. While I’m putting people down, I’m undisciplined with calisthenics and I hate my current level.
I can do a great deal of repetitions, enough to look good without weights. But this isn’t about looking good, or getting to a certain point and stopping. This is about being super-human, and being a super human. That’s going to take a level of strength that regular humans, even ones who exercise regularly simply never have the discipline to build. So one of my goals will be to build it.
Then I found out about this:
I was looking up books on Amazon.com about body weight exercises and supposedly this is one of the better books. What I found after it arrived is that Paul Wade and I share some core view about fitness. The fitness industry is out to build dependence on “extras.” Weights do more harm than good. Progress is progressive. But in terms of calisthenics, I thought there would be no way I would have to start at the first steps of the program being that I can do most of the step five exercises. Then the most basic of exercises brought me back to reality…
The Wall Pushup
You see, each of the core movements in this program: Pushups, Pullups, Leg Raises, Squats, Bridges, and Handstand Pushups have progressions. The initial progression of pushups are wall pusups: feet arms-length from the wall, three sets of fifty. The book says to build up to the three sets of fifty and that this number indicates that you can progress to the next level. One set of fifty made me feel like my arms were on fire, the second set was a lactic acid fiesta, the third was numb, but I made it. The other step one exercises, Shoulder Stand squats ( upside down air squats in a yoga shoulder stand), Knee tucks (think of bench crunches), Half-Bridges (think “bridge pose’ in yoga), static headstand, were much more terrible and the only easy one was the back exercise, Verical Pulls (think the exact opposite of the wall pushup).
Here’s how that workout looked:
This workout was far more challenging than I expected and I’m giving myself a week to actually complete it, as some of the exercises are more difficult than others. It was humbling and made me quite excited about what the future of this program will be. I’ll be spending this first week perfecting these movements and building toward consistently executing the progression standards here in the above picture. Doing headstands every day is also going to improve my yoga practice and eliminate my difficulties with inversions.
For me, experiences inside the yoga world are conducive to the stigmas the outside world has about yoga. Places aren’t straight-male friendly, with tiny male changing rooms and tons of incredibly forward gay men. Yogis do have different personalities, displaying some things I share and some things I simply don’t. Plus, yoga is difficult and it is discouraging to see women half your size show more control over body weight and respiratory stamina than you can. But I’m an athlete. I practice yoga for many reasons, but mostly because I’m interested in heightening the overall performance of my body and mind together. I believe strongly that such aims are the cornerstones of fitness, so I make my yoga practice, as well as the calisthenics I practice, the running I practice and the sports I practice about mastery of skill, endurance, and triggered performance.
One thing I do love about the yoga world is Lululemon.
From the perspective of the average American, Lululemon is filled with nauseatingly-cheery salespeople (cutely called ‘educators’), incredibly overpriced but deliciously comfortable clothing, and like everything else in the yoga world, accommodates women and boxes in men-In the stores, on the website, naturally, without thinking of it. Why? The company still attracts an overwhelmingly female consumer, and companies go where the money will be spent in their field.
To me, Lululemon is a corporate embodiment of Conservative Fitness.
Last fall, Lululemon gave itself a chance to get conservative, and the world was outraged to find out that Lululemon’s goal-coaching, and inspirational quoting and educating was a quest to deliver the world from mediocrity to greatness. People threatened to boycott. Liberal hatred for Ayn Rand surfaced from every angle. You know what I did? I bought some more Lululemon. I joined their Research and Development program. I went to stores and had conversations with educators. What I found out was that this was my first encounter with organized conservative fitness.
One small example of the world misunderstanding Lululemon.
Those pushy educators, they’re doing two things:
First, they’re telling you what the product does, because any liberal-minded, superficial idiot can understand that a pair of pants will make your butt look better, but it takes a human being with real integrity to buy something because it is an effective tool for your task.
Second, they’re conversing with you to find out if you’re one of them. Basically, everyone in that store wants to know why you’ve walked in to see their product because if you’re like them, you can make this product an effective tool in your life.
In an Ayn Rand sort of way, they fully expect the John Galt of fitness to walk through those glass doors, round up the most selfish conservatives in fitness, and stop the fitness world.
And there isn’t one problem with that to me.
I though, am in the minority. Many think that a brand that is yoga-inspired should be a compassionate, liberal, accepting one. These people forget that before compassion, before release, before the liberal aspects of yoga are explored, the practice must happen conservatively. My in-class intention for a long time has simply been “control,” because I believe that yoga is about control over body and mind. To me, taking that control every time is what separates me from the individual trying to get into shape for all of the wrong reasons. At Lululemon, the focus seems to be control, turning weaknesses into strengths, and preparing yourself for success. The problem is that the average individual has no idea that fitness even can be about these things, much less that they should.
My idea is to expand Lululemon’s vision to become the first yoga-inspired organization to embrace and highlight the goal-oriented, fit, healthy American male and much as they do females with the same attributes. The idea is not to compete with the expansive Nike empire, but to give men a product and voice that helps those men with conservative fitness philosophies who would usually wear a Nike, Reebok, Adidas or Under Armour product made for a professional athlete, treat their Lulu with the same love and trust. It may mean more generous cuts in the shirts, and pants more suited for high-speed movements, or it may even more simply mean highlighting elite-looking, hot-bodied, success obsessed male ambassadors like the female ones to push their product. If you think I’m wrong, go take a look at the marketing of coconut water in the last year.
I wear and endorse Lululemon because more than any other athletic wear brand, they understand that their product, their philosophy, their personality, isn’t for everyone, and it isn’t so bad if that discourages those who don’t want to get it. Now its time to find some men who get it, some fitness conservatives who buy products because they improve tasks, who practice yoga because it will help them to build a position of control in their lives and in the world, and who compete at life because you play to win the game.
The Nike ID process takes quite a while, and is a bit pricey, but worth it.
The black is for the simplicity of this process, the electric green is for the power we get from the use of the earth in this process, the red is for the burning desire to improve and the embracing of discomfort.
The Free 3.0 sole is far more barefoot than any free I've used, but this shoe is NOT exactly a "barefoot" shoe.
More characters and different spots to ID would be great...
I also got the "element shield" upper, so these will be versatile in various elements. I also did it in hopes that these would continue to look good over a few runs and work days.
I've got low arches and flat, wide feet. These are a 12.5 wide and fit great, but the inner arch support is poor, so I find myself continuing to slide my feet to the outsides of my shoes so that they don't rotate inward. Something I've always dealt with when buying new running shoes
Overall, more shoes in widths would be a way to get me to use this service more. A good-looking shoe that's exactly the colors you chose isn't enough when you plan to actually use the shoe. I do wonder if this could be an adequate race shoe. What do you think?
“We’re talking about practice.” These famous words from former NBA star Allen Iverson speak volumes to the sort of person and player he was. Games and the big stage were important to him, missing a few practices had no effect on the game in his mind. Ask anyone who knew Michael Jordan personally in his playing years and they’ll usually use one word to describe his practice habits: maniacal. Now Iverson was amazing, and great at times, but Jordan is considered the greatest. Why? He eliminated flaws in practice until he was beating teams with his brain more than his physical gifts. To Jordan and the greatest athletes, practice holds more importance than games because it is where all of the tools are sharpened.
In terms of practice, 2011 has been a very full year for me. I took minimal rest days, explored the wonderful world of perfecting calesthenics, ran distances I was once scared to try, and I tried out a few yoga studios. The yoga held it all together, and I wrote some reviews and really refined my idea of a good place to practice yoga. In choosing the latest studio I’m reviewing, I really took the time to pick a place the would be convenient, challenging, friendly, and full of high-level yogis. Without fully accepting it, I was looking for a permanent studio.
Mike's focus was built in practice, where all the great things happen
I’ve worked near New York Yoga (@NewYorkYoga on Twitter) for over a year, and I’d always seen the HOT HOT HOT sign for it on Eighty-fifth Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan and thought “I’m a robot, Bikram is the only hot yoga,” and dismissed it as a knockoff. I say this as if I was well schooled on various yoga styles at the time. Then I got to experience hot vinyasa yoga, first at Hot Yoga New Jersey in Westwood, NJ then at Yoga Sutra (R.I.P.), in addition to a bevy of other positive yoga experiences and emerged wanting different things from yoga than I once did. I honestly didn’t know what my practice was or why I did it or how really dedicated to it and its reasons I was. After a month at New York Yoga, I knew my reasons, and I’d found a studio to begin my first real yoga practice.
Before going there, I read a review that said both New York Yoga studios (there is a non-heated studio on Eighty-sixth Street and York Avenue) had inexperienced teachers, and at times, I’ve found this to be true, especially in the donation based “yogi’s choice” classes, although it matters so little to the overall picture of my practice. My practice is first about surrender, and the roundabout focus that comes from it. I surrender to every teacher because they are leading and they will hold more knowledge than me until I am a teacher, when I will respect them as a peer and surrender to them just the same in a class. If you can’t surrender to your yoga, then you’re a yoga snob. That means that anything out of the ordinary will disturb your yoga and even if your practice is deep, it is not built on granite-like focus. Yoga wasn’t created for you, it exists within you. (Like an internal version of a higher power, it is the higher power of you) Besides, this isn’t big business like YogaWorks, and although I love YogaWorks, yoga snobbery is a little counter-productive.
New York Yoga doesn’t have yoga snobs, and you can bet you’ll get a warm smile out of any staff member or student that you make eye contact with. Warm, friendly, cuddly, fuzzy, it is one of those places. Businesses, teams, everything has and builds its own culture. Yoga studios are not only in this group, but culture seems to be the deciding factor in students becoming regular members. At all fitness facilities that ask for the members’ discrectionary income, regular membership hinges upon the things that make the place: What is the philosophy of the place? What sort of yogi or fit person is the place’s overall style trying to build? How is the individual member or student treated? What does the staff accept from students or members and what do they not accept? Are the classes challenging or basic? Before this year, when I’d start at a new studio I would never ask these questions, now I’m totally concerned with the answers to these questions meeting my standards.
Hard to miss where the hot yoga is.
At New York Yoga, the answers and their culture meet my needs. I go to the hot studio. The teachers are friendly and helpful. No teacher I’ve had has shied away from aiding with sweaty adjustments for anyone. The teachers are all also very secure in their own practices and philosophies. Rachel Page leads the class in chants. Kelly Stackhouse has you place fingers where the action is happening, whether that’s breath in action or thoughts in action. Peyton Biederman’s class is slow and deliberate. Sometimes a teacher has been late or absent, substitutes show up with their own methods, and it is easy to continue to build the practice the same as one always does even though sequences will be different.
The resounding element of the culture of this place lies in the amount of regular practices I see developing. At other places I’ve been, friendships and cliques are not built on yoga. Maybe people will meet over conversation about how much they dislike a particular teacher or pose. Maybe they will be reacting to something outside of the yoga: “Didn’t the traffic suck on the way here today? When will this rain stop?” Maybe the room was just too hot and two deep complainers might form a bond of weakness and be friends for life because they shared in their reactions. At New York Yoga, friendships seem to be built on frequency of practice, and what that builds is a community of yogis respecting yogis. With Bikram Yoga, a branded hot yoga designed specifically to lure in the ill-focused and uncultured American, teachers and students alike are judgmental, superficial, and harsh, all because this is what sells to the individual American who practices yoga to lose weight. With most other styles, and New York Yoga’s philosophy fits into this mold, the student is respected and trusted as a human being. Only the student knows how much he or she is struggling, and based on their practice, they know if they need to take a break, drink some water, or leave the room. Bikram Choudhury tells his trainees in so many words to never trust the student to be honest about their practice and abilities on that day. In a little over a month at New York Yoga, I’ve attended only one class where every student stayed for the entire class, and while students leaving during class was to me blasphemy at one point, I now accept and trust anyone who leaves to use the bathroom, take in some cool air, or calm their nausea is doing so only after giving full effort to their practice. This shared trust is everywhere and given the difficult nature of the yoga (no matter the teacher, classes at the hot studio are challenging), it is generally understood when someone “doesn’t have it” that day and had to check out early.
I know Bikram teachers who would call the action of leaving the room during class or drinking water during a posture both soft and disrespectful of other students. But that’s because nothing motivates us more than the threat of judgment. Some might say it builds a communal strength, but towards what goal? I’ve been in quite a few yoga rooms this year, but my most focused, purpose-filled practice came in vinyasa classes around good yogis with teachers who were about helping you understand your yoga.
Finding out who you are and want to be on a yoga mat is life-altering. Finding it out as a straight, black male is just different. Even more different is knowing that my body might respond well to yoga, but it is not flexible, and far from perfect in practice like some I see, but I’m not judged here on my differences, and I appreciate this immensely. New York Yoga is a fun, but small place to practice your yoga. The class sizes are mostly small, but fifteen mats will easily fill the room. Classes with twenty or more make the hot room a little unbearable at times. Still though, it is yoga and just yoga. Everyone has a smooth balance of risk-taking and surrender, and even though these classes can leave you pretty sore, the regulars seem to show up every day. My new goal is to be a regular, and have a regular practice. My body, career, and mind are all asking for it. Now that I’ve found the place, it is time to explore yoga to levels I’ve never known. It is time to be about practice, because practice can turn the game of life into a cakewalk, and make you the greatest.
I’m not talking about mainstream, branded, “I’ll sweat away the pounds” yoga.
I’m not talking about “you’re not cool because you don’t know the latest gossip” yoga.
I’m not talking about “does this yoga thing work?” yoga.
What I’m talking about is Jill Camera’s 6pm class at YogaSutra on Tuesdays in Midtown Manhattan, and the sort of deep concentration and focus a person can build in this sort of class, and at this sort of place. Imagine a Vinyasa yoga class so crowded that most mats are touching, but the student don’t. Imagine trying poses you’ve never even seen. Imagine floating away into yoga bliss during savasana. Imagine new words, like the combination of strength and confidence-strongfidence. Or imagine a yoga class where everyone in the room has an amazing body, and no one really cares. Imagine a gathering of yogis who are all about practice. There is no stumbling and stuttering, no falling out of postures, and no personal acceptance of failure within each student. There’s a huge difference between practicing amongst yogis and practicing amongst people who are trying out yoga, waiting to see if it works for them. What draws me to places like YogaSutra is not amenities, although the tea bar and meditation rooms are great, it’s that focus is number one. So it’s not simply that the place offers places to focus, it’s that they care that you’re focused. There is no party going on in Jill Camera’s class, and if you treat it like one, you’ll miss something.
That’s the way I like my yoga: fast, leaving out the space for the laughs and the joking and the coddling of the American mind. I can do without a yoga that accepts my failures. I’d like yoga class to be the one place in this society where I’m forbidden to have that “all I have to do” mentality because a playing field leveled by this sort of rule creates a professional environment, and you can hence, pay professional attention, and give professional intensity to yourself. Leaving these classes, I always felt a sense that I was more alive and more aware. I felt a freedom that, even here with the power of words at my disposal, I know I will never describe.
Truthfully, I tried a few classes at YogaSutra, like some Hot Vinyasa classes (my first good experiences with such classes) with Sara Nicole Baxley and Megan Alexander, two teachers I’m hoping to have again very soon (Ms. Baxley is also at Hot Yoga NY, another future stop). I also took a vinyasa class with Phil Lynch that was loaded with dry jokes. But the gleaming highlight of my time there was becoming a semi-regular in Ms. Camera’s class. I bounce around from studio to studio, but I can honestly say that I’d love to make her class a regular part of my own practice, even if only once a week.
I also recommend YogaSutra to people who are new to yoga. When introducing a branded yoga, like Bikram Yoga, to a person who is new to all forms, most of us either take years and years to explain that this isn’t the only yoga, or we allow the person to believe (and say ignorantly) that Bikram Yoga is the only type of yoga that exists. At a place like YogaSutra, one that offers many styles, has many rooms, but still keeps their core values (which aren’t intrusive), a new student can get that broad sense of what yoga is, and how it works, rather than the unsatisfying quest to find out if it works. Whatever that means.
I mentioned in the Day Two blog that the pictures on the Bikram Yoga Lower East Side website were interesting, well they are, and so are the teacher biographies. So far, this is the most creative studio I’ve seen. They seem to want people to understand that teachers are real people. Most of the teachers’ pictures on the site are taken around the neighborhood with each teacher performing their favorite posture in public. One of the best is Trey Griley’s “standing head-to-knee” while wearing a suit at a local dry cleaner. Day six at Bikram Yoga Lower East side turned out to be my last because of a scheduling problem, but it was one of my better classes, and it was Mr. Griley’s class. After two days of struggling, I was in the back where all the newbies usually set up.
Mr. Griley has a lot of fun teaching Bikram yoga, and is full of jokes and smiles. I’ve noticed that it’s more the practice of male teachers to tell jokes to keep students present, and female teachers like to be robotic with the dialogue. Both are effective, and here, there aren’t any teachers stopping classes to let you know how much better at the yoga they are than you or about how they know Bikram since India. Its just proof that a studio can help their students respect the yoga without scaring that respect into them. This studio is stocked with teachers who don’t take themselves too seriously but are quite serious about the yoga.
Many teachers (Mr. Griley especially) say that Bikram says to use your “Bengal tiger strength,” or your “English bulldog determination” but it seems to be a philosophy for Mr. Griley, and hearing those phrases have always built the same tenacity in me that making a tackle in football, or extending a long run would. With that mentality throughout class, I had my most focused, and present class of the week. It also made me realize something: I like the back of the room. Maybe it was doing yoga without a mirror, or maybe I’m still a little self-conscious about being watched while I practice, but it felt good. I’ve been in too many classes where other students commented on my practice because it looked great, or because of my build, or because there have been times where I just simply connect with the pace of the dialogue. Sometimes, being seen isn’t my cup of tea, and at this point, I feel like I’m practicing to block those things out. The thing about “Bengal tiger strength” and “English bulldog Determination” is that Bengal tigers and English bulldogs show their strength and determination no matter who is watching. The thing that might separate us from the more focused and determined in the animal kingdom is just that-focus and determination. When animals are convinced that they want and need things, they don’t stop until these things happen. After a week of lessons, it was the perfect idea to take out of the hot room in my last class here.
I may as well have taken this class right after the one the day before it, because I still felt like I had just taken class. My legs didn’t work, I was too nauseous to even describe, and I just took up space in Kristen Driscoll’s 4pm class and Bikram Yoga Lower East Side. To Ms. Driscoll’s credit, she was an effective teacher, but I didn’t have anything for her in terms of effort, and the time resting in the hot room helped me evaluate the situation.
What had I done differently?
The day before, I didn’t bring an entire gallon of water to class, which I’d been doing all week.
I ate lamb on two occasions during the week, for the protein, thinking it would help with the recovery. Truth is, I really don’t eat meat, at all. So my body could have been reacting to something it hasn’t done in over a year.
I was thinking about things I hadn’t let myself dwell on in class in years, like other classmates, the teachers’ styles, and my own comfort.
I was commuting a long distance to class every day for the first time in years.
The class was a washout, or one where I basically didn’t show up mentally and checked physically very early, and I see these situations as unacceptable, whether in yoga, exercise, or in life. I should never allow myself to let anything alter my presence. To be disciplined, my diet, travel, environment, and thoughts must be pure. Then, I must bring that discipline to the mat to create what I’m looking for.
So I’d like to share a personal Bikram thought. I have this feeling sometimes like certain teachers are practicing yoga witchcraft. There are times when I struggle in class when I feel like the teacher is doing it. You know, like they’re twisting the needle in the stomach of the voodoo doll and causing that nausea. That was day four at Bikram Yoga Lower East Side, a continuous struggle with the Bikram elements, one that really made me want to sit down and examine my practice.
Jena Blackwood is a nice woman, and she took it upon herself to introduce herself to me as the 4pm teacher when I arrived in the lobby. I was already sleepy, thirsty (even though I’d guzzled almost a gallon of water that day), and fatigued. My legs felt like they were made of wet newspaper from the three days before. After I saw how long she held postures during class, I no longer thought she was nice, I wanted to hurl the nothing I’d eaten in the four hours before all over the mat, and I simply couldn’t feel my legs. Now instead of maybe working on the processes of things, maybe exploring what muscle-memory I had to get me through class, I threw my peace out onto Stanton Street where it was run over by a taxi. I got angry. I turned into a Bikram baby. Of course man, she was holding the postures too long. I was too hot. Like, hotter than usual. My fingers were burning in “half moon.” I’m tall, hot air rises man! Then I committed a real sin: I know when my water breaks come, and I take one after “balancing stick,” before the quarter-turn. But I slipped, and forgot about balancing stick, and took water after “standing bow.” Not a big deal to some, but for a person with a set routine, it was the first step to disaster.
The real nausea came then and in retrospect I know it was really the change in routine. “Triangle” pose felt like it was nineteen minutes on each side, and I blamed Ms. Blackwood. There were too many failures, ugly sit-downs, and a couple of lay-downs to come. I started to get the crazy notion that she was doing it on purpose, like some weird Bikram spell she was casting. Really, I was fatigued, most likely ill from something, and doing a terrible job of doing the two things key to executing yoga, focusing and breathing. No matter what the situation, I should always execute. This was an essential element of this project in the first place. The fact that I reverted back to so much of the reactive behavior I’ve eliminated through practicing yoga really left me sad and disappointed with myself. Its really not simply struggling. Its struggling and placing external blame, and putting that blame before effort. Ms. Blackwood was the first Bikram teacher I had who didn’t say “namaste” at the end of class, and maybe that put a perfect punctuation on a horrible class with a horrible vibe, where I gave a horrible effort.
If you live in New York City and you use the MTA to get to yoga class, no matter which yoga you practice, it finds some way to steal your peace, and on my third day at Bikram Yoga Lower East Side, President’s Day, I struggled to find a train that even stopped close to the studio because of various bits of “necessary track work” foolery. So I found myself sitting on the J train ten minutes before class, but twenty minutes away, cursing out MTA officials and their families for causing me to miss yoga. I couldn’t take it, so I got off at the Bowery station and ran. I ran into the bogeda downstairs and bought my gallon of water. I ran into the lobby for sign-in. I ran into the studio with all my clothes on to get my spot and only the front row was free. I ran in an put my towels down just as the teacher, Christopher Totaro, was beginning the first breathing exercise.
I’m not at all a fan of rushing into yoga. Regular yoga is difficult for me because I can’t realistically build routines. Regular yoga is difficult for me because I can’t realistically build routines. Bikram yoga is slightly easier for me because I can make it ninety minutes of routines, which I still did this day. Especially because Christopher’s teaching style was a little different from what I’ve become comfortable with. He’s more auctioneer than instructor. The postures started out with the dialogue at normal pace, then near the end of each he began to spit out dialogue, directions, and corrections like he was speed-reading a stage play. I’ve got no problems with this style because I know that many people need to understand the ideal energy for all their actions in the hot room, and I quickly realized that this was simply Christopher’s style and that he would manipulate it throughout the class.
With the front-row pressure on though, and a teaching rhythm I couldn’t quite pick up on, I had a great class. So great that I did something I’ve never done in a Bikram class, just to make it better-I rose my hand and asked question. My fellow classmates might have had some mental chatter like “But this is a ninety-minute moving meditation!” Well I was locked in and while I was so locked in that my “camel” pose was bringing no dizziness at all, Christopher was calling me by name, telling me to “lift my chest” over and over. And there I was trying, over, and over. So before set two, I asked him to explain. Was I lifting away from the floor, or away from my feet toward the mirror? I mean, I wanted to get it right. I wanted perfection and for most of us that’s the only way to get it. Had I not gone out of my way to practice regular yoga at places where you can ask the teacher a question without fear, I might not have been so brave.
They go to battle together, they have locker rooms, benches, the studio is their field, and they have a logo.
My second day at Bikram Yoga Lower East Side went very well, mostly because it was an incredibly normal class, and the teacher was what I’d call a normal Bikram teacher: young, blond, and with a soft voice that’s spitting out the dialogue in rhythm. Only, I didn’t get her name. If I’ve got any beef with this studio its that their teacher schedule isn’t online, they’ve got a Twitter account but they don’t tweet the day’s teachers, and the teacher schedule is posted in a spot in the lobby where its difficult to stop and read. (Also, headshots please in the teacher’s section, the photos are great, but how do these teachers LOOK?) Back to our nameless teacher. If you’re going to open up a Bikram studio, its a good idea to hire just a few teachers like this, not because Yoga instructors should be type casted, but because I believe its really easy for most people to take corrections from a twenty-something blond with an even demeanor and a comforting tone. I mean this is America after all. Instructors like her usually force me into the habit of forgetting the teacher is there and I have my best classes with that nameless, faceless voice floating throughout the room. Some people might think that’s a stereotypical way to see teachers, and that I should do MY practice, regardless of the teacher. But at this stage of my practice I think that’s a talent. I haven’t gotten to the point where the yoga is perfect and I am alone in the room.
I really didn’t expect this studio to carry these sorts of teachers, especially since it has so many quirks. It’s quirky. It’s full of nuances, however one might categorize it, it’s different, and on this day I went out of my way to notice all of the quirks. A great deal of thought was put into the use of their pink “sweat drop” logo. Some studios choose a “flame,” others will use a drawing of a cartoon yogi in “final spine twist,” but Bikram Yoga Lower East side puts it on everything (they’re pushing some sweet thermal water bottle holders at the front desk that hold Smartwater bottles perfectly) and they are creative enough to incorporate the logo into things like the men’s and women’s changing room signs. If something needs to be posted on a wall, you’d better believe its over a construction paper silhouette of their logo. I said in the last post that they seemed like a team, and I’m mostly reminded of sports locker rooms when I go to this studio, not simply because of the setup of everything, but also because of the studio’s loyalty to the logo as if it were the Yankees’ NY.
Another thing that stands out here over other studios is the lobby and locker room music. The playlist seems too unique and expansive to be a part of a Bikram studio. This day, I was preparing for class to the live version of “You got me” by the Roots. Another time its “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Another time its a super hot song I’ve never heard. Although hardcore yogis might be turned off by something like this, I think that good music that doesn’t get stuck in your head is a great focusing tool for Bikram yoga. Maybe that’s because I’ve always seen this yoga to be more like a game or sport. You learn the rules fairly early, and you’re given unlimited time to improve.
There’s a very good chance that this day’s teacher was Carrie Hilligloss. But that was after some investigation, and still, I’m not sure.
