Heart Full

Voted by Citysearch as the best yoga studio in New York City since 2005, Sonic Yoga. I’ve been studying this yoga studio for some time, it offers an incredibly competitive membership price, including such tempting offers as 3 months unlimited for $180, well reviewed workshops, and a couple NYY teachers all at Sonic, it was almost too good to be true.

I arrived early, believing I’d have a harder time finding it than I did, but Google Maps can fix even the most hopelessly directionally challenged. I took in the small boutique, spacious couches, and soft water fall, I liked it. As I settled into the couch I noticed that the door to the studio was glass, how novel. I had begun to believe observing yoga classes was discouraged, (and the jury is still out) I was given a glimpse to an impressive space. Clean, long wooden planks, with soft natural light touching all corners. I liked the curtain motif at the front of the room, but secretly believe…Laughing Lotus has perfected the curtain art.

As time for my class approached, I had the luxury of watching the incoming students. And as they grew in number so did my anxiety. There was only one other girl there who didn’t seem to know anyone, and was questioned assertively on her yoga experience, “could it be that advanced?”, I wondered, “…this wasn’t an ashram … could it be so different  from the other yoga studios I’d been to”? It was. I looked around, and increasingly noticed all the other students knew each other, and not just a little bit, but well. I hadn’t seen this level of familiarity since my teenage years and-20-lbs-younger dancer days. These girls had spent a lot of time together, a retreat?

It wasn’t just the students either, but also the teacher. She spoke to them with such easy familiarity, it became painfully clear that I was odd man out. And just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. She reveals we’ll be doing partner yoga … later. Great. Middle school no-lunch-table-to-sit-at memories taunted me, “just wait” they said, “when the time comes, no one will be your partner”. Nice.
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Yogaworks is possibly the most famous national yoga chain. Yet it doesn’t suffer the pejorative connotations of a chain, it is still seen as offering some pretty good yoga. And i can see why. In many ways practicing at Yogaworks was familiar. The teacher offered a balance between mediation, dharma (parables / story-telling), and asana. She shared personal details with surprising candor, and underlying vulnerbility. Her focus on alignment was intelligent, and enlightening. She was familiar.

I wondered if the familiarity was due to the Ishta influence in hers and Kristin’s teaching. Possibly. But I appreciated that she realized hips and feet in Warrior I and Warrior II don’t readily align. It was refreshing to not be awkwardly flowing between these poses, compensating or compromising alignment in order to deepen the “flow”, and feeling guilty about it.

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I had just received my New York Yoga Pass Book in the mail the other day, and I could not wait to use it. For the unbelievable price of $75 + shipping, you get a two-class pass book to virtually every studio in Manhattan. After the teacher training program, it seemed to be a great way to check out other styles of teaching, And verify for myself, if NY Yoga was worth my almost-every-day commute to the UES.

For my first choice I selected the Kula Yoga Project . I’d been staring at it long enough, read all of the glowing reviews, and best of all it’s within walking distance of where I live. So there I was, at Kula’s front desk, out of breath from the everest walk up, but triumphantly presenting my Yoga Pass Book, The girl at the desk was friendly, she picked up right away that it was my first time, and took me through the paces, as I took in the colorful bohemian charm of the place.

Unfortunately, this is where the good part of my experience ended. I can forgive the shabbiness of the place, if it weren’t charging a remarkable monthly fee for unlimited classes. But for the monthly price I would be paying, I do have standards. I expect clean bathrooms, as in fungus-free sinks, changing rooms, where you can’t accidentally walk in on men and vice versa because the changing space is shared, and divided by wilting curtains. And the air, the cool spring breeze I had experienced outside was forgotten in the face of the sweltering almost stifling heat of the reception area, “I don’t remember this being a hot studio” I thought to myself, it’s not.

The studio it turned out was too small, so the teacher looked directly at me and said, ” if you’re just coming in the class is full“. I ducked away and pretended I hadn’t noticed her piercing gaze as she spoke in my direction. I had been about the 10th person on the sign-in sheet and was certain I was in the class. A girl looked helplessly at the teacher and pleaded, ” I don’t think there are 20 people around…”, the teacher firmly shook her head, “they’re around”, she pointed to the sign-in sheet. Dejected, the girls and others slowly left. The class was tight. So tight, you couldn’t fit three fingers between mats. Aware of this, I carefully rolled out my mat, the floor deeply sighed under the motion, my soon-to-be neighbor clearly annoyed barked, “you’ll need to move over more than that!”. And that was as friendly as it got.

During class, I was poked into adjusting my wrong utkatasana, and my shoulder in Utthita Parsvakonasana , and while we’re on the sanskrit, there wasn’t a drop of it in class, nor chanting, or ohming, and worst of all, no mention of the breath. This was minimalist yoga, imperceptible that it came from India or had a 5,000+ year history, this was yoga birthed from the *gasp*, Jane Fonda gym.

But, maybe it was just a bad day and a bad class, the reviews can’t all be wrong, and the commute is just too good. We all deserve a second chance.

I had my “Dress Rehearsal” class this past Tuesday. I reserved the smaller studio at New York Yoga, which we’re allowed to do for free during teacher training. At this point, I’m more comfortable in this studio than the larger. I’ve spent just about every weekend in it since January 5th, and I’m already feeling some separation anxiety just thinking about having to “give it up” after the program. I guess, I feel it’s special because it’s where I exercised my commitment, my second discovery of yoga, and on March 25th where I first shared it with my most important friend and family.

I had spent the night before re-reading my notes, assembling my play list, going through all of the sequences in my head, and on the cleared area of our living room floor. The whole time, wondering why I was so nervous, or worried that I wouldn’t get the class “right”. They wouldn’t know anyways. But I would know, and I worried that if i didn’t get it exactly right, i could very well ruin their experience of yoga FOREVER. Josh would see that despite my time and effort in it, I actually sucked eggs as a teacher, and my aunt who had previously practiced Koundalini a more Bhakti (devotional) variation of yoga, would realize that my version was inadequate. And yet, my desire to share yoga with friends and family, them specifically is what propelled me to sign up for the teacher training program. I recalled seeing my aunt strapped in her back brace, because she suffered severe back pain, the all too familiar kind generated after hours of hunching over the computer. And even if she happily explained that the brace was OK, and it helped her, I always felt a mild sense of panic when she wore it. Then there was Josh, dear sweet Josh with his concave stance, no matter how many “micro-adjustments” I made, he never stood straight and after awhile, it occurred to me that he might not know how. I thought that if I could make yoga accessible to both of them then maybe my aunt wouldn’t have to wear the brace, and Josh could learn how to be confident in his posture and stand straighter. So by the time March 25th rolled around, I had built up this mountain of expectation for myself, to the point that if I failed to “fix” them, then it was tantamount to the complete failure of my entire yogic career.

They arrived early, and excited to take my class. My aunt ooohed and ahhed at general yoga paraphernalia in the boutique. Josh was sitting on the bench outside of the small studio, reading a book (of course), and smiled that smile, that makes everything bright. I fumbled around with my set up, inwardly wishing I had just SOME of Alex’s (a co-teacher trainee) preparation skills. Through the rattling noise of stress in my head, I heard their cheerful chatter in the background, and it gave me the reassurance I needed to temper my anxiety. In the half minute I used to gather my thoughts, props, and playlist, I realized that they came all this way not for yoga, but for me, so to them this was already enough. And as I took my first authentically comfortable seat that week, and breathed, I knew that at least for tonight the healing power wasn’t coming from yoga, but a far more potent mixture of friends and family.