Beth of Both Worlds (May Issue)

I used to be a total yoga snob. So when one of my yoga-friends reappeared in our world-class class and confessed she'd been 'doing yoga at the gym', I thought, 'Gym Yoga?! I would never do gym yoga!' She was back now, because she'd been injured. Sure, gym yoga! Only a fool would do gym yoga!

Then my living situation changed and I couldn't make it to my world-class class five times a week. Or even four. Or sometimes even once. I did everything I could. I rushed away from things before they had ended, I over extended, I pretended. Basically, I fought the flow that I had worked so hard to learn in my practice.

When I did get to class, my yoga-friends would ask where I'd been.

"Practicing at home," I would say. I could see that pitying 'I would never give up these classes' look in their eyes.

"Isn't it lonely," they would ask.

"Oh no," I would say. But it was lonely. Yes, I tried downloads and CDs. I embraced the joy of listening to my own body and being my own teacher. Still, lonely.

In desperation I bought one of those day-glo rave hoola hoops because they were pitching hooping as a complementary practice to yoga. The only thing was, I wasn't actually practicing enough yoga for it to be a compliment to!

I made it to my world-class class one day but I couldn't even enjoy it. "Are you okay," my teacher asked.

"I feel my practice slipping away," I said.

"It's just asana. You're living your yoga."

"That's sweet," I said, and I started to cry.

I decided to join a gym because this way I'd be in shape to practice when I could get to class. And because there is one two minutes from my house. It's called World Gym. If there was any word that could make we want to join a gym it might be world.

As long as I'm there, I check out the yoga. And to my shock I found a teacher I really liked. Now, of course, I'm happily practicing 'gym yoga' three times a week. Never say never. Didn't Pantanjali say that in the sixth sutra?

At first doing yoga at the gym freaked me out. So loud! So bright! The classes are only an hour!? Mirrors in the studio? I missed the yoga studio sign in, where incense and ohm chatchkes create a kind of overture for class. Now I entered through a subway-esque turnstile whose electronic ID tracker raises paranoiac feeling about governments and RFIDs if I let it. But I found that actually, I wasn't letting it. That I was becoming my own source of calm, not depending so much on the lighting and soundtrack.

And what a soundtrack! Instead of the hushed sounds of post shavasana yogis blended with harmonium and waterfall, I am welcomed by POUNDING DANCE MUSIC. So loud I can barely hear myself think. Hey wait, isn't that a lot like ujai breathe?

Beyond the turnstile at World, a bank of a dozen TV's hang from the ceiling, blaring "Terror! Gossip! Financial Ruin!" I remind myself that Ganesh is not only the remover of obstacles, but also the placer of them. And that obstacles create opportunities. And that these dozen High-Def fear-based images give me the opportunity to consciously embrace love!

Inside the yoga/bike/step/hip-hop room things change. The lights are low, and the Gayatri Mantra plays. But it never quite disguises the other music. Or the punching bag. On the best days it actually blends harmonically into one. And looking at the guys pumping up on the machines it occurs to me that I am pumping up too. Pumping up my drishti, pumping up my ability to focus on the sitars without letting the thump-thumping freak me out.

One extra bonus: yoga virgins wandering into class. An excellent opportunity to suck new people in. I mean help and give guidance. And then there they are on the Nautilus machines, happy to help me klutz around.

Then one day my teacher pointed out how a particular ansana would be expressed "in the perfect Yoga World"! And his tone of voice implied that this was a world we should accept that we might never enter. And while it was true for me with that pose, it occurred to me that I may have entered some sort of other 'perfect yoga world'.

Because I notice that, maybe thanks to World Gym, I am practicing more yoga in the world. Maybe because I feel like World Gym is so unlikely a spot for yoga that any spot seems like a possible yoga spot to me now. In the car, on stage, in bed. In line at Trader Joes. All excellent places to connect with unbound consciousness.

But I am also always so happy to return to my favorite world-class studio. I am happy to practice. In this world or that. Or both. Always mindful in either world that the other exists, that it's all one world. Thank you gym yoga!

End

Read columns from previous months:
         To See or Not To See

         Let It Go-Go

Have your own
My Other Car is a Yoga Mat
license plate holder!

Express your love of yoga while you drive
(landscape not included)