Yoga to the People!

The inevitable has finally happened: after years and years of viewing my life through neurotic, stress-colored glasses, I've become a yoga addict. I love yoga. I love the way it feels to wake up (without an alarm!) and know that yoga will be a part of it. Some days, I fit yoga into my busy schedule. And some days, yoga is the highlight of my schedule. I'm content to sleep until noon, lounge around my apartment cooking and cleaning and snuggling in bed with hours of TV on DVD if I know that at some point during the day, I will leave the house and go to yoga. If I accomplish nothing else, I still feel productive if I go to yoga.

How has this happened? Me, a type-A, ambitious to a fault, self-flagellating control freak content to complete only one activity in an entire day?? I never thought I would be this person...and I LOVE it. I feel like I'm finally tapping into my best, most true self. I'm taking better care of myself than I ever have before...because taking care of myself is my main priority. It's awesome.

The stage for this phase of self-discovery is itself a great part of my motivation. Yoga to the People is a donation-based yoga studio on St. Marks Place, right in the heart of the NYU campus. In a musty old beautiful building with four studios on three floors, the studio is open 7 days a week to anyone with an inclination to show up. There is always a surplus of NYU students, dancers and actors, but there are all kinds of other people too. The teachers are all young, fresh-faced and encouraging. It's like an open yoga forum--anyone can come and everyone is welcome, even those who can't afford to make a donation. I used to take yoga at the 12th Street Gym in Philly, for the few sweet months I could afford to be a member, and though I always loved the classes, it had a much more somber ambiance. Since Yoga to the People is open to any and all who want to participate, the classes are often stuffed to the max...sometimes you'll be sharing the same stale, sweaty air with a hundred other people. It's a little slice of New York City in every class: overcrowded, full of people all striving to be at their best, isolated, and yet a part of a whole at the same time. Each person's practice is individual, personal, and yet we share the practice with each other. It's beautiful The teachers encourage everyone to smile whenever they feel compelled, and not take their practice so seriously. They also consistently remind everyone to thank themselves for doing such a good thing for their bodies by taking the time to come to yoga. I find it so rare in my life to be reminded that the things which are best for us should be enjoyable.

Tonight, I decided to jump off the proverbial cliff and attend my first hot yoga session, at YTTP's midtown hot yoga studio. Being an overachiever, and still a little high from yesterday's awesome afternoon class, I decided to forgo the 60 minute Vinyasa class and go straight for the gold: the 90 minute traditional Bikram class. I was told upon entering that I was required to have a towel, which I assumed I would do without since I don't generally sweat as much as most of the other people in my regular class, and so I rented one along with my mat. The hot yoga class isn't donation based, but a class is only $5. I settled into the steamy studio, thinking to myself how the heat felt like a big bear hug, and waited for class to begin.

Holy crap.

I mean...wow.

First of all, I had no idea my body was physically capable of sweating that much. I felt like I'd sweat out half my body weight in the first half hour. Sweat dripped off every inch of my body and didn't stop for an hour and a half. I hadn't thought to stock up my body's H2O supply before class, so it wasn't long before I started to feel nauseous. I probably spend half the class in corpse pose on the floor. However, the work I was able to do felt amazing. Poses that are often difficult for me to hold (particularly poses that have to do with balance...I have the hardest time stacking my hips solidly so that I can balance) came so easily. I felt more focused that ever, I'm sure because my ego was being sweat right out my pores with all the toxins in my body. An hour into the class, when we got to the floor work, I started to feel a remarkable sensation. The very center of my body, right between my groin and my belly, was opening up and suddenly I realized that was exactly the spot where my intuition lives. Isn't that amazing? When you become in tune with your body, when you become able to listen to it, you can find where your senses and emotions are physically located! Like when you're utterly heartbroken and your whole chest feels crushed, as if a sumo wrestler were putting all his weight on your poor sternum. Your heart, the place where your sense of compassion and love and longing come from, is literally located in your chest. In an instant, I learned where my intuition was located...and how beautiful it could feel when it was fully opened, impossible to be ignored. The breathing exercises at the very end of class became spiritual to me. My head was spinning and my heart was opening and I felt so emotionally and physically free. There was no stress, no worry. Only joy and gratitude for the opportunities that this moment in my life possessed. I knew everything I'd ever need to know. It was amazing.

It took me a full half hour to recover enough to even be able to stand and put my mat away. My body felt so weak and I know I was very dehydrated. But I felt empty and full at the same time and it felt fantastic. I felt yellow...if one can feel a color, that's what I felt. I went to the market below the studio and bought a container of cut-up pineapple and a small bunch of daffodils. As I was walking down 6th Ave to the D train, I almost crossed the street right in front of a taxi who had a green light. I stopped myself in time, and the cab driver honked a brief warning. Out of habit, I heard myself mutter "fuck you" and then stopped in my tracks. How funny! The way we are conditioned in our daily routines to foster stress and anxiety and frustration! It's been so drilled into my nervous system that I don't even realize it! I was so aware of everything, of this silly impulse that had flown out of me despite my state of zen. And I thought, I must go back and try again. Every time I go, it will get easier. And no matter how hard it is, I will never regret going.

On the subway ride home, I wrote the following in my journal:

"...my body feels great. It feels right--it feels like mine. I own this body. It's my only truly meaningful possession. My heart, my soul, my mind, my body. My breath. My experience. My feelings. I feel so wealthy. So fortunate to have this body. So fortunate to have these chances. Everything is a chance! Everything is an opportunity! My god, what a revelation! It seems so simple, but it's so profound. Every breath is an opportunity--to say or do something meaningful. Why would we spend our time wasting these opportunities? This is my revelation. This is my answer. Every moment holds an opportunity to make a choice. What choices will I make? How will I seize these opportunities? Every day I have a chance to be happy and to make others happy. To learn and to teach. To breathe and to grow. You miss so much by closing yourself off to any opportunity. The opportunity to really know another person. To be close to them. To see yourself in them, through their eyes. Every relationship is a chance to grow and should never be viewed as anything different."

I know I have a tendency to wax poetic, and I know I was in a hot yoga-euphoria, but I do believe these to be truths.

I've learned that when I focus exclusively on money, I'm unhappy. When I focus exclusively on my career, I'm unhappy. When I focus exclusively on my relationships with others, I'm unhappy. But when I focus on myself, I can see what each of those other things truly means to me, and how they can work in tandem to create a rich, full life that I'm thankful and proud to live.

What I must work on now is my ability to balance...both literally, and figuratively.

there will be no correct clothes

there will be no proper payment

there will be no right answers

no glorified teachers

no ego no script no pedestals

no you're not good enough or rich enough

this yoga is for everyone

the sweating and breathing and becoming

this knowing glowing feeling

is for the big small weak and strong

able and crazy

brothers sisters grandmothers

the mighty and the meek

bones that creak

those who seek

this power is for everyone

yoga to the people

all bodies rise



-YTTP's Mission Statement