Wednesday, January 03, 2007


trippy!

so after a last-minute conversation about work matters kept me a little later than usual, i rushed out to catch a second class at yoga to the people with cindy since several people who read my previous review wrote to me about her. but in my hurry i hit the street only to realize i'd left my big black mat on my aeron chair!

so i had to rush back up into the sky to fetch it -- now i was really late -- and took the 2 trains to get to astor place. i arrived at yttp with just enough time to toss down my mat and change my clothes.

but as soon as i opened the door, i thought i was gonna freak out. there had to be 50, 60, even more people politely jockeying for space.

i mean, the mats were lined up all the way from the front of that long room to the very back, past the piles of mexican yoga blankets. crazy!

the only space left was in the very front, so there i ended up. these power yoga classes seem all the same, so there's nothing to say in terms of learning new poses, sequences, or chants. because there won't be any: they're really a rather standardized product (that's just the style).

however, one of the results of this standardization is that the personality of the teacher becomes really more prominent in a certain way. it's the only thing that's going to vary, you know?

i almost have nothing to say about the class that i didn't remark on last time, except to frankly say that cindy seems a little ballet-teacherish to me. it's not a personality type that works for who i am, as long-time readers might guess.

cindy often said "the foundational breath is the key element. . .never lose the breath," but this style doesn't often lend itself to moving in a way that can make that true for most of the students, especially the beginners, who appear to attend these classes.

so the thing i will remark on: yttp does appear to have one of the largest frosted singing bowls i've yet to see in nyc. 18, maybe 22 inches!

cindy rang that thang up good during savasana. in yttp's long room with bare brick walls the stationary bowl's unearthly, deep tones bounced around in a truly psychedelic manner. some strange harmonies resulted from the space's echo catching back up with the harmonics of the huge glass.

she must have played it for a good 3 minutes, and sometimes the sound would seem to bunch up on one side of the room, very loud, as if these harmonies were roaring in one side of your brain. and then the tones would feel as if they were fading, only to rush with renewed force over the other side of your head.

the sound dynamics were freaky too -- loud, soft, alternating, colliding. . .woo. timothy leary, call home.

in short, my opinion remains the same: if you like this style, this a good studio. even if you don't like this style so much, but are open to experiment with different schools of yoga, greg is the teacher to check out here.

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posted by fortune | 7:43 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments