Yoga on the Road

This afternoon I practiced at The Shala near Union Square. Director and co-founder of the studio, Barbara Verrochi, taught a beautiful, challenging class steeped in the Ashtanga tradition, with a little softness here and there. She was trained and authorized by Guruji himself. 

I bumbled into the studio an hour early - I caught the train down from the Upper West Side, carrying an enormous backpack and an overflowing tote bag. I was hot, sweaty, tired, hungry, and not all together sure if a vigorous yoga class sounded like the best idea under these circumstances. Yet more and more I am finding that I am always in the mood for yoga, in spite of lousy conditions.

I sat quietly on a bench and watched the Shala staff clean and tidy the space. Eventually more students began to file in.  Barbara began by talking about the breath, and how extending the breath and measuring it carefully moment by moment leads to true longevity of the mind and body. "You can live one hundred years," she said. "You'll die of course, but you'll live longer if you are mindful of the breath." (I spend entire classes working on my ujjayi breathing.)

In a place like New York, this kind of attention to the breath is very, very difficult, and very, very essential. You forget how to feel the breath as it moves through the body, as it leaves the body, as it reenters the body. You lose it. You're walking quickly, jogging along, dodging other bodies in motion, navigating, hurrying, halting, carrying your own weight, the weight of your things, the weight of your anxieties. In all of this you lose the breath and you get fatigued, frustrated, confused. You get in your own way.

When I left the studio, I had to strap on that backpack, I had to carry that tote bag. I went down the road to the Jivamukti Yoga School, specifically to eat at the Jivamuktea Cafe. I ate a delicious, albeit expensive, vegan Caesar salad with tempeh croutons. A full hour of sitting, eating and reading. Temporary semi-stillness. And then it was back into the frenetic, electric flow of the city. 

At the end of the day, I'm not sure if I'm a city person. I'm sensitive. Perhaps one day I will have the spiritual and energetic fortitude to handle the urban centrifuge. At the moment, however, I'm thinking: farms, sky, organic food, winding roads, typewriter, books, contemplation, yoga.