Took a Yoga class at the new Yoga studio on Harrison (Yoga Mayu). The instructor was Gizella, who runs the studio. She seems like a good teacher. Her level 1-2 "Vinyasa Flow" class was at a good pace for me. My biggest complaint was that she played music during the class. I never recall having music on during a Yoga class before and found it most distracting. It wasn’t half as bad as the awful guy on the Oxygen network that my sister Linda was watching in Colorado, who played a bunch of pop and R&B songs and even actually grooved to them while supposedly practicing Yoga. But she did have music on quietly the entire time, and it ranged from fairly ambient and abstract Indian-influenced music to more folky rock and power ballads with people actually singing lyrics. I found it incredibly distracting (particularly when there was a back-beat and/or someone singing lyrics in English) and I had to work at blocking it out so I could pay attention to my breath and move through the poses at my own pace.

It’s a pity because the place is just two blocks away from my back door, and she seems to be a good instructor. I spoke with her after class about it and she claimed that all the Yoga studios play music now. Some of the young women who also took the class looked at me like I was nuts and didn’t understand why I had a problem with it. After they left, Gizella admitted to me that she doesn’t like having music either, and that she never used it when she was in Europe, but that she fears she won’t get enough people to sustain the studio without it because people expect it. I mentioned how my favorite Yoga instructor encourages her students to concentrate on the sound of the breath, and only occasionally uses some very tranquil music or plays the bowl toward the end of class. I told her that I hoped she’d consider having at least some classes like that...

(pining for Leigh-leigh–)

–pz