Yoga to the People on the one hand, Yoga at the Bedford Post Inn on the other

Well, never let it be said that I hate every yoga class I go to and that the only teacher I can tolerate is myself. Bri had a birthday dinner in the city last evening, and I needed to kill some time. Since the dinner was at Le Gamin for crepes (very refined friends my son has, at least the ones who he left behind in NYC), I found myself at Yoga to the People on St. Marks. I hadn't been there since Sir (remember him?) did a week-long trial stint there. Well, since then, the place has grown exponentially, and at 5:00 p.m., two huge classrooms were filled with students.

Backing up to explain: there is no set schedule of who is teaching what class at YTTP. It's kind of like the Delta Shuttle. There's a scheduled classtime, and if one classroom fills up, they open up another and bring in another teacher. Classes are vinyasa, but they seem to be Baptiste-based, which is to say, the room is heated to about 80 at the start, and class begins with the childs pose to down dog to uttanasana sequence. VERY nice. I don't mind at ALL not starting immediately into the Sun Salutations.

Did I mention that classes are By Donation only? You pay after class, what you think you should pay. I paid $20, because I felt it was worth every penny. The class was nonstop movement, but most importantly, the teacher had no bones to pick, no agendas to push. It was all about, "Do this, but do it in a way that feels good. Do as much or as little as suits you. Take a variation if you want to, or don't." The music was like the Garden State soundtrack or something - Zero 7, Thievery, which I could have mixed myself, and often do. If I were not an Ashtanga junkie who lives in Northern Westchester, I would be there often.

If you live nearby, you MUST try it. It is exactly what I am looking for when I venture out of my self-practice. Therefore, it must be exactly what you are looking for. Ha. Kidding. But go. It's good. And Mary Kate Olsen practices there, I think, since I ran into her on my way out, and then again at Liquiteria where I went for my first Young Coconut of the season. YUM!!!!!!!!!! And no, she is not an anorexy waif. She is pretty and healthy-looking, and for a second, I thought that I knew her from somewhere, as opposed to from reading about her in Star Mag.

ANYWAY.

I haven't been teaching much yoga since I moved away from the city and became a professional child-chauffeur, got obsessively into gardening and enrolled in college again. And frankly, with all of the really mediocre to shitty teaching around, I haven't wanted to associate with BEING a yoga teacher at all lately.

But of course, like Don Corleone, I keep trying to get out, but they pull me back in. And as I would imagine it was with Don Corleone, it must be that I really don't WANT to get out fully, or I wouldn't be pulled back in. I could always say no...no?

What's been going on is that lately, I have been running into this woman that I know from the two yoga shalas I've been frequenting...make that "in-frequenting". Every time I show up at one, there she is. And this is in two different states, mind you. So...fate....whatever. Anyway, she has been teaching at Richard Gere's yoga studio about four miles down the road from me, where I have eaten lunch and talked ice-cream with Richard, but where I have never unrolled my mat. Turns out she's taking a couple of trips, including one to Mysore, and she needs a sub. That's where I fit in. Relief-teacher that I am.

I think I'm teaching there this Tuesday and Thursday evenings, assuming all of my chauffeuring duties are covered. And then probably in the late spring for a month or so when she is in Mysore. Yay, I think? It's something to do. And it's short-term. So I can enjoy it while it lasts.

A couple who lives nearby also asked me if I could teach them. Not sure if that will come to fruition. Don't much care. If it does, great. If not, I'm still doing my things.

Have my bi-annual oncologist visit next Monday, and I am surprisingly calm. It might be because I feel healthier than I have in like .... ever. I hope that how I feel is how I am.

YC