Monday-ish

I know I promised to write about Hot Nude Yoga on Monday and it's now Friday but I've been busy. I just bought this book


and this one


and probably this one


and a bunch of yarn (was bought for me). So I'm itching for some knitting. Also, yesterday at the end of a Pilates session I told my client that I really liked his socks. He told me his aunt knit them for him and that she's apparently part of a bunch of knitting guilds in New York. I told him that I knit at which point he offered to give me his aunt's phone number. He said it totally wouldn't be weird for me to call her. So I'm gonna.

So. Hot Nude Yoga is literally the title of the place, not just a description of the classes. And yes, it was nude, it was yoga, but it wasn't all that hot. It definitely wasn't sexy, which isn't the point. The "hot" apparently refers to the temperature in the room and while there were two space heater revolving I wouldn't ever describe the room as hot. It was pleasant but I was ready to sweat. I was expecting some Bikram type heat, I wanted to sweat. But no.

Anyway, I arrived and decided to walk up to the fourth floor to the studio. On the way I kind of started thinking about something else and lost track of what floor I was on. I thought I'd come to the right door but wasn't sure so I went up one more flight of stairs and came upon the roof door. So I went back down and called the elevator, pressed the 4th floor button when I got on and waited. The elevator didn't go anywhere so I figured I must be on the fourth floor so went back out and gingerly tried the door (there's only 1 door per floor). It was locked. Okay. Down I went one flight and tried that door. It opened into the studio. I don't know how I got mixed up. As I walked in there was a wall right in front blocking off the majority of the studio. In front of the wall was a small space with places for shoes and bags (and clothes, of course). I was greeted by a man who asked me my name and if I had ever been there before. I told him no as I pulled out my yoga mat. He remarked that I must have done a lot of yoga though because my mat was so well worn. (My roommate gave it to me a while ago because it was old and she was just going to throw it away, it totally has pressed in dirt from probably years of downward dog.) I laughed and told him that I'd actually never taken an official yoga class but I used the mat for Pilates. As we were speaking a completely naked man walked out from behind the wall, retrieved a water bottle from his bag and returned from whence he came.

So I stripped down, grabbed my water (coconut), towel, crappy mat and walked around the wall. There were five naked men sitting on yoga mats, a couple were talking. I walked over, spread out my mat and sat down. A few minutes later the instructor (who was the same guy who greeted me at the door) came in, also nude, and introduced himself. Then I took class. There's really not that much to tell, even all the stuff before this I've really tried to flesh out and make interesting. I never felt turned on at all and actually quite enjoyed taking class nude. I was slightly self-conscious at first but after a while it just didn't enter my head anymore that I was nekkid. And we even did a lot of partner work. There was even some butts pressing against each other while we did some bent over work. But really, no big deal. I'll say I actually was a little nervous about the possibility of getting hard in class and their website even addresses that but the atmosphere was completely non-sexual (this was also at 7:30AM).

I took another class Wednesday night. This one was for beginners but I didn't enjoy it as much. There were more people and more philosophy was inserted into class. I have a hard time with a lot of yoga philosophy because it often starts to sound like religion and I just can't get behind that. I'd rather use yoga as a way to open up my muscles and body rather than as a way of living. Maybe that will change some day, who can say? For now, if I continue, I'll use the classes as time to apply principles I'm learning in my Alexander Technique lessons.

So that's it. Not too exciting huh? I'm sorry. If anything exciting/crazy happens I'll write about it but I don't know if I'll go back or not. Each class is $20! I don't know if it's worth the extra $5-$8 just to take my clothes off.