59 W. 19th St. 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10011
www.laughinglotus.com
212.414.2903
As much as I love the thought of checking out a multitude of different studios, it didn’t take me long to realize that this was quickly becoming a pretty expensive venture. When I was playing around online one day, I saw a reference to something called the Yoga Passbook that supposedly was a coupon book filled with free classes to hundreds of studios in the New York City area. I was intrigued. Could such a treasure really exist? And if so, was it legitimate? Lo and behold, I quickly found it through the American Health and Fitness website and after Googling some reviews I found that it was indeed legitimate! They even have fitness passbooks for Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.
Once it arrived, I flipped through and was excited to see a pass for Laughing Lotus studio. I had wanted to check this place out ever since I found out I was moving to NYC. Something about the name and fun sounding classes like Flower Hour and Lounging Lotus just called to me. I decided to go to a Happy Hour class (because who doesn’t love happy hour?) with Betsy.
I usually like to walk to class and check out the area, but since it was a rainy day I took the train to Sixth Ave and it was a short walk from there (also just as convenient from Union Square). I entered the building and waited for the elevator with several other yogis. Unfortunately, the elevator decided to skip the 3rd floor and take us to the next floor where another passenger was getting off. He commented that the elevator was a bit finicky and he was just hoping it didn’t get stuck as it had happened to him before. When the elevator doors opened on the 4th floor we all quickly disembarked and decided it was a safer bet to walk back down a flight instead of chance it with the possessed elevator. As I walked towards the studio, I made a mental note to always take the stairs from now on.
The smell of incense guided me towards the studio and when I opened the door I was hit with a blast of hot air. I’m starting to understand why hot yoga is so popular in NYC. All the studios seem to run on the warm side anyways, so it’s just going with the natural tendency of the studio. As far as I knew Laughing Lotus was a vinyasa flow based studio, not necessarily hot yoga, but I immediately knew I was guaranteed to break a good sweat.
As we entered the “Love” studio, I admired the brightly painted walls and an amazing glass chandelier that looked like a lotus flower growing out of the ceiling. I found my preferred spot along a sidewall and sat down to enjoy the music that was pumping out of the sound system.
According to Betsy the theme for the month was meditation so we took some time to talk about being victorious over the mind and all of its mental chatter. We then set about focusing on the breath and tuned in with three OM’s (I have yet to go to a class in NYC that doesn’t open and close with OM’s).
The hour seemed to fly by as we flowed our way through sun salutations, plenty of warriors, lunges and twists and even a child’s pose here and there. She also threw in some playful poses like Bird of Paradise and Crow (Bakasana). Before I knew it, the music was slowing down and we were settling into Savasansa.
After I gathered my stuff and checked out the books, clothes and other goodies for sale in the lobby, I walked down the stairs, waved good-bye to Betsy and a fellow student I’d been chatting with and walked into the rain appreciating the cooling effect and the fact that it would hide how sweaty I’d gotten in class.
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