Play in the Park

Bryant Park Yoga

Sponsored by Lululemon

Upper Terrace

212.768.4242

www.lululemon.com

http://www.bryantpark.org/calendar/week.php

Oddly enough, I have never taken a yoga class outside. (I’ve had the chance to teach one, but never experience one myself.) Despite having lived in California for 5 years, I missed the opportunity to take advantage of yoga classes on the beach or in the park. Moving to New York in the peak of springtime, I vowed to take advantage of some of the yoga in the park options before they became winter wonderlands once again.

With all the rain we’ve had, many of the classes have been cancelled so I finally got my first opportunity last Tuesday with a Lululemon sponsored FREE yoga class in Bryant Park. Anything offered for free in NYC makes me giddy like a 5-year old. Studios throughout the city volunteer teachers to instruct the classes and for this particular Tuesday it was Mel Russo, one of my favorite teachers from Yoga High NYC on the LES, giving me yet another reason to be excited.

With a hop in my step (as much as I could muster for a morning yoga class) I made my way to the subway and up to Bryant Park. The park itself backs up to the New York Public Library and our class was to take place on the Upper Terrace overlooking the lawn. On Thursday evenings, Lululemon hosts another yoga class that takes place on the lawn, but for Tuesdays the lawn is closed due to Monday evening movies in the park. (Note to self, attend movie in the park one of these days.)

I was early, as always, so I took a moment to check out my surroundings. There are lots of chairs and tables surrounding all four sides of the park. There is also a bar and grill and a small location of ‘wichcraft, a sandwich place that I fell in love with in Vegas. I took advantage of the free Wi-Fi and sent a couple emails before heading over.

As I walked up the terrace stairs, I was impressed with the setup. Separated into three sections were groups of mats lined up about 8 across and 5 rows deep. Each mat had a blanket-like pad underneath it to give a little more cushion and keep the mat clean. I had brought my own mat so they told me to feel free to roll up one of theirs and put mine down.

After I signed the waiver form, I went about the important task of choosing my spot. I settled on a front row seat in the middle section. I had a perfect view of the park in front of me surrounded by the towering skyscrapers of Midtown including the new LEED certified Bank of America building.

I had a few minutes to stretch out and enjoy the day before Mel showed up. When she did, she took a moment to smile at a few familiar faces and then commenced class. We took a moment to deepen our breath and signal the start of our practice with an OM. I figured since it was such a large, varied group of individuals, we would stick with a standard flow and I got just what I expected. Mel worked us through several sun salutations and with the sun continuing to rise in the sky, it wasn’t long before we were soon being heated from the inside and out. We flowed into and out of lunges, Warrior I and II, Reverse Warrior, Extended Side Angle and Triangle pose. As I moved through the poses, I noticed the other practitioners around me and took a breath to appreciate the energy that comes with doing yoga in a group.

In what felt like only a few minutes, we were cooling ourselves with a balancing tree pose. I don’t know why, but I was really excited about the chance to do tree pose while being surrounded by the trees and I think I would have been disappointed if we hadn’t done it. Soon after, we were on our backs doing a final reclined twist before moving into Savasana.

As I hugged Mel and thanked her after class, I decided I was enjoying my day too much to head home just yet. I made my way over towards the carousel and took a seat. I was in such a good mood and I wanted to share my experience. I pulled out my cell phone and saw that I had missed a call from my mom so I took the opportunity to call her back. What better person to share with?

Studio Updates

Much to my dismay, I recently found out that East West Yoga closed its doors on June 27th. The book store, cafe and art gallery are still in full swing so stop by and check them out! On a happier note, The Open Center is making its way into a new and bigger location. According to their website, classes are still being held at the old location 0n 83 Spring Street until July 25th. After that it is recommended to call the center for more info on move dates.

Take a deep breath and Exhale

Exhale Spa

980 Madison Ave

New York, NY 10075

212.249.3000

www.exhalespa.com

I will be the first to admit that traffic was a big deterrent to my practice in LA. If a studio wasn’t right in my neighborhood, it took at least 20 minutes to get there. Add onto that another 10 minutes so you get there early, plus the hour to hour and a half for the class plus the 20-minute drive home. All in all it was a production that often took a good 2 ½ hours out of the day.

When a studio was all the way across town- forget it! Between carving out that chunk of time to finding a class in the perfect time slot that would allow me to (fingers crossed) avoid “rush hour” traffic, the post yoga bliss often didn’t last beyond the doorway. Because of this, I sadly didn’t get to experience many great studios in LA, one being Exhale in Venice.

Enter the NYC subway system. Ahhhh. Even if I want to go from all the way downtown to all the way uptown, it’s usually a max of 45 minutes. No traffic jams keeping me on the freeway for an hour and a half. So, the other day I hopped on the 6 and in 25 minutes made my way to the Upper East Side location of Exhale Spa.

I walked into their second floor location and found the front desk bustling with activity. It seems they were getting ready for the grand opening party at their new location in the Gansevoort Hotel. One of the girls at the front desk signed me in and showed me back to the studio, pointed out the changing rooms and left me to my pre-yoga rituals.

After a few minutes of debating what was the front of the class, I laid out my mat and began to stretch my notoriously tight hamstrings. Eventually the instructor, Anna, made her way into the studio bringing with her a smiling face and cheery disposition. We were a mixed bag of practitioners. We were all female, but ranged in level and age, even including a couple teens who were newer to the practice. It always makes me happy to see kids experimenting with the practice of yoga.

It was a level 2 class, but because of the student make-up, we stuck to a standard class of sun salutations and standing poses working a lot with flowing from Warrior I to Warrior II and adding on from there. It was a nicely paced flow with a couple breaks in child’s pose to keep us from getting too sweaty.

As we moved from standing to seated poses, we took a moment to work our abs with Navasana (boat pose) and then moved on to some cooling and quieting forward folds. As I sat with my eyes closed in Paschimottanasana, trying to breath into the backs of my legs to soften the stretch, I realized the maybe, just maybe, because of the my more regular practice my hamstrings actually were starting to give just the teeniest bit!

As I walked outside I was greeted with the sunshine and a virtually perfect New York summer day. I decided to meander my way through Central Park and carried with me not only my yoga mat, but also a sense of feeling completely blessed.

Produce Your Yoga

OM Factory

265 W. 37^th Street, 17^th Floor

New York, NY 10018

212.616.8661

http://www.omfactorynyc.com/

One of the studios Eric at East West Yoga had suggested I try was OM Factory. I had been interested in checking it out so I planned to go there after work one Thursday. Unfortunately for me, I was under the false impression that it was near Union Square (wishful thinking maybe?). At the last minute, I realized that it was actually in Midtown West and had to scramble to make sure I could get there on time from far north on the Upper East Side.

In the end there was nothing to worry about and I was embarrassingly early. Seeing as I don’t often frequent Midtown, I didn’t know where to go to kill some time so I just decided to head upstairs early. They are on the 17^th floor of a high rise building on the corner of 8^th Avenue and 37^th Street. They have large banners on the scaffolding that surrounds the building so it’s very easy to find.

The elevator opens on the 17^th floor to face the front desk and a small lobby and retail area. To the right of the elevator is a fun lime-green bench that snakes around the oddly shaped corners of the lobby. I was oddly drawn to that bench.

As I filled out my paperwork, I chatted with the guy at the front desk who was really friendly. Sadly, I don’t remember his name. He told me how he had found his home at the studio not long ago after having relocated himself.

After perusing the retail area, I grabbed a free magazine and headed into the asana room to relax for a bit. It was a muggy day and as I walked in I surveyed the room for a prime spot. Seeing as I was the only one in there, I moved myself around several times before deciding on a location. I settled near the far wall underneath the windows as I thought the circulation might help cool me down. I later realized that these windows were actually closed so it really did me no good.

Emily, the instructor and director of OM Factory, walked in a couple minutes after I had situated myself and after saying hello, she began warming up on her mat. The rest of the students slowly trickled in and there were at least 10 of us by the time class began. Emily divulged that we would be doing a fairly sweaty and vigorous class, but to stay with her if we could as she promised us some delicious, long forward folds at the end of class.

As promised, we quickly moved through our Sun Salutations and Standing Poses working our way up to Handstand prep pose at the wall. We ended with several twists and forward folds, some of our own choosing, and then floated off into a decent length Savasana.

After practice, I got to talking with Emily about their classes. I noticed the schedule was fairly heavy on Vinyasa Flow classes with a few other styles peppered in like Restorative and Prenatal. She explained that since they are located in a non-residential area of Midtown, they are working to update their schedule to keep their classes creative and imaginative and entice students to come later in the evenings and weekends.

They’ve created a style called Yoga Fight Club, which is a combination of Yoga, Kickboxing and Martial Arts. They also have a couple of Acro Yoga classes on the schedule and are in the process of building a new asana room specifically for Anti-Gravity yoga classes. I had to agree that there was nothing mass-produced or "factory-like" about these classes. I’m not sure if Yoga Fight Club is my thing, but being a past gymnast and cheerleader, Acro and Anti-Gravity yoga sounds right up my alley!

The Best of East and West

East West Yoga

78 Fifth Ave

New York, NY

212.243.5995

http://www.eastwestnyc.com/

Union Square in New York City is one of those not-so-touristy mecas where locals go for one stop shopping. It has everything from a Lululemon to a pet store and the city’s only Trader Joe’s (although I hear they’re opening one on the Upper West Side). It’s also home to the biggest Greenmarket in the city that runs all day on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Seeing as there is so much to do in this little area, it only makes sense that yoga studios would want to find a home there as well.

One of these studios is East West Yoga about a block off of Union Square. The whole East West Enterprise consists of a bookstore, café, art gallery, yoga classes and special events. One day as I perused their website I decided to check out their yoga class schedule. They have a smaller schedule consisting of around 30 classes and I noticed they didn’t have any classes that started before noon on the weekdays. Seeing as I suddenly have a penchant for being a night person, noon sounded like the perfect time to take a class. I headed over there on a Wednesday feeling a bit sluggish. According to their schedule there were two classes that started at noon. One was a Vinyasa flow class and the other was a Gentle Hatha class. As I rode the train over, I continuously wavered between the two trying to decide which one I wanted to take.

Their website stated that they were located above the East West bookstore and indicated if you had any problems figuring out how to get to the studio you should stop into the bookstore and ask. Knowing my sometimes difficulties in finding places, I decided to give myself plenty of time to figure everything out. Standing on the corner of 5^th Ave and 14^th Street, I had a little trouble locating the address as there isn’t a lot of signage, but once I walked across the street, the entrance was obvious and I easily made me way upstairs.

Since I was early, I was the first student there. I walked up to the desk and began chatting with the receptionist as I filled out my paperwork. (FYI, even though they have a coupon in the Yoga Passbook, they don’t actually accept them. Apparently they’ve asked numerous times to be removed from the book, but each year they still magically appear in there.) She indicated that they had had a recent schedule change and that there was only one Wednesday noon class for the summer. Decision made! After she explained where everything was, I made my pre-yoga bathroom stop and then headed into the room. Right outside the room I noticed a sign that discussed the art gallery room rental.

Upon entering the room I immediately understood what the sign was talking about. I was greeted by a colorful exhibit of paintings that chronicled the life of a family, from boy meets girl to copulation, birth and the happy family stage. They were artistically amazing, but I have to admit I was a little taken aback by the birthing image and found it hard to concentrate on anything else for the first couple of minutes. I soon began conversing with another student who was a Kundalini yoga teacher, and she was able to distract me from focusing on the artwork.

We were a small group of 5 students and as our teacher, Eric, began class he addressed the recent change in the schedule by indicating his class would be more of a slow flow practice then the faster Vinyasa flow that was indicated on the schedule. Perfect!

It was a typical flow class consisting of sun salutations, standing poses a couple of backbends and a closing shoulder stand. Eric knew that the 5 of us varied in experience level and made sure to offer multiple pose modifications so we could guide our own practice. For as low as my energy level had been before class, I surprised myself by opting to take several of the more advanced variations. By the time I settled into Savasana I was a happy camper. The class had been just enough movement to make me feel energized without taxing my already tired body.

After class I asked Eric his suggestions on other studios in the city that I should add to my list. He was very kind and offered up plenty of places so my already long list has now grown even longer! One of these days when I’m at the Greenmarket, I’ll have to meander back over and check out the bookstore and café and maybe pick up some metal singing bowls that I’ve been interested in learning how to play.