Beginning Yoga

The Spiritual Awakening of Yoga

The Spiritual Awakening of Beginning Yoga

I began taking Bikram yoga classes with my ex-wife at the Ashland YMCA in 1999. A lifelong jock, I was skeptical that yoga would be able to compete with my other longtime workout interests—five-mile runs, lifting weights, working with large animals, playing in a senior men’s hardball league, basketball—but I thought what the heck, give it a shot. I figured it would be a good thing to do with my partner, with whom things were not going so well.

I didn’t especially like my ex at the time, though I loved her, and I was willing to learn something new that might rejuvenate us. About that term, ‘rejuvenate us.’ I wasn’t aware enough then to think that, but as I describe it now years later, I see that’s part of what it was, the thing I was doing.

I was turning into an old dog who embarrassed himself often enough but was willing to learn new tricks. Besides, if the class didn’t go well, I could always say I tried and it wasn’t for me. I liked that another name for Bikram yoga was hot yoga. I liked it, though I wasn’t sure why.

I soon found out. Two things impressed me about my Bikram yoga class from day one. One thing was familiar to my athletic background; the other was a revelation, a life breakthrough. Bikram yoga for ninety minutes kicked my ass. Karen, our beautiful, sadistic teacher, relentlessly led us through one of the most torturous routines I’ve ever done. I sweated, strained, and grunted, coming out of her class drenched with perspiration and feeling as if I had just run a tough five miles. Ever persistent, I stuck with the class and attended three days a week for six months.

By then, I was swimming in the revelation that yoga classes were populated (well, 90 percent of them, anyway) by the most beautiful women a man will ever find anywhere. Happily, in an almost daze, I would take up my position on my mat in the back row and strike poses while silently ogling a paradise of The Divine Feminine from behind. It didn’t matter what age they were. In my yoga classes, women twenty to eighty-five were equally gorgeous. I have since found this to be a constant of any yoga class, and I am more grateful today for this gift than ever before. I approach the group participation and observation of these marvelous creatures with intense devotion and admiration. The attraction is sexual, yes, and even lustful on some level, but a deeper governing attraction is spiritual in nature. The women were working a meditative practice while working out, and that made them appear to be more grounded, focused,