Yoga by the Sea

There are quite a few yoga studios here in Tel Aviv and my friend Katie found a pretty good one last year.  We had both just arrived so it was a fun thing for us to do together.  But...yoga lessons get pretty expensive, especially in Tel Aviv!  Well, that studio went under (ha! that is funny because it was located in a basement!).  So Katie and I haven't really gone to yoga together since last summer.

Last week I heard about yoga lessons in the park...by the Sea...at sunset.  :)  The announcement was in one of a hand-full of English language listserves that I'm on but, like most everything on the that list, when you follow the link for more details it is only in Hebrew.  Still, Katie and I decided to give it a try.

The park is about 200 or 300 yards long, so we showed up at 630pm and started looking for someone else with a yoga mat.  When we couldn't find them we decided to try the phone number listed on the all Hebrew page.  A really nice girl answered and told us they'd moved the class back to 7pm (no surprise), and exactly where to meet.

The class was only 5 students and the instructor.  The sun set during the class and it surprisingly wasn't so hot, but it was humid.  At about the time we were doing warrior 2 (kind of squatting down with your arms out like you have a bow and arrow), a bridge (hands and feet on the ground, stomach to the sky, bent backwards like a bridge), and some other pose were you balance on your shoulders with your feet in the air...when we were doing those, small groups decided they'd stop and watch.  This was the intimidating part of this class, especially for someone who hasn't done yoga in a year.  We may have been the evening entertainment for some of the groups on the beach, but I think it was worth it.

How do you say "Namaste" in Hebrew?

As my sister-in-law Amy recently became a certified yoga and unknowingly inspired me to try it out. So yesterday I went to my first ever yoga class. (I'm not counting the McDonald's yoga DVD I tried once, I don't think McDonald's qualifies as yoga.)

I was supposed to walk or lightly jog a little less than a mile to get to the class and when I realized it was more like a two mile run (in 90* weather) I started to realize this may be a wee bit more difficult than I anticipated. The studio was in a basement on a very hip street and the instructor spoke English. Unlike my McDonald's DVD which is very calm and pleasant sounding, this instructor went pretty fast and sounded a bit like a depressed/bored secretary.

About 20 minutes into the class, as my friend and I are balancing like a stork on one foot with our bodies flat and perpendicular, tucking our chins down to look at our back foot, do we notice a great big beetle crawling towards our mats. I giggle as the beetle heads the other way annoying the yoga expert in front of me. Oops. 5 minutes later he returned. I quietly tip-toed to the back of my room to grab my shoe (you do yoga barefoot) and quietly brushed the bug away from our mats, careful not to interrupt the class. WHACK! Okay - so I interrupted the class but the bug was dead. Namaste.

The class continued well and with about 20 minutes left the expert in front of me looked back - I think to make sure I was still alive as I hadn't interrupted her recently. Lucky for me the pose the instructor had just told us to do was a stretch I've been doing since 6th grade before every soccer game or practice. Who's the expert now!?! Well she trumped me five minutes later when everyone was standing on their head and balancing on their elbows...that was a bit beyond my skill level.