My office is minutes away from Atlanta Hot Yoga. My Ashtanga practice has been a bit scattered lately as my home studio is too close to the baby’s room (and I don’t EVEN want to risk waking up a sleeping baby) and Atlanta Yoga is too much of a trek. So I have kept my eyes open for other options. I attended couple of Bikram classes in Alpharetta recently but I was a little hesitant about re-engaging that style of yoga. It’s not that I don’t think the practice is beneficial, it’s the generally strict style that has always been a bit of a turn-off.
For instance, in my most recent visits to a Bikram class the teacher barked at me in front of the whole class, “That’s a towel? I could use that to blow my nose. That towel is more like toilet paper!” The next class was followed by a strong critique of one of my postures: “What’s wrong, aren’t you supposed to be a teacher or something?”
Granted, I have certainly encountered Ashtanga teachers (and Iyengar, and Kripalu teachers as well…) that wanted to assert their authority over the class which kinda made the whole experience suck. But I try to keep an open mind so I decided to give the local studio a try. It was convenient, after all.
I stopped in on a Monday evening and Wes was teaching. I was surprised when he recognized me as a teacher (Atlanta is a big city) and fully expected to be ostracized as per my previous experience. But that wasn’t the case at all. The class was very pleasant (and very hot and difficult) but there was nothing but kindness from the teacher. That made a big difference and made me much more inclined to support the studio.
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