Day 108: The yoga scene

Back in the day when I was a graduate student at MIT and therefore had access to all sorts of delightful perks, I would often go to the weekly group classes at the gym across the street from my building (in the Stata center, which you can see in the background image for this blog).  This mostly involved power yoga, pilates, and something called "PiYo" (an attempt at a pilates/yoga fusion).  Vinyasa yoga was incorporated in most of these (even in the pilates to some extent), but somehow most of the courses managed to avoid the true "hold-this-pose-until-your-muscles-are-burning" part of vinyasa that gives it its punch. [Also probably the case that you don't get the most advanced / difficult classes in the world at the Stata Center.]


When my friend Az asked if I wanted to go with him to a vinyasa class, I was excited -- in fact another friend had just thrown a free class pass my way a few days before.  So A. and I went to O2 yoga in Somerville this afternoon after work, and I must say the 75-minute class really took it out of me.  My body used to feel like a nice happy sack of goo after pilates at MIT, but after this class left me feeling more like a sad sack.  Well, not too sad -- muscles felt used, but in the right way (not the over-stretching way, which is why I used to stick to pilates over yoga), body felt completely mellow, and my brain really felt quieted.  I will have to re-visit.

Even with the very zen feeling, I managed to make the most of the rest of the evening and got to see a bunch of great folks at two of my favorite just-north-of-Central-Square establishments -- the Cellar and Cantab.  [One of my friends brought a girl who looked absolutely terrorized at the prospect of entering the Cantab as we approached the bouncer who was checking IDs and seeing the folks who were entering; we had to pay her cover and coax her in gently.  We all had a great time dancing, though!]