The class involved drinking games and bumpin’ music. We passed the glass between our legs, lifted it overhead, and even handed it over to a neighbor in a hilarious chair pose variation. Meaning you had to be very aware of your wine at all times. We had a plastic tumbler of wine in hand for almost every pose. It was super accessible (poses you know and love, like warrior II and triangle pose), and we ended with a lovely, melty savasana. Walker’s class was very much a basic vinyasa yoga practice in the sense that we spent 45 minutes linking breath to movement in a sequence of poses.
And yet, I’m going to defend wine here: If goats, wine, or nudity bring you closer to Pratyahara (limb number five, loosely translated to “withdrawal from the wild stress-ball of a world we live in”), then shouldn’t it be OK to incorporate them into your yoga practice? Asana (movement) and Pranayama (breath) don’t even come into play until the third and fourth limbs, which just goes to show how much of a spiritual practice yoga really is. The first two limbs, Yama and Niyama, are about integrity and self-discipline, respectively. In case you’re unfamiliar with Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga, they’re basically a yogi’s eight-step guide to leading a meaningful life. I’m regularly served ads for retreats in Bali or Mykonos that cost more than two months’ rent and wonder how anybody can afford a 500-hour teacher training without a trust fund. I follow people on social media who can bend their bodies in ways I could never dream of bending mine. But living in the days when you can Instagram your Pincha Mayurasana or your incredible new Terez leggings, it’s hard out there for a yogi who just wants to do her own thing.
Maybe it was the wine hitting my bloodstream, but I was really enjoying yoga for the first time in a long time.ĭon’t get me wrong: I love yoga-I’m a 200-hour certified yoga teacher, and I’ve been practicing since I was 18 years old. But as I pressed my hips into the air for downward-facing dog, I caught my friend Erica’s eye, and we burst out laughing. Never have I ever done something so New York, I thought to myself. “Make sure to take a sip of wine before you pull forward into upward-facing dog!” Eli Walker called from Solfire‘s back patio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
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