Sights, Smells and Sounds

I was riding home from a friend's tonight after a rather commendable session of acro-yoga (commendable because all three of us were 'wrecked', which is Irish for the Canadian 'bagged' or simply put: tired and creaky), and suddenly the city was on fire with sights and smells. The moon was full, and so I howled, honoring the hunky new werewolf guy on True Blood, who my friend Paul and I were lasciviously ogling on IMDB this morning as we Skyped. And when I reached the Liffey I could smell - I think for the first time -- the scent of the sea coming off the river. I forget that I live right by the sea - it's only a 30-minute walk from my front door - but the industry around the centre of the bay makes it less appealing. Sure, I see and smell the sea when I go to Howth or Dun Laoghaire or Greystones, but it is absent on my daily strolls about town.

But tonight, with the balmy breeze blowing, the stars just beginning to come out, and moon full, that gorgeous salty air was all around me. As I pulled into my courtyard, I saw a wee wee mouse scuttle under the gate. This surprised me, because I think it's the first rodent I've seen in Dublin - no kidding! The gulls are building some kind of uber-colony on the roof of my building, I am sure of it from the cacophony of wails that wake me up in the wee hours, but the four-legged wanderers are less in view.

Last weekend I biked to Dun Laoghaire, and was amazed at all the cute pubs and shops and parkettes along the way. I spend a lot of time in very few areas of Dublin. It's under 12km from my door to the DL pier, which is about the distance it took me to travel from the Berkeley St. Theatre to my home the last year I lived in Toronto. Peanuts. But in Dublin terms, it's a hike, and it hadn't occurred to me to do it until my friend suggested it. The purpose of the trip was to do yoga on the pier as part of the Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures, but it was raining, so the yoga teacher took the lot of us back to her studio, and ran a lovely gentle hatha class that contained a fair degree of challenge. I chatted to her afterwards, trying to place the accent, and found out she is a New Yorker who has been living in Ireland for 7 years. It's funny, because some people, like my friend Aoife, pick up the accent very lightly and evenly, with all words being inflected just slightly. Others, like this yoga teacher, have some words that sound very clearly Irish in pronunciation (usually 'but' is one of them), and others that still sound quite North American... Anyway, her studio was lovely, and she says that she does authentic hot yoga - not the lukewarm kind that I encountered way back when I arrived in the fall. I'll be biking back to Dun Laoghaire for fresh sea air and hot yoga sometime in the next couple of weeks...

PS I know I haven't written a single entry in 3 months. Oh well.

Yooooo! Gaaaa!

I committed myself to a personal 30-day yoga challenge recently, and I figured it’s about time to update the blog on all things yoga, ‘cause I’ve been doing a lot of it in The Dub, and I don’t think the blog quite reflects this.

The 30-day thing is all over Facebook – different groups imploring you to join their challenge – and several studios back at home have created courses around it. I am not sure why one month is the key amount of time (other than Gaia’s womanly cycles), but it seems like a long enough commitment to feel substantial, but short enough to … not cramp my lifestyle too much. My dear sister Amber (who currently can’t actually do yoga due to a shoulder injury) and dear friend Paul (who lives on my kitchen table via Skype) have committed to join me in this journey. Amber is going to do some sort of physical practice every day that accommodates her injury, and Paul is going to keep up with the yoga. For myself, I decided that anything counts. Committing to 30 days is substantial, so I decided that I would not put other restrictions or limitations on myself. If I can only do 10 minutes of pigeon and cat-cow, then that counts.

I’m not sure about you, cyberspaceanonymous reader, but I have this thing: I don’t do very well with fitting important things into small spaces of time. If there is something that matters to me, I feel like it needs a big amount of time. An example might help to illuminate what I am saying: say that it is 6 pm, and I have tickets for a theatre performance at 8pm. And I haven’t had dinner yet. And I haven’t practiced yoga that day. In this scenario, I would not unfurl the mat on my laminate faux-wood flooring, because yoga takes an hour. If I do yoga for an hour, it is 7pm. And then I need to eat and change and get to the theatre, and there is just not enough time. So, I don’t do the yoga. BUT ... why don’t I just do 20 minutes of yoga, and call it a day? I am not sure ... I think I have issues around personal achievement. I think I have high-achiever syndrome. I once told my partner that I was a ‘competitive yoga player,’ but that was a long time ago, and I am so glad that I am older and wiser now. Time and space. These are things I am working on, during this sabbatical year ... during my personal sabbath – my year of rest and restoration.

So, enough soul-searching blather, and onto the yoga. There is a lot of yoga going on in Dublin. Kinda suddenly, things seem to have exploded. I would like to account for it based on my own great enthusiasm for the practice, but, it’s probably just a kind of Yoga Zeitgeist. A couple of months ago, the Open Minds Project opened their doors on Pearse Street, with donation-based yoga classes seven days a week. They have multiple classes with different teachers and different styles everyday, and the donation system makes it affordable to go frequently. This is important because -- I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this – established studios in Dublin charge 18 Euro per class, which is, frankly, astronomical. I mean, take your salary (if you are lucky enough to have one) and divide it by 356 days and subtract your required living expenses and ... can you afford to spend 18 Euro per class on a regular basis? I can’t. Anyway, I digress...

So, the Open Minds is pretty cool. Apparently it is run by a Dublin businessman who owns a bunch of properties, and wants to invest (morally?) in a not-for-profit space.

The other place I frequent is Yoga Dublin at Ranelagh (they have a studio now at Dundrum as well), but the reason I go there is because I LOVE the Thursday evening class with Deirdre. Yoga in Dublin is generally kinda relaxed and gentle. But Deirdre, with her Ashtanga background, really pumps it up. Last week I actually felt a bit out of breath, and I fell on my butt several times trying to achieve tittibhasana (this is an improvement - I usually fall on my head). I cherish the almost-bruises. I like to think that I do yoga primarily as a spiritual practice – as a way to balance myself in the universe – but let’s face it, I want to rock it out and do all the cool arm balances and inversions and REALLY DIFFICULT AND TOTALLY GORGEOUS STUFF. I’m not a competitive person by nature, except when it comes to athletic things. I used to play squash, and frequently I felt like I would rather beat my squash partner with my racquet than lose the game. I used to go a bit John McEnroe, but only in sports! I blame all of this on my Dad, who got me involved in sports, and never let me beat him. Well, blame is really the wrong term, because in fact I thank him. He kept saying “one day you will beat me, and you’ll have really earned it”. It’s funny, because this makes him sound like a drill sergeant, when really he’s a big teddy bear. He never pulls this crap in any other area, but I think he does it in sports because he is competitive with himself, and that is an important part of his identity, and he wanted to pass it on to me. To go all Irish on ya, ‘tanks Da!’

Where were we? Oh ya, at Yoga Dublin @ Ranelagh. I like the class, but I also really like the space. There are usually only a few of us, and the room is intimate, and the light is low, and it feels like ... community. I just wish that Deirdre would crank up the iPod and maybe play a little Florence and the Machine. I want my practice, sometimes, to just ROCK IT OUT.

In a previous post I mentioned that I joined this LGBTQ women’s group. I decided that I wanted to contribute something to the group, so I am in the process of organising a 6-week restorative yoga course. I do a lot of strength-building yoga by choice, but this has led to frequent muscle-cramping (don’t point your toes!), so I decided I needed a restorative course. I took a 2-hour restorative workshop several months ago at Samadhi, but I think I need the deep stretching and yin-calmness on a more regular basis. We’re in the process of working out the space and time (ah, back to space and time!), but my new friend Luna, who teaches at Yoga Dublin and Open Minds, is game to teach it. I feel good about organizing this course, because it means that I am creating something, as opposed to just availing myself of what is already out there. We’re all creators, but when we’re tired we can forget this. I am so glad I am not so tired anymore. Namaste, anonymousblogreaders.

How to Meet People in Dublin

I've been thinking a lot about the act of meeting people, because my first months here have been pretty focused on this pursuit. Life is pretty crap without other people in it, so naturally, I wanted to avoid having a crappy year. My experience has been about Dublin, but I bet this applies to lots of decently-sized cities that have things going on. If you live in the suburbs or a really small town, I can't help you. I sure someone can, but I haven't been both a)in a small town and b)available to meet new people since I was doing my undergrad. And back then, the town didn't matter, because we were all so navel-gazing about the campus-as-world.

Just recently, I discovered a site called Meetup.com. It is AMAZING! Basically, the site acts as a hub for social groups. Kind of like Facebook, only the main organizing factor is the group, as opposed to the individual. A Marxian Facebook, if you will.

Anyone can start up a group on Meetup, and a quick perusal of the Dublin nexus shows that all sorts of different people have done so; there are groups for cinema-going, naturism a.k.a. nekkidism, restaurant-going, ex-pats of all origins, queers, meditation, spirituality, business networking, and so on. I joined a few groups, and have somehow (twist me rubber arm) been drawn into helping out with one group's organisation. I went to events this past weekend with two different groups; first, an afternoon tea party with the brand new Dublin LGBTQ Women's Social Networking group, and second, an exhibit of New York photography with the New and Not So New in Dublin group, which seems to be one of the most active Dublin groups. Both events were relaxed and the people were delightful. I didn't really know what to expect, because usually I meet like-minded people by going to things I like, and therefore, finding myself amongst other people who like the same thing (ya, I guess I just defined 'like-minded'). But in this case, the group descriptions were quite open, so I had no idea what to expect. Maybe only weirdos attend these events, hahahaha... The art event in particular was good for easy socialising, because if you're shy about jumping into extended conversations, then the activity facilitates a kind of casualness. "Oooh, that's an interesting angle on the Chrysler building; "Wow, that Cindy Sherman is such a chameleon;" "I wonder how they captured that panorama?"

As I said, I only came upon this Meetup thingy last week, but I've been here for months, and thankfully this weekend wasn't the first time I met people. Here are some other ways:

1. Talk to people in airports. I've picked up four people this way! One of them, Carla, has become my go-to gal for all kinds of emotional blubbering here in The Dub. I met her at the gate in Toronto before I actually immigrated. Met some cool folks watching other people's luggage endlessly circle on the belt... Met one more person on the way to the airport - at a bus stop. So it seems that anything to do with air travel works. Perhaps this is because it's so frigging boring, that people are desperate to socialise!


2. Have lunch with your colleagues. Everyone needs to eat. If you don't have any colleagues, get a job so you can have some.

3. Join a yoga class that meets regularly. Often, these classes have the same people attending them every week, so you can chat while rolling up your mat, or unpacking your stretchy clothes. Or, like me, you could follow your yoga teacher from a class in one studio to a class in another studio, joke that you're her yoga stalker, and then hope she wants to become your friend. Now, I suppose you could join other classes if you don't like yoginis, but yoginis are known for being calm, open-minded, and present. What more could you ask for in a friend?

4. Take a workshop on something that extends over a few days. If you do this, you will see the same people everyday! It works.

5. Look like you know where you are going. For some reason, I get asked for directions no matter what city I am in. I don't necessarily know where I am going, but I must look like I know where I am going. And no, I don't carry a map anymore.

6. Do some things by yourself. Now I know that this can suck, and once you've made one friend, you may be tempted to do everything with that friend. But then you talk only to that friend, and miss opportunities for meeting new people.

7. Squeeze every potential contact out of your friends and family at home. I've met some of the most special peeps here in Dublin because someone at home knew someone who knew this person in Dublin... The common connection, no matter how tenuous, somehow breaks down the initial meeting barrier a bit.

And finally, say Yes to everything. Talk to strangers. Ask people out for coffee, even if it feels too soon. Push your own level of discomfort as far as you can - what do you have to lose?

Me and Carla checking out Dun Laoghaire

Locked doors and other totally irritating things

Dublin is not all romance, let me tell you. There are plenty of irritating things about being here - I've just been holding back. But seeing I am currently experiencing a yoga deficit (I have had less today than I require), and I have realised that my particular brand of politeness that is Canadian is part of the problem, I'll just let it rip. Here are some irritating things I've noticed in Dublin:

1. Doors to public and semi-public buildings are locked, and you have to buzz to get in.

This can make for awkward situations, such as when you decide to 'drop in' to a place that, well, welcomes you on their website to drop in. I went to this institute for work-related purposes a while back, and when I arrived, I had to buzz to be let in. Of course when you buzz, they ask who you are and what you want. My response was something like "My name is Natalie, but you don't know me, and I'm just dropping in to visit your place, with no particular agenda." Talk about feeling like a weirdo. It's as if that kind of free communication is not welcomed, which is odd, considering how well people do talk to each other here at pubs and cafes.

But the incident that prompted this posting happened earlier today, and caused the yoga deficit, which means I haven't breathed yet today, which means I am off-kilter and I might swear soon. In the blog. Anyhow, I had a few things to do this morning so I was rushing around, but I was all packed up for a class that is not too far away. It's farther than I budgeted for, clearly, but not too far. Off I go. I can see the time is going to be tight, so I start running a bit. But I have to keep stopping for traffic (see irritation #2 below). I finally get there, out of breath and flustered (which feels wrong, heading into yoga), but it is two minutes after the hour. Now, if this were in another city without such freaking weirdness about locking every door, I could have calmly slipped in without disturbing the class. In fact, that class probably hadn't started, but I didn't KNOW, because the only way to find out would be to hit the buzzer, and that would definitely disturb the class. The teacher would have to get up and buzz me in, which I know means crossing the entire room, and stepping over people in downward dog. I deliberated for a bit, and decided that I just couldn't do it. See, there's that useless Canadian politeness coming in. I would have been mortified to interrupt the class, because I knew that it was my own fault for being late, so I chose to trade mortification for irritation, grumpiness, and stomping home.

2. Stupid useless walk signs that never say walk even though no cars are crossing in front of you.

It's true! There are walk signs - with little red, yellow and green man options - at most every corner, but they make you wait forever, even when all traffic seems to be going in the same direction as you intend to go. People ignore the red men all the time and just cross, and I try to do the same thing, but I still find myself looking both ways, never sure which way the traffic is actually coming from. I am not sure I will ever get over the instinct to look to my left first. Sometimes, when I am not feeling bold, I decide to wait for the green man to actually appear. It can take a really long time, no matter how many times you hit the "please let me cross" button. It makes you later for yoga.

3. People wearing big bags standing sideways who don't move in the aisle of stores even though they see you coming.

Ok, I grant the fact that this can happen in any city, but it is WAY worse here in Dublin. Stores and sidewalks are really narrow here, and there are lots of people, so one is always doing the two-step to try to get around. But people just don't seem to move! I swear I carry a field of energy around me that tells me someone is coming, so that I can make myself smaller, or hug in closer to the edge. Well, apparently that field does not exist here. People just stand in the middle of an aisle, slowly contemplating their purchases, and making no effort whatsoever to share the space. Do they not see me coming, I wonder? Is there something in the Dublin water that has wiped out peripheral vision? Or is space always at such a premium that if you can grab a little bit of it, you hold onto it for dear life? Of course, I could say 'excuse me,' but the phrase would soon become way too frequent in my vocabulary, and that peculiar brand of Canadian politeness prefers to use body language before verbal language. Oh ya, no one moves over on the sidewalks, either, but I found that at home as well. WTF is wrong with people?

 4. You have to buy the mixer separately from your booze.

Ok, I know this one is on a different topic, but I was sitting here thinking about what else irritates me (aren't I a productive little bunny), and I remembered this one. If you order a whiskey-soda in a bar, you have to pay for the whiskey and then the soda. This is just dumb. And expensive. And the bottle of soda is usually really tiny, which sucks. At least they call hard alcohol "spirits," which sounds uplifting. Oh, and while I am on the subject of soda water, it's frustrating that I can't buy it in cans. I swore off buying plastic-bottled water at home, but I love the bubbly, and I can only find it in plastic.


5. No one drinks ale.

While I'm on the subject of drinking, it's super irritating that no one drinks ale. I mean, we're in Ireland, folks - - what's up with the ubiquity of Carlsberg and Stella Artois, and, egads -- Budweiser -- on tap?! Smithwicks is a damn fine beer, and yes,  you can find it on tap in almost every pub. But hardly anyone drinks it, so it means that I have to drink stale crappy stuff that has been sitting around for a long time. I mean, I love the Guinness, but you can't drink that stuff all the time. Like, for instance, when you're thirsty.

6. The bus drivers don't give change.

I hardly take the bus, but this one is a pain. Now, you need exact change in Toronto as well, but in Toronto, the fare is the same no matter how far you are going. I'm not saying this is superior to charging based on how far you go, but I think if it's a mystery what you are going to have to pay each time you get on the bus, then the driver should provide change. Oh, they give you a little slip that you can redeem at this office on Merrion Square, but who wants to show up and say "Gimme my 10 cents"?! I've decided to walk everywhere, no matter how far. But then there's the little problem of nos. 2 and 3 above.

Ok, I got it out of my system. Oh, I know that I've forgotten many irritations, but I feel much better now, and will get back to work. I have to leave time to do yoga at home this evening, after all...

Meta Blog

Loyal readers (if indeed there are any out there), I know I've been away for a while. It's just that...I got kinda...distracted (bonus points for anyone who knows that is a quote, and can name the source). I've been trying to figure out why I haven't felt as compelled to write about my experiences lately as I did in the beginning, so here is my opportunity to work that out. Meta-blog: the blog posting about the process of blog postings. Here are some possible explanations:

1. First and foremost, I've been busy during the social hours. I usually write blog postings at night and on weekends, but I've been rather busy at night and on weekends. My friend Andrew even wrote me an email saying "Are you ok? Because you haven't blogged in a while!" Blogging: proof of life.

2. Related to the first: my social life has kind of taken off. Whopppppeeee! I was dreadfully lonely in the beginning, but I forced my way into several people's lives. Just picture a sad clown wearing a Canadian flag, holding a light saber, and grinning madly - that's how I likely came off. Several of those people magically adopted me! Some of them even drop me texts when they haven't heard from me in a few days! I am always delighted and just a bit amazed when someone wants to be my friend, because for a long time, I was so freakin' busy that I had no room for adopting new people, and I lost perspective. I thought everyone felt that way.

3. Cultural Life: I have been going to the theatre and other traditional cultural events since the beginning, but, partly through my very cool dancer friend Deirdre, I've been introduced to a burgeoning indie/arty/dance/performance scene. There are lots of exciting smaller-scale/one-off things happening in Dublin, and I've taken the opportunity to attend what I can. In terms of artistic tastes, I am really moving towards the visual and kinesthetic. I mean, I've always preferred theatre that verges on performance art, demonstration, or 'happening', but lately I want to soak up anything with great movement, preferably if it has few words. Blame it on the Irish dramatic tendency towards monologue theatre: I need a break from all the blarney.

Last night I went to The Back Loft for Mamuska, which bills itself as a 'cross-media arts salon'. There were a series of short performances - dance pieces, performance art, experimental films, soundscapes, clown -- and the audience was encouraged to wander around the space. At this particular event, they had the chairs (a great collection of armchairs, kitchen chairs, and office chairs!) arranged in a traditional forward-facing, aisle-in-centre fashion, so the wandering didn't happen too much, but I did manage to meet a few new people. One of the performance artists - Hilary Williams - was sitting beside me, and struck up a great chat. She told me that she had returned to do an MA in Performance Art at age 55, without having much knowledge of the field at the time. She was just bursting with energy, and wanted to chat about every performance as soon as (or before, LOL) it ended. And as I made my way to buy a raffle ticket, I saw a woman who had been in the restorative workshop I had taken earlier in the day. I keep forgetting that Dublin is not very big - there have been several instances where I have bumped into someone in one place early in the day, and in another entirely different place later in the day. I am glad she singled me out and said hi, because I was so blissed out at the workshop that I'm not sure I really saw anyone else there. Think of it as perma-dristy.

I was at another event at the Back Loft of La Catedral Studios last weekend - this one was called 'Zero Gravity', and it was hosted by a newish collective who have dubbed themselves 'Art Freckles' (at first I thought Art Freckles was some philanthropist guy with a wicked name). The event was also an eclectic mix of short performances, but I got a bit weirded out hanging around by myself because everyone seemed to know each other, so I didn't stay much past Deirdre's performance.

4. Back to the reasons why I haven't been blogging so much. I think the fourth reason - and final for now, gotta get to work - is that I am not finding Dublin as weird as I did in the beginning. I'm probably not noticing the cultural particularities so much. This could be a really big loss, but I see it as a good sign: I am integrating. My dear dear friend Paul (who visits me via the Skype gods daily) even caught me saying "em" instead of "um". My unconscious verbal tics are turning Irish! Jaysus!!

Finally, to my Canuck friends out there: I am home on Friday. Looking forward to seeing everyone!

Yoga Studio 2: Trinity College

The title of this post is a bit misleading, because it's not really a studio, but a smelly little room located just off the main square of Trinity College Dublin. During freshers week in late September, all of the student societies had their tables spread around the main square, enticing Trinity folk to join their societies. Now, I am most definitely not a fresher, but they let me join anyway! The membership for the Trinity Yoga Society was very small - under 5 Euros, and it's only 3 Euros for a one-hour  class. The point isn't to make a lot of money, clearly, but to provide a community for students and staff. The money is meant for the teacher, but I am not sure if it all goes in that direction, or if some is held back for society purposes. Regardless, it made me think about how much of each student's daily tuition must go to building costs in private studios, because I think it is fair to assume that the TCD Yoga society gets the room for free.

So I arrived with my mat, half dressed, and kind of confused about how to negotiate my way around the building. When I say I was half dressed, I guess that is a bit misleading as well. I was FULLY dressed, but only half-dressed for yoga purposes. I don't currently own any full-length yoga pants, because I just started my practice again in the summer, and I was attending a lot of hot-yoga, shorty-shorts classes. There are were no changerooms, but there was a little fence-like object for quick shifts. I was surprised by the room (Room 50, in the Atrium above the Buttery), because it was small, stuffy, carpeted, and kinda  smelly. The yoga mats were already out on the carpet, so I just set my own on top of one. My mat is starting to wear out - bits are popping off - so the extra cush is nice on the knees. But frankly, it is kind of gross to use a communal mat, unless there is some nice mat spray and a towel around to give it a wipe.

The room was all achatter for the 10 minutes I lay there, trying to centre myself, concentrating on my relaxing my third eye, and getting the Ujjayi breathing going. After all of the home practice sessions, it was actually quite shocking to be among so many (talking) people. But in some ways, it posed a good challenge - could I sink into a good personal space despite the distractions?

When the teacher walked in, the room suddenly went quiet. I looked around, and it was packed. I was impressed by the interest, but it is a bit frustrating to do swan dives, or any other pose for that matter which requires your arms to reach over the sides of your mat. People did their best to stagger themselves on their mats, but my little critical side couldn't help thinking: um, how 'bout staggering the mats?

Room criticisms aside, the class was fantastic. The teacher even adjusted me at one point, which I know I desperately needed. I am sure that I have developed some not-so-great habits at home. (Actually, as an aside, I just tried out a new and very useful podcast through iTunes. It's called CalYoga, and it provides short video podcasts of individual asanas - showing you how to get into them, when to breathe, how to check your own alingnment, and, importantly, how to get out of the pose. Searching CalYoga on iTunes should bring it up). YogaSoc brings in qualified teachers from other Dublin studios, so you get a nice mix of styles and traditions. Today's class was taught by Dierdre, who also teaches at Yoga Dublin in Ranelagh; the class combined Hatha principles with some flow. She has a great energy, and was attentive to the room. It was good for me to slow down a bit and sink deeper into some of the postures. Something is going on with my downward dog lately - I am finding myself really shakey, particularly in the legs. I think that I'm starting to get my hips higher and my heels lower, and it is challenging different muscles and tissues, but Dierdre also told me to broaden my hands on the mat a bit. You know when the teacher is adjusting your hands in downdog that it's really best to practice with other humans in the room... Anyhow, I highly recommend the teacher, but, uh, too bad about the room.

Yoga Studio 1: The Elbow Room

Since I arrived in Dublin almost a month ago, I’ve been keeping up an (almost) daily practice in my living room, which is much nicer now that I have wooden floors, and not the industrial carpet of the residence room I was staying in at the beginning. I’ve been surviving on audio podcasts that you can download for free through iTunes – check it out, there are tonnes of yoga podcasts to satisfy every kind of practice. My favourite hour-long ones are Greg’s from Yoga to the People – a New York based studio that wants to, well, bring yoga to the people. At their live classes, they charge very little, and pack everyone in like happy little yogi-sardines. There are nine classes currently available from YTP through iTunes, but I find they can really handle repeat playings.

I’ve also done podcasts by Wade Zinter, Kinndli McCollum (who does a Baptiste-style power class), Eoin Finn, and the super-hot Seane Corn, whose grace and core strength I long to achieve (see her Body Prayer on YouTube for an idea of what I mean – watch those feet float back into Chattarunga like someone had rigged her up à la Hero or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon!)

As a quick fix, Yogadownload.com offers 20-minute classes that target a specific area, such as “Shoulder Opener,” “Hip Opener,” and “Yoga for Buns.” The cool thing about these 20-minute podcasts are that they offer a pick-and-mix approach: you can choose a couple, fire them up on your iPod or through your computer speakers, and have a longer class tailored to what your body and mind need that day. They also come with PDFs of pose guides, so you can consult the visual if you’re not sure about a particular pose. You can download these directly from their site, but if you download them through iTunes then they go directly into your Podcast folder, which I think is preferable to having them show up under Music.

As much as I find yoga to be a deeply personal practice, I’ve been starting to feel that it is way more satisfying to practice it with other humans. For one, I’ve been concentrating on my alignment in some of the central asanas, but without having a teacher around to guide me, I might be on the path to perfecting an incorrect alignment without knowing it. And I somewhat begrudgingly admit that I like chanting Om with other people at the end of class. So with this in mind, and my chest cold/sore throat on its way out, I decided to hit a studio last night. And I decided that I wanted Hot Yoga.

I don’t think hot yoga has caught on in Dublin the way it has at home, but there are a couple of studios in Dublin that do some version of it. Dublin has at least a couple of Bikram studios, and if you're interested, here are the links: Bikram Yoga, Bikram Yoga Fairview. However, I’m not a big fan of Bikram yoga – it just seems too militaristic, and frankly, at odds in practice with the spirit of yoga – so I had to seek out a place that uses heat with non-Bikram classes. I wanted the heat because I had been sitting in my cold, draughty, office all day, my fingers were turning blue, and I needed to finally stop wearing my coat and scarf. I quickly found The Elbow Room on the internet. It’s located in an area called Stoneybatter, which is just above Smithfield, which is less than a 15 minute walk from my flat.


View Larger Map

As an aside – Dublin has names for many of its areas, and it always makes me think that I will have to travel to a suburb to get there. Then I find out it’s a stone’s throw from … well, wherever I happen to be at that moment. Dublin is really not that big.

Anyway, off I trotted to Stoneybatter, yoga mat and hot-yoga mat-towel under arm, and my bag full of yoga clothes, new underwear, another towel for the shower, and face cream (the only product I feel I really must have after a shower). For anyone who has never done a hot yoga class, it’s really really sweaty. You basically come out looking like you went for a swim in your clothes, and dropped your towel in the water to boot.

The Elbow Room is easy to miss if you’re not paying attention, because it’s in a little courtyard on the north side of Brunswick St. North, just east of Blackhall. The sign is inside the walls of the courtyard, so you have to go right up to it to see it. The reception area is very nice, and there are magazines and cushioned benches to sit on while you wait for the previous class to empty. It also has change rooms and a couple of showers with free toiletries. And you can book and pay for your class online, which means you don’t have to bring your wallet. So far, so good.

I went into the room to get set up, but it wasn’t very warm. I thought perhaps I was in the wrong room (they have two). I went out to ask the guy at reception, and he told me that indeed I was in the right room, but it’s hard to get it very hot, you know, depending on how cold it is outside (it was probably about 15 degrees outside at that point, which is really not far from the warmest temperature that Dublin reaches). So I went back inside, wishing I had worn yoga pants and not my favourite blue Lululemon hot yoga shorts. I think the temperature reached, maximum, about 25 degrees, which is considerably cooler than the high 30s or even 40s that I’ve had in places at home. In fact, one day at my sister’s studio in Mississauga, Leewi Yoga, the instructor confessed after the class that it had accidentally reached 50 degrees! It’s not that I needed to be baked like a little Irish potato, it’s just that, as I said, I had been freezing all day and was hoping for something to replicate the tropics. I almost wanted to ask for a blankey.

However, the class was good, and the slower pace of it helped to bring me back to some of the basics. I’ve been pretty addicted to the power side of things for the last couple of months, but not every class needs to test the outer limits of one’s breath and physical stamina. As I suspected, my alignment was off in a few cases, and Aidan helped to correct an errant butt here, a lose leg there, and a tight shoulder…everywhere. And this is totally silly and immature to say, but it was kind of funny listening to someone say all the yoga words with an Irish accent. Maybe it’s because I find many Irish accents have an earthy quality to them, and yoga language is a bit more on the airy side. Anyhow, I’d like to go back, but I was really disappointed by the lukewarm temperature. I don’t think I will practice hot yoga all the time, but when I crave it, then I want it to be actually hot, because the heat helps to bring about a very deep peaceful (read: exhausted and perhaps delirious) feeling by the end of class. Yoga is also very expensive (like everything!) here, and that might be prohibitive. This class was 17 Euros, which, if you do the conversion, is about $27 CDN. I keep telling myself to STOP CONVERTING.