Monday, December 7, 2009

Mission Yoga...an Introduction


Since moving to San Francisco in November 2008, I quickly became addicted to yoga - more specifically, sweaty, smelly, exhausting hour-and-a-half long Bikram Yoga at Mission Yoga.  
In Bikram, you do the same set of 26 poses, each repeated, in the same order in the same way every time, in a room heated to 105 degrees with 40% humidity.  The teacher follows a script (or "dialogue" as Bikram calls it) but each teacher has a little something extra to add to the class.  At Mission, I value Juicy's classes for the joy she takes in teaching, Luke's or Steve's for pushing me past my limits, Matthew's for a calmer, less serious pace, Tracey's if I'm bringing (well, dragging kicking and screaming) a friend, Jessica's because she seems to know exactly where I'm doing it wrong - oh, let's face it, they're all awesome.  I commuted to the Mission District from my then apartment in the no man's land of Ingleside and my office in the Financial District, and when I finally moved to the Mission District, I made sure Mission Yoga was no more than a ten minute walk away.