Slow Night At The Shakti Box: The Humbling Of An Apprentice Yoga Teacher

One Thursday night last month, I taught a yoga class. It was the first in a series I’ve scheduled in L.A. leading up the monumental cultural event that will be the August publication of my yoga memoir Stretch. I figured the class, like most things yoga-related, could serve more than one function. Maybe I’d build a little audience for the book while also honing my yoga-talking and yoga-teaching skills. Essentially, it would be the yoga equivalent of an out-of-town opening.

I’d been preparing for weeks. First, I reserved the Shakti Box, a pleasant, warm, well-appointed space above the Video Hut near the corner of Vermont and Franklin. Some friends of mine had taught there. I liked the fact that it offered few frills, and also that it was very clean. Until the spring of 2009, it had been the private practice space of a nice woman named Edie, and then she decided to share the love. In addition to yoga, Edie books regular improv classes and a “Women’s Circle” at the Box, so clearly she’s open to different stuff.  When I approached her with my idea for a “yoga comedy night,” she didn’t hang up on me immediately. She didn’t even hang up when I told her I was going to call the class “Club Sutra.” She offered a really reasonable rental price. Club Sutra was go.

The previous summer, I’d done a couple of Club Sutras at a Buddhist meditation center on Melrose, and had attempted to read from my book, talk about the Yoga Sutras, and teach an asana class, by myself, all in the space of two hours. I had six people for the first class, about a dozen for the second. Some of them seemed to enjoy themselves, but overall, results were mixed. I know how to read from a book and talk about philosophy, but when it comes to an asana class taught by me, you’d probably be just as safe following a blind man to the edge of a cliff at midnight.

A few weeks later, I ran into a friend who’d attended Club Sutra. “These things take time,” she said. That hurt. But the first step toward realizing you have a problem is admitting that you need help. I needed help teaching yoga.

To that end, I secured the services of my friend Julie, a good-humored, kind, no-bullshit professional yoga teacher with a few celebrity clients. She also gives classes twice a week at the Shakti Box. I came up with a theme-”The Beginner’s Mind”-and asked her to develop a 45-minute practice, plus a 15-minute cool-down, surrounding that theme. Then I chose readings from the book about my beginnings as a yogi, and I started thinking through a short and amusing lecture about the Eight Limbs of the Ashtanga system. This didn’t take me very long, so I had plenty of time to get down to what I do best. Promoting myself.

I posted on Facebook and Twitter. And then on Facebook again and Twitter again. I sent out an email to a lot of people. Also, I posted on Facebook three more times. It worked. The day before the class, a book blogger for the L.A. Times gave the class a skeptical preview write-up. I sent the link to Julie, and she wrote back, “It is ON!”

True enough, though I couldn’t quite share her excitement. I’ve had press before, and it doesn’t always lead to turnout. The post circulated, got mentioned in passing on The New Yorker’s book blog, and was retweeted here and there, but in the back of my mind, I thought, “if I had a free night in Los Angeles, would I go to a yoga class taught my a mid-list humor writer?” And then I thought, “probably not.”

*****

The class started at 7 PM. I arrived at 6:30 and played games on my Iphone until Julie showed up 15 minutes later with the keys to the space. We went upstairs, turned on some lights, modulated the temperature, and drew the shades. Soon after, Julie’s husband Eric came up the stairs. He wanted to show some support. At five minutes ’til, a woman appeared. She seemed to be in her mid-50s.

“Is this the yoga class?” she asked.

“Come on in,” I said.

“A friend of mine in Seattle read about this on Twitter and told me I had to come,” she said.

“Cool.”

“I’d never heard of you.”

“Most people haven’t.”

Spread out your mat, I said. There’s plenty of room. She hadn’t brought a mat, she said. That was fine. We had plenty of mats, too.

The four of us chatted for a while. Our mystery student had spent her whole life doing extreme sports, and now her body was ruined. She’d recently moved with a guy to L.A., and she’d been looking for some yoga. Every class she’d attended thus far had been too challenging for her, full of snobby agro-practitioners who thought they were so special.

“Well, you’re in good company here,” I said.

No one else appeared.

At 7:10, Julie said,

“You know what traffic’s like in L.A.”

“It’s hard to get people to come out to stuff,” Eric said.

“Not a problem,” I said. “I’m used to playing small rooms.”

I felt that mothy flutter in my heart that I always get at my gigs when I realize that no one else is coming. It’s very familiar to me. When it happens, I take a deep breath, say something to myself like “the show must go on,” and proceed as though I were playing to a packed house, or, in this case, yoga studio.

I read for a little while, to decent effect, and then Julie took over. We did some light seated warm-ups, and then she had the three of us stand. Julie later said that as soon as she saw our mystery guest attempt a forward bend, she threw her lesson plan out the door. Our new friend no longer had functional lumbar discs. She could barely move at the waist.

For the next 45 minutes, Eric and I were essentially on our own. We’d both already practiced that day, so it didn’t matter. Julie worked exclusively with our only student, giving her blankets and blocks and adjustments and more special treatment than anyone expects to get when coming to a yoga comedy night.

I took the floor again and spoke amusingly, our guest and Eric each asked a couple of questions that I answered more or less, Julie led us through some shoulder-stand variations, and then it was time for savasana, which I led. Then I shut up and meditated for about five minutes. It was over. Exhale. When the dimmers rose, my only student said,

“That was the best yoga experience I’ve ever had.”

“Seriously?” I said, and then, catching myself before I self-deprecated excessively, “Hey, that’s great. But it was mostly Julie.”

“We were a combo, Pollack,” Julie said.

“Seriously, though,” the woman said. “Thank you guys.”

My pleasure, lady.

As I walked back to my car, I felt a different kind of flutter, and this one wasn’t gnawing at the core. I’d helped give someone the best yoga experience of her life. That was no small matter. But if yoga teaches you anything, it’s not to become attached to such thoughts. The next time I did Club Sutra, I could easily give someone else the worst yoga experience of her life. Less likely things have happened.

When I do my second Club Sutra of the year next week, I’ll do it with no expectations. Anyone who shows up and puts money in the donation basket will be a blessing. Still, it would be nice to have at least two students this time.