Down Kopek

I find it hard to believe that revisiting yoga has taken me so long. Perhaps halting a practice that I love for over a year has to do with the fact that I still maintan a certain allegiance to Bikram's and Brian Kest's power yoga in Chicago and Los Angeles, respetively. I associate the intensity of Sunday morning power yoga with a particular LA lifestyle that seems incomplete without organic brunch, acting classes or a day at the beach; the sweltering sauna of Bikram's will forever be bound to a particularly frigid Chicago February. Although I had a yoga resurgance over the summer and I resolved to find a good studio upon returning to Istanbul, it still took me six more months to kick myself into gear. Yoga - or for that matter, any semblance of a spiritual life - seems to have no place here. It is part of a past world I no longer inhabit. Or perhaps I was hesitant to pursue yoga for the same reasons I flinch at the prospect of doing anything new in Istanbul: fear of getting lost, a long commute, being unable to communicate my needs or just merely not wanting to go at it alone.

My inculcation into the world of yoga was accidential. After college, I randomly ended up living mere blocks from one of the most renowed studios in LA. Despite its location in exclusive Santa Monica, the course was donation based. I usually submitted far below the suggested 10 dollars. The proximity and price is what allowed me to practice consistently, albeit briefly. Only after I began practicing did I discover that my yoga studio was was considered to be the epicenter of the American yoga movement, popular long before it became trendy throughout the United States.

From day one, the yoga aesthetic intrigued me: the streamlined poses, the sculpted bodies, the potent smell of jasmine or sage as you entered the studio, the fluid sanskrit jargon of the practice, the willowy frequent practioners who all took on that same elongated, gamine look regardless of ethnic origins. It all spoke of a higher consciousness, of potential transcendence of the pedestrian plane of existance I inhabited.

Early on, I recognized that yoga, like any other activity, came with its very own "scene" defined by a particular aesthetic and a set of subtle social codes. I also recognized that I sorely lacked the necessary accoutrements to fit in: nalgene water bottles, lower back tattoos, lululemon designer yoga attire, a certain air of self-satisfaction or contentment, and comradiere with everyone who entered the studio were beyond my grasp. I wondered what I often wondered while living in LA - if I was only projecting my inscurities, and perhaps it was everyone else felt like a phony and looked to me as an example of the real McCoy. I somewhat resented my fellow classmates, whom I figured had to do yoga and shop at Whole Foods for a living to get those bodies. They had the time and money to invest in the legnthy process of self-actualization, the common folk who have to work for a living simply can't afford to sacrifice their livlihood for pruning and shaping their spirits. Why didn't I float through the air like my fellow yogis? I guess I was just too stressed out. I came to love the practice but hate the scene.

I still maintain that yoga is one of the best things I've ever done for myself. Yoga - whether in Istanbul, Chicago or LA - still does it for me: it makes me feel strong, flexible and a more comfortable inhabitant in my own body. It was still yoga, but slightly different - my first time doing yoga led by a man speaking "Turklish" with an Irish brogue, my first time looking out over the Bosphorus while practicing, first time where a free sauna is available after my practice. My reintroduction to yoga has left me feeling slightly exhaused and sore, but perhaps one step closer to whatever it is I still seek from the practice.