So how was the party? Well, if yoga celebrates the union of opposites, the 10th anniversary celebration of the Bikram Yoga NYC studios on October 15 was just right.

Guests could indulge in gourmet kale or gooey cupcakes, lime-scented oxygen or vodka. The program offered silliness and wisdom, slapstick yoga routines and wrenching tales of cancer, perfect-pitch cabaret performances by Broadway hoofers and songsters and declamations by New-Age devotees. We heard Joni Mitchell’s musical musings rendered anew and saw schtick in the best tradition of old-time burlesque. Most of the performers practice Bikram, of course.

The lion’s share of guests were obviously practicing too. It was strange to weave among hundreds of yoga bodies; en masse and in party clothes, they seemed a different race, more lithe and limber, with straight spines, stolid legs, and that subtle glow that somehow showed even in that dim party light. Stranger still was the quality of the laughter: There were no trying-too-hard staccatos, no nervous twitters, no snickering, not a mean guffaw. The laughter that evening held only grace. It was the sound of funny or happy or I’m-so-glad-you’re-you. It was light.

Bikram sent a note to studio owners Jennifer Lobo and Donna Rubin congratulating them on their decade in Manhattan, writing, “Keep practicing … you will find the truth of your life.” Donna and Jen honored the milestone by commending a teacher, Georgia Balligian, who has worked at Bikram Yoga NYC for all ten years, never missing a class. During that time, some 80,000 people have taken class.

Some of them contributed moving tributes to the journal. One, by Robin O’Leary, affectionately recalled a typical diatribe of Bikram’s: “You want to be Honda? You want to be Datsun? … No!!!! You want to be Ferrari! Maserati! You want to be Lamborghini!!!”

The body as a beautiful machine–in that image are more opposites partying together.

Namaste,
Yoga Lily