I belonged to a hifalutin Manhattan gym for a few years, and the trainers there, as a rule, thought of themselves as gods and goddesses. Which indeed they clearly resembled. Among Bikram yoga teachers too, one is more spectacular than the next, but they cop no attitude. For many of them, as for many students in the classes, their bodies are tools, means to an end.

This one is an opera singer, practicing to strengthen his lungs. That one is a dancer, practicing to enhance her flexibility. One student is a musician, practicing to increase his wind and his endurance for long gigs. There’s a comedian, a mime, a Broadway babe or two, and an aerial dancer who I am very sure floats through the air with the greatest of ease on her trapeze-like confabulations.

More so than the bodies of desk jockeys, the bodies of these artists are essentially servants, or business equipment. And these artists tend to their equipment diligently with their Bikram yoga, hence the hotness of the bods. Yet their vanity does not lay their beautiful limbs but rather in the exercise of their various arts. If their bodies are their servants, their arts are their gods.

Thus the other day, a teacher was on cloud nine about a new show she would soon be performing at a prestigious venue. She was glowing like a stoked fire, beyond her normal Bikram radiance. Some people obviously love a spotlight, and that is all well and good. But some people are themselves spotlights, shining light on to what they love and worship. I wanted to tell her, she is the spotlight, and does not need a stage to shine one on her. The artists who teach and practice yoga around me are like that a lot.

Oh, and about those personal trainers? Some of them show up at Bikram yoga, for the same reason as the artists. And some of them are even humble. I was teasing. I just like being hifalutin now and then too.

Namaste,
Yoga Lily