More and more gay New Yorkers are taking up yoga. Some are taking off their clothes, too.
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By CYD ZEIGLER JR.
Friday, January 23, 2004
With poses like downward-facing dog and the plow, how could gay men not be interested
in yoga?
Two instructors who work only a few blocks away from each other in Chelsea
embody the trend. Both men’s classes have become popular with gay men.
Mark Donato teaches yoga at the New York Sports Club at 23rd Street and Eighth
Avenue. Donato teaches vinyasa yoga, which he describes as “yoga that
moves. The traditional classical approach is to hold a pose and stop. Vinyasa
uses breathing to link the moves. It creates heat, makes you sweat, and is
the most physical form of yoga.”
While the spiritual tenets are the foundation of yoga, it’s those physical
benefits that initially attract most gay men. That heat and sweat will burn
fat off your midsection and tone arm muscles as efficiently as a run in the
park or pumping iron.
Aaron Star started his nude yoga class as a joke, targeting mostly women. The
joke was on him. His first class attracted 18 people; his second class doubled
that. Before he knew it, the women were gone, the men took over, and Hot Nude
Yoga was born.
“In the beginning, some guys came because they thought it was a sex
club,” he remembered. “But those people saw in the first 10 minutes
that this was not an orgy.” The class has developed a core group of regulars
that attend a weekly class on Thursdays and an intro class he holds on Saturdays.
Joe Reid, who has been practicing yoga for about five years, is one of the
core group that attends Star’s class, well, religiously. He said that
Hot Nude Yoga is the most spiritual class he’s been to.
“It’s a lot more focused on meditation and having a spiritual
connection,” he said. “It’s all about having no limits whatsoever
in your life.”
Reid credits that to Star’s demeanor and experience. Star thinks being
naked contributes a great deal to that spirituality in his class.
“Being naked,” he said, “is not only liberating, but it
removes a layer from getting closer to why we practice yoga – to get
closer to our selves.” It also gets you closer to the person next to
you.
“About half the class is doing yoga on your own,” Star explained. “The
other half of the class is a lot of doing yoga with a partner.”
Some of the partner poses include the “downward dog back bend,” which
has one partner bent over and the other facing up, stretching his back on his
partner’s glutes; the “flying eagle,” which has one partner
balancing on the extended, upward-facing legs of the other; and the “fountain
pose,” with both men facing each other and embracing, locked at the hips
and stretching backward.
All of it, despite being done naked, is kept void of sex. Star’s rules
of the class: “no kissing and no touching cocks.” At least, not
in class. (Other partner yoga positions are only done in private.)
Even with naked gay men interlocking, the class maintains a focus on the spiritual
and mental benefits of yoga, just as Donato’s fully clothed class at
the New York Sports Club.
“Here in New York, people are cranky and uptight and I think a lot of
us have a feeling of uncertainty with our lives,” says Donato. “Yoga
can offer a sense of quiet and peace.”
Yoga also offers a great way to meet guys. Donato’s class in Chelsea
is comprised mostly of gay men. Star’s class is comprised entirely of
gay men (although one straight guy told Star he just likes to get naked with
other guys). While Donato insists his classes aren’t a meet market, he
does recognize the social aspects of yoga class.
“I think, partially, that’s why yoga is good,” Donato said. “It’s
nice to go to a place and meet other men in a positive forum. There’s
no attitude in the yoga class because it’s about yoga. It’s become
social hour, except that we stand on our heads and do warrior one’s.”
At Hot Nude Yoga, where everyone’s nude — well, you do the math. “Do
people hook up?” Star asked. “Absolutely. These guys get really
close at certain times with certain partners.” Star insists that, with
his rule of no touching cocks, all sexual activities are performed outside
the class.
“People hook up in the gym” Star added, “they hook up in
the bars, so why not be able to hook up doing yoga?”
While the class is not sexual, it is certainly sensual. And with all the nude
gay men interlocking for partner poses, it’s easy to see how Roger could
arise.
“People get hard-ons all the time,” Star said. “There’s
a cute 26-year-old who comes into class who has a hard-on from the moment he
walks in to the moment he leaves.”
Star is very careful to keep the class steered well clear of sex in the class,
however. Arousal is not viewed as sexual advances, but an expression of the
energies that are being moved within the bodies of the men.
“I usually encourage people,” Star said, “when they get
hard, to focus on their breath. Part of tantra is being able to tune into what
sensations your body is experiencing and being in that.”
“There’s also something called mulabanda,” Donato noted, “which
is a slight listing at the perineum while breathing through your vinyasa.” Translation:
yoga equals better, harder, longer sex.
There are muscles and key sexual areas of the body that the average gymbot
doesn’t reach when lifting weights and running on the treadmill. Yoga
can reach the prostate area and work the pelvis in ways that will enhance the
performance of your prostate and pelvis in bed, he adds.
Star has even designed a yoga routine specifically to improve your sex life.
The routine was released in a video called “Better Sex Through Yoga for
Gay Men” last November. While the men in the video aren’t nude
(sorry, guys), the video features a one-hour yoga workout that is specially
designed to improve the sex life of gay men.
The video is designed to raise stamina, expand flexibility and build control,
power and agility. Many of these exercises are the same ones he teaches in
his class. On top of working muscles useful for sex, yoga also builds the energy
to use them.
Much of yoga focuses on generating “prana.” Prana is the Sanskrit
term for “vital life energy” – the force that surrounds us
and resides in us.
“For a good sex life,” Donato says, “you need a lot of prana.
Yoga raises the prana in your body.”
Hot Nude Yoga teaches a form of yoga called Tantra which Donato describes
as “raising your prana without release.”
With the physical, spiritual and sexual benefits of yoga, it’s easy
to see why it has become so popular. “I have noticed an increased interest
among gay people in yoga,” Donato said.”
Donato did say that most people he finds interested in yoga are women or gay
men. While part of that, he says, is certainly the obsession many gay men have
with keeping their bodies fit, he points to the spiritual side as ultimately
what keeps gay men hooked and what loses straight men.
“Gay men are more sensitive than straight men,” he said. “I’ve
noticed a lot more gay men are spiritually aware. They have an open heart and
an open mind to things. Straight men have a lot more defenses up.”
Donato encourages anyone who just needs a break from a gym routine to check
out yoga class.
A year after his first class, Reid remains as enthusiastic about Hot Nude
Yoga as he was the first day. “If people are on the fence about it and
they want to go to a place where they’ll feel more comfortable about
their bodies or they want to meet other guys, they should come check it out.”
Hot Nude Yoga
www.hotnudeyoga.com
hotnudeyoga@hotnudeyoga.com
New York Sports Club
270 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
(212) 243-3400
www.nysc.com
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