The Yoga PassBook and Yogatoday.com

I go way back with yoga. When I was in high school, I could get out of PE by signing up for a yoga or dance class in the town where I lived. Since these classes were off-campus, all you had to do was turn in an easily forged little form documenting your attendance. At first, it was all just a scam to play hooky, and it worked. But I found I liked the darn classes, and started going regularly.

It was a win-win for me. I could use up the PE class slot, which was first thing in the morning, and go to school a full hour later than everyone else. I could also avoid all the yelling and throwing things at each other (on allergy-inducing lawns) that regular PE entailed. I took some teasing, but it was worth it.

Later in college, yoga became a source of great comfort, and I made sure there was a class on my schedule every semester. This was back before there were so many fads and fashions in yoga. Then, if someone had asked, “What kind of yoga do you practice,” I’d have answered, “Uh, the one in the Athletics Department, not the one over in Dance.”

Hatha was about as exotic as it got, at least in my neck of the woods. Now, of course, there’s vinyasa, ashtanga, ananda, anusara, kundalini, “hot” yoga, yoga for “warriors,” lasore, and any number of other styles—either long-venerated or new and idiosyncratic, under countless teaching systems. Over the years, I’ve sampled many styles in many settings. But for me, yoga is yoga: breath, awareness, posture, and movement just about sum it up. If the class avoids competitive overtones, gives me a good stretch, and goes easy on badly-recited Sanskrit, I can make my way. Mats that aren’t stinky help, too.

But now I’m busy, chronically employed, sometimes financially challenged, and on a really weird travel schedule. I live in New York City, where there are so many very good yoga teachers and studios that even casual exploration seemed daunting when I recently dove back in after a couple of years off.

What was a tired old yoga pony to do? In my case, the Yoga PassBook was, literally, the ticket. For a single fee, I got a little booklet with coupons for taking one or two free introductory classes at any of dozens of New York metropolitan-area locations.