Neal Pollack - Stretch: The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Dude

Introduction: How Did I Arrive at
This Ridiculous Place?

Early one Monday afternoon in the fall of 2009, I balanced on my right foot in a yoga studio in the San Fernando Valley. I leaned my body forward, just barely touching down my right fingertips, opened my body toward the west wall, and lifted my other arm and leg to the sky. This was artachandrasana, half-moon pose. I had to apply all my effort and concentration to get there, which wasnt easy because I was busy checking out the 40 other people in the room, none of whom I knew, and none of whom, I guessed, I would have liked if I had. They just looked so L.A. This wasnt my usual spot to practice, but Id found myself in the neighborhood with a free hour and a yoga mat in the trunk of my car, and the $5 lunchtime flow class fit my tight budget.

I executed a technically sound Warrior Three, leaning forward on one foot while shooting my arms toward the front of the room in a vague imitation of Superman. Then I reached back, grabbed my outstretched foot with one hand, arched my chest, and extended upward. This was called bow pose, and again, I could get there if I tried. This involved activating my bandhas, focusing on my breath, ignoring the crappy Eric Clapton song that was playing, and realizing that the rooting down of my leg and the rising of my arm was all part of the same system, the magical alchemy of opposites that, when properly applied, helps me to understand the mysteries of the universe while sweating like a hog in the tropics.

Below, my natural rubber mat had begun to feel a little squishy. Though I wore a silky sleeveless tank top and comfortable stretchy shorts, it didnt prevent the sweat from flowing off me until I felt like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke after hed spent that night in the box. My Dodger-blue sweat-absorbent mat cover with a grippy bottom and a soft, slip-resistant top, a much-loved birthday present from my wife, didnt really help, given the extreme volume of my schvitz . The bright orange circular drishdi at the top of the mat cover had nearly vanished because Id washed it so often. It no longer provided a reliable gazing point.

I patted my neck, forehead, and armpits with my Manduka-brand hand towel, which I received in a swag-bag of freebies at a recent yoga festival, and crouched into childs pose. The instructor, who looked frighteningly like Jennifer Aniston, cleared her throat, ready to deliver some wisdom. I snorted some salty water up my nose and raised my head.

So did everybody have an awesome Halloween weekend? she asked.

Seriously? I thought, and then answered to myself: No, not really. I took my kid trick-or-treating, ate a couple of peanut-butter cups, and went to bed early, like I do every night, because I cant afford a goddamn babysitter.

The teachers weekend, on the other hand, had been quite awesome: A bunch of people had come over for a dinner party, and everyone was so good-looking and smart, and they made her feel really nice about herself because they were such amazing friends. Now I officially hated her. If you take a five-dollar class, you get a five-dollar teacher.

So just remember, guys, to be grateful for everything you have, she said. And after we do some more poses, Ill tell you about my costume.

How did I arrive at this ridiculous place? Five years previous, when my exercise routine had deteriorated to a half-hour on the elliptical followed by two or three beers, it was inconceivable. The men I knew didnt do yoga. We watched basketball and drank beer, played video games and guitar (or at least video games about playing guitar), quoted lines from cartoons, got stoned continually, and held all-night poker tournaments. Yes, I read books and my Netflix queue was full of foreign films, but that just put me on the more intellectual edge of the Dude Nation spectrum. Yoga didnt occur to me, ever. Why would it have? EA Sports, which comprised most of my interaction with matters athletic, never put out a yoga game.

But now, yoga had become my major hobby, my only non-work activity that didnt involve high-grade medical marijuana or baseball statistics. If I went more than twenty-four hours without yoga, my hips started to hurt. I sat in half-lotus while watching Sunday Night Football. Instead of eating hoagies, my previous lifes noontime activity, I took lunchtime flow classes in the Valley.

After fifteen minutes of side planks, high lunges, crescents, twisted triangles, and bent forward half-lotuses, all of which left my skin as slick as a Sunday bookie, the instructor delivered on her promise.

On Halloween, I dressed like Alice in Wonderland, she said.

I admit the thought of this loathsome woman wearing a powder-blue pinafore caused a little stirring in my loins. But thanks to my extremely sophisticated yoga training, I was able to observe this sensation and let it go. She continued:

And a bunch of friends and I went to West Hollywood for the Halloween parade. It was a totally great scene. Everyone was really drunk. Some guy actually came over and looked up my dress. Isnt that offensive?

The other students in the class, a predictable mix of Sherman Oaks housewives and gay men, expressed shock in the form of gasps and tongue clucking. They were obviously regulars. Snap snap snap, went their metaphorical fingers.

There were like so many people in Lady Gaga costumes, the teacher said.

Oh my God! exclaimed the guy next to me. I love Lady Gaga!

Excuse me, I thought. Arent we supposed to be doing yoga here?

Im not sure about her, said the teacher. I think shes kind of a slut.

She is not a slut, said the fan boy.

The room began to cluck. Everyone had an opinion. Stop it, people , I thought. This is exactly what Lady Gaga wants you to be talking about! Dont you see that youre falling into her trap?

But they didnt see, and I couldnt make them. I could only control myself, and my reactions to their unbelievably stupid conversation. So I took a small sip of water, pushed back into downward dog, and waited for the room to quiet down. Yoga, after all, is the art of self-mastery, of stilling the mindsnot to mention the mouthsendless yammering, of the search for a peace beyond thoughts and words. The world was full of morons, and many of them did yoga from time to time, but that wouldnt stop me from practicing. Nothing would, anymore.

Chapter 1
Yet Another Doughy, 35ish White Man

In the summer of my sixteenth year, I attended Anytown USA, a weeklong camp in the mountains of Northern Arizona. Since 1952, Anytown has intended, according to its website, to bring together diverse youth from disparate backgrounds and overcome isolation, segregation, and discrimination, and to work toward the realization of democracy. A bit ambitious, perhaps, but its a surprisingly successful ongoing project. Every summer, hundreds of Arizona teen leaders head up north and return a week later determined to fight bigotry in all its forms.

Most of the kids at Anytown werent white, which wouldnt have been a big deal for someone whod grown up in, say, Brooklyn, but it made for a very different kind of experience for a kid from suburban Phoenix in the 1980s. For the first time, I found myself feeling a common humanity with all different kinds of people, while also participating in three-hour long workshops on internalized racism. It all just felt so beautiful and perfect. I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than Hebrew School. Every night, we sat around the campfire, surrounded by brooding pines. A counselor played the guitar and we sang the camps theme song: