Conversations

Overheard

On Running and Medication

Overheard by a reader at midtown NYC hair salon... ~ The Eds.

Client: Are you still running? 
Male Stylist: I knew you were going to ask me that question. No. 
Client: ...because you're doing something else?
Male Stylist: No. You know what happened? I've got high blood pressure. I come from a long line of thin, sinewy men that drop dead of a heart attack in their 50s. So, I've started taking medication. 
Client: That's not going to happen to you! So, you can't run because of the risk of heart attack? Or is it the medication? 
Male Stylist: Actually, there aren't any side effects. The only side effect is that my blood pressure is fine now. So, I don't run any more. I used to run because I didn't want to die. Now the medication has taken care of the problem. 

Hairdryer (Via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/houseofsims/3072593599/">House of Sims</a>.)

msh258 said "

kinda makes me wanna shake this person and ask if he's for real... ..." More comments...

Conversations

The Lost Generation of 1990s Yogis

Setting: Gathering of scruffy young writers and storytellers in luxurious Soho (NYC) home of a wealthy young poet. Among the crowd, a barely 40-something female Editor-in-Chief of high gloss luxury magazine group. Evidence of the evolution of yoga in America, or just the stages of urban life? 

Guy: What do you do to stay in shape?
Ed-in-Chief: I run, and I'm starting to do yoga again. I used to do it in the 1990s, but I stopped. I want to be alone a little. I couldn't handle the whole scene: All the people rushing to get space in front of the teachers. Everyone on top of each other. You show up, and there's some guy you've slept with. But I think it's calming down a little now.
Guy: Who knew? Maybe you're the first of the lost '90s yogis to return. 
Ed-in-Chief: I'll do yoga at Equinox now, and I run.

Yoga Mats! (Via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/24886284@N00/393409257">Cowbite</a>.)

New York

Overheard

Headstand Boobs

[As reported by a reader in Big Sky, Montana. True story. ~The Eds.]

Woman: "I had a rough yoga class this morning

Guy Friend: "Really?"

Woman: "The teacher had a boob job. What's up with that? First, she gives this lame sermon. I mean, I'm ok with yoga teachers preaching a little. Sometimes it's good, and sometimes it isn't, but I want to do the yoga so I just sit through it. What she said was really cliché and lame though, and I'm, like, whatever, and just noticing her fake boobs. And, of course, she already has this killer body."

Guy Friend: "Were you upset because she had a better body than you, or that she had no integrity? You have a great body by the way."

Woman: "Both. And then she was also the type that has to demonstrate every pose. So we have to gather around to watch her lift up into a perfect headstand. Her breasts looked exatly the same right side up as upside down. C'mon, I know what gravity does to breasts. So, I'm totally distracted, and not centered, and not thinking yogic thoughts about her. But then I think, maybe she has a good reason for the boob job. Maybe she had breast cancer, and she had to get new breasts. But I don't think so."

Guy Friend: "I'm sorry."

Bike Boobs (Via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bilbord99/4135551130/">Billbord99</a>.)

Mr. Mohawk said "

sass. it's me. i know all about boobs. yours included ;)

" More comments...

You Wrote We Like

On the Conversations Women Have

“I need to lose 10 lbs by my birthday. So I’m started going to the gym every day and cut down to 1200 calories.”
“You can get the burrito bowl and it’s not so bad…but only if you don’t add any of the good stuff…and what’s the fun in that?!”
“I have 5 points left for the day…these weight watcher cookies only have 2!”
“I really want a cookie. Don’t let me have one.”

Talking (via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3877170319/">Ed Yourdon</a>)
More...

New York

msh258 said "

@ moniq: the "self-flaggelating" is something i do too...much more ..." More comments...

Overheard

The Splits

Midtown New York, in corner booth at middlebrow Mexican....

She: My trainer asked me what I wanted to work on. I told him my butt, and I want to do the splits. I've wanted to do them since I was girl.
He: Why do they call them the "splits?" Why the plural?
She: I don't know. Because there are more than one.
He: There aren't more than one. It's a "split." With one leg forward, and one back. Like Barbie.
She: There's also the one with the legs out to the sides.
He: That's a straddle.
She: No it isn't. Is this making you uncomfortable?

The Splits (Via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertpaulyoung/3265531253/">Robert Paul Young</a>.)

sassletics82 said "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_(gymnastics)

" More comments...

Conversations

On Yoga Studios and Social Workouts

Chatting with two yogi friends at the extremely nice launch of YogaLocal on Friday night. (Note to self: Befriend Donna Karan. Her Urban Zen Center is both palatial and cozy.) 

Me: Yoga to the People is a phenomenon.
SK: OK, I've got to go. It sounds like the new Bhava. That's where I used to go when I first moved to the East Village. Schuyler from Kula started there, and so did the Yoga High people. [Now Bhava has moved to Vermont.]
Me: Yes, it's not that the yoga is so advanced at YTTP, it's just the energy and the volume of people. It's unselfconscious. It's a scene.
VR: We've got to go. Kula is a little like that too these days...
Me: True. It gets packed.
VR: They've added a new studio, by the way.

My thought: There is a point when a good studio, or even a good class of any sort, crosses over from being an isolated occurrence, to become a community hub. It achieves critical mass, and gets lifted up, and interesting things happen.

Urban Zen Center (Via The Villager.)

erikka said "

I'm inviting EVERYONE to come out and break their teeth with me. And ..." More comments...

Overheard

Men in Bike Shorts

It's an art show in Greenpoint. Not at a gallery, but in someone's apartment. "Friends showing friends' art," says the organizer. The apartment fills up quickly. Two guys, stand in the living room crowd talking. One, an indie music engineer dressed in black, describes the bike ride he took earlier: Across the Brooklyn Bridge, up the West side, over the George Washington Bridge, through the Palisades and back. Sometime he rides to the Cloisters too. It's gorgeous, he says, and with the weather cooling down, the paths and roads aren't crowded. He rides a bike he saved up to buy when he was 15. It was his dream, but then he never rode it. The bike stayed hung in his garage for 14 years. When his last city bike was stolen, he called his mom and asked her to send it to him. He couldn't afford to buy another bike. "She sent the receipt too," he says, rolling his eyes." What does he wear to ride in the cool weather someone asks. "I wear bike shorts, but the sort that are attached to regular shorts on the outside," he says. "And then these leggings." Why the need for the floppy shorts? "I can't do the full spandex," he says. "No way."

Riding the Bridge (Via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sackerman519/3804580072/">Sarah Ackerman</a>.)

fashionyunayou said "

I domt know how to bike - never had chance to . The idea of having a ..." More comments...

Conversations

New Gym Smell

Friend C. says she thinks Equinox is putting something in the air. "I smell the place when I walk by, and it makes me want to work out," she says.

"Huh," I say.

"My brother works at the Dakota Mountain Lodge in Park City. The place smells great, and I asked him about it. It's called 'Leatherwood,' he told me. They put it in the air conditioner. I was amazed. The spa at Dakota, the Golden Door, smells totally different than the rest of the place. In there they use Green Bamboo smell."

"Equinox is not treating their air," I say. "They're just cleaning all the time."

"The Bellagio in Las Vegas has patented their smell. You can't buy it."

"Really?

"I'm telling you. I walk by that Equinox on Prince Street, and I have to tear myself away. They're pumping it in."

Smelling <a href="http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/men/fragrance-scent-dating">Marie Claire</a>.)

sassletics82 said "

Garish Workout! I LOVE THAT! Genius.

PS. Oliver, your grey ..." More comments...

Conversations

Hot: Physique 57 and Yoga to the People

Tuesday night party in East Village with live New Orleans brass band. Crowd in their late 30s and 40s, downtown media and business types. A tall, attractive Time, Inc. editor says she's discovered Phsysique 57™. She had been a yogi, and avoided Physique for years. "I lived near their place in Bridgehampton, and I thought they represented everything I hated about the Hamptons." But she started going to the Soho location not long ago, (Spring and 6th Avenue), and found it was not annoying. Actually, she loves it. "It's the only thing that can get me out of bed in the morning. It's just a normal body sculpting class, but it works." I laugh, and she blushes, and adds caveat. "They say that if you take Physique three times a week, you don't need to do anything else. I don't believe that. Your heart rate goes up, but it's not really a cardio workout. It's not like running. You still need to do that."

Walking to work early on Bleeker Street, I bump into a friend, a 20-something woman famous for her perfect shade of matte red lipstik. She's a stylist for photo shoots, and says she's taken up yoga. "I go to Yoga to the People," she says. "It's amazing." She's not the first to tell me that recently. Yoga to the People has a good thing going on.

Bar Talk (Via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/glennharper/43426112/">Glenn Harper</a>.)

urbansherpa said "

big holler for YTTP!! :) my heart smiles a little with this post!

" More comments...

Conversations

The Boyfriend's Privates

A., a woman over 30, is wheeling her bicycle through the West Village and wondering about her boyfriend. He's a successful film industry lawyer with a mega apartment and serious yoga practice. They are both Equinox members and went together to yoga there recently. It was nice, she says. She hadn't put her mat by his, but afterwards things felt good between them. Now he's decided to take solo private lessons. She'd been all for it, but was caught off guard when he explained that he'd chosen to work with one of the club's most attractive female teachers, admittedly also one of its best. "Friday morning I'll be on an airplane, and he'll be in his bedroom getting adjusted by a hot blonde," she says with nervous laugh. She's no longer sure how good yoga is for their relationship.

Manhattan (Via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/joiseyshowaa/2870325588/">joiseyshowaa</a>.)

New York

sandyliz said "

Sounds sketchy to me. And like the plot for a Ben Stiller movie.

" More comments...



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