Social Workout

Whiplash!   Different yoga teachers for different folks.... Let's get this out up front: Mindy Frenkel is not my kind of yoga teacher. But her Thursday evening classes at Equinox are packed. Here are my issues: at the beginning of class, she produces a rather large harmonium and then leads the group in an prolonged sanskrit chant. I'm a lapsed Catholic, but my first thought at this point is thank God for the Protestant Reformation: it's slightly weird for a large group of New Yorkers to chant in a long-dead foreign language. I'm way cool with "Om," but when the song goes on for many verses, I get frustrated. I don't SPEAK that language, and what's with the slavish reverence to some other equally-imperfect culture? To be fair, Mindy hands out sheets with the lyrics, but invariably there aren't enough of these sheets to go around. Also, they're sort of crumbled from re-use, and who wants to be reading from a handout when they're trying to get centered and clear their brain? So, I'm not down with the harmonium sing along, and I'm really not down with the extended Earth, Wind and Fire set that comes next.