Arriving at Bikram Yoga Chiswick I am greeted from all sides. ‘Good morning, Nick,’ the lady levering her MBTs off her feet at the door says. ‘Hello there, Nick’, the one parking her UGGs next to four identical pairs on the shelf agrees with her. ‘Don’t worry, Nick. I know your name’, the pretty receptionist says when I offer her my membership card. ‘Hi Nick’, a couple of half naked men chorus as I enter the locker room.
I can’t help myself from indulging in a little swagger as I don my gear and enter the stifling heat of the studio. I am obviously the man. At least as far as those fine people of Bikram Yoga Chiswick are concerned. I am the new and popular hero, I tell myself, adjusting my mat and towel happily, while a couple more people shoot smiling nods in my direction. In the ten minutes peace before the class, people - no, not people, fellow practitioners - limber up around me and I lie on my back and savour the moment. They love me here, I tell myself. They all know me. How could I be anything other than THE MAN? I’ll probably get free membership here as I’m so good for morale. Maybe they’ll even name the studio after me. After all, they know me here.
Then Mandy the instructor walks in and we spring to our feet and clench our hands together under our chins and pump our elbows very slowly up and down to synchronise our deep breathing and I realise why it is that everyone seems to know my name. They’ve learned it from Mandy.
If I have a particular skill, one that separates me out from a crowd and will win me huge prizes on the weirdest ever episode of Mastermind, it is my extraordinary ability to daydream. I have been violently yanked from a reverie by a school teacher calling my name more often than an academy of sumo wrestlers has had hot dinners. I have instantly forgotten the names of 80% of people to whom I have been introduced socially as something about their appearance has reminded me of something like – no, it’s gone, sorry. I drift away into my thoughts during speeches and sermons; conversations and car drives; television programmes and tandem hang glides. I am not far off being able to do an entire yoga session on auto pilot. I couldn’t do it well, mind you, but I could do it. Unless it was a Tuesday morning and Mandy was teaching.
Mandy is one of the more experienced of the teachers at BYC. She really knows her stuff. I think she might be mates with Bikram himself too, from the way she talks about him. Not that she brags or name drops. There’s just a fond familiarity to her tone whenever he comes up. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that they visit each other’s houses regularly for Friday night curries and Sunday barbeques. They are probably godparents to each other’s kids and take summer holidays together.
Mandy is the sort of teacher that six-year olds accidentally call ‘Mum’. She strolls the studio like a fierce but fond primary school Miss, congratulating good performances and correcting the wrongdoers. Occasionally she’ll go off-piste with her own interpretation of a posture that might have a lesser instructor inhale sharply when they should be exhaling. She knows exactly what she is doing though and she takes the whole class with her, urging us on by name. ‘Well done, Xen. That’s great, Eric. Antonio, arch your back a little. Good posture, Lolly. Don’t stick your bottom out like that, Nick. Left arm up, Nick. Nick, stop fighting it. Yes you are, I can see that grimace on your face. I want to see a smile. Just enjoy it. No - stop grimacing, Nick.’ She is amazing. Nothing escapes her notice. Parts of my anatomy that I have never heard of before are identified as being wrongly angled, extended or flexed and gently corrected.
It is helping. My yoga is coming on in leaps and bounds. I’m sure it should be smoother than that but it is improving and Mandy’s supervision is really helping that.
I find it very difficult to daydream in her class as she spots and points out every position that I don’t think through perfectly and that’s how everyone else in the class has learned my name. Who wouldn’t after hearing it that often?
‘Up on your tip toes. Like a ballerina, Nick.’
The class continues. We will spend ninety minutes, twisting and contorting ourselves as the clock ticks and the sweat drips.
Mandy will guide us every step of the way and at the end we will lie exhausted in the dead body pose before gradually picking ourselves up and heading off to chatter in the changing room.
‘Suck your stomach in, Nick.’
People look at me in amazement when I tell them that we all talk to each other in the blokes’ changing room after class and that there’s nothing weird about it at all. I don’t blame them. I’m amazed myself.
I’ve been a member of several gyms over the course of my life – or at least rented their membership cards to pretty up my wallet and I’ve always hated that pair of execs who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time standing naked in front of a mirror combing their hair to perfection, one of them braying about markets and colleagues while the other agrees repeatedly with a forced manly timbre to his voice, the kind people use when joshing mates in the half time bars on football grounds (apparently). He seems to be struggling to fulfil some unspoken challenge of remaining naked as long as his superior, like playing chicken with the last turkey.
‘Nick, stop making that face. You’ve got to smile - look like you’re enjoying it.’
I remember discovering myself in the same swimming pool as Tim Neligan, the MD of Zenith, on a regular basis at Cannons in Paddington (the third or maybe fourth gym that has been proud to call me a member but struggled actually to place me). We didn’t stand and natter nudely at the lockers but he was always good for a friendly hello in the shallow end and would often start conversations with me over the water cooler about swimming. I often wondered if this might perhaps be the moment when my career began to soar. Tim was actually the person who officially made me redundant but he was awfully nice about it so maybe it was that extra length which helped.
‘Suck your stomach in further, Nick.’
I have now become one of those people who talk in the locker room. I suppose nothing bonds people like spending ninety minutes tying yourselves into knots together and my fellow overheated contortionists are often glad to exchange a grimace or a sigh or a comment on the arduousness of the class or the Hades-like heat of the studio or the excitement of the day that awaits us as we peel sweat-sodden clothing off and head for the showers.
‘Stop lifting your chest, Nick.’
I do wonder whether it could be one of the side effects of spending much of my days on my own. I’ve never particularly enjoyed my own company and perhaps this bare bottomed banter is my fault. Perhaps the nice people at Bikram Yoga Chiswick used to maintain a respectful silence with one another. Maybe they rue the day that I came to join their fold. Maybe they are dying to tell me to shut up but being good yogis they are worried about the bad Karma.
Maybe I should test this out. Maybe after this class I will stay stonily silent in the locker room and wait to see if anyone addresses me. Perhaps there will be a relieved silence and peace will return to the locker room.
But I doubt it. Bikram Yoga Chiswick is a friendly place. Lots of people may know my name but I know theirs too. I learned them from Mandy. That ferocious focus isn’t just on me. It extends to everyone and that’s how I know their names. Mandy tells them to tuck their bottoms in too. She’d do it to you too if you turned up there.
‘Well done, Clare. Touch the ceiling, Alex. Arch your back, Elizabeth
You might say that Mandy is a great guide to anyone exploring Bikram Yoga for the first time.
‘Think of your nipples as headlamps, guys.’
I know that it’s time to focus. We’re already at the floor stage. If I don’t start paying attention, I won’t get the most out of Mandy’s teaching and maybe I’ll never be able to do the Triangle or the Camel pose properly and I won’t be able to reward myself with a nice Coconut milk from Francesca at reception and I’ll leave worrying that I’ve wasted the opportunity and when I unlock my bike from outside Sainsbury’s, I’ll be regretting my lack of attention but I should remember that I need to pop in to Sainsbury’s and get some food as Tony’s coming to lunch and I wonder how his holiday in Jordan went and I hope he’s brought the photos to show me and is Corkers ever going to reply to that email about meeting up later on and I wonder what it was that he said he wanted to ask me about and I must remember to ring the plumber back but above all I must focus on this before it’s too late.
‘Thanks a lot, guys. Have a lovely day. Namaste.’
Bugger.
A massive thanks to Max (aka Paul Heneker) for so expertly adding me in to all the studio scenes, when I was actually clutching a glass of wine round at his flat in my yoga kit. If you’re looking for a decent photographer (or would like some photos faked to show you doing sporty things), here’s his site http://www.heneker.com/.
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