Tara Stiles. The "it-girl" when it comes to Yoga with Deepak Chopra as one of her best friends. She has her own thoughts about what yoga should be and is therefor also known as a yoga-rebel. But I don’t think of her as a rebel at all. She’s very herself, cool, pretty, easy to talk to and very entrepeneurial. Her yoga is everything but “psychedelic”. It’s down-to-earth and lacks all the fuss. She laughs a lot during her own classes and puts on rockmusic when a pose needs to be stretched a little longer.
We (well, I and I made Daphne come along) wanted to go to one of her classes in her Broadway studio. And with our busy schedules it wasn’t easy, but on the day of our departure back to Holland, we were able to join a class. At 8 am, a class given by Tara Stiles herself. Level: strong (oops). I felt a little bit bad because Daphne hardly has any yoga experience. But as Stiles just said: "we're only gonna have fun", no worries! And fun it was!
You don’t need to book it in advance. You can rent a mat for only $ 2. Be on time, because she does not allow more than 70 (!) students in a lesson. We were fortunate to only have 20 other people in our class. If you’re a yogi or would like to see the “yogi-rebel” at work, go to Strala yoga @ 632 Broadway, between Houston and Bleecker, New York. Only a 10 minute walk from (or to) Union Square. Check out www.stralayoga.com for the schedule.
