Outdoor Yoga On The Stoop

This week, my Saturday morning started early. At 8:30 am I was up, and by 10 am I was already at the entrance of Brooklyn Museum to take part in their project: Outdoor Yoga on the Stoop. Brooklyn Museum organizes this event a couple of times every summer, and I was excited to take advantage of it this time.

In the event, local yoga instructors are invited to host an hour-long practice for people of all levels - from beginners to advanced yogis.

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that more than 30 people of different ages and experiences, both men and women, came to practice yoga. It gave me a great sense of community. We all were following the trainer’s instructions, slowly getting into different asanas to the tact of music.

During the practice, we all got photographed a bunch of times by bypassers. I was definitely not prepared for it, but it did make me feel a little bit proud of myself somewhere deep inside.

I didn’t have a chance to think about it too much anyways. The practice was pretty fast, we were changing positions every 20-30 seconds. Plus, the sun was up, and I was struggling with the heat.

This is definitely something to keep in mind if you decide to join Yoga on the Stoop. If you don't perform well in the heat, or you have any health issues that might be aggravated by heat and active workouts, you might want to reconsider or come a little early to get one of a couple of lucky spots in the shade.

Another downside, besides the heat, was that unfortunately the instructor wasn’t able to come up to participants individually and help us get into the correct position in case we were making a mistake. We were on our own. But most of the asanas were not that difficult, so you would likely be able to do everything just by looking at the instructor.

Now, a couple of things you should definitely bring with you. First of all, a towel, because you don’t want to slip on the yoga mat while you are doing a downward dog. That happened to me multiple times. Secondly, bring water. I’m pretty confident it saved me from completely heating up during the practice. Lastly, if you have a chance, bring your own yoga mat. The hosts usually have a couple you can take for the practice, but you never know if there’s going to be enough.

Outdoor Yoga on the Stoop is definitely an experience you should try. It gives you energy and sets you up for a great day. And even though I would prefer an earlier practice to avoid the heat, I would still do it again.

Namaste, New York.

By Mary Zakharova