Yoga Works worked me

It's a new year and I need to get back on the yoga train. I exercise a couple of times a week but I mostly jog, leaving my poor little muscles tight and keeping me vulnerable to headaches. I used to go to yoga twice a week but now I'm lucky if I go once every three weeks. A lot of this has to do with location: there are very few Iyengar yoga classes in the South Bay. There are a few decent yoga classes but nothing rivaling Iyengar taught by Marla and Paul at Yoga Works. Yoga is also expensive. It is not a discipline for the unemployed.

Now that I'm earning a little bit of money, I thought it was time to throw down for a proper Iyengar class at Yoga Works. There's a studio not too far from my current office and a class at my level happens every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday at 6:15. I scouted out the location at lunch time today because I'd be rushing to make the class after work. I prepaid my 20 dollars to avoid having to wait when I got there.

I dashed out of work at 6 on the dot, fought more traffic than there was a lunch, and ended up parking at a public lot instead of street parking like I did earlier in the day.

I paid $3 for parking after my perfectly decent class. Then I realized I could have used my KCRW discount. Then I was mad. I had just paid $23 for 90 minutes of stretching. That is too much. Not just because I'm unemployed, that is too much in general. There were at least 10 people in my class, which means the studio cleared more than $200. The instructor can't earn more than $100 and we were just one of a couple of classes being conducted at that hour.

Yoga is supposed to be spiritual and beneficial but in L.A., it's for wealthy residents. For all of Yoga Works' preaching, they do not give anyone a break. I asked for the new student discount since I hadn't taken a class in a least a year and a half but they said "no." I could have bought a series of 10 classes for $150 but it's not like I have $150 at my disposal either.

A welcoming yoga studio in Long Beach called Free Spirit Yoga costs $15 a class and $11 if you buy a series of 10 classes. That is much more reasonable and in the end, I'd rather give my money to an independently-owned studio than the corporate machine known as Yoga Works. And since running is free, I'll probably continue to do more of that than anything else.