Get Your Mat On

Outdoor Yoga Offers Plenty of Sun
Salutations for the Summer Season

By Ellen Scordato
New York Resident Health & Fitness Editor

How hot is it outside? Hot like India, the home of yoga?

Even if it's just hot like a New York summer, it's a great time to do yoga outdoors. Hot weather warms up the body and makes stretching and bending easier. And sun salutations do make more sense when you can actually see the sun above.

New York offers an eclectic bunch of outdoor yoga adventures, and just outside the city there are some great retreats and workshops this summer.

For urban outdoors types, Laughing Lotus is offering rooftop yoga at Greenwich House (27 Barrow St.) every Tuesday night in July from 7:30 to sunset. Students must register early at laughinglotus.com; these classes have been offered for five years running, and even at $20 each they sell out fast. Bring your own mat and lots of water for some spectacular, sweaty, and challenging asanas with popular teacher and Laughing Lotus codirector Dana Flynn.

Up on the roof: Outdoor yoga at Greenwich House

Farther to the north, in a superb natural setting complete with lots of trees and grass, Eclectic Yoga of Washington Heights (212-927-0300, eclecticyoga.com) is offering free Wednesday-night classes through Aug. 18. The sessions run from 7 to 8:30 in Fort Tryon Park on Billings Lawn, which overlooks the Hudson River. Get there at 6:30 to pre-register and gain access to the site.

Eclectic Yoga's outdoor classes will be led by a variety of teachers. Bring your mat, towel, and water bottle to Fort Washington Avenue and 190th Street, where both the A train and the M4 bus make stops. Walk to the park and look for the lawn - and lots of blissful yogis and yoginis.

At the other end of the island, the well-loved and very funky 6th & B Garden (at the corner of Avenue B and 6th Street, 6bgarden.org) hosts Monday morning yoga at 7 with Joan Coddington, a Kripalu yoga teacher. (Class is canceled on rainy mornings - and really, who wants to get out of bed on a wet Monday anyway?) Classes are free; bring a mat, towel, and water and wear comfy clothes.

For out-of-town yoga and nature, power yoga teacher Stephanie Cohen and personal trainer Stephen Pradon are offering a power yoga boot camp (917-362-8566; ask for Stephanie) from July 30 through Aug. 1, plus optional skydiving on Sunday afternoon.

The weekend includes two nights' housing (single, double, or triples available) and six meals at Menla Mountain Retreat (tibethouse. org/menla) in Phoenicia, as well as seven power yoga/boot camp classes to "drive your fitness to its pinnacle." The weekend concludes with "the opportunity to experience the greatest high of your life, figuratively and literally," in the words of the enthusiastic Stephanie, who also teaches at Practice Yoga.

The power yoga weekend runs concurrently with Practice Yoga's (140 W. 83rd St., 212-724-4884, practiceyoga.com) more low-key Cool Summer Breeze Weekend retreat also at Menla Mountain, which offers the same housing and meals, with four yoga and meditation classes led by Pam Reese and Jessica Phillips.