A Life Changing Yoga Night
World debut of Invisibles.world was more impactful than I expected.
I’ve been leading yoga at 24 Hour Fitness for 15 years now. And while I’m often dismissed for teaching “gym yoga,” I’ve always endeavored to replicate a yoga studio experience. I concede that “gym yoga” necessarily emphasizes the physical challenges of yoga. But last night we had a game changer for the mental, emotional, and even spiritual part of yoga.
We had the privilege of being the world commercial debut of invisibles at the Plano location of 24 Hour Fitness last night.
Invisibles are light blocking glasses which are lightweight and comfortable and stay on even when you’re in a headstand. That’s not an ad. I have no skin in the game. I’m just describing what I experienced.
I’ve taught “dark” yoga several times over the years. I’ve even gone so far as to put black bed sheets over the windows to make the fish bowl gym rooms as dark as possible.
My goal has always been to remove as many distractions as possible so that yogis can focus on their breath and clear their mind. We get most of our external stimulation from our eyes. So when we remove vision from the equation, we heighten smell, hearing, touch. But more importantly, when we remove vision, we notice what’s going on in our hyper stimulated minds.
We had around 20 skeptical people at class. Most were reluctant to wear light blocking glasses in class. To be honest, I planned to bail on the glasses at about the halfway point thinking there would be too much push back wearing them for the whole class.
My hesitancy and most of the students’ hesitancy disappeared about 15 minutes into class.1 Something happened which I will try to explain, but will likely fail. Bear with me.
What happened had nothing to do with me or my teaching. If you think it’s easy to guide a class with ZERO vision, it’s not. That was by far the most difficult teaching experience. Even harder than beer yoga! And I goofed up numerous times. The positive experience many had was in spite of me, not because of.
Let me back up and tell you about this group. My Tuesday night Plano yogis are lively. And by lively, they cut up and joke around until the end of class. They respect meditation and the mind/body goals of yoga. But they’re all good friends and want to have fun. And I’ve always been fine with that.
Last night was no different. From the minute those glasses went on, there were jokes and barbs exchanged nonstop. They embraced having their hearing heightened!
But about halfway through class, everyone stopped talking. From my perspective, it seemed like they were no longer listening either. The students appeared to go into their own world and started doing whatever poses they wanted. Now students going rouge with poses is nothing new to me. Some students have favorite poses they throw in whenever they can.
This was different. Student were doing poses they don’t usually do. They weren’t doing particularly challenging or unique poses. Just different. And they were doing all the poses REALLY well. Unusually so. Years of nagging my regulars with posture resolved completely with the glasses. It’s like their bodies wanted to do the poses properly.
I really thought the full impact of the glasses wouldn’t be felt until savasana, but in retrospect, that was a dumb idea. They’re used to “no vision” in savasana since it is practiced with eyes closed. But balance poses with no eyes is different. Deep stretches with no eyes is different. Even warrior poses with no eyes was clearly very different for the yogis. Removing vision clearly helped them get in touch with their own bodies and get the most out of every pose.
After class many stuck around to discuss what happened. Others who often chat after class just left speaking to no one. And these were people who usually chatted after class. Those that stayed reported that something happened that they couldn’t quite explain. The words were “trance” and “deep” “waking sleep” and “spiritual.”
I’m not sure how many had the experience. But I do know that every single yogi, even the new guy, did all the poses really well. People who normally modify or just do the poses “shallow” were much closer to full expression. People didn’t rush the poses the way some often do. And they held savasana (meditation pose) much longer than normal.2
I thanked them for being good sports. Instead of taking the pat on the back, they asked “When can we do it again?” I guess that says it all.
Two students did not use the glasses. One just simply refused. The other was a first timer who I recommended not use them although he did for parts of class.
Sadly disruptions during savasana is an unavoidable part of yoga in the gym, and we did have one leave.