I Did Naked Yoga with Strangers… and that Wasn’t the Scary Part

By Ava Feuer, REDBOOK.

Three hours before my Tuesday evening naked, co-ed yoga class, I asked a friend, "Is it weird that I'm more nervous that this is an hour and 15 minutes long than I am about not wearing clothes?" She quickly affirmed that I was indeed crazy.

But I was right.

After all, I'd volunteered to shed my winter layers and contort by body into lizard pose in the name of an adventure. Reactions around me ranged from "You're awesome" to "You must be completely out of your mind" to "Is that a real thing?" Yet my biggest concern was unwinding my uptight, always-on, New Yorker self enough to survive yoga, period.

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I don't do yoga. I believe that a good workout should make you want to cry, and Vinyasa just doesn't cut it. But what gives me more pause than making time for something I consider physically nonessential is that I'm simply too competitive. Yoga is all about being inside of yourself. I'm busy comparing my balance and flexibility to everyone else's in the room, then feeling guilty for not being Zen and for losing, i.e., not being perfect in my poses (in that order).

So when I arrived at Bold & Naked in Chelsea, I was pleased to find that the teacher-owners, a middle-aged German couple, didn't take things too seriously. They joked about the horrible winter we're having, promised me a mat especially for tall people (thanks for the reminder, guys), and, best of all, refused entry to semi-creepy guy who claimed he couldn't fill out the appropriate preregistration forms because he had no Internet access.

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It all made me feel safe enough that when I arrived in the classroom itself, my anxious I-have-to-pee feeling had largely decreased. I stood there in my turtleneck and leggings, wondering when this stripping down would occur, but once I was told to take it all off--I was given the seemingly-pointless option of doing so in a changing room--it was getting beyond the sweater-over-head hump that was the worst. I then returned to my mat, went through my usual pre-exercise stretches, and joked around with the teacher and my fellow yogis. No one seemed the least bit self-conscious, acting just as I imagine they would if were out to lunch, clothed.

Another thing I'd considered before my arrival was whether I'd rather park myself in the front row and be seen or look upon others from the back. "Seen" and "look" are, in this case, euphemisms for "judge," and with my admittedly poor tendency to do it more than I worry about having it done to me, I know the front row, where I'd be blind to others and unable to judge, would have been braver and more of a challenge. I opted for the middle left.

And as I checked myself out in the sliver of mirror to my right, I realized I was the only one staring at the curve of my butt and the folds of my stomach. It was almost enough to keep me from examining the back muscles and, yes, penises around me, but not quite.

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You'd think that a room of six men and three women would involve a lot of gawking, but Bold & Naked somehow creates a safe--and decidedly unsexual--space. There was so much twisting and attempting to not tumble down that people may have feared a glance behind them would send them to the floor. I don't know. Because I think it led to me ending up down there. That and my search for a nonexistent clock.
This whole thing is supposed to be empowering. Bold & Naked's website reads, "It is about liberation and being comfortable in your own skin and the amazing confidence that comes with it." Thinking about that sentence, I see that, for me-and I know I'm a rare case--it's not about being cool with my too-small boobs bouncing around or the stretch marks on my hips. The common refrain is that I'm A-OK because nudity gives me no pause. But my challenge is different--it's more about the liberation part. How do I get out of my own skin enough to live happier?

It took an hour and 15 minutes of contorting my body with eight naked strangers to put that into words.

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