Yoga of India in Korea

As we were about to enter a restaurant the other night, we spotted a yoga studio, Yoga of India. My new friend / co-worker, Donae, & I went up to check it out. Inside, we discovered a beautifully arranged space, dimly lit, comfortable, and adorned with Indian wall hangings. Sitting on a floor mat at a low table was the petite Korean yoga instructor, whose Indian name is Soma. She had studied yoga in India, spending time in Kerala and Pune. She welcomed us to join her classes at a very reasonable rate of 40,000 won ($) per month, for two classes each week. It’s about a ten-minute walk from our abode.

The next morning, we attended our first class. Behind the sheer, purple curtain, 18 or 19 mats were neatly arranged in the clean, quiet studio. We were a few minutes early, and the instructor welcomed us to choose our places for meditation. Though the sing-songy verbal cues were all in Korean, Donae and I had little difficulty following Soma’s sequence of asanas (postures). Her sun-salutations are almost precisely the same ten-step salutations that I do, and I could tell from the repetition when she was instructing us to inhale or exhale. Soma occasionally used the English or Sanskrit word for a posture, which was very helpful. There were about 6 or 8 other students that we were able to follow. For the next month, we’ll get two evenings a week of yoga: the perfect complement to another 40-day cycle of absolute sobriety and daily chanting of the mahamrityunjaya mantra. As the language of love is universal, so is the practice of yoga. Alhamdulillah!