Yoga fii Dimashq

The rumors are true! Yoga does exist in Damascus. Friday I went to a 2 hour class in the evening—I had mentioned to a friend that it would be great if there was yoga here because I would actually have the time to keep up with it, and the next day he texted me to saying he saw an ad for a yoga class this weekend. I called the number and found out that it was the last of four consecutive sessions with this instructor who was only in town visiting family for the week, but I could join the class anyway. The woman who answered the phone gave me directions to the location, and it took me about 40 minutes to walk there from my house.

The class was hosted in a dance studio in the lower level of a hospital called “Mommy and Me.” I had never taken a yoga class for more than an hour before, so I was worried it would be too intense, but this class turned out to be a mix of physical exercises and relaxation exercises, in addition to an introduction to yoga philosophy. The teacher, Ashwani, was Indian and from a school of yoga (whose name I can't remember) and spent time at the beginning and end of class discussing the basic philosophy behind the practice (uniting mind, body and spirit; stopping the mental waves in order to reach a state of nothingness/bliss/the present moment by following the 5 basic principles of proper exercise, proper breathing, proper relaxation, proper diet, positive thinking/meditation). The other classes I’ve taken have been power yoga, which focus on the workout and moving through the exercises quickly to keep up your heart rate, so although the philosophy was oversimplified and I don’t agree with a lot of it, I liked the pace of the class and its focus on learning the individual exercises.

After the class was over, I asked the woman at the desk if there are more yoga classes, since this teacher is leaving. She told me that there are classes 4 times a week! This is the first week they’ve had them and there is one class Sunday/Tuesday in the afternoon and another Monday/Wednesday when I am in school. The class I took was $60 for 4 2-hour classes, so I paid $15 for one class. These classes are 1 ½ hours and cost $40 for 8 sessions. Hopefully the teachers are good.

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When I returned home around 9 after walking back, we had dinner with Laila’s nephew, who was visiting with his wife and 10 month-old son. Laila made tabbouleh and they ordered shawarma sandwiches with tum (garlic paste) and pickled vegetables, and we sat eating and playing with their 10 month-old son, Aram. Children are well-loved in Syrian culture and they are always dressed as well as any adult. One of the other students in my class is 25 and lives here with her husband and 2 year-old son—in class she often asks the teacher how to say things to her son so she can scold him in Arabic. I asked her if her son is happy here and she said he loves it because people give children much more attention than in Germany and he is in day care while she and her husband are in class. And they have been here for almost a year!