Meditate while listening to heavy metal at a local yoga class | Things to do

For more than a decade, Tucson residents have found ways to make yoga their own.

The community has created quirky classes like aerial yoga, puppy yoga, goat yoga, and even nude yoga. All of this is as a way to help the body and mind find inner peace.

One of the more unique local efforts is DO(OM) Yoga at Floor Polish Dance Studio (701 N. Main Ave.). Unlike traditional yoga styles, participants perform poses in near darkness, surrounded by the slow tempo of heavy metal blasting studio sounds. system.

Local yoga instructor Alexei Kashtelyan started teaching yoga classes with doom metal at Floor Polish a few years ago. Since then, he estimates he has taught hundreds of classes that combine traditional yin yoga with heavy metal music, where participants hold poses for longer periods of time.

“I tell people I’m basically just rolling around on the ground for an hour while posing and listening to slow heavy metal,” he said. “[Doom metal]has an emphasis on the bass and repeats slow, heavy riffs, so it’s great for yoga because it’s loud and slow. And it’s all bass. There’s very little treble, so it relaxes your ears. But you can really turn it up, especially with floor polish.”

You may be familiar with doom metal bands such as Black Sabbath, Bongripper, and Windhand. However, everyone is welcome to try Doom Yoga, even if you’re not a metalhead. In fact, Kashtelian encourages it.

“Yoga is great for all aspects of mobility and flexibility,” he said. “But I think, at least for me, the most powerful thing about practicing yoga, especially starting yoga, was the mental resilience I felt when I found myself in uncomfortable situations.”

After the session, participants told Kashtelyan that doom yoga felt almost like therapy to them.

“If you don’t start doing yoga on Sunday, the rest of the week will be a mess,” a participant told Kashtelyan after one day’s session.

To his knowledge, Tucson’s Doom Yoga is the only class in the world that focuses on doom metal yin yoga.

Doom Yoga will be held at Floor Polish on Sundays from 7 to 8 p.m. This class is donation-based and “destined people” can pay as much as they can. Once Kashtelyan reaches $500 in donations, he will donate the proceeds to local nonprofit organizations.

Community organizations Kashtelyan has donated to in the past include Iskacita Refugee Network, Flowers & Brett, and Splinter Collective.

“It’s great to donate to the IRC (International Rescue Committee) or the Red Cross, but you already know they can raise millions of dollars in the future compared to the Splinter Collective. $500 is for them. It might actually change everything,” Kashterian said. . “So I try to stick to local first because I love my city. I love Tucson so I want to support the people here.”

Kashtelyan is currently working on expanding Doom Yoga to locations outside of Tucson, including music festivals and a national Doom Yoga tour that also includes stops in Phoenix and Seattle. He hopes the concept of doom yoga will live on in Tucson, even if he moves away from life in the desert.

“We’ve also heard from a lot of people that they feel like it’s a very safe space. It’s dark so no one can see you,” Kashterian said. “And I think, other than just the yoga aspect, what about for someone like me who tends to be very introverted, especially in certain situations? I can go out and walk around, but most If I want to be close to people, but not with people.

“And I think for people like me,[Doom Yoga]can be a great place to be part of a community and get a sense of community without really interacting with anyone.”

For more information about Doom Yoga, check out their Instagram.

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