Hold on, we’re going Om
6 gods do their best downward Drizzy at weekly Drake Yoga classes
As if taking their cue from Drake’s new track “9,” yoga practitioners are turning their view of The 6 upside down.
A roomful turned out on the weekend for the first Drake Yoga class held, appropriately, in the Drake Underground space at the Drake Hotel, hopping up from their planks to hip-hop tunes from Drizzy’s freshly dropped album Views.
If sales are any indication, Drake has another hit on his hands. All advance tickets for six weeks of the Sunday noontime sessions sold out, so organizers have added five more classes at10 a.m. There will also be limited tickets at the door.
The teacher led us through the renamed “6 Goddess” pose, “CN Tower stand” and “6 prayer hands,” talking over Drake’s explicit lyrics blaring in the background.
While I’m no yogi, I am a certified Drizzy fan committed to working on her “Summer Sixteen” body. The music was motivation enough to drag myself out of bed on a Sunday for some feel-good yoga.
It’s a far cry from wind chimes and prayer chants, but if you’re in the right frame of mind — and empathetic to the rapper’s ongoing love troubles — it can seem perfectly normal to do the cobra and warrior poses to diss tracks and sensitive raps about exes and haters.
Don’t expect “Hotline Bling” dance moves — “unless the 6 God himself comes in and blesses us with his signature moves,” says event co-founder Alaina Galati of Pop Up Asana T.O.
The idea came to Pop Up partner Tara DiGiuseppe when she was in Brooklyn and bumped into a studio playing Drake music every Wednesday night.
“I thought that was so cool,” she says. “Toronto, of all places, should have Drake yoga.” DiGiuseppe sat on the idea for a while until it came to her that Drake yoga has to be held at the Queen West hotel that shares the rapper’s name.
“The idea is people come in because they love yoga and they love Drake. So, it’s kind of like focusing on the music you love and allowing happiness to spread and listening to the cues,” says DiGiuseppe.
“The body opens up to the yoga more if you create a positive vibe.”
But the big question is, can one realistically balance themselves into the tree, side plank and chaturanga poses while Drake’s unfiltered hip-hop confessionals fill the air? “I had to fight the urge to dance a lot,” admits participant Rob Molenda.
“I would’ve liked to be invited to dance.” He also noted that though the class was meant for beginners, he still found it a bit too easy even for that level. Jonathan Perlman, who owns Fireflow Yoga on Eglinton Ave. east of Yonge St., was there to see how they integrated the music into the class. Perlman ran a David Bowie tribute yoga class last month and is doing a Prince tribute class on Tuesday.
“With Drake yoga, it was more of a background music rather than integrated into the flow and the peaks, but it still worked really well and you can quickly get into the groove of it.”