Yoga with a twist

One of the joys of doing yoga in a pub is that after a workout, you can always recover in the bar downstairs. Peter Silverton explains
It's in a pub, but that's not the point. I know that seems a pretty unusual place to practise yoga. OK, it is a pretty unusual place. 'Never done it in an ashtray before,' I joked the first time as I lay there on my back, stretching, twisting and staring up at the ornate mid-Victorian roses and cornicing, now layered with smoke stains of such depth and tonal range that someone should talk to World of Interiors about featuring them.

The only reason it takes place in a pub is because it was started by the landlord, Kirk, so he and his staff could undo some of the physical damage bar work does to you - all those hours on your feet. Some of the mental damage, too - all those customers. It's an old gin palace of a boozer, on the lower slopes of Hampstead's hill. You'll find it in all the guidebooks, generally with a reference to 'ageing roues'.

Named for a giant of the boards, Sir Richard Steele, it's retained its theatrical contacts. Ronnie Fraser's wake was held there. The creator of Minder, Leon Griffiths, did much of his research work here, over a lager and a Silk Cut.

We do our stuff in the first-floor room, which has also done time as a snooker den, a comedy club, a fringe-theatre venue and a big-screen room for TV football. The detritus from the previous night's celebrations is generally scattered across the floor. Our teacher, Sean, has to sweep the room before we begin. That is part of the point. It's not yoga as fashion or accessory or lifestyle choice. There are no gongs at the end of a session, no special clothing or mats, no candles, no chants. It's part of the world outside rather than something separate. It's not dominated by the young and toned who devote their life to yoga. Hardcore is the adjective of choice.

It's a small group, so you get to know more about each other than you normally would. And we get all kinds - from an elegant make-up artist and an American dance professor to those whose lives have been marked by chemical experimentation, both illegal and the kind you can buy over the bar downstairs.

It was my back that got me into yoga, of course. It 'went', as they say - a word that skims over the whole range from major to minor. Mine was minor. Being me, it felt major. Others would consider it a little lower-back twinge. I was convinced I'd never work again. Half-choking with terror, I called two pals in the same line of work, both intelligent men of a certain age. 'Backs?' said Murray, who lives near Tokyo. 'Mine's now so bad that a transatlantic flight puts me in bed for a few days.' Phillip, who lives in Notting Hill and is still something of a demon tennis player, was more positive. 'No problems there,' he said, 'but I do hang by my arms from the door frame for several minutes each morning.'

Then I thought about my Uncle Paul, an East London builder, still going stronger than he has any right to expect at his age - he puts it down to years and years of yoga. So, convinced by this powerful physical argument, I took it up - my wife, a professionally trained dancer, was already something of a fan. She was so certain of its benefits that she paid for my first class. 'The first one's free,' she said, drug-dealer-style.

Free it was. Hard it was, too. And private. Thank god. I felt a fool, an incompetent. Stiff and awkward, I found many of the exercises achingly difficult. But that wasn't the hard bit. That was the realisation that my body might as well have been Siberia insofar as my understanding of it went. I had a whole new set of physical maps to study, a whole new physical language to learn. Also, a whole menagerie of movements and postures to study and practise - the fish, the crow, the camel, the cow.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, I made some kind of sense of them. Another week, another millimetre. At the start, I'd feel deeply discombobulated at the end of each class. Ravenous, too. And often I'd fall asleep soon after. But right from the beginning, it fixed what I hoped it would fix - my back. It also did the other things they say yoga does: toning up the digestion, stretching the muscles, moving the bowels. As Sting said, it enabled him to do things he couldn't do when he was 20. Or as one of our group, Christian, said, astonished, after his first couple of classes: 'You can even put your socks on more easily.'

People often ask me what kind of yoga I do. I have to tell them I've no idea, though I do vaguely remember something about it being South Indian-style, and I do know that it places more emphasis than some on breathing and fluidity of movement. I also know, from doing other classes, that yoga styles can be little more than brand names, offering a probably false reassurance of continuity and quality. Plus a comforting sense that you're doing the latest thing. 'Oh, hatta yoga, that's so trendy' - I actually heard that admiring gasp.

It's a modern syndrome: If Madonna does it, it's good. Sean believes passionately in some kind of Eastern philosophy, and I believe passionately in two things: his right to it and my right not to listen to it. But even more, I respect his ability to help us unfold our bodies layer by layer over the months and years.

What is the point is that it's a group, not a class. It's a joint project, week after week. None of us is obsessive, but it's a regular commitment which we base part of our life around. We've watched each other struggle - and improve. We sympathise with each other's failures - though we laugh at them, too. At best, it's the laughter of self-knowledge and shared difficulties overcome. Sometimes it's just the mirth of 'There but for the grace of God'

We've counted newcomers in and watched some drop out. If, after the first class, a first-timer raves about how great it was, they'll fall by the wayside. If they talk about how hard it was, they'll stick to it. We've become friends of a sort, the way people do when they work together on a challenging but rewarding and endless task. You discover something new in yourself, and in the others. We have an annual Christmas party. Sean calls it a 'yogic feast', only half-joking.

It starts in mid-evening with champagne in a Hampstead pub and slaloms down the hill - and downhill - from there, winding up as the winter dawn greys the horizon. 'Oh yes,' joked Kirk. 'Be frightened. Be very frightened of the Yoga Crew.'

Sean McCarthy (instructor) 020 7923 3520. The Sir Richard Steele, 97 Haverstock Hill, London NW3 (020 7483 1261)

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