Photo of the Day: Yoga in the Rain, Times Square, NYC

The last couple of years, when the first day of summer rolls around, I’ve gotten used to seeing Solstice in Times Square. I’ve smiled indulgently as hundreds of bodies, even as they meditate in leader-leg yoga sessions at the crossroads of the world, twist their bodies into shapes I would not dare try lest I suddenly discover a muscle I didn’t know I had by wrenching it.

Doing all of that on a really, really warm day is not what I’m accustomed to doing. But heck, could this be what these practitioners have in mind when they talk about “hot yoga”?

But that practice took on what I could only think of as sadism this morning on my way to work. Not only were hundreds of people out around 9 in the morning, but they were doing so when the day was still rather humid. 

Worse than that, the weather was, as it seemed to have been most of this week, rainy. And here everyone was, squatting on the ground again amid a steady, dispiriting drizzle.

What was this, a new form of capital punishment?

Photo of the Day: Yoga Solstice in Times Square

On my way to work this morning, I saw this large crowd bent into shapes that made even my eyes uncomfortable—though the spectacle fascinated me even to take this picture. It was all part of “Solstice in Times Square: Mind Over Madness Yoga.” Free yoga classes were held from 7:30 in the morning till 8:30 pm in Times Square.

Photo of the Day: Yoga on the Summer Solstice

Late yesterday afternoon, on the first day of summer, I passed by Duffy Square in midtown Manhattan and beheld the largest crowd there since—well, since Brad Pitt came out to promote World War Z.

At this particular event, someone named Colleen Saidman Lee led the throng you see here—and more—in various Yoga exercises.

I have to say that I tried these on another occasion. Once. Boy, did it hurt…

But all that stretching of parts of my body I never knew I had was nowhere near as arduous and painful as what I was about to endure on my commute home through the Lincoln Tunnel—the second time in less than a week that exhaustion and frustration have been inflicted on thousands of commuters like myself, going in and out New York.