Stretching the truth

Yoga instructor wants more Valley men to limber up.

By Don Mayhew / The Fresno Bee

(Updated Thursday, September 7, 2006, 9:50 AM)

Katie Flinn's body is an upside-down V. Her hands and feet are flat against the floor at Coil Yoga, her downtown Fresno studio, but the rest of her rises like a mountain peak to her hips.

Around her on their own mats are 13 men, many of them attending their first yoga class. They range from young adults to the middle-age, students to business owners, office workers to a geologist.

If the men resemble any letter of the alphabet, it's not a sharply defined V. More like crumpled O's and crooked K's. But they're game, so when Flinn instructs them to walk their feet toward their hands, they all go for it.

Nearly all lean precariously toward falling over. And nearly all start laughing at both their clumsiness and the ease with which Flinn, who's practiced yoga for 10 years, simply moves her feet to her hands on the floor and effortlessly stands.

Welcome to Yoga for Stiff Men, a class with an eye-catching title that's meant to appeal to athletes and couch potatoes alike. After all, half-marathons and years spent in front of the TV both can cause a body to tighten.

It's a five-week introductory course meant to approach a Valley market Flinn believes is largely untapped.

"In any other major city, you go into a yoga class, and it's 50-50 men to women," she says. Her classes typically have twice as many women as men. "I like the mix of energy with men and women, that yin-and-yang thing."

Flinn taught yoga to the Fresno Falcons hockey team before last season, so she has some experience approaching it from a male point of view. But this is the first class she's limited to men in the five years she's been in business.

"I expect a lot of these men will be very aggressive," she says. "Now here's a woman who's trying to 'soften' them up."

The room's track lighting is dimmed halfway. The sound of a flute floats softly from the stereo. The temperature is kept warm, to let muscles stretch as freely as possible.

Even with diverse backgrounds, the men in the Tuesday night class quickly bond over their shared inexperience.

"It's easier with guys," Douglas DeFlitch, 35, of Fresno says later. "You can joke around. You can say, 'I don't have a clue what I'm doing.'"

Frank Delgado, 31, of Fresno agreed that "everybody was in the same boat. … Everybody was looking at someone else to see how the pose was supposed to be, so it opened everyone's eyes. It didn't seem so foreign."

Flinn first goes around the room, asking the men to introduce themselves. Their reasons for participating fall into a few categories: stress reduction, injury prevention, minimizing back pain. One was inspired to start by his yoga-practicing wife. Another is facing hip replacement in a few months and wants to prepare his body for rehabilitation.

Dave Bente, 43, of Tollhouse is a Harley-Davidson owner who wants to recapture some of the mobility of his youth.

"Instead of rolling out of bed in the morning, I'd like to stand up for a change," he says.

Flinn tries to undercut some of the competitiveness the men might be feeling by explaining that everybody performs a certain pose differently. Balance, not strength, is the essence of yoga.

"Lift the I-have-to-do-it- perfectly mind-set," she says. "Everyone here is unique. … Yoga's not like other sports, where you have to get that perfect form."

She spends most of the session focused on breathing technique. The men start out breathing in through their noses, then out through their mouths in a "ha!" — "like you're fogging up the windows in your car," she says.

"It's not yoga if you're not breathing," she says. "Otherwise, it's just calisthenics."

She's pleased when the whole room sounds as if it were filled with contestants at the Darth Vader Olympics. But every time she introduces a new pose, the men almost uniformly forget.

"If you stop breathing, it's like trying to run your car on empty," Flinn says. "If you don't breathe during poses, you're going to get tired very quickly."

She knows many men expect to hurt during workouts. But she cautions them not to go too far.

"Discomfort is a good thing," Flinn says. "Pain is not a good thing. Don't go over the edge. Just go right up against it. Take breaks when you need to. Don't chicken out, but you're allowed to stop whenever you need to."

After sweating for a good 45 minutes, the group finishes with another relaxed pose. Flinn darkens the room, leaving only the light from a half-dozen candles as the men continue to breathe deeply.

They talk excitedly about returning the next few weeks. Flinn is pleased.

"They were fun, and I could joke around with them," she says. "I want people to realize that you can take yoga seriously, but you can't take yourself too seriously."

The reporter can be reached at dmayhew@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6322.

Instructor Katie Flinn, center, leads Douglas DeFlitch, left, Billy Avakian, and Alan Rurik, right, through yoga exercises at her studio, Coil Yoga, during an all-men's class.
Darrell Wong / The Fresno Bee

Hayik Garabetyan, center, relaxes with Ted Williams, top, and Douglas DeFlitch during the final pose at Coil Yoga.
Darrell Wong / The Fresno Bee

Garabetyan, left, DeFlitch and Billy Avakian try out a pose in class.
Darrell Wong / The Fresno Bee