Rocket yoga goes stratospheric in London
Think yoga, think leisurely, meditative calm and perhaps some light chanting. Maybe careful breathing, earth mothers or hippies. Don’t think fast movement, copious sweating or revolutions. But speak to any fanatical yogi and — between oms — they’ll tell you how rebel yoga is taking the capital by storm. It’s called Rocket and it’s the new way to flex and find your chakra.
For those yet to join the downward dog movement, you might have found your route in. Essentially, Rocket is a mash-up, taking poses from traditional Ashtanga yoga but breaking them down into moves that are more accessible to beginners. Flowing movements burn calories and raise the metabolism; held poses build strength and flexibility, so you get leaner and fitter fast.
It’s already one of the top classes at boutique studio Yotopia in Covent Garden. Classes are booked up a day in advance, and people turn up on the day in case of no-shows. When Yotopia ran a Rocket workshop it sold out in days and it has just introduced a lunchtime session to keep up with demand. “We’ve had Rocket on the timetable for three months and classes are always full, so we’ll be adding more this month,” says Pip Black, director at hipster yoga hangout Frame, with studios in Shoreditch and Queen’s Park. “It’s getting huge,” she adds.
Marcus Veda, the man leading the Rocket revolution in London, has a cult following with the capital’s flexiest. Veda takes classes at Frame, Yotopia and Fitness on Fire on Ironmonger Row. So could he teach me? Those who espouse the yoga lifestyle had always seemed a little smug — I’d rather run around the park and then go to the pub than stretch for two hours and have a smoothie. So I went to a session at Yotopia with Marcus predisposed to scorn.
Obviously, pride precedes a fall. Midway through the class — sweating copiously — I looked at the zen Marcus and wished that I too had been espousing the yoga lifestyle. Presumably if I had, it wouldn’t hurt as much at this point.
Rocket yoga moves fast and it’s easy to get left behind: I certainly skipped whole sequences to keep up. Holding certain poses was painful for muscles not used to yoga. And despite being surrounded by yogis on all sides, I was often baffled by the contortions.
But Marcus always provided an easier alternative pose for beginners, and repetitions of sequences meant I had plenty of time to get it right. Towards the end of the hour, my downward-facing dog was coming along nicely, I could do several warrior poses, and I was embarrassingly proud of my shoulder stand.
“Rocket has a shorter learning curve,” explains Amme Poulton, a Triyoga teacher whose classes are influenced by Rocket yoga. “For the first two classes you’ll be totally confused but somewhere in the middle of the third you’ll start to get it. It’s faster and fun and not overly theoretical — it’s more about doing the practice.” The fun factor appeals to laidback Londoners; Frame describes the class on its website as “think ‘heels in church’”.
For the last 10 minutes we lay on our backs in the dark, music playing lightly. I’ve joined the Rocket revolution.
