Funky Door Yoga

1336 Polk @ Pine

415-67-FUNKY

My favorite Yelp review on Funky Door Yoga went something like this, “Funky is the smell of the dude’s sweaty ass next to you and Door is where you’ll want to stand so you don’t pass out from the heat.”

Funky Door has two locations in San Francisco and one in Berkeley. I took classes at the one on Polk Street occasionally, but I was a regular for about a year at the one on 2^nd and Howard, but it has closed. There is only one thing more awesome than sweating your ass off in 117 degree heat, and that is doing it in a swimsuit with your leg in the air five feet from a wall of windows overlooking the sidewal where all your coworkers are walking to BART.

I’ll start by saying that I am kind of torn on Bikram Yoga as a whole. For starters, I have a big issue with the cultishness. First, this guy Bikram Choudhury decides he is going to try to trademark yoga poses and basically say you need to pay him a license to do poses that have existed for thousands of years in a room above a certain temperature? What a crock of shit. Then, when you get into it, you realize that Bikram people are ONLY Bikram people, whereas most practitioners of other styles of yoga switch between them. And, to keep your instructor status, you have to do 2 classes a day (3 hours total). And, there is a secret-ish invite-only advanced class that only special people can go to. It’s kind of Scientology-esque in some ways- like you need to get to a certain point before they let you in on their secrets.

The classes are pretty mind-numbing. 26 poses, done in the same order, to the exact same instructor script, every single class with no music. “Your body is like a Japanese ham sandwich!”

Specific to Funky Door Yoga (which, to be fair, is the only place I’ve ever done Bikram), the instructors can be very combative with students, essentially cajoling them into doing poses even after the student has explained that they have a health problem keeping them from doing it. The only time I have heard a teacher accept that a student couldn’t do something was when I was practicing with a fractured arm. As a student, it was uncomfortable to be in the room while some teachers were calling out students and berating them.

The information you find on the internet will tell you that Bikram Yoga is done in a 105 degree room. The instructors at Funky Door, apparently, believe that more is more. An instructor once brought a thermometer into the room and we got up to 117 degrees. Funky Door is somewhat notorious for packing students into the rooms, mat-over-mat, so prepare to get dripped on and have your space invaded.

Funky Door has an introductory offer that is appealing, but keep in mind that classes after that are about $16 each.

Despite all the negatives, though, I really enjoyed doing Bikram at Funky Door when I was injured and couldn’t do “real yoga.” (Bikram has no poses that involve bearing weight on the arms, like Down Dog or Crow, so it was a godsend when I had a broken arm.) It also gave me quite a glow for several hours afterwards and a general feeling of calm and health. But, MAN, getting though those classes was an exercise in mind-over-heat/stink/sweat/douchebags!

THE FINAL WORD: Funky Door is great for a healthy glow and low-impact workout, but prepare to be brainwashed, basted, broiled, berated and, possibly, broke.

THE VERDICT: