COLUMBUS: Mention nude yoga to the average person and you’re likely to get a giggle or a squirm, or maybe a joke about downward dog.
Ask Amy Patterson and she might giggle too, or show an interesting pose she discovered on Instagram. But she also gets serious.
Naked yoga, she said, “has absolutely changed my life.”
“Prior to this practice I, like most women, really struggled with a lot of body-image issues and constantly not feeling like my body is good enough, not beautiful enough, not fit enough, not thin enough,” she said. “And I come to this practice and most of those thoughts have pretty much been eradicated from my daily life.”
The 20-year-old Worthington resident started practicing, and teaching, naked yoga this summer. At a recent women’s class that she guided at the Dharma House in Worthington, she encouraged the group to be “acting from a place of gratitude, taking this time to be thankful for your body for all the support that it provides you.”
Nude yoga has been practiced in the United States since at least the 1960s. But instructor Michael Lange of Powell, a native of Germany, said he had trouble finding any nude activities when he came to Columbus 20 years ago. For him, naked swimming and other similar experiences that he had in Europe drew him to yoga and its naked practice. His first naked yoga class was at a retreat in upstate New York.
But in just the past three years, the 57-year-old has seen three naked yoga groups start in Columbus, including the one he teaches, borne from his experiences with the Central Ohio Naturist Guy Alliance. Class sizes among the three groups tend to range from 10 to about 15.
Aaron King, Dharma House owner, is the most public about his classes. He and five other instructors teach four naked yoga classes there each week.
“No matter what your body looks like, no matter what size you are, how much yoga experience you have, how much money. None of that matters when you’re in a room full of naked people, and we are all vulnerable together, and we’re all on this even playing field,” King, 37, said.
At Dharma House, naked yoga classes are open only to adults, and King does not do private naked-yoga classes.
There are no mirrors and lights are dim. Participants disrobe together at the start of class, and some stay in the buff afterward while they chat and nosh on chocolate, fruit, nuts and ginger.
These are not classes simply for the people whose bodies mirror magazine images. During recent classes, participants were of every shape and size; some featured a patchwork of tattoos, others bore watches, bracelets or necklaces; they came from all walks of life and had a range of job descriptions; ages spanned the early 20s to at least mid-50s.