Heavy Metal Yoga to Melt Your Face Off

Speaking of the ultimate yoga class playlist, how about the sweet serenading of Metallica or the peaceful purr of Slayer or Anthrax? Welcome to Heavy Metal Yoga.

“Listen to metal. Do yoga. Melt your face off in a very relaxing and healing way,” is usually what gets us on our mats, we don’t know about you. Kidding aside, this is a real thing and a real class at Atlanta’s Tough Love Yoga and some yogis really dig it. \m/

This is what happens when guys say they’ll only try yoga if heavy metal music is playing, according to TLY owner Neda Draupadi Honarvar who has laid claim to inventing metal yoga (though we think she’ll have to take that up with Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine).

What to expect in a metal yoga class? One writer for Atlanta Magazine describes his newb experience as less melty hearts and not nearly as many melty faces as potentially melty eardrums. Still in the end, it was a yoga class.

The soundtrack for each class is a single artist—say, Neurosis, Isis, or Metallica. The music isn’t blasted, but, as my girlfriend found out, setting up your mat right next to the speakers isn’t a good idea unless you’re a huge Mastodon fan.

What did listening to metal add to the experience? Well, I’m not entirely sure. But it felt more hardcore, like something I’d do again (and write about) with pride. Also, in that peculiar way I’d discovered before, in other yoga practices, I felt very relaxed when it was over. Or perhaps relieved. Sometimes it’s tough to tell the difference.

There’s certainly an argument for NO music at all in yoga class (if you asked some yogis, this would probably be it). But while metal music seems to be, oh we don’t know, highly aggressive and violent in nature, we suppose it may be the intro some people need to get on their mats and thrash around in biting-the-head-off-a-bat-asana.

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