YAS: Studio (Franchise) Overview

My relationship with YAS has evolved over the years. I first became acquainted with the establishment back in my early twenties, when I was experimenting with horrifying my parents by being a Venice-dwelling faux hippie (which I now realize I had screwed up from the get-go by having a regular job). At that time, my exercise routine consisted of rollerblading up and down the boardwalk, the weekly-or-so visit to a yoga studio for a class that sounded like mostly stretching (IF, you know, the universe opened the doors for me to make it there AND the Collective Consciousness didn’t like, I don’t know, pull me to fulfill my destiny somewhere else in that moment), and lots and lots of walking around Venice. It was on one of said walks that I came across the original (and then only) YAS on Abbott Kinney. It seemed appealing enough with its edgy urban green-and-gray color scheme and silhouettes of people on bikes and in yoga asanas. I was intrigued...well, enough to remember to Google it a couple weeks later, anyway. Like the good faux hippie I was, I was immediately repulsed by the bio of the place and the founder. Ugh. Yoga for ATHLETES? And without CHANTING? Didn’t this woman, this Kimberly, understand the essence of yoga? The point wasn’t to get a good workout--it was to leave and have that pseudo-enlightened sense of “humble” superiority all day, as well as to remain in your foldover pants for hours too long and delude yourself that people see you as some free-spirited breed of cool because you must have just come from yoga. And spinning? Forget it. That sounds like it’s for cracked-out exercise junkies. This place was clearly for fanatics.

Fast forward to a couple years later. I’d unwittingly worked my way out of the hippie mold I never really fit into: I moved inland (to Palms!), I found a stable, no-drama relationship with a fantastic guy, I had a serious job. And I was in grad school. Groan. Oh grad school. That was an experience never to be paralleled (I hope) in perceived stress. Some days, all my best coping skills--journaling, meditation, reiki--just weren’t enough to give me relief. There were days that I just had to sweat it out. I quickly learned that this could be done efficiently on a spin bike. And that spin bike, before I knew it, was at YAS.

It was a short fall from that first spin class to complete adoration of the whole operation. With a combination of moves of residence and jobs that put me commuting between West Hollywood and Downtown, I found myself grateful that the enterprise had franchised to other locations, and transitioned to a YAS “home” in Silverlake, which I found to be pretty similar in aesthetics and overall mojo to that of the site of my original revulsion-turned-veneration in Venice.

Being a regular spinner made me a person who regularly needed to have the kinks worked out that spinning put in place. That Yoga For Athletes bit? To the chagrin of mid-2000’s me, I have to admit that it’s actually a laudable counterbalance of activity for people who exercise heavily a couple times a week, which somehow I became one of as I shed that ill-fitting hippie cocoon. (Who knew that the reason a lot of people exercise a lot is that it feels GOOD?) True, the version of yoga offered here doesn’t have that super-zen, introspective aspect that I do still enjoy in a yoga class. And true, as a standalone yoga class, it is not the most challenging or original thing that the City of Angels has to offer. It’s a pre-set sequence of asanas that are well within the wheelhouse of most people who have practiced consistently for at least a couple of years. (I think of it as “the yoga class I can do when I’m sick.”) But there is something comforting about knowing what to expect, and it does have that just-right blend of poses that you didn’t even know you craved after spinning. Besides, if you’re like me, lifting your SIDIs into your passenger’s seat after a spin class is taxing, so a YFA class immediately succeeding spin (a.k.a. “Indoor Cycling” at these studios) is sufficiently challenging. Even taken non-adjacent to spinning, it’s still a nice way to coax your muscles out of the rigidity induced by any manner of strenuous activity you may have engaged in the day before. If you’ve been to class before and are familiar with the sequence, the no-surprises aspect allows you to customize your practice to your particular stiffnesses of the day without burning up all your yoga fuel before the end of the class.

YAS Venice
1101 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291
310.396.6993

YAS Silverlake
1932 Hyperion Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323.665.6011