Naked Yoga

Nick Sortal (South Florida Sun-Sentinel, May 24, 2009)

I am straight. I repeat that to myself as I walk into a dance studio, pull off my shirt, and drop my shorts and undies onto the wood floor. I'm surrounded by 17 other nude men — and mirrors. In a moment, we'll start practicing yoga.

For 20 years, I've taken yoga classes in sweaty gyms, incense-drenched studios and even in an office conference room. But always with my clothes on.

Tonight will be different for me, but not for most of the men in the room. Ray Whetstone has taught naked yoga for more than 10 years in South Florida. I learned about it by stumbling across his site, arcoirisyoga.com.

Arco iris is Spanish for rainbow; most of the men here are gay.

"The automatic assumption is that nudity is sex," he says. But not here. He notes that in all his years of teaching, every man's dog has remained downward.

I place my mat in a corner spot, so I'll have one neighbor instead of two. In the minutes before class starts, I stretch out in corpse pose, so I won't have to look. When we stand up to start the class, I tilt my gaze slightly upward, so if I see anything, it's faces and shoulders.

Then I fill my head with yoga-ese.

Yoga is all about letting go of external labels that get in your way, I remind myself. Going within. Testing your focus. More>>

• PHOTOS: Naked yoga poses