A February 2005 Harris poll commissioned by Yoga Journal, the leading American yoga magazine, found that 7.5 percent of U.S. adults, or 16.5 million people, practice yoga; that's an increase of 43 percent from 2002. Of the 16.5 million people now practicing yoga, the poll revealed, 41.6 percent were between 35 and 54 years old.

Y yoga classes are usually on the short side, and there's no way to create any yogic ambience in a room that's built for aerobics and smells like sweat. And then there's the vultures-at-the-door syndrome: Just as you're easing into the hard-earned, restorative relaxation pose called savasana that closes every yoga session, the folks waiting in the hall for their spinning class make their presence noisily known. And you can read their minds (not that yoga teaches you to do that, of course): Get out of our room, you wimps, and let us real exercise buffs have the floor.

The studio's style is in the vinyasa flow tradition, in which we move fairly vigorously from asana to asana in a dance-like rhythm, concentrating less on striking perfect poses than on our deep, calm breathing. The idea is to allow your breath, flowing in and out through your nostrils, made audible by a slight constriction of the back of the throat, to carry you through your practice, giving you something to focus on when you start to strain, helping to relieve tension and bring softness to your body as you move. (In yoga, such controlled breathing exercises, which can be practiced with or without the asana, are called pranayama.)