#3: Y7 Studio
Y-7 Studio and I got off on the wrong foot. The first time I tried to go to one of their patented hot yoga workouts I had scheduled my whole entire day around a 5:45 class, and despite leaving my apartment by 5 PM I narrowly missed the C train, which led to me arriving at EXACTLY 5:45 on the dot only to be told they gave my spot away to someone on the waitlist. Naturally, I started bawling and picked a stupid fight with my then-boyfriend, despite his ridiculously sweet offering to crank the heat in his apartment and do yoga with me. Pro-tip: work on your anxiety before it gets to the point of having a toddler-style temper tantrum on the 2nd Ave F platform.
Eager to get revenge on the institution AKA pay for and actually attend one of their classes, a few weeks later I recruited a friend new to ClassPass to go to a Tuesday morning Power Vinyasa class at their Prospect Heights location. Upon walking in, the first thing I noticed was their violently cringy decor. On one wall was a mirror with the word POSER emblazoned across it, suggesting (perhaps truthfully) that anyone who attends their classes is a poser. On the back wall of the yoga room itself is their motto “We Flow Hard” which I think needs no further explication. A quick Google search reveals no meaning behind the name Y7 Studio, but the name coupled with the shape of the font immediately makes me think of Kanye’s Y3 shoes, an association that’s not so far-fetched as the New York/LA/Austin-located hot yoga chain prides itself on their fast-paced hip hop playlists.
As far as the little logistical things go, on their website they say that it costs 9 dollars to rent a mat and non-slip towel, but my friend and I and everyone in our class were given these for free as if it were the norm. Maybe it’s a site-specifically enforced rule, or maybe not enforced at all, but for an already expensive class ($123 for three classes!) it seems absurd to charge so much for towels that will be washed and used again. There were lockers for your stuff (the kind where you don’t need to bring your own lock) and myriad toiletries from dry shampoo to tampons to face wipes to spray deodorant in the locker area. Also, there were showers in each single-person bathroom, but it didn’t look like anyone ever used them (no surprise considering their iffy towel policy).
We had to sign a waiver due to the class apparently being 95 degrees, but as my friend noted afterward the thermostat never went above the mid-eighties for the duration of the session. It felt warm, but not hot enough to leave me sweating out of every pore like I wanted. The room was dark save for plastic LED flickering tea lights put inside vases to look like large candles, and we were packed in like sardines with our mats lined up within the bounds of taped-off spots on the floor. So close, that when we did wide-legged forward folds my friend’s face was almost in my ass.
The instructor had us lie down comfortably on our backs to start, before prattling on about abandoning past ideals of who we think we are and the harmful stories we tell ourselves, and instead existing in the now, all with a confusing backdrop of classic hip hop and bad Top 40 pop covers. Then we began the workout portion of the “Power Vinyasa” class, which consisted of three “flows” done three times each. The first run-through of each flow was done with the instructor telling you what to do, the second time was a one-breath-equals-one-movement flow, and the third was a freestyle, where you could take variations as you please. Something I found incredibly frustrating and uncharacteristic of any yoga or even yoga-adjacent class I’d ever taken before was that the instructor was never demonstrating the moves, nor going around and performing adjustments, nor even giving a single cue for any of the poses. Instead, she was just listing the poses in sequence, telling you what to do next, which at best is lazy and at worst harmful, as some poses require specific cues to get the most benefit or even to avoid injury. And the whole time, she would keep going back to these conflicting platitudes, saying things almost spiritual and positive and yogic, and then in the same breath evoking some body-dysmorphic language of visualizing the body you want.
Near the tail end of the class, the instructor had us lie down comfortably for savasana for several minutes, before making us get back up for a final core workout. If there’s one unwritten (or perhaps explicitly written, I’ve never done yoga teacher training before) rule, it’s that savasana is the end. No More Hard Stuff After Savasana—Period. Committing this cardinal sin left me turned off more than the decor, the lack of instruction, and the annoying faux motivation combined.
Despite alllll these qualms, I did get my heart rate up, and get a good stretch, and break a sweat, but I’d rather go to a bonafide yoga class to reap these benefits and more. I would certainly not go back to Y7 Studio alone, but if a friend were going and I had ClassPass credits left, there are worse ways you can spend an afternoon. But if you choose to go, dear reader, against my words of warning, make sure to show up 15 minutes early.