Galleries make fine setting for yoga at the Chrysler Museum

“Cobras,” “monkeys” and  “downward facing dogs”  have invaded the Chrysler Museum of Art.

They gather at 7:30 a.m. every Wednesday  to stretch and meditate among the sculptures, paintings, glass and antiquities.

Appropriate for beginning and advanced students, “Yoga for Art Lovers”  arrived at the Chrysler last month.

“Art museums are very calming, relaxing and peaceful,” said Windi Wood, 28,  an artist from Virginia Beach who recently attended her first session. “There’s an atmosphere of quiet. In yoga there’s a lot of peace and quieting of the  mind.”

Wood joined eight other men and women, ranging in ages from 20s to 60s, on a recent cold, snowy morning under a canopy of tie-dyed banners in the museum’s main atrium, Huber Court.

There, registered yoga teacher  Lauren Sinclair, 26,  kept up a constant repertoire of commands against a backdrop of soothing Asian instrumental music:

“Lower yourself onto the mat into 'cobra’ – roll up – nose, chin, chest,” she instructed, facing an assembly of colorful yoga mats and outstretched limbs.

The hour-long yoga session ended with a 15-minute period in the Waitzer Galleries of Glass,  where participants could select a favorite piece near which to meditate.

Surrounded by colorful, sleek glass vases, sculptures, urns, bowls and figures, Sinclair instructed her students to “feel the relaxation coming from the shoulder all the way to the fingertips.”

“Don’t think of your grocery list or things you have to do during the day,” she said. “Your whole body should feel relaxed.”

“Fifty-ish” Sue Ellen Caplan,  a museum docent, said she has been to many different yoga studios, but finds the Chrysler a far superior venue.

“The first class we went into the Islamic Gallery and saw the prayer rug right there – it just takes you to a different dimension,” she said. “You can’t be in a more peaceful place.”

Wood agreed.

“It has that atmosphere that encourages the mind to relax.”

She said she’s coming back.

“Yoga is an art and doing it in a museum combines art with art,” she said. “I like the two together.”

“Yoga for Art Lovers” 7:30 a.m. Wednesdays at Chrysler Museum of Art, 245 W. Olney Road. $10 non-members; $5 members. For information, call 664-6200 or visit www. chrysler.org.

Lia Russell, 222-5829,  lia.russell@pilotonline.com