Let's be clear: I'm not dedicating my first official post as the new travel/outdoors/any-pursuits-of-the-active-kind blogger to yoga because I'm some kind of self-proclaimed guru who finds enlightenment through sun salutations. Oh, no. I trudge to class three days a week and subject my body to all manner of torturous twists, bends and inversions only because I'm chasing the flexibility I attained in the summer of 1985 when I took gymnastics classes in a misguided attempt to become Mary Lou Retton. This is not to say that I am not open to finding enlightenment in my practice, which is why I'm contemplating the five-day Urban Yoga Retreat at Yoga Mandala in Berkeley (which starts today! Eep!), consisting of a workday-friendly 6 AM yoga session, a 6 PM meditation course, plus a sprinkling of nighttime lectures on how to, despite everyday stressors, live joyfully. A tall order, methinks, especially in this economy, but, if I can begin the 
day a little more limber (you know, to fight off the haters) and decompress at the end of it with a productive meditation (as opposed to, say, a vat of macaroni and cheese), then I figure it's worth the $239 just for the built-in calorie deficit alone. Wait. Let's try that one again. What you get for $239: a daily glimpse into a blissful existence, plus the training to make it yours, indefinitely. Sounds pretty f***ing priceless to me.