I had been torn about going to the Saturday morning yoga class at the Walkie Talkie. But after 7 years of living here, the list of London activities I wanted to try had been reduced to those that I found slightly cringe.
For anyone unfamiliar with London’s skyscrapers, the Walkie Talkie is located in the City of London. Confusingly, that name does not refer to London as a whole. It describes the 1.12 square miles also known as former Londinium, the main settlement during Roman rule. Today it is famously known as the banking district, but you can still find remains of the old city walls there if you look for them.
Positioned opposite the Cheese grater and the Gherkin, two other contemporary concrete landmarks, the Walkie Talkie blends into the architectural pissing contest that has unfolded on this former Roman site (the Gherkin taking the trophy for looking most like a penis).
Unlike its erect counterparts, the Walkie Talkie had to be built with a freely accessible viewing platform and rooftop garden. Naturally, this has meant that while admitting visitors for free during a pre-booked time slot, said viewing platform has become the backdrop to a host of paid-for activities that ensure the building owners can still generate a healthy profit – including the morning yoga classes I saw advertised ages ago.
So, what has taken me this long? First off, I think the fact that the mix of thrill-seeking tourists and money-chasing hustlers that populate this part of town felt fundamentally at odds with the principles of yoga. Although at the sight of the eye-watering £27.50 they charge for the 60-minute class (mats and changing facilities not included), it seems that yoga is doing just fine here.
If I’m honest, what has actually stopped me is the vision of myself, a young, white, top-bun-donning woman, yoga mat under one arm, reusable water bottle under the other, traipsing along the Northern line on my way to class at an ungodly hour. Holding off from doing this class felt like the last stronghold against fully submitting to the matcha-sipping, ‘down-time’-scheduling cliché of a person I feared I was becoming. But then I discovered that I really don’t like matcha and so yoga at the Walkie Talkie was on.
On my way into the city, the early morning sun doused everything in a gentle light, throwing skyscraper shadows on the ground. Yoga but make it Gotham-style. At the building, I waited for my friend while the café staff headed past me to their shift. As usual, one woman’s entertainment at the cost of another woman’s toil. The grey surfaces of the skyscrapers served as a poignant setting for this morally ambiguous situation.
Once inside, every detail confirmed my worst fears of what this experience would be like. Once we had passed airport style security gates, elevators catapulted us to class on the 35th floor. Yogic elation on speed. A tribal tattooed instructor had set up with the obligatory Shanti music, creating a comic contrast with what was obviously a cocktail bar in the background. The concrete floor’s cold sept through our yoga mats. The hard fact of the environment clashing with our lofty intention of relaxation.
In a meek attempt at escapism, I let my gaze wander across the panorama as we worked through the predictable Asana sequence. From the 35th floor, the Cheese grater and Gherkin opposite looked less menacing. As I bent into a reverse triangle position, I almost pitied their desperate rigidity. It must be hard to always stand this tall when there is so much joy in softening.
After class, my friend and I got burned coffees and stale croissants at the rooftop café. They tasted of 10% substance, 90% setting as is common for any Instagrammable place. So far so predictable an end to this story.
What I wasn’t expecting was that the most joyful bit would come after all this. Giggling at the absurdity of the morning, we camped out on a sofa on the viewing platform chatting for hours as panorama-hungry visitors washed around us. Sitting still right on top of one of the pinnacles of profiteering and productivity gave our idle chatter a special kind of thrill. Brazen laziness in the face of banking business. That’s what I call relaxation. And we could’ve come up to the platform without even paying a penny.
There and then I revised my ambitious list of organised fun for the rest of my London summer to read: sitting my ass down in places for free. Who knows, perhaps I can even trademark this as a new yoga pose – the lazily lounging bitch. Namaste.