Woo hoo! I did not know what to expect when I walked into class with Thomas Murphy. Had I read his bio, maybe the energy and vitality of the class would not have come as a surprise. One of six children, Murphy played sports throughout his entire childhood. He has received not one, but two certificates in teacher training, and he is a practicing intellectual property attorney. His yoga class is brilliant to boot! What an accomplished person!

If you want a strong workout that is filled with a playful energy amongst regular visitors to the class, then Thomas’ 6 p.m. Tuesday class is one to checkout. He expects a lot out of his students but he certainly gives a lot back. People love his class, and they come back again and again. This offers a chance to build up to positions. Like this one: we did something in this class that I had never done before—vinyasas while holding tree pose (plank in tree pose, chatarunga in tree pose, upward facing dog in tree pose, downward facing dog in tree pose). A challenge no doubt but an exciting variation on a traditional and fundamental sequence. We also did a lot of balancing poses, a challenge for me. One of these was to place our hands in a sort of web like position, with our pinky on our knee, our thumb on our nose, bent over. What a pose! Another great one was reverse triangle which seriously stretches your butt muscles, ones that seem so out of use when sitting in a chair all day long. I was sweating completely, from head to toe, and it felt so good.

Before hitting shivasana, Thomas asked us to move our head from side to side and then asked us to push our head back while pushing out our under bite. It offered a deep stretch and something you can just do while walking, sitting or day dreaming. It may look a little odd but this is San Francisco!

After class, one of the students was raving about Thomas. “He’s so funny”, she was saying, and I could see why. While the class is a rigorous one, Thomas never seems to take himself too seriously. He’s having fun, and so are we.