I am spending the week in Munich. There is so much down time on these trips, so I try to find something productive to do (besides watching “Battlestar Galactica” DVDs) to relieve the tedium . Last night, I decided that what my poor stiff jetlagged body needed was a yoga class, so I inquired at Reception (translated from the German):

Me: Is there a yoga class in the area?

Hotel worker: Yoga? Yoga? There is no yoga here!

Me: In all of Munich, there’s no yoga class?

Hotel worker: Well, sure, far away in another part of the city, but not HERE.

Me: Well, where is it located?

Hotel worker: How would I know?

Me: Thanks for the help, there, Heidi.

So I downloaded a yoga video podcast from iTunes and did yoga alone in my hotel room. It’s not my preferred method of working out. I’ve tried yoga videos before and have found it hard to get motivated. I also am bored stiff by their overproduced quality, with Rodney Yee posing soulfully on the beach and so forth. (BTW, I just saw his wedding announced in the New York Times Sunday Style section. He married one of his yoga students; they left their respective spouses for one another. What kind of karma is that?)

This Yoga Today podcast, though, was one of the best yoga classes I’ve ever taken. It was more of a videotaped class than a “yoga video.” The focus was forward bends, and the teacher spent most of the hour on exercises stretching the lower back. I felt that for the very first time I really understood how to do a forward bend without crunching my spine.

It was a free download. You can subscribe to their RSS feed, which contains a link to a new one-hour class every day, or you can subscribe through iTunes. At nearly 400MB a file, I don’t want to download the podcasts automatically, but since they’re free I can download one whenever I need it and then trash it when I’ve achieved a state of Yoga Nidra.

Maybe you should try it, Heidi.