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Outside Magazine September 2004

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Peter ”Iron Yogi” Seamans: Yoga Without Pity
Om Wrecker
Think yoga is for wimps? You haven't reckoned with Peter "Iron Yogi" Seamans, the star bodybuilder who wants to get you ripped—one urinating-dog pose at a time.

By Eric Hansen


	INCREDIBLE BULK: The Iron Yogi plants a tree pose in a Boulder, Colorado, emporium. (Dan Winters)

NEVER MIND THE NICE WEATHER, or anything else outside. We're looking inward, toward the center of a vast exercise floor in Boulder, Colorado's Flatiron Athletic Club. In what is arguably the premier workout facility in the world's fittest city, 30 of us are prostrated at the feet of Peter Seamans, a 46-year-old bodybuilder, personal trainer, and Mr. Clean look-alike who calls himself the Iron Yogi.

Seamans's gladiator shoulders bulge under his black spandex tank top. His massive legs—the left shin adorned with an om-symbol tattoo—sprout from similarly clingy black spandex leggings. His pupils seem dilated, as if he's so pumped about his mission that he's fully transcending the here and now. The Iron Yogi—all five foot six inches and 190 pounds of him—is leading his trademark yoga course, Turbo Vinyasa, and he can't wait to take us with him to the next level. But first he's got to turn down the cranking electronica remix of Carmina Burana.

Silence. "Everyone up against the wall," he commands.

Students quickly drag their yoga mats to the outer edge of the wood floor.

"Four inches apart!" he bellows. "Facing me, assume neutral table."

Thirty adults drop to their hands and knees like dogs. Some of us are regulars—weight lifters, marathoners, triathletes, matrons with performance-enhancing divorce settlements. Others are unsuspecting newbies who might soon wish they'd followed the lead of the middle-aged guy who, broken by the pain, rolled up his mat and sneaked out a few minutes ago.

"Now push to dolphin," Seamans orders.

Obediently, we strain into a steep pike off our forearms, then walk our feet up the wall so that our bodies form L shapes, pressing toward inhumanly upside-down poses. Shoulders quiver. When the Iron One launches us from there into pincha mayurasana—a head-down, feet-skyward forearm stand that traditional yogis don't recommend for intermediate students, let alone beginners—the yelps are audible. One by one we all collapse—some gracefully, others on their heads.

A skinny man, who bonked early and often, crumples onto his back, eyes glazed over in a thousand-yard stare. That guy won't be returning, I assume, as he staggers out the door. But next week he shows up again, contorting himself into a trembling tangle of pain. Just like me, come to think of it.

All of which raises a question that, for ages, has vexed seekers of health and enlightenment: Must we truly feel the burn?

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ERIC HANSEN wrote about extreme- yoga master Peter Seamans in September.

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