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The latest health craze to hit the Square Mile sees City slickers ordering pizza-style from a menu of yoga takeaway options.Within two hours of their booking, a trained yoga instructor pitches up by scooter at their workplace to deliver the chosen class. Yohm, the firm behind the innovative new venture, numbers Premiership footballers, athletes such as Linford Christie, pop star Dannii Minogue and a string of fashion models among its celebrity clients. But its core customers are executives in their forties and fifties, who are swapping their pinstripes for tracksuits and setting yoga mats up in their boardrooms.They typically pay £75 for an hour and a quarter'ss tuition in stress-busting techniques including meditation, breathing exercises and yoga positions. Heidi Meyer, co-founder of Yohm – which stands for 'sYour Own Health Management's – said demand for the delivery service was rocketing as City professionals realised yoga was not just "something hippy from India" but could bring them business benefits. The firm, which is based in Primrose Hill, north London, was launched last August and now has 25 'syoga bikers's delivering classes in central London.Teachers have even been summoned to clients’ corporate jets and yachts to help them relax. Yoga devotee Miss Meyer, a 29-year-old Australian, said: "We have taken yoga which has been around for thousands of years in the East and adapted it to suit the needs of the Western commercial market.We have clients who are CEOs earning five million a year.We want them to feel comfortable with the idea of lentils and lotus positions. ‘‘What they want above all is professionalism and convenience. I was inspired by me sitting in front of the television and ordering a takeaway pizza. It got me thinking that if I could order a yoga class right now I would. For executives, the trend is to have everything delivered to the office. They don'st want to have to find an available class at the gym. I researched the idea of motorbike delivery thoroughly and I could not find anyone doing it. There was a gap in the market. "We take only very highly qualified yoga teachers, put them through our own exams and then make them learn to ride a motorbike.They turn up at clients's offices in smart uniforms with a 'syoga tool kit's including mats, chill-out CDs, aromatherapy candles and chimes. Clients get one-on-one attention. "If you are a key City player in some high-powered business with chaos going on all around you, yoga makes you stop and fine tunes the mind more than any other form of exercise. It helps you stay cool and collected. By the end you feel sharper mentally and re-energized.You can go on working for extra hours into the night or entertaining clients." Miss Meyer, whose co-founder Danny Williams is an osteopath, went on: "Our success has been down to word of mouth in the City and among personal groups of friends. Our yoga classes are the sort of thing our clients talk about in the boardroom and at dinner parties. "Two thirds of our clients are men and they are no longer shy about talking about yoga to their friends and business partners." For some clients, their yoga teachers are now as vital as their personal trainers in the gym. Miss Meyer said: "I accompanied one client to New York on his private jet. He was on a business trip and he insisted I went with him." David Lewis, a partner in a City corporate finance firm, has been practising yoga through Yohm for five weeks. Mr. Lewis, 48, said: "I work long hours, fairly flat out all the year round. I have found yoga certainly is relaxing for the brain. It is also good for my posture and taking away the neck aches and back pains. I am noticing my new flexibility and I feel really energized after a session. I had talked about doing yoga for ages. But a number of people had complained to me about instructors who were not properly trained. They had just learnt a few moves and held themselves out as instructors. "What Yohm is doing brings some much needed credibility to the industry. I started out doing yoga at home in the evenings but it is so much more convenient that they can come to you in the office.The delivery concept is very good." Mohamed Sammakia, 49-year-old managing director of a City investment bank, said: "The motorbike delivery is ideal.You could not ask for better. I have no time to leave the office so my instructor comes to me armed with all her equipment. "Learning yoga has been absolutely amazing. I feel a glow about myself after wards. It gives you great physical and mental balance. I have a number of colleagues also learning for whom the yoga has helped a great deal with previous sporting injuries or arthritis. It is like going to a chiropractor but gentler." Daisy Finer, a 38-year-old executive in the travel industry, said of her yoga classes: "I love them.The instructor turns up on her bike and we have such a laugh. It is like a mini-holiday. It is expensive and it is a luxury but it is about prioritizing your well being. If I have a yoga class I just cut back on my shopaholic tendencies and buy fewer clothes. It is about making time and space to forget about work and concentrate on yourself, spoiling yourself without being selfish. I had a bad back for ages, probably from sitting at desks too much and being stressed.Yoga has improved it beyond all recognition. "You are stretching every single muscle in your body. The instructors take one look and read your body. They can tell if your shoulder is looking a bit stiff and then concentrate on that. Each session ends with a period of relaxation, lying on the floor doing nothing, which is total bliss." |