Page 122 - Esquire - USA (Winter 2020)

your spine until your feet rest atop your head.
Scorpion
LONDON, JUNE 2014
Hundreds of fit, cheerful women, men, and children poured
into the lobby of a blocky, socialist-style conference center in
Central London, where vendors hawked stretchy tights,
jewelry, and coconut water. A sign welcomed attendees to
the International Yoga Sports Federation’s eleventh
annual world championship. Thirty-two
countries were represented. As the crowds
awaited the start of the women’s divi-
sion across the hall, the opening act was
under way.
Inside the darkened auditorium, the small
audience clapped politely as bare-chested
men in Speedos took their turn on the stage.
The judges, a mix of renowned yoga teach-
ers and former champions, gazed on at groin
level. As the competitors moved through
their poses, they called out each one’s
name—“Standing Head to Knee!” “Standing
Bow!” “Rabbit!” Competitive yoga, like yoga
itself, is for everyone. But in a sport dominat- shoulder and a lotus flower on the other—
ed by women, the men can sometimes overdo
it in an effort to be seen. While attempting a
painful-looking pretzel-like formation, one
contestant wobbled and fell over.
The rules of competitive yoga are simple:
three minutes, seven poses—one in each
of five required categories, two electives—
each held for at least five seconds. The key
is to show no signs of exertion. Launched
in 2003, the sport was the brainchild of
Rajashree Choudhury, herself a celebrated
champion in India, arguably as a means of
promoting her husband’s business. Years
earlier, Bikram Choudhury had moved to
Los Angeles, bringing with him a type of
yoga never before practiced in the U.S. Col-
loquially known as hot yoga and later copy-
righted under his first name, Bikram yoga
became hugely popular here and around
the world, at one point boasting more than
fifteen hundred branded outposts. While
Bikram, a self-appointed “yogi to the stars,”
ran teacher-training retreats and worked
with the likes of Madonna, George Clooney,
and Kobe Bryant, Rajashree devoted her-
self to spreading the Bikram gospel. This
competition was perhaps her crowning
achievement.
In London, a human Ken doll in a fire-
engine-red Speedo took the stage. His smile
projected pure confidence; his every muscle
gleamed. He bowed, then turned to stand in
This story is being published in partnership
with Epic Magazine.
profile—the set position. His name was Jared
McCann, his body-fat percentage was in the
single digits, and one opponent concerned
him more than the others: Joseph Encinia.
Encinia was a legend. He was as flexible as
a gymnast, as strong as a weight lifter, and al-
most hairless. He’d honed his powers of con-
centration by staring at candles, and he en-
joyed demonstrating his talents in the most
public of spaces, such as the mall, where rid-
icule was all but guaranteed. He’d been to In-
dia, where, it was rumored, he’d taught the
rich and famous at a Bollywood mega-gym.
He sported a sun-and-moon tattoo on one
Hindu symbols associated with yoga. His sig-
nature move was a handstand-backbend com-
bo known as Scorpion that involves curling
POSERS
Two champs, three moves, no errors
MCCANN ENCINIA
PRAYER
STANDING BOW PULLING
BOW
McCann and Encinia had known each oth-
er for years. They were approximate friends
and unspoken rivals. In contest yoga, you
must never admit you’re facing anyone oth-
er than yourself.
Onstage, McCann steadied himself, trying
to breathe evenly. If he wanted to win, he’d
need to clear his mind and focus on his own
routine. After nailing the five required cate-
gories, all he had left were his electives. He
could have picked any one of dozens of poses.
He opted to challenge his nemesis head-on,
calling out the pose that had made Encinia the
most respected of all male yoga competitors.
“Scorpion!” McCann exclaimed.
Bow-Legged Peacock
NEW YORK CITY, 2004
A decade earlier, McCann was on day three
of a three-day bender. He’d been awake for
all of it, camped out with other partyers at
a friend’s upscale loft in the East Village.
They’d mixed cocaine with Ecstasy and booze
and tried to make themselves feel less hollow
by contemplating deep things. “What is re-
al?” McCann asked aloud. One thing, at least:
Every so often, someone called a dealer to en-
sure the stash didn’t run out.
Truth was, McCann didn’t understand
life—or at least the absurd conventions he
was expected to follow. Growing up in Texas,
he’d struggled to identify why he felt so differ-
ent. It wasn’t until his teens, after he’d moved
with his mother and her second husband to
Hawaii, that it dawned on him: He was gay.
But that only made things harder with his
Southern Baptist mother, who enrolled him
in conversion therapy and prayed for her son’s
soul. McCann got himself kicked out after
the first session.
He sought refuge in the piano, pouring his
emotions into the works of Bach, Rachmani-
noff, and Chopin. At the University of Tex-
as, he studied music and Japanese, both of
which he loved, but which didn’t turn him in-
to the most marketable job candidate. Seek-
ing like-minded people, or at least people who
didn’t think he was an aberration, he moved
to New York and started moonlighting as a
musician. He played original compositions
anywhere with an open mic and a piano,
crooning lyrics such as “We are the mas-
ter/You are the slave” and “If you just move
silently/I’ll judge you by your stillness.” Mc-
Cann wasn’t in it for the money (though he’d
go on to release, in 2010, an electro-pop al-
bum called The Dungeon). This was about
working through some things.
On his way home from the bender, Mc-
Cann paused in front of a second-story
hot-yoga studio across the street from his
apartment. It wasn’t the first time he’d