Melissa Dribben, Inquirer Staff Writer Posted: Sunday, June 23, 2013, 3:01 AM

At 6:15 a.m., with the streets blinking awake, Eden Silverstein and Jacki Silva groggily made their way up to the 2000 block of Walnut Street. Slipping through an obscure door, they climbed stairs to a room where they spent the next hour wringing out their bodies to clear their heads.

Across the city, throughout the day and well past dark, many others would make similar pilgrimages.

The Philadelphia yogis are everywhere lately and steadily gaining in numbers. They are young, mostly, thin, mostly, and calm, relatively - their rolled mats sheathed in hemp, canvas, or Lululemon Namaste Mesh, slung over shoulders, as they wend their way through the city's pandemonium.

This spring, Forbes Magazine placed Philadelphia third in the nation on the list of most yoga-friendly cities - only a breath of fire behind the far more Zen metropoli of San Francisco and Seattle.

The ranking was based on data collected by GfK MRI, a New York-based consumer marketing firm that surveyed 205 markets to determine the popularity of yoga in each. The survey found Philadelphians 42 percent more likely to do yoga than the general population.

"The yoga trend is really growing," said Silverstein, a real estate agent in her 30s. She was talked into trying an early-morning class at Philly Power Yoga with her colleague Silva, who goes two or three times a week.

It is nearly impossible to quantify how many places offer yoga in the region, said Mary Fetterman, who runs Philadelphia Area Yoga, a website listing area studios.

Teachers give lessons in their homes. Classes take place in YMCAs, community centers, churches, the Art Museum steps, and practically every gym, where students practice the pigeon pose a few yards from grunters heaving 30-pound kettle bells.

Excerpt from:
Philadelphians go to the mat for yoga