Fancy doing the Cobra and the Down-facing Dog to the raunchy sounds of Tool or Gojira? At the monthly Metal Yoga sessions in TivoliVredenburg, it’s all about heavy riffs and relaxing poses.
I’m a fidget. I can’t sit still. And nor can I meditate. So pastimes that are supposed to calm you down – like taking a bath surrounded by scented candles, or enjoying nature – just don’t feel natural.
Yoga is one of those activities that people tell me will be relaxing. ‘Honestly Willem, just try it. You’ll be amazed at how relaxed you feel!’ But the very idea of singing bowls, a yogi with a man bun, and all those white people searching for enlightenment by chanting ‘Ohmmm’, is enough to send me to an early grave. Give me a mosh pit any day. And yet. I’m well aware that yoga has countless health benefits. Less stress, stronger muscles, better sleep – to name but a few. And as I’m not exactly a young god anymore, I need to pay more attention to my health.
Luckily, there’s a compromise: Metal Yoga. Once a month in TivoliVredenburg, for an appropriate price of € 6.66 (according to Iron Maiden, The Number of the Beast), you can open your chakras and your spiritual mosh pit.
Pink yoga tights
The participants in the Grote Zaal are surprisingly diverse: from archetypal metalheads in battle jackets to seasoned yogi. There’s even a bridegroom-to-be. His friends thought it would be funny to dress him up in pink yoga tights and a 1980s Bon Jovi top during his stag weekend.
I roll out my mat next to the stage. The silence is broken by a moody metal number by Deftones, and we start the exercises. Next to me, I hear shoulders popping followed by a deep sigh. It looks as if my neighbours were out late last night. One of them has dried-up salmari on his cheek.
I can’t pretend that I find it easy. At 32, I’m not as flexible as I used to be, a fact that became blatantly obvious during my first pose. Lying with my thighs on the floor and my upper body bending upwards, (the Cobra) I realised that my back is dire need of some TLC.
Hatred of singing bowls
Metal Yoga was initiated by Tante Alie (alias for Rhea Bogaart). ‘It started out as a hatred of the traditional singing bowls so often used in yoga. But I do enjoy the yoga itself. Metal music is the answer: it’s a background noise that calms me down.
As part of the class, Tante Alie prepares us for the summer festival season with exercises designed to absorb windmills (wild, swinging movements) in a mosh pit and climbing over hundreds of bags lying around in the festival field. We learned how to stay upright in the specific situation whereby you’re unzipping your tent in the pouring rain with a stone in your shoe, forcing you to balance on one leg. We also had to practise standing on one leg while pretending to hold 18 glasses of beer, and wobbling towards each other, taking an imaginary glass from someone, drinking it, and throwing it away. My muscles were really burning by this time.
Swirling mass
Later on, lying on my side, trying (and failing) to keep my balance, I heard the person next to me tapping away to a complex rhythm of the French death metal band Gojira. As if it was the most natural thing in the world. Meanwhile, my foot went into a cramp and salty sweat was streaming down my face. But it wasn’t only from the exercise: there was more going on. When I heard the singer of Tool, for example, singing Forty Six-and-Two. ‘I’ve been wallowing in my own confused/And insecure delusions/For a piece to cross me over/Or a word to guide me in.’ For a split second, the music seemed to touch a sadness hidden deep inside me.
Yoga and metal should be each other’s opposites. Yoga is serene and balanced, while metal is hard, raw and loud. But in that moment, I realised that they have more in common than I thought. Yoga teaches you to surrender to your physicality: there are no distractions from what you feel physically. In a mosh pit, you do much the same: you have absolutely no control over which way the swirling mass is moving. And whereas metal is a good way for anyone who has trouble connecting with their feelings to release anger, sadness and fear, yoga is a way of observing these emotions, letting go of them and ultimately embracing them.
Mantra
The music gradually subsides. We do a quick meditation. To my amazement, it feels good, natural. Breathe in – hold it – breathe out – hold it. Even the bridegroom, who was so jovial at the start, seems relaxed.
Tante Alie finishes the class with a mantra. ‘The usual Ohm isn’t very metal, so here we say ‘Hail Satan’. And if you’re religious, you can ‘Seitan’ instead. That’s a nice meat substitute, which is also worth a mention.’
12 and 26 September 2026, TivoliVredenburg
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Over dit artikel
text:
Willem Vernooij
images:
Renée de Groot
Publication date:
10 September 2026
Magazine edition:
UITagenda Utrecht september 2026
