Waking up with Morning Gloryville

In my quest to find weird new ways to work out, last week I woke up at 5 am and took the subway all the way to Brooklyn Boulders off DeGraw Avenue, and it wasn’t to climb walls. I was there (along with about 100 others) to ‘rave my way into the day’. Basically I was going clubbing, but I had my work clothes in my bag and was completely sober. Sounds mental? Well, it was a bit.

I first heard of Morning Gloryville in London (they now operate in several locations across Europe and the US) and always wanted to give it a try. It’s basically exactly what it what it sounds like, there are DJ’s (really good ones) and people dance, like properly. The obvious differences are, no-one is drinking, everyone is in work out clothes and you drink coffee, smoothies and eat ‘protein energy balls’ instead of kebabs and jaegar bombs. The major difference for me as well, was that I was by myself. I’m not usually someone who does things by themselves (especially not dancing in clubs), so I was sceptical whether I would actually enjoy myself.

I decided to ease myself in with a yoga class. I go to yoga a lot, mostly by myself, and so this felt like familiar territory. I had a good vinyasa class. My instructor was a gorgeous yoga teacher/club dancer who wore sequined shorts and glitter on her face. Our flow class was interspersed with moments of bopping about to the beat which was thumping from the adjoining room. The music was really good, there was even a live violin player. I decided I was eased in enough and headed to the main room.

I stood on the side lines for a while and sort of nodded my head feeling awkward. After a bit of time  though I stopped feeling awkward and did a bit of actual dancing, took some pictures etc and hopefully didn’t look too much like a weirdo.

Flowers, hippies, rainbow sheet which I last saw at Primary School

I would recommend this experience but I think it would be a lot more fun with friends. My friends and I would have definitely gone for it had we been together. Morning Gloryville is very hippy as well (which may put you off) at one point a woman dressed as Bow Peep (I presume) showed me own reflection in her hand-held looking glass. She went around doing this to a lot of people, it was a bit odd, but everyone needs an outlet I suppose. It also wasn’t as club-by as I would have hoped (it was very light in there) which made it a bit harder to sort of let go of self-consciousness, but the music was spot on. I know some friends who have been to Daybreaker in Manhattan that has a more club vibe (it’s in a club and it’s dark) – perhaps one to check out.

Morning Gloryville is held once a month roughly. Sign up on their Facebook page for updates.