No thank you! We're the conservative Christian bastion of Tauranga.

Nude yoga may be okay in ‘anything goes' Auckland enclaves like Westmere, but here in the Bay of Plenty it seems we prefer to keep our T-shirts on and our shorts up when we bend the body into a full lotus.

The tranquil beauty of nude yoga.

Dignity and decorum first and foremost, freedom of movement a very secondary consideration.

'Nude yoga?” asks Sue Furey of the Tauranga Yoga Centre, hooting with laughter at the suggestion.

'God forbid.” Sue forbids too, because it's unlikely to happen on her shift.

'If you can imagine our demographic – 20 to 83 or 84 – I think it would put you off yoga forever.”

She's not being prudish or holier-than-thou.

'It just isn't traditional yoga. We follow classical yoga and classical yoga is not nude yoga.”

All Sue can say is it doesn't happen at the Tauranga Yoga Centre. Will it ever happen? 'No, I don't really think so. No.”

So why in the leafy inner Auckland suburb of Westmere do they feel the need to get it off and get down in a dimly lit room for an hour of nude yoga?

Essentially, the nudity is for unrestricted range of movement, they say. But it's also about self-esteem. 'There are a lot of people with insecurities and fears about how their bodies look,” according to the instructor, unnamed because he has a corporate image to protect.

But there are obvious pitfalls. After all, a nude ‘downward dog' or ‘happy baby' would bring body parts and orifices into dramatic and disturbing focus.

'There are so many images in society of body perfection that we assume we need to look a certain way to be normal.”

But a communal and bollocky ‘Surya Namaskar' can apparently realign our thinking and self-perception.

No realignment in The Weekend Sun office though. We just stood around the water cooler painting mental images and dressing them up with smutty schoolboy delight.

'All those dangly bits,” winced one offended scribe. 'We all have dangly bits,” said another, a female. And what's worse – being a yogi in the second row and gazing upon someone's dangly bits as you struggle into a ‘Adho Mukha Svanasana', or knowing someone behind is analysing your anatomical correctness. Perhaps just one row of nude yogi would fix wandering eyes.

And does what happens in the yoga class stay in the yoga class?

Regardless, a butt-naked ‘Bharadvaja Twist' apparently assists the exploration of the deeper sense of being comfortable with uncomfortableness.

'By facing our fears in a safe and supportive environment, we become more grounded and comfortable with ourselves,” says the Westmere instructor.

In leafy Westmere 'it's about all shapes and sizes, everyone is welcome”.

Everyone is welcome at Tauranga Yoga Centre too. Membership's doubled to 550 in five years, half that again in casuals, and everyone keeps their clobber on at 26 classes each week.

But Sue admits a crack did appear in the decency at TYC. 'A svelte and beautiful young woman did suggest a nude class. She was dead serious and I just about fell about laughing.” That was a year ago, the crack was quickly plastered over and seemliness restored.

'It just doesn't fit with our ethos. But I don't know what happens elsewhere in Tauranga.”

Now the protocols for a nude yoga class. No, you don't rock up to nude yoga ‘nekkid' or in the birthday suit. You disrobe at the venue, wrap yourself in a towel and when the lights dim you shed the towel with style and solemnity.

We are assured most naked yogi are focused naked yogi and don't even notice other naked yogi.

And you aren't there for cheap thrills, it's not a peep show. The instructor would have no compunction asking someone to leave for inappropriate behaviour.

And what constitutes inappropriate behaviour at a nude yoga class is probably fuel for another discussion.