The summer has flown by and we bet you haven’t even thought about a getaway. Guess what, there are still plenty of options. Check out some of the amazing yoga retreats and events taking place long before the crisp breeze of fall blows our way. We rounded out our list with everything from the overnight to the weeklong and from the bare minimum to the lap of luxury. There’s something for everyone.

August:

Omega Institute: Join Glenn Black for his workshop, Essential Skills of Yogic Meditation and explore the various levels of yogic meditation, including pranayama, yoga nidra, chittakasha dharana (mind meditation), chankramanam (yogic roving or movement), and arohan and awarohan psychic passages. One year of practice with yoga or meditation required. Course runs August 6-8 and tuition is $270. Contact Omega for registration and accommodation information.

Kripalu: Need some peace and quiet, join Sarah and Ty Powers for the ultimate solitude at their 5-day Insight Yoga: A Silent Yoga and Meditation Retreat. Each day will include yin/yang asana sessions, awareness practices and Buddhist meditations. The retreat runs from August 22-27 and tuition is $495. The retreat counts for 28 CE credits for yoga instructors and athletic trainers. Contact Kripalu for registration and accommodation information. 

Another take on relaxation: a Vermont Retreat with Stacey Brass and Bryn Chrisman, from Yogamaya, at Good Commons in Plymouth Union Vermont where you’ll have delicious meals prepared by Chef Matthew with locally sourced ingrediants, two yoga classes a day, and plenty of time to wander, have a massage or meet the local local farmers and artisans. Dates: Aug 26-29th. Prices range from $525 to $750, depending where you bed down.

Heathen Hill: If you’re looking to take your practice to the next level, join Genny Kapuler for her Intermediate/Advanced Retreat from August 27-29. Combining her training in the Alexander Technique and Iyengar Yoga, she teaches a deeper awareness in pranayama and asana through precision and alignment. Prices range from $375-$525 depending on accommodations. Contact Heathen Hill to register.

Labor Day Weekend:

If luxury is more your style, sign up for the Labor Day Weekend Yoga Retreat at the Standard Hotel in Miami. Join Kundalini instructors Paramatma Siri Sadhana and Joseph Amanbir Young and Vinyasa instructor Michelle Barge from Sept. 3-6, 2010 for a weekend of Sadhana, yoga and spa pampering. Pricing ranges from $750-$1350. Contact Pravassa Yoga Retreats for more information and to register by August 23rd.

Menla Mountain: Spend a weekend in the Catskills Working with Your Enemies
with Sharon Salzberg & Robert Thurman. They will explore inner and outer enemies, look at the fear, anger, and anguish generated by being stuck in a mode of "us" and "them", and focus on the liberation you are capable of. The program includes dialogue, discourse, question and answer, and meditation practice. Tuition is $425. Get a 10% discount if you are a Tibet House member. Program runs from Sept. 3–6, 2010.

Ananda Ashram:  Learn the Anusara principle of aligning yourself with the flow of Grace from Sept. 3 – 5, 2010 at the Anusara Yoga Retreat hosted by Tara Glazier and Elias Lopez. Just over an hour outside of the city, Ananda Ashram is easily accessible by car, train or bus. Tuition is $140 or $35 for a single class. Contact Ananda at 845.782.5575 to register.


Heartland: Join NYC instructors Julianna Takacs and Summer Quashie for a Labor Day retreat and enjoy yoga, conscious community, nature, meditation, garden fresh food and time to be (by) yourself. Retreat runs Sept. 3-6, 2010 and early bird pricing is $365 per person ($250 if camping) if registered by August 10th. After Aug. 10 pricing is $385 per person or $275 if camping.


--Allison Richard

Did you ever look up at your yoga teacher and wonder, how did you get here? What happened to you that made you stop and choose such a different - and difficult path - in life. (In an iffy economy, this isn’t a safe or remunerative career choice.)

We wonder and so, from time to time, we ask our teachers to tell us . . . Today, we are proud to present a difficult, inspiring story from J. Brown, founder and teacher at Abhyasa Yoga in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

"My mother died of leukemia when I was sixteen years old.  In the months leading up to her death, I didn’t visit her in the hospital.  I went once but after sitting in my car in the parking lot for thirty minutes, I left without going in.  I just couldn’t.  I was not capable of dealing with what was happening.

Eventually, I’d be hurried to her bedside regardless: for fear she was not going to make it through the night.  I remember the nurse coming into the waiting room quickly and saying, “She’s awake!”  Next, I see my mother in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of her nose.  My sister breaks down sobbing and rushes to her side.  My mother is semi-hysterical, crying and exclaiming, “I am not ready to go!”

At the time, I had never exhibited much poise or depth.  I tended to be somewhat hyperactive and scattered.  I spent a lot of time daydreaming.  Yet, in this most crucial moment, something I cannot explain happened.

In a strange flash of clarity that I have been inquiring to understand ever since, I grabbed my mother by the gown, jarring her present and bringing her eyes to mine, and said, “Mom, I love you very much and I’m going to do great things in my life and make you proud of me.  I’m not going to come see you in the hospital again.”  She nodded in acknowledgement and gave me a pained smile.  I kissed her on the cheek and walked out of the room.  That was the last time I saw my mother.

In the years that followed, disillusionment set in gradually.  I moved from Los Angeles to New York, went to NYU and graduated with a degree in the fine arts.   After I finished school, things got much worse.  At some point, I got very low, so low that I felt I either needed to kill myself or find another way to live.  Fortunately, I chose the latter.

Even after making this choice, I had no idea what to do.  One of the only things I could think of was going to a yoga class.  I’d been exposed to yoga in college and, even in those most cynical of days, could not deny how it seemed to make me feel better.  I liked that it was ancient and sacred, and about things that are important.

First, I gravitated towards an Ashtanga, power vinyasa style.  The intensity suited my struggling temperament.  I gained discipline and some immediate gratification but was still largely hurting myself, only now with good intention. 

Then, I explored an Iyengar based approach.  I became more aware and technically proficient but the emphasis on accomplishing alignment ended up playing into a lack of self-esteem in me.  There was always another variation I couldn’t do, my shoulder was never quite rotated properly and, even though I was somewhat impressive on the mat, I was still in a lot of pain.

Ultimately, I found my way to an entirely therapeutic orientation, inspired by the TKV Desikachar/Krishnamacharya tradition.  By simplifying, slowing and centering my practice on breath, I was able to cultivate a more measured and patient mode of engagement and a different context for my practice where I was no longer trying to transcend my difficulties but rather learning how to ease them and just enjoy the fact that I am here.

I didn’t know it when I started but the course of my yoga practice has been the process of reconciling my mother’s death.  It’s difficult to explain how doing breathing and moving exercises can, inadvertently, carry with them the weight of facing mortality. Something about bringing careful attention to my breath and body, the most tangible expression of the fact that I am currently alive and the very thing that will be taken away from me in death, provides an experience that lessens the burdens I carry and illuminates life’s inherent worth. 

From this standpoint, overcoming the difficulties that life presents becomes a celebratory endeavor and I feel strangely grateful for my mothers passing.  The pain and sorrow I feel because of my mothers death, still just as powerful today as when I was sixteen years old, is what led me to yoga and a deeper appreciation for life’s blessings.  My life has a deeper sense of purpose as a result.

As a teacher, I get to witness others as they, often unknowingly, reconcile their situations and come to the same reverence for life’s majesty.  Playing some role in facilitating people discovering yoga and health makes me feel that I am of some use and reaffirms everything I hold dear.

Whenever someone comes up to me after class or drops me an emotional email to tell me how much they are benefiting from their practice, I feel the warmth of my mothers touch and know that I have succeeded in fulfilling my promise."

J. Brown is a Yoga teacher, writer, and founder of Abhyasa Yoga Center in Brooklyn, NY.

Phenomenology, photography, mysteries . . . this week's list of teachers, studio owners and friends have come up with a fascinating collection.  Read one. No, read them all.  Let us know your favs for next year's summer reading list.  And, thanks to all those who gave us their thoughtful contributions!

Remember, if you would like to support us then click the links to buy.

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Genny Kapular, Teacher, The Iyengar Institute
"One of the books I have enjoyed reading is a book of contemporary fiction called Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. It is very well crafted, a series of short stories strung together by the same character appearing, in some way, in each story."

"On a more esoteric level I have been rereading  Earth and Reveries of Will by Gaston Bachelard, a French phenomenologist. His ideas help me with thinking about the elements and how to teach the koshas in yoga class.  In this heat it is good to lie on the couch and read."

J. Brown, Founder, Teacher, Abhyasa Yoga Center
14 Lessons in Yogi Philosophy by Yogi Ramacharaka.
"This is quite obscure and not found on most reading lists.  It consists of transcriptions of verbal lessons that were given at the worlds fair in 1903. Without a doubt, this is the most life changing book on yoga I've ever read.  There are five other volumes in the series, you've gotta read the 14 lessons first."
 
Golf in the Kingdom by Michael Murphy
"This work of fiction is ostensibly about the mythology of golf but really is about yoga.  There is a sequel called "The Kingdom of Shiva's Irons.  Wonderfully inspiring read."

Jonathan FitzGordon: Teacher, Mayayoga
I Am That by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. "It’s 500 pages of enlightened wisdom from a man who understands it all and shows a certain compassion for the rest of us who don't quite get it yet."
 
Who Dies by Stephen Levine.  "Yoga is all about death and dying. Stephen Levine gets heavy, deep, and real in a clear and concise way."

Joelle Hann: Teacher, Go Yoga. Blogger: Yoga Nation
"For me, Iyengar's "Light on Life.   Using the koshas as a framework, Iyengar elucidates the physical and subtle practices of yoga so richly --and with such clarity and insight--that as soon as I finished Light on Life, I re-read it. There's lots and lots here to stay inspired. He even talks about how he was terrible at pranayama and his teacher discouraged him from mastering it. But he persevered and eventually became adept. I carried this book with me for months and still dip into it."
"Alan Lightman's "Einstein's Dreams" A poetic collection of mini-stories from a talented physicist that play with the concept of time--and the human character. Beautiful, heartbreaking, full of rich nuggets that suggest we are not just this physical form, and much more luminous than we ever imagine."

Wislawa Szymborska (Polish poet) "Poems New and Collected" Poems that explore the meaning of life in tough images--war, injustice, poverty--and great sensitivity. She's less lyrical than a lot of poets you hear in yoga classes--such as May Swenson--but she's really got the ideas right. And they are beautifully expressed.

Katie Clancy: teacher, third world community organizer
The Mastery of Love by Miguel Ruiz.  "The best-selling author of *The Four Agreements*,  Ruiz is a contemporary Toltec shaman with a bone-shaking wisdom.  "The Mastery of Love" is a quick read, but his words penetrate our fear-based assumptions that undermine love and lead to suffering within our relationships.  His stories uncover these shadows and bring light to our capacity to love in a deep, true way.  Whether its for yourself, your yoga practice, your lover, or your dog--Ruiz gives us practical ways to apply the Toltec Mastery (Awareness, Transformation, Love.)
 
Taking Root to Fly: Articles on Functional Anatomy by Irene Dowd  "Functional Anatomy--a juicy mix of body-alignment practices related to Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais method, or more ancient methods of meditative mindful movement and ecstatic dance.  With stunning visuals, Dowd's book is a practical yet poetic way to enter into questions about alignment, posture, and how neurology is connected to movement.  Dowd is a celebrity among the "downtown dancers" in NYC, but any yogi with a desire to go deeper will benefit profoundly from her wisdom."

 
Leslie Kaminoff, founder, teacher, The Breathing Project
The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison "This mystery is great for the adventure, geography, history, politics and culture of Tibetans living under occupation by China."  
 
Mel Russo, Co-founder, Teacher Yoga High
"Liz and loved Max Strom's  "A Life Worth Breathing"  In fact we made it required reading for our 200-hour teacher training.  This book has so many valuable lessons about living a better life and  understanding your Yoga practice in a way that you may have not have thought about before. His lessons are so simple and seem so "obvious"  that is often amazes you that you didn't think of that.  Max has a ton of great stories and little anecdotes from a life that  has been dedicated to helping people. His words of wisdom stay with  you for a long time after reading them or hearing them. (I read them  to my boyfriend every now and then and he loves it) It's the kind of  book you can pick and put down at your leisure and always walk away with some new knowledge."

 
Naomi Jaffe, Founder and teacher, Cobble Hill Yoga
"Without a doubt, the book that has moved me the most in the last year is "The Glass Room" by Simon Mawer.  It takes place between the two world wars.  There is no mention of yoga, but a lot of it is about the effect of space and light on people. It's a fabulous read."

Steven Cheng. Founder and teacher Simha Yoga
I am really into those yogi photo books.  They inspire me on my asanas. Here is my list - in no particular order:
Asanas - 608 Yoga Poses (Dharma Mittra)
Yoga – (Yoga Journal Books) by Linda Sparrowe and David Martinez
Yoga From The Heart - Yogananth Andiappan (by import only)

                                                ***

We've received word that the Hatha Yoga master, Swami Bua, who was born in 1889, has passed away.  He was a direct disciple of Sivananda, guru'bai of Vishnu-devananda, Satchidananda and Satyananda, as well as an inspirational teacher and yogic traveler.  But at age 121 had gotten very frail. It's good he's been set free.

Here is some of his advice that will always resonate with us.

 “No special practice is necessary for God Realization," Swami Bua told the Hindustani Times. “I see God everywhere. If God is not there, how do so many things happen?" "My contention is that sickness is sin," Swami went on. "Don't kill other animals, don't make the belly as a burial ground. I teach hatha yoga, but I don't subscribe to the idea that hatha is a physical gymnastic exercise. 'Restraint of the modifications of the mind' [according to Patanjali] is yoga. Altogether there are eight limbs. Yama, moral restraints, is a step. When are you going to perfect your Yama? How many lives is it going to take? When are you going to perfect your Niyama, spiritual observances? When are you going to perfect your Pratyahara, drawing in the forces of the mind? It takes time."

Swami Bui was a master who did his work with great care, took his time, and we will sorely miss his guidance.

The Yogacity Editors

It has been a year since Sri K. Pattabhi Jois died, and the time for this new book is very appropriate. Guy Donahaye, who studied with the Ashtanga yoga guru since 1991, recorded the interviews with the help of fellow New York Ashtanga teacher Eddie Stern. It is comprised of wonderful accounts of senior students of Guruji, many of whom are currently world-renowned teachers themselves.

Maui teacher Nancy Gilgoff gives us an idea what it was like to be the first Western woman to visit the Jois family and practice at the small Shala in Mysore, India. Californian Tim Miller recalls the mixture of love and fear he felt for Guruji, and, like many others, offers a vivid sketch of life at the Shala, of the warmth and love Guruji’s wife Amma had for the students, making them feel welcome and part of the family. Ricky Heiman, a 28-year student of Guruji, remembers meeting “two of the sweetest people I ever met in my life. […] I felt like they were my grandparents.”

There is the moving story of Heather Troud, paralyzed in a diving accident at the age of thirteen, and how Guruji worked with her, tirelessly putting her limbs into the poses, re-awakening sensation in her body. Guruji’s son Manju Jois tells us of a boy with leprosy brought to the Shala by his father from Tamil Nadu, and how Guruji was set on working with the boy in spite of other students leaving, and of the healing that took place.

David Swenson colorfully depicts struggles on his spiritual quest, with light interludes (“There’s a difference between doing yoga and just making an asana of ourselves.”) and wisdom describing Guruji’s role, which, gathering from these accounts, he fulfilled beyond the imaginable: “I think the duty of a teacher is to facilitate, encourage and inspire practice in the student, to present the tool, to give all knowledge about the use of the tool. It is the duty of the student to use the tool to build their destiny.” Chuck Miller touches on the science of the Ashtanga method: “There is something about the pattern of the sequencing of this method, […], the series, and the idea of vinyasa, […] specific breath with specific movement, […]  a step-by-step progression from somewhere to somewhere else, with breath and movement linked together; and the philosophy of Patanjali, the eight limbs or the Bhagavad Gita. […] I do believe that the practice was designed to show us that philosophy.” 

Right at the onset of reading “Guruji,” a portrait emerges of an exceptionally hard-working, loving, humorous man, devoted to God, family and the extended family of yoga students, teaching yoga based on the shastras, or scriptures, as it is meant to be taught. Astrologer Krishnamurthi, student and lifelong friend, reminds us that ‘all shastras were written with a view to helping mankind attain peace.’ As we gradually absorb 30 accounts of 30 students, different loving perspectives on one Mysore shala, one family, one guru, we begin to get a hint of the enormity of the task Sri K. Pattabhi Jois took on: how in his lifetime he worked nearly every day for sixty years, sending thousands on the path to attaining peace.

A beautiful remembrance to some, an inspiration to all; this book about the life of Guruji: a healer born to bring the Ashtanga yoga system to the world for the benefit of mankind. 

--Anneke Lucas

Click here to buy the book - Guruji: A Portrait of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Through the Eyes of His Students

Tao Porchon–Lynch’s eyes are crystalline blue, direct and pure. The energy emanating from her is outrageous. She is life force. And at 91 years old, she is one of the most vital practicing yoga teachers in the world.

Porchon-Lynch was raised in Pondicherry, India where she practiced with Indra Devi and then with BKS Iyengaar in Pune and Mumbai. She came to the United States in 1948, founded the Westchester Institute of Yoga in 1982 and will be teaching at Yoga Strala on July 24th.

After coaxing Tao (it didn’t take much – she is game for anything) to pose in the jungle gym of the Jewish Community Center in Scarsdale where she teaches, I learned a new basic.  Tree Pose should be done with the heel uplifted - not pressed to the thigh, so that the prana of the pose can flow more easily upwards. “It’s like a willow tree, the flow of the branch is constant, not stuck.”

She demonstrated this again in her class and I saw that she was right. I also realized that Tao is one of the strongest people I know. She easily went from One-Legged Downward Dog to balance on her left hand while her right grasped her extended right foot. Wow.

After class, we sat down to chat:

Gina de la Chesnaye: How has yoga changed your life? 
Tao Porchon-Lynch: Yoga is my life and always has been. 

Gina de la Chesnaye: What drew you to it?
Tao Porchon-Lynch: There is an energy to it. I feel that I like to laugh at the world. I wrote a poem called The Power of the Smile. You did that when you greeted me. Your big smile put me at ease. It is the energy we put out to the world but it comes from inside us. My aunt always told me yoga wasn’t very ladylike… I was one of the very few women to practice. Back then, it was only men. With Iyengar in 1968 it was 99% men. He used to make us practice on wooden benches at a school in Mumbai.

Gina de la Chesnaye: What are your favorite poses?
Tao Porchon-Lynch: Peacock, I like the beauty of it. And I can sit for hours in Lotus. Another favorite is full wheel on forearms. A student I had came in with bad asthma and we worked on the pose together. She hasn’t had asthma for 7 years now.

Gina de la Chesnaye: How has your body changed throughout your 70 years of practice?
Tao Porchon-Lynch: The only thing I have to be careful about now is my waist. I used to have a 17” waist and now it’s 24”! (She laughs) I was a model in Paris for a long time that’s how I came to the US. I was one of the first French models to come here. That’s after I worked in the underground during the war. But, I did break my wrist 13 weeks ago and Lolasana is hard because of that. I also have a pin in my hip from here to here (She sweeps her elegant hand from her knee and up her thigh) which makes certain things difficult.

Gina de la Chesnaye: But you try to do them anyway, don’t you?
Tao Porchon-Lynch: Of course! My doctor thinks I am crazy. I haven’t had a physical in three years and I keep telling her I don’t need one. I know my body.

Gina de la Chesnaye: What have you learned through your many years as a teacher?
Tao Porchon-Lynch: I think, really, that nothing is impossible. The best thing about teaching is to see the smile on a student’s face when she realizes she can do something she thought was impossible. We are constantly learning. No two bodies are alike. As a teacher you can’t tell everybody to do something exactly the same way. Some people have longer torsos or shorter arms… we are all different. It isn’t really and truly how good you are yourself it’s how you can see others and be compassionate towards other people and direct them.
I also believe that people shouldn’t go and take only one type of yoga – there are so many paths. 

Gina de la Chesnaye: What is it important for your students to know?
Tao Porchon-Lynch: Learn not to have fear. Learn how to breathe. Breath is the life force of creation. We have the power inside of us to do anything. The power is there and it is expressed through the outer postures.

Gina de la Chesnaye: How did you get your name?
Tao Porchon-Lynch: Well, my name is also Andree. But my Ayah, she was from the northeastern frontier in India, named me that when I was a child.  “Tao! Tao!” She would call because I always had so much energy and it stuck.

Tao Porchon-Lynch will be teaching at Yoga Strala on July 24th. For more information on her schedule click here.

The first teacher training I ever took was with Jonathan FitzGordan. At different times, for several years, I taught at his studio, Brookyn Yoga (RIP). And I have not one, but two, of his custom slogan tank tops: THERE IS NO “I” IN YOGA, and the glorious FAILURE IS MY FRIEND. Over all these years, during which I’ve paid terribly close, even slavish, attention to everything that Jonathan teaches, I still can’t figure out where my psoas is, or what it feels like to stretch it, adjust it, or, heaven help me, release it. This is a terrible admission, for in the brilliant and eccentric world of Jonathan Fitzgordan yoga, the psoas is the holy grail of body work, the cradle of physical well being.
 
And so, in the wake of the publication of his first e-book, The Psoas Release Party I went to talk to my former teacher, hoping that he could at long last reveal to me why I intellectually comprehend everything he says about this important deep muscle yet I still have no idea where it is... Alas.
 
“It’s really complicated,” he reassures me when I show up at his front door in the Ditmas Park area of Brooklyn. “But that’s what I’m all about... Trying to make really complicated things simple.”
 
And in fact, that is Jonathan’s gift. Despite its elusive subject, The Psoas Release Party is an incredibly straightforward, succinct, and practical book. In short chapters, he manages to explain the anatomy of the pelvis.  Even if you’re not an anatomy geek, the key concepts of how the psoas both responds to and dictates your posture is utterly clarified by this book. He drives home the fundamentals of balance, emotional and physical (arrange all your moving parts into their correct alignment, a perfect system of leverage and pulleys, so your entire body becomes effectively weightless). The “party” itself, a series of releases and exercises, closes the book. I know first hand that even if you don’t know exactly where your psoas is, this cocktail of constructive rest, block lunges, and core stabilizers, makes a person feel sensational and relaxed, and kind of like peeing for a while and then going to bed for twelve hours.
   
Reading Jonathan’s book, I was struck by the physical lessons he offers here, and in his teaching, that I not only remember, but that fundamentally changed my practice . . .. changed how I watch people walking down the street, and how I stand while washing dishes. “Stand up straight with your feet together. Now notice how hard your butt is working to stabilize your body.” Just standing erect, the unevolved biped, the massive glutinous muscles dart, wriggle, and activate. Suddenly, you’re working. “Move your feet apart a few inches. Keep them parallel,” and voila! Your whole body is at rest. In one shot, I learned forever the point of the different tadasanas we practice. Feet apart is a perfectly balanced resting position. Feet together exercises the core. How hard do you want to work today?
 
But the most important lesson Jonathan taught me over and over again, was how to treasure imperfection and injury. “I love injuries,” he’s always insisted, “because they are a chance to learn.” Physical diagnostics are like a Sudoku addiction for him. Why is this arm shorter? This leg longer? Why does your hip pop there? A perennial favorite: why does that woman have such an amazing yoga practice, but off the mat walks like the Wicked Witch of the West in a wading pool?
 
Every movement challenge has a source and to Jonathan’s way of thinking that source often runs very deep and comes from some kind of trauma. I remember his delight when one of his regular students, who suffered from functional scoliosis, brought her mother to class.  Looking at the mother’s posture compared to her daughter, and then asking the right questions, he managed to trace the scoliosis to the trauma experienced in a traffic accident they’d both been twenty years. Or the more recent story of spending a frustrating hour trying to relieve a client’s painful plantar fascitis. Finally he put her into block lunges (a supported lunge that releases the psoas). Her pain evaporated. Did he know the fascitis was related to his client’s psoas? “I suspected,” he says with a pleased shrug.
 
Given this interest in physical misfortune, it was ironic that he answered the door to me last week with the announcement, “I have Bell’s palsy.” Then he went to fetch his eye patch, so that his unblinking left eye wouldn’t get infected.
 
Bell’s palsy is a partial facial paralysis that is generally thought to be a rogue symptom of some kind of virus—although Jonathan isn’t convinced that an overenthusiastic twist in a vinyasa class didn’t bring it on. What’s “amazing about it” he says . . .. (Note: there is nothing amazing about even-temporary facial paralysis; this is a dismal affliction) “From the moment that it first started,” several weeks ago, “I’ve been living totally in my sympathetic nervous system”—angry, frightened, jumpy. “I suddenly understand where my clients are coming from so much better.”
 
The principal of homeostasis—a balanced nervous system—brings us right back to the psoas. In The Psoas Release Party, he writes: “The fear response plays a large role in our movement and postural capabilities. The main action of [the sympathetic system] is flexion, so we return always to the psoas, the body’s main hip flexor. Any time we are involved with the sympathetic nervous system, the psoas will be involved, which is fine as long as the journey into fear is balanced by an alternate response from the parasympathetic system.” Clients who are living with pain, are deep in their sympathetic nervous system, and they need to release out of it before they can strengthen and elongate—which is why the exercises in the Psoas Release Party focus on releasing that bunched up psoas—which is really too deep in our core for us to be able to simply tell it to relax (the way we might be able to command our jaw, for example, to relax, at least for a few attentive minutes). Finding that release gives practitioners access to the parasympathetic nervous system. Practicing that release allows the body to find its physical and emotional balance. 
 
Chronic pain and fatigue can often be traced back to posture. Relief is found in the perfect positioning of the head over the shoulders over the hips, so that each part of the body’s intricate mechanism—each lever and pulley action—can work in concert and all of our cumbersome parts can glide and swing freely and lightly. Most people come to Jonathan with their shoulders and pelvises thrust forward; stomach concave and butt tucked under; toes turned out to walk (almost anyone wearing flipflops will exemplify this posture). This shape is the perfect obstruction to a smoothly functioning psoas. The psoas is our deepest stabilizing muscle, which means that when our stability is off, the psoas isn’t working at full effect and so every movement is harder and by the same token when we’re making a habit of working inefficiently the psoas seizes and working well gets harder.
 
The psoas is “the main engine of movement and the main recipient/warehouse for trauma,” he writes. And the one part of Jonathan’s teaching that you won’t find in the book, of course, is his superb eye for individual imperfect patterns, the traumas that we warehouse. Working with Jonathan directly is like reading a really good detective story about your own body. He looks, notices, asks the right questions, shoots out a bunch of interesting ideas, is interested. And in a way, that’s a balancing cure of its own—a yoga. Pain and unease get recontextualized; they become a subject for speculation, rather than beasts that own you. This is how Jonathan too, from the depths of his sympathetic nervous system, looks easily beyond the Bell’s palsy to how it’s affecting his body and mood, to learn something from it, and smile lopsided when he explains to me, “It’s all good.” 

-- Minna Proctor
 

Writing about yoga is beginning to take off in a big way in America, as more and more people become interested in all aspects of it.  Right now, yogis are taking up the pen with an eye towards making sense of the interactions between East and West – from the historical to LA’ s wacky contemporary yoga scene.

Here Brette Popper and I review five new books, so you can take your beach time or mountain time or even stay-cation time to practice your handstands and to deepen your own relationship with yoga’s underpinning mythologies, characters, philosophies, and religions. 

Confessions of an Atheist Buddhist, Stephen Batchelor (Spiegel and Grau)
In an interweaving of autobiography and  passages from various religious texts, Bachelor locates his quest to discover the man—not the historical figure—Siddhattha Gotama amist the backdrop of his own decade-long immersion in Tibbetan Buddhism and Korean Zen.

After leaving the monastic life to marry a colleague, and joining an experimental Buddhist community, Batchelor goes out to find a form of Buddhism that is applicable to modern, Western people who are educated, scientific, and have no intent of becoming monastic. His studies of the Pali Canon, an account of Gotama’s life, lead him to the central hypothesis for the book:  “The Buddha” was seeking to redefine civilization, not religion. 

The second half of the book recounts the life of Siddhattha, and examines the very real socio-economic forces at work on a man who had a realization about consciousness, a vision for a way to live life, and through a method of practice, a means to revolutionize society.

Batchelor’s story is one of many that are emerging about the interactions between Western society and Eastern philosophy, and he makes no effort to sensationalize or make more compelling any aspect of his own experience: his is a deeply thoughtful account of arriving to a place of peace embracing his own vision of Buddhism as “secular religion.”  ~ Erica Mather


The Great Oom: The Improbable Birth of Yoga in America" target="_blank">THE GREAT OOM: The Improbable Birth of Yoga in America, Robert Love. (Viking)
This very readable work of non-fiction tells the tale of Perry Baker aka
Dr. Pierre Bernard aka The Great Oom as he travels from his birthplace in
Iowa to Manhattan and eventually pastoral Nyack, NY, where he sets up the Clarkstown Country Club, an estate that’s part ashram, part circus/sports venue and part Betty Ford Clinic.

Early in his journey he meets his Indian-born Guru Sylvais Hasmati who
teaches him all about Tantric Yoga.  Bernard, who is good at creating significant media attention wherever he goes, then begins teaching his own brand of yoga and self-fulfillment to members of America’s wealthiest families as well as musicians, actors, war heroes and athletes.

Equal parts scholar, showman and Svengali, Bernard’s story takes us from
the beginning of the 20th Century through the Great Depression.  
Robert Love’s not-too-bogged-down style lets the reader understand how
one Midwestern man left a yoga legacy that still permeates the practice in
America today.  ~Brette Popper

Myth of the Asana: The Ancient Origins of Yoga, Alanna Kaivalya, Arjuna van der Kooiji, Monorama, Shiva Rea (Mandala)
I grew up reading and rereading D'aulaire's Book of Greek Myths, and only realized recently that I have been longing for a similar such collection of the stories surrounding yoga.  This book is a beautiful volume of these stories, drawn from a variety of Vedic texts, with illuminated page edges and elegant line drawings.  Divided into sections “Poses of the Yogi”, “Poses of the Gods”, “Poses of the Sages” and “Animals and Earth”, the authors explain each pose—how to perform it and its effect in the body—relate the story of the pose, and supply gentle interpretation of how comprehending the story and performing the pose can more deeply affect the life of a yoga practitioner.  This book makes a great compendium to any yoga teacher’s practice, and I do hope heralds the appearance of yoga mythology and philosophy in a broader consumer market.   ~Erica Mather

Krishnamacharya: His Life and Teaching, A.G.Mohan with Ganesh Mohan. (Shambhala)
In early June I studied with A.G. and Indra Mohan at Eddie Stern’s Ashtanga Yoga studio in New York. Their teachings made a strong impression on me because it was obvious that the Mohan’s are extremely avid yoga practitioners who live a life dedicated to propagating the lessons they learned from their teacher.

Krishnamacharya was in many ways the “father of modern yoga.”  In this very readable biography, A.G. Mohan recounts some of Krishnamacharya’s life; concentrating on the time they studied together. There are lots of tales about the relationship between the teacher and his student.

At its core, the book is an offering to a guru. “In hindsight we recognize important forks in our life-path – events or opportunities that change us. I now see that meeting Krishnamacharya was the most important event in my life.”

Perhaps the most important lesson A.G. Mohan imparts is that yoga is a relatively uncomplicated pursuit. Practice, study and devotion are the paths to abating the movements of the mind. The kind of discipline he describes is not easy however. Mohan visits his teacher during a monsoon, immediately after the birth of his son, and during the break between a niece’s wedding and the reception.

Mohan quotes “one of Krishnamachayra’s favorite sayings ‘a capable student brings fame to his teacher.’” With this slim volume, he has accomplished that goal by letting the reader understand some of the reasons why this teacher was such a great master and why Mohan is both obligated and qualified to tell his tale. 
~Brette Popper
 
Stretch, Neil Pollack (Harper Collins)
“Stretch” is about the attempt of a self-proclaimed fat, squishy, Jewish protagonist Neil Pollack to find a more enlightened version of his himself, which he lost in the twenty-some years since camp at  “Anytown U.S.A.” 

After a major career crisis, the writer discovers  yoga, thanks to  his wife, and then goes on to explore such subjects as the inexplicable Bikram obsession, being a special needs student at Richard Freeman’s workshop, Wanderlust, etc.

While the book delivered laugh-out-loud moments,  the most marked progress Pollack makes on his promised journey is the ability to politely leave a class that doesn’t suit his tastes.  Although humor can offer us deep insight sinto this social phenomenon, Pollack’s personal account could have stretched a bit further. 

~Erica Mather

Last month, an audience of 30 to 40 people were at the Bhakti Center, joyfully chanting the Maha Mantra, dancing and clapping. Some were dressed in jeans and T-shirts, others wore saris. “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare,” they chanted with the kirtan leader Gaura Vani, who was playing on his harmonium on stage with a couple of other musicians.

Behind Gaura was an altar, strung with orange flowers and statues of Radha, Krishna, Sri Chaitaniya, the father of Kirtan, and Jagannath, the devotional form of Krishna. There were pictures of kirtan gurus including Prabhupada, the man who brought Kirtan to the western world adorning the otherwise bare walls.

Different kirtan artists had been trading places eading the chanting since 10 am that morning. It was then around 2, and the artists would continue until 10 that night. For the past six months, these devoted yoga practitioners have held 12-hour kirtans once a month at the Bhakti Center following an Indian tradition.

Thirty years ago in Bombay, Prabhupada launched the concept of 12-hour kirtans. When Gaura Vani learned about the concept, he decided to hold gatherings in New York.

He brought together the multi-talented kirtan artists of New York to chant once a month on a Saturday for 12 hours. The artists include such luminaries as Nina Rao, Shyamdas and Raghunath. About 16 artists chant during that time anywhere from 30 minutes to one hour.

Upstairs on the third floor, I joined Rasanath, the center’s president for free lunch prepared by the Bhakti Café. Peanut noodles and cake were some of the delicious offerings. “We wanted to take kirtan back to its roots,” Rasanath said, “so the artists chant traditional mantras that glorify Krishna and Radhe or Krishna in his other incarnations. There are plans to expand it to a 24-hour kirtan. In September, we hope to bring the kirtans to Central Park. And hopefully Krishna Das and Jai Uttal will join in the future.”

New York kirtan artists certainly appreciate what a 12-hour kirtan does for them.. “The community at the Bhakti Center is full of open-hearted joy,” said Ishwari of Sri Kirtan, one of the kirtan’s participants. Also in the crowd that day was Nina Rao, a backup singer to Krishna Das, who is an extraordinary kirtan artist in her own right. “Singing with Gaura Vani, Achyuta Gopi, Ananta, and Janaki is always great and I was honored to sing with them,”  Rao said.  She noted that this is the kind of thing that is done at her guru’s temple in India.

The Bhakti Center used to be called The Sanctuary, which opened in 1992. By 2005, the center had fallen apart due to internal conflict and needed to be rejuvenated. It was reopened under different management and offers a café, cooking lessons and courses on The Bhagavad Gita.

As a  kirtan lover myself, I wondered about the benefits of chanting.  Had anyone looked into this in a formal way?  It turns out that our words can have a great effect on the body. In a book called The Hidden Messages of Water, I read that words such as “gratitude” and “love” were shown to water crystals. To another set of water crystals, words such as “you fool” were shown. The water crystals that were shown the positive words made healthy, beautiful formations but the crystals that were shown negative words looked like something someone had just stubbed out on an ashtray.

The point of the experiment was to show the effects the vibrations of our words have on our bodies. The body is approximately 60% water. Imagine the effects that chanting can have on the body. Multiply that by 12 hours, add a large group, and you’ll walk out of the kirtan feeling incredible.

The 12-hour kirtan is totally open. You can come and go any time and it’s donation based. The free lunch and dinner is held upstairs, with a giant television broadcasting the kirtan going on downstairs, so nobody misses out. The next 12 hour kirtan will be held on July 24 at the Bhakti Center.  Don’t miss it!

-- Marie Carter

Entice the kids away from the tube with an Avatar-like experience at Gloga - glow in the dark yoga- at Moomah Café. The funky lighting, innovative games and imaginative use of props will make them feel like they’ve been transported to the magical planet of Pandora.

Located on Hudson Street in Tribeca, Moomah is half café, half family activity center. In the back of the house is a small room separated from the café by a huge, sliding barn door where they hold the intriguing Gloga class I was recently invited to check out. Before the kids (ages 3-5) were allowed to enter the room, Nadine Nausbaum, their instructor, whispered a password to each of them giving them the sense that the Gloga room was a special, secret hideaway just for them. Repeating the password and entering the space, the kids discovered a circle of mats and numerous sizes of round, white rugs on the floor. More importantly, they saw a HUGE picture of a koala projected onto one entire wall. Kayley and Becca, who were new to class that day, had been a little apprehensive about attending, but when they saw the larger-than-life koala, they were hooked.

As Nadine started class, she kept the regular overhead lights on as she finds it’s important to incorporate the kids in the transition from a normal class into Gloga.

After discussing the koala and playing a game of Who’s Here? Nadine put on some music and instructed the kids to “start dancing so we can get glowing!” She then flipped the lights and hundreds of stars lit up the walls and ceiling and the previously ordinary looking white rugs popped with brightness. One of the observing parents commented on how Kayley’s all-white outfit glowed and Nadine later mentioned that kids are often encouraged to wear white to enhance their experience.

The class then took a trip to the jungle where they encountered everything from the koala to a kangaroo and even a polar bear. The kids began to let their imaginations run wild and used the glowing white rugs as everything from river rocks that they hopped across to Arctic snow that the polar bears happily munched.

As they roared like polar bears, I watched any last traces of fear or shyness melt away as the darkness cloaked the kids in security. Max, a regular to the class and a very avid yogi at that, was roaring in a whisper despite Nadine encouraging them to let it all out. When she asked why he quietly responded, “Because I don’t want to disturb the other animals in the jungle.” Nadine thanked him for his consideration to these animals but assured him that they were in the polar bear cave far away from the other creatures and he could feel free to express himself as loudly as he liked. You didn’t need to tell him twice. His next roar was by far the loudest in the bunch.

For their last animal, they transformed into beautiful butterflies. Due to the darkness, the kids had to be more internally aware of where their arms and legs were in space. As they brought the soles of our feet together to create the butterfly wings, they couldn’t just watch their feet to ensure they would come together and touch. They had to feel that they were bending their knees simultaneously and equally drawing each heel in towards their body so that their legs would fit together symmetrically when their feet touched. Even as an adult who’s practiced yoga for 10 years, I’d never thought to break down a simple pose, like Baddha Konasana, into all its intricate movements.
  
For Savasana, they rested in traditional corpse pose and looked up towards the ceiling to appreciate the stars and quietly contemplate any pictures they could find in the arrangements.

As we cleaned up after class, Nadine mentioned several of the other glow in the dark games they play including ocean adventures with glowing seaweed, a glowing parachute and even a drawing meditation with glow in the dark chalk that they can take with them. She especially likes the drawing meditation because once they leave the room the colors on the page change and the kids experience how their perception can change the way they see things.

As we chatted, the originally apprehensive Kayley was standing nearby and we asked if she was ready to do another class. She enthusiastically nodded her head yes and might even have been a little disappointed when she realized we hadn’t meant immediately. We assured her that there was always next week and she contented herself with joining Becca for a post yoga pizza snack.

Gloga classes on the summer schedule are offered for Mommy & Baby on Thursdays from 9:30-10:15am and for 3-5 year olds on Thursday from 10:30-11:15am. Cost is $30 for a drop in or $210 for the 8-week semester. 

--Allison Richard

On a hot sticky Sunday about 25 students, including several of New York’s most prominent Ayurvedic practitioners such as Vaidya Vasudha, the co-founder of American Ayurveda, and Dr. Pratima Raichur, the founder of Pratima Skincare and Spa in New York gathered at Prana Mandir to learn diagnostic techniques from Dr Vassant Lad, a native of India who is perhaps the most respected Ayurvedic doctor in America.

The founder of  the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, NM, he’s been practicing and teaching since 1979 and written several highly respected books including The Textbook of Ayurveda: A Complete Guide to Clinical Assessment and Ayurvedic Cooking for Self-Healing.
 
On Sunday Dr Lad started off the workshop by saying that “every individual is a different expression of consciousness” and that there is hidden meaning behind every line on our faces and bodies. We then moved into examining each others faces, pulses, tongues, and nails. Some face reading cues were rather well known such as lines on the forehead as sings of worrying and anxiety or dark circle and puffiness under eyes that was diagnosed as lack of sleep and stress. Others led to interesting conclusions in Dr Lad’s opinion, for example a groove from the nostril coming down to the outside edge of the mouth meant malabsorption of nutrients in the body. Teeth imprints on the sides of the tongue was another indication of malabsorption, while trembling tongue meant anxiety or deep-seated fear.

Besides determining ailments, one could read individual’s dosha from the shape of the tongue: thin small lizard-like tongue belongs to Vata type, Pitta tongue is sharp at the tip and will want to talk to everyone, while Kapha people have a large and round tongue. 
 
After the workshop, I sat down with Doctor Lad to learn more about Ayurveda and its development in NYC.
 
NA: Most of Yogacity readers practice yoga on a regular basis. Does Ayurveda interlock with yoga? 

VL: Yes, absolutely. Using yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, especially Ayurvedic Panchakarma – a detox and rejuvenation program, will bring radical healing in the body, mind, and consciousness of the student. It is a powerful combination. Yoga and Ayurveda are concurrent and inherent sister systems. Used together, they have the power to bring health, harmony, and happiness in our day to day life. There are various yoga techniques, styles, and systems but they should be adapted according to individual’s body/mind constitution (dosha) using Ayurvedic guidelines. Every style of yoga has something great to offer to the modern civilization but an individual has to find out which style is good for him or her to create a healthy and balanced state. Maintaining balance is the real yoga.
 
NA: From an Ayurvedic point of view, is there something that a lot of people do wrong in their daily life but that could be easily corrected without understanding all the intricacies of body/mind constitution?

VL: A lot of people eat unhealthy diets with a lot of bad food combinations. Some foods when combined together are extremely difficult to digest and turn into toxins inside the body. Some of the common bad food combinations are cheese and eggs, yogurt and fruit, meat and cheese, potato and milk, or fries and ketchup.
 
NA: What are some of your favorite Ayurvedic cures that can benefit everyone no matter what their constitution is?

VL: Ayurveda suggests a very balancing diet that can benefit everyone – kichari, basmati rice, mung daal, steamed vegetables accompanied by some spices such as cinnamon, ginger, cumin and cardamom tea make a very nutritious diet for anyone. Daily Triphala [briefly tell us what is] with warm water at bedtime is a great detoxification method that helps to stimulate digestion and purify blood. Daily oil massage before shower is calming and invigorating and takes a lot less than you think. These are some of my favorite Ayurvedic cures that will benefit everyone.
 
NA: Are there any tips that you could give New Yorkers to stay cool during the hot New York summer?
 VL: Coconut oil rubbed on feet and scalp is very cooling during hot summer days, as are rose petals and jasmine tea. Rice Pudding and Lassi with cumin, a refreshing yogurt drink are great too.
 
NA: What would you like more people understood about Ayurveda?
VL: I wish more people were willing to learn and understand their body/mind constitution (dosha). Also the ancient art of Ayurvedic pulse reading, tongue reading, face and body diagnosis can serve as roadmaps to better health and can be learned by anyone. The idea of detoxification on a regular basis is important, as well. Most Ayurvedic spas and our institute offer Ayurvedic Panchakarma.
 
NA: If someone wanted to study Ayurveda, where should they go?
VL: There are have been multiple schools offering courses and certifications on Ayurveda. Our Institute of Ayurveda in Albuquerque, NM is among them. We have been offering training and a certification program for the last 25 years. Our 2 year training is so complete that the graduates become not only good practitioners but teachers of Ayurveda, as well. Here in New York Dinacharya Institute, founded by Bhaswati Bhattacharya offers both weekend long workshops and an Ayurvedic Coach certification for everyone eager to learn.
 
NA: What if someone doesn’t have time or an opportunity to take classes, what books would you recommend to read?
VL: Ayurveda: the Science of Self-Healing; Textbook of Ayurveda: Fundamental Principals of Ayurveda; The Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home-Remedies cover all the essential concepts of Ayurveda in an easy to read language.
 
Thank you Dr Lad for coming to New York, for your good advice, and come back soon!
 
Nadya Andreeva

Emerson’s poem “Brahma” graces one of the very first pages of the soon-to-be published ‘Subtle Body,’ vividly setting the scene of mid- 19th Century New England, the circumstances around the first publication of the Atlantic Monthly (in which ‘Brahma’ was published,) and the anti-slavery politics of the publishers which motivated the publication, connecting American liberalism with yoga right from the onset.

The author, Stefanie Syman, sets forth early on that  “Yoga is connected to a host of philosophies as well as competing and even contradictory metaphysics; it encompasses varied practices and is technically a part of three ‘world religions’: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.”

The book gives a clear sense about how yoga has been regarded by the general public in the US, from the time ‘Brahma’ was published in 1857, all the way through to modern day New York, quoting Professor of psychology at Oberlin Nancy Darling, who described the Lafayette Street Jivamukti Yoga studio as a ‘yuppie pleasure palace.’

In between, we are with David Henry Thoreau retreating to a small cabin in Massachusets to live as a sadhaka for two years, practicing yoga as he understands it from the few books available at that time.  We experience the arrival of Swami Vivekananda, the yoga methods he taught, and how his organization blossomed, mostly through the agency of Boston grand dame Sarah Bull, one of Vivekananda’s most devoted followers. We meet the ambitious and charismatic Pierre Bernard and his partner Blanche De Vries who brought Hatha to New York City in the early 20th Century and to the then new suburb of Nyack, where a country club was built and high society came to practice yoga and watch circus shows. We get to know the humble Margaret Woodrow Wilson, the president’s daughter who became a student of Aurobindo and went to live in his ashram in Colonial India. In the next story we return way West, to Los Angeles, where Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley attend services at a small Vedanta temple ministered by a disciple of Vivekananda. We learn about Indra Devi’s illustrious background, and how she popularized yoga in Hollywood - and later the US - by stripping it of everything but physical exercise. We move on to encounter Timothy Leary and Ram Dass in the early stages of their experiments, how these evolved, and what happened to yoga in the 70’s, as Syman bravely tackles power abuse from various gurus, and how organizations were built around the protection of the culprits. We end today, with the new resurgence of yoga and teachers such as Bikram, B.K.S. Iyengar and Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.  It is an amazing book. YogaCity NYC's Anneke Lucas sat down with the author to find out more about the author and her subject.
 
 
Anneke Lucas: I loved reading it! It’s extremely ambitious, and my first question is: Why did you take it on?

Stefanie Syman: (laughs) After having practiced yoga for about 8 years, I was a little bit aware of the literature around yoga. I think Chris [Stefanie’s husband is Christopher Kelley, a Buddhist scholar] was reading “How the Swans Came to the Lake” about Buddhism and we commented that no one had written such a book for yoga. Chris said: “You should write it.” My immediate reaction was: “Are you out of your mind?” But it got me thinking. Yoga is arguably more popular and more assimilated in this country than Buddhism, and what happened? How did it happen? It turned out that I was in a pretty decent position to try to understand that process, having some sense of the inside version through my practice [Stefanie practices Ashtanga and some years ago briefly assisted Eddie Stern at Ashtanga Yoga New York], combined with my literature background.
 
AL: The first chapter is really fun. Did your research bring you to start with Emerson?

SS: It gives another angle on American history. Emerson is a quintessential American icon, and simultaneously kind of obscure. He had a hand in the way people treated yoga and understood it even though he was practically not connected and not practicing, but his ideas so shaped the context for the assimilation that to not talk about him would have been a disservice. It also was really interesting when I discovered that his poem ‘Brahma’ was in the inaugural issue of the Atlantic Monthly. I knew about the poem and I knew about the Atlantic, but the fact that those two moments came together was very potent to me. There were so many other things happening at that time too; there was the whole economics of being an author at the time, and the whole anti-slavery movement. We think the phenomenon of associating yoga with liberalism,  whether valid or not, is recent. But this connection of yoga with liberal thought, tolerance and believing in equality, was made before, right as the process of the assimilation began.

What I found interesting also was that a lot of Americans have remained in Thoreau’s position well into the 20th century. If you want to do yoga today, it would probably be no problem to find a class in any major city, but in smaller towns and rural areas, maybe not. Until pretty recently there were many places in America where you couldn’t find a yoga school or a yoga studio, so many people, like Thoreau, relied on books to be introduced to yoga. Of course today, with the internet, through webcasts and Youtube, it is easier.
 
AL: I was struck by your style. You are devotional, but at the same time you’re extremely cynical. The skepticism is always reflected, in almost every account.

SS: In general, as I was a literature major at Yale, this is my orientation. In my research I dealt with people who aren’t with us anymore, so I had to allow for the fact that I don’t know and in many cases couldn’t know what really happened. I strove to be respectful.
 
AL: The chapter on Margaret Woodrow Wilson clearly describes that yoga doesn’t have to be Hatha; she never practiced Hatha Yoga but was extremely devoted.

SS: She was an ideal subject. She is connected to American history in such important ways and was kind of forgotten. But at the time it was all over the papers; people knew about her interest in yoga. She articulated her experience of yoga eloquently, and really honestly. What I liked were her accounts of progress and setbacks; it wasn’t this smooth trajectory into some blissful state at all, but a very real account of what it means to make progress towards this ineffable goal.
 
AL: And whereas in other chapters, you are very skeptical, you are more generous in this chapter about Margaret Woodrow Wilson.

SS: She was relating a personal experience. Theos Bernard, for example, was not trustworthy. He made up a lot. He was very ambitious. Both he and his uncle Pierre were very hard to pin down. It’s clear that Theos fabricated key parts of his books. And Pierre Bernard was a very slippery fellow. Even though a biography has been written about him, I still found it hard to know him as a human being, and find out what really motivated him.  What makes both of them problematic figures, unlike Margaret, who was morally very true in her life, was that they accomplished a debatable amount of good for yoga, but they clearly did not have a huge amount of integrity in their lives.
 
AL: … A theme repeated again and again with many spiritual leaders you write about, in particular Swami Muktananda.

SS: Yes. The story of Muktananda was about his personal ability to awaken kundalini. But allegations of his misconduct were widespread and much reported on in the press. Some of those allegations were true, about his missteps and crossing boundaries, but you saw an organization that was kind of mobilized to defend and protect him and his legacy very actively, to the point where it wasn’t just defensive, but aggressive, and people felt uncomfortable and threatened.
 
I had to make choices what to write about.  Bikram, for example, has gotten a lot of flack about intellectual property maneuvers, and I found that kind of interesting, but I didn’t mention it. There have been some other issues with Bikram as well…

 
AL: If you compare Pierre Bernard and Bikram, for example, they strike me as similar in some ways, in that they seem to have very big egos.

SS: I think that’s true. Although Pierre Bernard disseminated yoga to a very powerful and influential set of socialites and artists and intellectuals, he didn’t really reach beyond that circle. It did trickle out and he got some attention for yoga, but he didn’t care about that; he wasn’t as interested in popularization, whereas Bikram definitely is. He’s got franchises; he’s got books; he’s got DVD’s. He’s got a whole industry, and you can laugh and be cynical about how much money he’s made, but at the same time, that is how a lot of people get to yoga. Those who might not otherwise find out about it, or who don’t have friends who practice, encounter yoga through some media outlet and they put a DVID on or read a book and decide they want to figure it out and try it. I think that is why I was really interested in Bikram. 

 
AL: When I was reading about Blanche De Vries, I too thought of Sharon Gannon, and then you mention their similarity later on in the book.

SS: They’re so similar.  I was interested in David Life and Sharon Gannon as an example in this trajectory that happened in the 90’s of bringing certain elements into yoga that seemingly had been lost. 

 
AL: The religion?

SS: Yes. And the way they brought luxury into their later incarnation of Jivamukti: the merging of luxury and yoga and making it into a sensual experience. I was trying to understand the moment where yoga started to be trendy and how the fascination with India started up again in our culture. The way Hatha yoga had positioned itself was by shedding all of that, in a very aggressive and explicit way, so it was very interesting to me how Sharon Gannon and David Life were insistent on reinvigorating that. I’ve heard various accounts of that transition, but I felt that if I was too concerned with some of the politics it could drive people’s interest in yoga away. I wanted to be comprehensive. I took people as icons of certain forces, and look at them as energy points and how they intersect. 

 
AL: I’m always wondering about public power vs. conduct in one’s own personal life.

SS: Yes, How do you handle power obtained by your own spiritual practice? It is not power obtained by being the manager of some big factory. It’s been obtained in a specific way, which seems to put a far greater premium on integrity and honoring the yamas and niyamas. I think it’s an interesting question and I think that I looked a little bit more at that dynamic in earlier chapters than in the later ones where I’m trying to hold the reader’s interest in yoga personalities living today.
I did mention Ram Dass and Joya Santayana. What was interesting with Ram Dass is that he talked about his missteps openly – relatively, it was a calculated openness – relating the experience as a victim, though he clearly also abused his power. 

 
AL: It seems that power is the last great trap on the spiritual path…

SS: Yes, and It does seem that most gurus, whether I covered it or not, have not resisted that temptation. Most gurus are still human beings. 

 
AL: We haven’t talked much about Hollywood. I’m so glad you focused on that Vedanta Temple in Hollywood, and Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley.

SS: At that moment I think there was a great yearning for answers, because WWII was going on, and what could you do if you were a pacifist? I think it’s fascinating that Isherwood studied Vedanta and then became a monk, partly because he was trying to avoid civilian service. And isn’t it interesting that a conscientious objector ended up translating the Bhagavad Gita? Which is all about war. And Arjuna eventually goes back to fight.
 
You see the process of yoga getting connected to all these different aspects of culture wasn’t passive; it was often a very active and visible process: Emerson read the Bhagavad Gita and wrote the poem Brahma, and you can see his notes in his journal that lead to the poem and the connectedness of those two phenomena, and you could see Timothy Leary dropping acid and appealing to Aldous Huxley for wisdom, and Huxley steering him right to yoga, and then Leary really actively and deliberately trying it out. (Even though then, within a decade, you got a lot of people saying: ‘no, no, no, no: they shouldn’t be combined, at least not in that way!’) 

 
AL: Throughout the book I admired your discernment.

SS: It certainly was my goal. I want people who’ve never tried yoga in their lives, to at least have respect for it, and maybe some understanding, and I’d like everyone to know how much and for how long it has been a part of our culture.
 

“The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga In America,” by Stephanie Syman, will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux on June 29, 2010

“At all levels of evolution – whether cosmological, biological, or psychospiritual – the emergence of new potentials generally happens through dynamic, creative friction.”  - Ken Wilbur

Well, the folks at Yogamaya have that going on… I sat down to speak with the three new owners Bryn Chrisman, Stacey Brass and Glenn Riss about their new 3300 sq.ft. studio, located in the pulsing heart of Chelsea, and the anandamaya-kosha– what’s known in Vedanta as the sheath of bliss and joy - was palpable.  Ah, the causality of it all…

“We’ve been able to bring together everything we’re interested in and the people we’re interested in,” says Bryn Chrisman.   When I asked what Yogamaya meant, Stacey Brass responded that, “ Everything in this space is Yoga, every thought and every action”. She went on to explain that, “It is very layered in its meaning. We felt that there was a need, and with other people, to create a place that would bring all the elements together and incorporate them fully into our lives – pranayama, vinyasa, alignment, meditation, kirtan. We want to cultivate a place where you can have all these things at your fingertips instead of going from one studio to the next to get them. Here, everything is yoga, all things are yoga.”

The emphasis at Yogamaya is on vinyasa. And, the owners will be teaching their popular signature flow classes throughout the week. But, other teachers have their own styles. It is an impressive line-up. Within the 3300 sq. ft, two-studio space you will find everything from Jonathon FitzGordon Men’s Only Class to Brette Popper’s Slow and Steady class which will emphasize the use of props for proper alignment in vinyasa to Ragunath’s Open class. The three mastermind owners say that the teachers were all chosen for their creativity within vinyasa as well as being thoughtful, inspired, mature and actually able to teach something. They have assembled the teachers they want to learn from and be around. “The people we trust. We like what they are doing spiritually, what they are connected to.” Added Bryn.

The energy of the center is a shared vision amongst all. For Stacey there is an unequivocal importance “in being connected to people that are devotional, interested in the spiritual and committed to living a spiritual life.” 

For Glenn, with the dead-pan grin, “The Universe is a friendly place.”  He’s the quiet one in the mix of Stacey’s hyper-articulate, spot-on intelligence and Bryn’s effervescent loveliness and enthusiasm. So, how exactly did these people come together, fuel each other and create a studio that would ignite the rest of us?

Stacey and Bryn met while teaching at Laughing Lotus. They were both interested in continuing to study and learn, taking workshops with Rodney Yee, Jai Uttal, Kevin Gardiner and Alison West. They loved being vinyasa teachers and each other’s music - the flowy and creative mixed with a strong passion for alignment and the seriousness of yoga. Which, Stacey states, "isn’t always the case with vinyasa.“

Glenn Riis became a teacher in 2009 . He got into yoga as an alternative to working out. He was “ …bored. There was no room for creativity.” He found an Ashtanga class at Reebok Uptown difficult and challenging and he gravitated to vinyasa for its variety. "A Wall Street career doesn't last forever and isn’t fulfilling unless financially.”  As an alternative, Glenn wanted to get into the business of yoga to be around yoga.

The space itself is designed to flow. They spent months working with architect Doug Kocher to create what Bryn describes as, “A temple…our design decisions were based on the idea that the mind will shift with beauty.”

In the Chapter 4 - Verse 6 of the Bhagavad Gita, yogamaya is described as Krishna’s internal potency. It is this that allows him to manifest himself in human form. At Yogamaya, the internal potency of Glenn Riis, Stacey Brass and Bryn Chrisman, has manifested itself into a studio where yoga is everything and everyone can be yoga.

Yogamaya will be hosting a free kirtan party with Gaura Vani and As Kindred Spirits on Thursday, June 24th, 7pm. They will be offering FREE classes Saturday the 26th and Sunday the 27th. Get in on the creative friction, fellow yogis, it’s bound to be some fun.  For more information, click: www.yogamayanewyork.com

--Gina de la Chesnaye

The Resonant Midline is a workshop, which combines community acupuncture and Himalayan singing bowls “weaving the harmonics of sound with the subtle vibrations of acupuncture… creating a space in which to explore the effulgent life and intelligence of the midline.” 

What?

It turns out that this incredibly subtle workshop mixes acupuncture, music, and chanting. The power of the group allows participants to explore the metaphysical  edges in ways that would be much harder on our own.

As I sat down, the sun was streaming in through the windows at Dumbo’s new Abhaya Yoga. Overlooking the Manhattan Bridge and East River, was especially inspiring. The floors were shiny, the blankets clean. There were about 20 of us, seated on blankets when acupuncturist Carrie Cegelis began. Next to her was musician Coni Lopez, a goddess-like presence completely in white including turban and surrounded by about 9 gold bowls. 

Carrie explained a bit about the meridians and how the midline is where we all begin from energetically in the womb. Through intentionally tapping into this extremely primal and subtle body through the use of needles, sound and stillness, we can deeply heal and restore as well as reconnect with our innermost desires and intentions.

After several minutes of chanting together in this glorious space, the energy of the river flowing below us, we lay down with our heads facing Coni. Carrie comes by and places five needles into acupuncture points in our hands, feet, and head. I can feel the energy pulsing and swirling through my body. Connie plays her bowls which sound like the audible expression of what the energy moving through me would have sounded like if it could it express itself vocally. The sound deepens the experience and helps me relax my mind and let go of the thoughts. It’s almost instantaneous. It’s beautiful.  It’s peaceful. I feel as if I am in pre-school taking a nap with all of my friends. 

We lay there for about 45 minutes, and if I hadn’t had plans that night I would have wanted to stay forever. After Carrie removed the needles I felt as if I had a full night sleep.  It’s a bit mystical and seems otherworldly, but as with all of her other work that I’ve experienced, I can’t recommend it enough. 

For more information about Carrie Cegelis or the next workshop, please visit www.radical-wellness.com. The workshop costs $40 pre-registered, $50 at the door, and the next workshop will at the Om Factory in the fall.

--Alexandra Blatt

The Summer Solstice is, the first day of summer and the longest day of the year. There are countless spiritual and religious celebrations that embrace the change from spring to summer.  Of course, we wanted to be a part of the fun, so we found all sorts of events around the city. Let us know if we left anything out!

Waking the Light: It all starts on Saturday, June 19th at 4:30am, the Paul Winter Consort will be at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue. For those of you who don’t know Paul, he is a 6-time Grammy winning soprano saxophonist.  The concert will start in complete darkness and the musicians will play continuously as the sun begins to rise and the light shines into the church.  It is definitely going to be a beautiful and illuminating experience.  Tickets are $35 and you can by them by calling 866-811-4111 or online at www.solsticeconcert.com

Movement and Dance Meditation: If you don’t like to deal with big crowds, but still want to enjoy the beginning of summer, you can head over to Prospect Park on Saturday, June 19th from 4:00-6:30pm, where Lauren Tepper RYT will lead the group in rituals that will mark the change of season with meditation, movement, music, dance and more.  For more information on tickets go to www.breathtakingspace.com/spirit-circles/ Lauren teaches Align & Flow Yoga on Sundays from 10:00-11:30am at Peridance, so if you can’t make it to Prospect Park you can still celebrate with her all summer long!

The Ultimate: The greatest test of a yogi is to find peace and tranquility, while living in hectic New York City…so it makes perfect sense to celebrate the first day of summer in Times Square!  “Solstice in Times Square” on Monday, June 21st is going to be an experience like no other.  It’s an opportunity to rejoice in the New York community, try different styles of yoga and enjoy an atmosphere full of life and lights that is unique to New York.  There are five classes offered from 7:30am to 6:00pm.  Be sure to sign up at http://www.timessquarenyc.org/about_us/events_solstice.html  before space runs out because the classes are FREE.

For the kids: A great family option is to head over to Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City for their ninth annual Summer Solstice Celebration.  The event will include artmaking workshops, face painting, kayak rides, food from local restaurants and you can be part of a special solstice ritual performed by Urban Shaman Mama Donna. The event is Monday, June 21st from 5pm until sunset.  For more information you can go to http://www.socratessculpturepark.org/programs/solstice.php

The Kriya Crew: From 7:30- 9:30 on June 21st, The Kundalinis from Golden Bridge will be harnessing the powerful positive energy together and opening to the powerful healing powers of the sun through movement, dance, chanting, receiving the gong and practicing the very Sacred Fire Kriya to cleanse, purify, elevate and empower Victory together in excellence with Paramatma Siri Sadhana. Cost $25. Contact Golden Bridge for more information.

A lovely accompaniment: Shri Yoga is hosting an Anusara yoga practice with live cello music on Monday, June 21 from 6:30-8pm.  There will be fun and challenging poses and refreshments after to recharge for summer.  The suggested donation is $25 or what you can offer.  For more information go to www.shriyoganyc.com

Being a true New Yorker, I signed up for the 3:30pm class in Times Square to look for peace and calm in the center of the busiest of all citiest!

-Margie Suvalle

The following is my personal account the One Taste workshop and does not intend to express the views of YogaCity NYC. I thought long and hard before writing this, and kept coming back to the idea that our stories are only useful to the extent in which they may help someone else.
 
I have a lot of walls around my sexuality. Social, familial, personal, historical… and they’ve keep it all contained in a rather neat and tidy package. I recognize that this might not be the most expressive way to enjoy one’s body; and when offered the opportunity to cover the Mindful Sexuality and Orgasmic Meditation weekend at Reflections Yoga, I accepted with excited terror. If I had any clue what I was in for, I most likely would have chickened out.

We began Saturday morning at 10am, after signing a lengthy waiver. Led by Robert Kandell and Cristina Berkley, we were welcomed into a “clean well-lit room to talk about sex and pleasure”. Robert explained that usually such conversations take place in the dark and dirty places, and as such carry with them the need to be hidden - bars, the internet, glossy magazines, porn.  By turning this on its head, we open sex up and are able to lay it out on the table. No hiding, no darkness, no shame. 

What most of us seem to be missing most from our sexual lives is real intimacy, connection, and communication which is difficult to achieve in the shadows. One Taste, based in San Francisco, seeks to provide people with a forum and the tools to fill this huge void.

The group is comprised of 6 men and women, straight and gay. Half of us are not from this country and only two of us live in NYC. Some are sexually expressive and adventurous, some shy and reserved, some curious but afraid. 

Cristina describes to our group the way in which mindful sex is related to the “slow” movement by explaining its 6 core principles: 1) Slow: which means that we are present enough to what feels really good and have an awareness that this will change every time; 2) Conscious/Mindfulness: where we put all the attention on the present moment; 3) Whole: we integrate all parts ourselves so that we are the most real versions of who we are; 4) Local: having the direct experience yourself (vs. over the internet, tv, phone); 5) Simple: all there is in the experience is sensation and connection (there is so much there if we don’t hide it); 6) Connected: we all want the same thing, to love and be loved, to see and be seen for who we are.

And this makes sense; I am completely on board with all “slow” movements. Mindfulness and presence are what I have been working on with each yoga class. It’s what we do.

We then discuss the different parts of our brain and how they directly affect our experiences. Our cortex, or thinking part, Robert offers, is rarely in concert with our limbic, or sensing and feeling part (the lower portion of the brain). He instructs us to each do a private improv speaking from both and we set up two chairs facing each other.  For 20 minutes we debate an important topic in our lives with ourselves by flipping back and forth between the chairs.  This exercise seemed unending. I became rather frustrated during the battle between my sensible, organized controlling self vs. my wild and uninhibited emotions. But I stuck with it and with each switch became more dexterous at thinking and speaking from that particular center.

I’m surprised to discover that it’s my feeling side that is more afraid of my thinking than vice versa. In order to not have my better sense cortex keep me from living passionately and freely, I tend to make impulsive and rash limbic decisions.
Learning from my mistakes (such as getting involved too quickly or ignoring red flags) has often been painful however, and in many cases could have been avoided had I married the two even a tiny bit more. We are given the exercise over lunch to spend 45 minutes making decisions from the cortex, and 45 from our limbic – so if we feel the need to do anything crazy we must allow it.

Lunch passes rather uneventfully, as most of us decide to relax and the craziest thing I feel like doing is rolling up my pants to sunbathe without SPF. I found it interesting when given the freedom to go wild, I didn’t care to. The freedom, Robert explains, gives us the space to take care of ourselves and listen to our needs and desires.

Fed, rested, and vitamin D infused; we return to the task of speaking about our relationship to our sexuality for 2 minutes. Panic sets in. I let a couple people go before I find the courage, which is more likely simply the need to get it over with.
Limbic brain engaged, I spew my sexual history with little regard to the fact that I know none of these people. Unfortunately, my tale begins with sexual abuse as a child. As the abuser was my cousin, it was decided that the best course of action was to never mention it again so as  not to upset our grandparents. And let me just say, that the shame and guilt in a child’s mind from something that can’t be talked about builds exponentially with each passing day. Full of confusion and self-hate, the list of inappropriate and harmful choices I made navigating my sexual self… is long.

In this clean well-lit room with two sex counselors and five attentive strangers I feel some relief through my tears. Maybe healing really can be retroactive. Maybe I can finally find the freedom to knock down some of these walls and consciously enter into a deep and connected intimate relationship. And maybe, just maybe… I’ll learn to forgive myself for some of my more disastrous choices.

Sunday is devoted to Orgasmic Meditation; a practice I naively assume entails finding some type of blissful Samadhi on a cushion. I couldn’t have been more mistaken.

It is a technique designed to create the greatest possible amount of sensation with the littlest amount of story; meaning history, baggage and relationship. It is practiced between friends, strangers and lovers in weekly meetings. The pairings can and do consist of partners from every sexual orientation, but as it’s taught in relation to one male and one female, I will simply relay the information in this article as it was described to me.

A woman has 8,000 nerve endings in the upper left quadrant of her clitoris. Through a very specific set of almost scientific instructions, the male uses his left index finger to stimulate sensation in this area. The purpose here is to feel the exchange of energy between these two points. It isn’t about our goal-oriented “masculine” understanding of orgasm, but purely a practice used to create deeper sensitivity, sensation and connection between two people. Over time, we learn how to let go of more and more layers, become better at giving instructions, asking questions, and reading Meta messages; what is said beneath words through body language and energy. When we then move ourselves to “the bedroom” we find an increased ability to be present, vulnerable and real.

Before lunch, Robert and Cristina give a demo. A couple more people have joined us today, including 3 or 4 seasoned Orgasmic Meditators, or OMers, for support. Cristina takes off her clothes and lies on a massage table in goddess pose as Robert begins the 15-minute “meditation” practice. I’m horrified. I’ve never seen anything like this and immediately I am sure I’ve landed in the middle of some cultish practice. In the same instant, I recognize that my tightly wound upper-middle class WASP background has hardly produced a satisfied sexual being. My mind is blown. I don’t know right from wrong, good from bad, back from front.

The whole group is charged up. We’re angry, suspicious, excited, scared, and curious. We know in a couple more hours it will be our turn. We come back from lunch and Robert leads us through partnered exercises. I like them. We explore communicating as the men touch our arms. Relaxing music is played. We look into each other’s eyes and breathe. Some cry.

There were only two rules for the weekend. 1) That everything said here would remain confidential, and 2) that no one would do anything they didn’t feel comfortable doing. Allowing myself the freedom to change my mind, I was pretty clear from the get-go that I wouldn’t be OMing. For better or worse, as connected as I feel to my wonderful group, I am as yet unable to separate the desire to be touched only by a man that I feel extremely close to. Participating in the lab would have, for me, been more abusive than liberating.

I am allowed to stay and watch as the 5 brave pairs set up. I don’t think I’ve ever had such the variety of emotions running through my body as I sat there that Sunday afternoon. I’m scared, jealous, excited, suspicious and embarrassed. As some of the women, naked from the waist down, begin to vocally express sensations of pleasure, I wonder if this scene might not have been so uncommon in some ancient matriarchal societies. 

As I am flooded with images of goddesses; a huge paradigm shift takes place. My earlier horror is replaced with the sensations I am getting from the room that these men are here purely to learn to connect with women, not dominate them. And the women in all their glory are expressing their willingness to be connected to through sounds of pleasure and vocal instruction. I am witnessing the communication of yin & yang energy before my very eyes. 

It’s safe to say that this practice will not appeal to most of us. It’s also safe to say, that most of us have some potential opening to do around the topic of sexuality and what it means to be a sexual being. I feel strongly about the need to communicate about sex; I know that stuffing my own pain for 27 years hasn’t resulted in the freedom I am so desperate for. If we actually had safe spaces to explore these issues, to speak openly and freely, and to unleash some of the horror that some of us through no fault of our own are forced to experience – I wonder if we would also find peace. If the incidence of rape, incest, child abuse and adultery in modern society is any indication of our inappropriate relationship to our collective sexuality, I’d say we’re desperate for palaces of clean and well-lit rooms.

I consider myself lucky to have been unaware enough to happen upon the workshop; the universe does work in mysterious ways. I have more tools, I have a plan, and most importantly I have an unwavering desire to have this be my turning point. And now, the only wall I am concerned with… is the one I want to be thrown up against.

- Alexandra Blatt

For more of Alexandra’s musings visit www.JustAnotherYogaBlog.blogspot.com

Slow Sex: The Art and Practice of Orgasmic Meditation by Nicole Daedone is expected to be released in the spring of 2011 by Grand Central.

 
I showed up to the Upper West Side church on a brisk sunny day wearing the requisite all-white with a head covering. I was extremely nervous in spite of the beautiful setting of Landmark on the Park, an historic church by Central Park West because I’d heard all kinds of stories about White Tantra including a story of how one participant was so spaced-out she ran out into the winter cold forgetting her shoes.  There was another  another about doing frog pose for sixty-two minutes (!) The course runs from 9 to 6, even though I have a vigorous practice three minutes of frog pose is unbearable for me.
 
White Tantric yoga is done in pairs as a group meditation.  You sit opposite a partner and follow instructions for meditation given on DVD by Master of White Tantric Yoga, Yogi Bhajan, who died in 2004. Each daylong course consists of between six and eight kriyas, which vary in length from eleven to sixty-two minutes.  In this tradition, a kriya is a meditation incorporating a yoga posture or hand position, a mental focus and/or a mantra. They can vary in length from eleven to sixty-two minutes and you can wind up in some pretty awkward positions. Oh dear.
 
Another nerve-wracking element:  if you don’t come with a partner then you partner up with whoever is there. What if your partner is uncooperative, mean and/or humorless and you’re stuck with them for the whole day, I wondered.
 
Couples and friends had come together eager to spend the day gazing into each other’s eyes. I actually preferred the idea of leaving it to chance, feeling t it might be a little less intense partnering up with a stranger. As luck would have it, I got an excellent partner whose moxie I admired as she’d only been practicing Kundalini for a month.
 
Sada Sat Kaur, the musician, played the first Yogi Bhajan DVD where he explained that we would be chanting the Adi Mantra “Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo” with our hands in prayer pose, eyes closed, while facing our partners for thirty-one minutes.  That was the first one. Another involved taking turns chanting the Mool Mantra with our partners while in easy seat. We had to gaze into each other’s eyes while doing this. 

“Just remember,” Yogi Bhajan said when instructing the next kriya, “I am with you whether you like it or not,” and as he raised his eyebrows up and down mischievously, the room cracked up.

My favorite kriya was chanting “Har Har Gobinday, Har Har Mukanday” to Avtar Singh’s version. I adored it because he sounded like David Bowie singing “Dance Magic Dance.” In this kriya we had to shake up and down holding hands. My partner and I couldn’t stop laughing. This is where I realized I had lucked out as she had maintained this terrific sense of humor even at the most intense moments, laughing heartily whenever we messed up. One of my fellow teacher trainees fared less better who got a partner who constantly complained. “It’s much better if it’s with a man.”  “Sorry I’m not a guy,” my friend kept repeating over and over.

A whole day of this made me rather spacey. I took a taxi with a friend and I was grateful to converse with someone as it kept me grounded on the way home. Both of us were laughing over the fact that we had been worked up and nervous for nothing. While White Tantra was intense, it had also been fun and do-able.  I also felt it had done its purpose which is to clear the sub-conscious.

I went out to get a hot chocolate but found myself too dazed to be outdoors. I stared wide-mouthed at the flowers in the deli as though I were just seeing them for the first time then I went home and played with my toes for twenty minutes. Post White Tantra I experienced such clarity. Everything felt new and fresh as though I were a newborn discovering everything for the first time with fresh, excited eyes. 

I had so much fun during what I called “The David Bowie Kriya” that a couple of days later I was in my office listening to this mantra and jigging up and down when a client of mine unexpectedly walked in. “Sorry to interrupt your fun,” he said with a bemused look on his face while I beamed red.

--Marie Carter
 
 To find out when the next White Tantric Yoga takes place, check www.whitetantricyoga.com

Noted Anusara teacher Elena Brower, co-owner of Virayoga and Adidas’ new face of yoga,  has teamed up with event marketer Flavorpill to lead 10,000 yogis on the Great Lawn of Central Park on June 22.  Sounds complicated, right?  Gina de la Chesnaye of YogaCity NYC asked Elena Brower about her interest in the Solstice and her new corporate partners.

Gina de la Chesnaye: Does the solstice mark a particularly potent time for people?   At the start of summer, saluting the sun must mean something…
Elena Brower: It will depend on what I’m seeing out there that day - I don’t want to push an agenda. We’ll have a range of different experiences and capacities, so I will respectfully offer demonstrated modifications and options for all poses. Everyone regardless of level of proficiency will be both challenged and affirmed in this class.

Gina de la Chesnaye: How did you hook up with Flavorpill and JetBlue? 
Elena Brower: Sascha and Mark (owners of FlavorPill) realized that to see this manifest, we needed funding, plain and simple. The intent was to find synergy with artful, aware companies. JetBlue gets it.  SmartWater, Gaiam and Alternative Apparel were all chosen for the same reason.

Gina de la Chesnaye: Some people are skeptical of the connection between yoga and corporate sponsorship, how do you respond to this?
Elena Brower: When we practice yoga, we become more attuned and refined in our lives and our choices. This brings more ease to each of us and anyone near us. When matched with a teacher who's there to serve, corporate sponsorship is a way to create even more attunement and refinement. I'm seeing the effects of my Adidas affiliation now; trainings worldwide have yielded only progress and positive evolution for the teachers I've served this year, which gets passed on to their students.

Gina de la Chesnaye: Anusara Yoga is based on heart opening or “a celebration of the heart”– what poses will you be focusing on for your class?
Elena Brower: I rarely know exactly what I’m going to do before I teach a class. My work is to keep awareness on everyone's inward expansion and experience- not on me. I’ll have many colleagues to help - there will be a corps of the finest teachers practicing, to provide clear visuals. There will also be 200 plus assistants throughout the class, offering personal attention and guidance as needed.

I will likely begin by asking everyone to close their eyes and feel the resonance of so many people, becoming stronger and more clear, in unison. We're anticipating a potency that most of us have never felt.

Gina de la Chesnaye: How will you prepare yourself to lead the world’s largest yoga event?
Elena Brower: Most recently I’ve been working with The Handel Group.  Through their work, we learn to be easier with ourselves and those we've blamed in the past. The process is helping me to liberate myself from limitations I'd previously perceived. In seeing those self-imposed limits with stark, even humorous clarity, I can hover around what is ultra-personal as I'm teaching, in a way that is completely impersonal, thereby broadening the accessibility of the teaching. It’s a process of navigating the shame in our lives and seeing the truth; and that truth is our liberation - especially if we've made "questionable" choices in the past. I’ve been working on this for the past few months; it’s a tectonic inner shift toward acceptance. My only aim with this class is to hold the space and keep the focus, with great integrity, for everyone's practice.

Gina de la Chesnaye: What are you most hopeful for people to come away with after this event?
Elena Brower: I was speaking with my best friend, an architect, and she had a particular take on the meaning of this. We are creating art, yet we leave nothing behind. We leave no object, no trace- except what has occurred within us, hopefully an expansion of a sort. It will be an exceptional energetic exchange, yielding only the opening in our hearts, bodies and minds - and ideas for how we can bring more of that expansion into our daily lives.


Gina de la Chesnaye: What are you most hopeful you will come away with?
Elena Brower: At the end of the class I want everyone to close their eyes and see our Earth - and any wound they themselves have sustained- healed. 

Please note that the 10,000 yogis will be drawn through a lottery. To register visit: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2c0KNU/www.flavorpill.com/yoga

Yoga means union, and so does marriage. Not surprisingly, the combining of these two august traditions had become the latest trend in our world. Jim Catapano attended his friend’s ceremony last month and reports back.

“‘Aff’ and I, we practice Yoga together,” says Sevel Sarac, a private vinyasa yoga instructor.  “After our engagement, we took a class at Reflections, and the moment we saw the studio, we both envisioned our wedding there.”

 “Yoga plays a major role in my life,” she added. “And for Aff, it was important because our relationship started with yoga. Our practice brings us closer together because it is a strong common interest that we both share – on and off the mat.”
Africa Marshall’s sister Chyna presided over the ceremonies for the evening. Sevel and Africa wrote their own vows together, which included many quotes from the German philosopher Erich Fromm. 

“His theory got my attention because his approach to love is almost rational,” she says. “Fromm says that in our true nature we want unity, not separation. (Sound familiar yogis?) “Love is not a sensation, not a feeling that may come and go. Love is an art which requires knowledge and commitment.”

The expression of this commitment was a beautiful ceremony. The groom wore a white tuxedo, and the bride a traditional white gown. Following the exchange of vows, the ring ceremony, a Turkish tradition that Sevel wanted to include because of her Turkish heritage.   The couple placed a gold band, connected by a red ribbon, on to each other’s finger. Afterwards,  the ribbon was cut in half. “It symbolizes that you are two, but remain one as in a union.”  In this spirit, the couple took each other’s names, becoming Sevel Sarac-Marshall and Africa Sarac-Marshall.

 The wedding guests, about 40 strong, were all barefoot (or in socks if they couldn’t squeeze in a pedicure), and in varied styles of dress, mostly casual (despite the setting, there was not a lot of Eastern finery). We were invited to chant Om followed by “Loka Samasta Sukino Bhavantu,” meaning “May Eternal Peace & Goodwill Prevail in the Whole World.” With many Yogis present, including some from Sevel’s teacher training class at Sonic Yoga, this was easily achieved. “We wanted to make it a positive universal experience for everyone. Since I got support from our Yogis I felt comfortable to include a little chanting. Everyone loved it!”

The feeling in the air was one of warmth and inclusiveness.  After the chants, the couple made their way to the dance floor, where friends and family watched them commence a unique first dance. Sevel and Africa chose the  Turkish song "Sikidim" a.k.a. "The Kiss-Kiss Song" by Tarkan.  This involves the bride and groom circling the dance floor, gazing in each other’s eyes and mirroring each other’s movements. At the end of each refrain, they embrace and engage in a double kiss.
As I cheered on the happy couple I thought, “If I ever have a wedding, this wouldn’t be a bad way to do it.”

Fun-loving, beer-drinking Yoga instructor seeks same…

-Jim Catapano

If my body is my temple, I must admit that I have really let my temple go. I decide to get a little help through Om Yoga’s 5 day Cleanse Immersion with Sarah Trelease. In the past, my focus during a cleanse was mainly dietary so I was intrigued to learn how my daily practice could help me cleanse.

Monday, we gather to practice at 7AM. As Sarah skillfully guides us through asana, pranayama, meditation and pressure point release techniques she asks us to “use the framework that the yoga practice provides to examine your habits; not just what and how you eat but your whole lifestyle.  Where do you accumulate? What do you hold onto unnecessarily? When we clutter up our minds with habits and addictions we lose the ability to really know ourselves. Can you let go for a week? And can we quiet down enough to ask what our dependencies or habits are telling us?”

The class ends at 9 AM  and our homework is to tune into our hidden habits and think about two questions. When do I stop breathing? What am I holding on to? As I contemplate the questions, two feelings come to mind: fear and anxiety. I notice the slow deep rhythm of my breath become shallow and high in my chest when I feel either.  Knowing something about the breath and it’s effects on the central nervous system, I realize that this only exacerbates those feelings and makes them harder to shake off. Because of this habitual response, I realize that what stops my breath is also what I hold on to.

After a brief discussion about cleansing on the second day, we start with a few rounds of Kapalabhati. As we pump the lungs and diaphragm, we create heat and clear blockages in the air passages. Retaining the breath on our final exhalation, we place our fists to our belly and fold over breathing into our fists. Then we stand up for Uddiyana Bandha Kriya, bringing our arms overhead then swinging down over our legs and exhaling fully.  As we slide our hands up our legs we engage Uddiyana Bandha and hold as long as we can before inhaling and standing back up. I feel exhilarated and ready to begin our asana practice. Later we do alternate nostril breathing to balance the nervous system. The breath work calms my body and mind, helping me to feel focused and peaceful. In this blissfully calm state of mind I know that I can find more balance in my life.

Continuing to think about how yoga can facilitate cleansing, the next day, I realize that the entire 8-limbed path IS a framework for cleansing. Through tapas (heat), saucha (cleaning) and svadhyaya (self study) we practice discipline to ignite the fire, burn impurities and examine ourselves to learn how to release what we are unnecessarily holding on to. During the cleanse, I practice tapas by committing to being fully present in a daily practice. Practicing saucha I purify my body by eating a raw diet, my environment by clearing out my home of things I no longer need, and my mind through daily meditation. Revisiting the wisdom of the Sutras and examining my habits and life, I practice svadhyaya. Asana and pranayama cleanse and balance our body and mind. Vigorous vinyasa creates heat to burn impurities, twists wring out our organs and backbends can massage the belly aiding in digestion and elimination. Pranayama such as kapalabhati cleanse the respiratory system blowing out old stagnant air. Pratyahara (withdrawing of the senses), dharana (fixed attention) and dhyana (meditation) shift our focus inward, stilling our mind and heightening our senses by letting go of all distractions. Each day we sit for at least five minutes in meditation. Sarah instructs us to focus on our breath while keeping our eyes open allowing each sight and sound to be part of our experience. We drop-in to the present moment rather than tuning out, clearing our mind of everything else. One could look at Samadhi as a state of total purity, thereby attaining enlightenment. The ultimate yogic cleanse!

On the fourth day Sarah describes how “twisting squeezes blood from tissue and organs and floods them with fresh blood upon release. Twisting is a great aid in elimination.” And boy do we twist! We practice twisted lunge, twisted chair, Ardha Matsyendrasana and Parivrtta Trikonasana. In goddess pose we place our hands on our upper thighs, pressing into our hands twisting our shoulders left and right. From extended puppy pose we twist, threading our arm under our body reaching for the opposite knee, shin or ankle. My body feels like it has been put through the wringer and, quite literally, it has. We move on to backbends such as Salabhasana and Dhanurasana, “to open the belly and massage the digestive organs”. On our backs we do wind-releasing pose  by bringing our knees back and forth towards our belly. I don’t feel the need to release any “wind”, so to speak, but I can see how this posture can be useful in moving things along. 

In Mayurasana we stimulate our digestive organs with the weight of our bodies against our arms. In child’s pose and full prostration we place our fists to our upper abs then move down to our lower abdomen to stimulate pressure points to aid in elimination. I notice that as the week progresses this process becomes less uncomfortable as I breathe into my belly and allow the pose to work for me. I think it also becomes less uncomfortable the more I am able to eliminate waste, which I am doing quite regularly throughout the week of the immersion.

The group dynamic as well as the regime of waking and practicing the specific cleansing asana and pranayama exercises for 2 hours everyday during the immersion really helped me along in my cleanse process. It facilitated my body to release toxins through my yoga practice, gave me a structured framework to work from as well as provided comfort and connection knowing I was sharing in this process and experience with all of the other students. Yoga is about the connection to all things and what better way to connect than through the shared experience of a group yogic cleanse.

By Friday I feel spectacular. My body is rejuvenated and my mind is clear and focused. I am reminded that life is a balance and too much or too little of something can set the balance off and throw our body and life out of whack. From a yogic standpoint the healthier my body is the more open the channel to the divine. If I continue to practice the cleansing asana and pranayama techniques I learned this week I know I can keep my channel pure and open.

-By Kristin Auble

To find out more about Kristin, go to pureelementyoga.com

I am staring at an Indian lithograph from the 1910s of a young Krishna sitting in a tree overlooking a group of naked young maidens bathing in the river. The sexually ambiguous god clearly is both taunted and bewitched. He wants to leap in and play and at the same time just view the gopis (milkmaids) from afar. 

All around the room are hundreds of these antique lithographs showing everything from conflicting emotions, the dance of Shiva and Shakti, the interdependence of man and nature, the omnipresence of love and the transcendence of spirt.  They feel particularly alive and effecting – and they are supposed to because they are darshan prints that were used in India for puja ceremonies. 

Art dealers Mark Baron and Elise Boisanté, who run Om From India from their West Village apartment, are giving me an inaugural lesson in the purpose and meaning of these objects. To Western eyes, they are are both beautiful and sometimes garish. Each one depicts a new aspect of Krishna or Shiva or Lakshmi or the many other gods and goddesses in Hindu mythology.

Baron and Boisanté started buying these lithographs in 2000.  Now, after yearly treks to small South Indian villages, they’ve established themselves as world renowned experts in this spiritual art form.  In fact, an exhibition of their private collection is just finishing at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College.

The prints are in excellent shape. Blue Shivas are radiant and red-robed Hanumans are vivid.  Giant cobras and skulls abound. There are so few tears and water stains that it is no surprise that American collector’s are scooping them up at prices ranging from about fifty dollars  to several thousand, depending on age, condition and rarity. 

Baron informs us that Indians don’t much care what shape their prints are in as long as the god images are undamaged. The prints are devotional tools.  They provide “darshan” moments during everyday life when Hindus can visually connect through their own eyes with the Divine because the idea behind this art is that you are not looking at an image - you are actually looking at the Divine. The god or goddess has actually stepped onto the page and is looking at you with their often direct and tranquil stares.

Baron and Boisante allow internet distribution of their collection for free. They have also let venues like downtown’s new Bhakti Café make high resolution prints gratis because they believe that the images themselves belong to all of us.  And the engaging and enthusiastic owners meet each and every collector they sell to making sure their prints find worthy homes.

Interestingly, Baron and Boisanté no longer practice asana. But clearly in devoting their lives and livelihood to creating Western understanding and appreciation for this powerfully spiritual art form they are practicing yoga.

Brette Popper

The mere mention of the word “massage” and I get a little happier. I mean, who doesn’t like a good massage? Yoga teaches us that a relaxed body can lead to a relaxed mind. So when I started to see ads for Thai Yoga Massage certifications popping up in all the usual yoga publications I was intrigued. Many teachers are adding Thai Bodywork to their resumes and I wanted to find out why. I decided to immerse myself into this ancient healing art by taking a course, learning about it from the yoga teacher’s perspective and receiving one.  Yum!

People call it Thai Bodywork or Thai yoga Massage but whatever you choose,
I began with an introductory course at Integral Yoga Institute. The instructor, Jyothi K. Watanabe is a senior teacher and trainer of Lotus Palm Thai Yoga massage. She explains that one of the main principles of Thai Yoga Massage is Metta or loving kindness. A practitioner aims to help others through releasing tension and opening the energy or “Sen” lines of the body. As we move through the postures learning to massage, I begin to see the similarities to yoga. The stances the practitioner takes while giving the massage are yogic and, in many ways, it is like an assisted Hatha practice.

Through the workshop, while I give massages I start to understand why so many teachers resonate with the principles. Providing one feels much like giving a private yoga lesson only without the dialog and the instructor doing all the work instead of the student.  Thai bodywork is  an extension of the lessons of yoga. It is based on similar principles and aims to release tension in the body to allow energy or prana to flow.

My next stop is Sankalpah Yoga, to talk to Isaac Pena who includes Thai bodywork as part of the Sankalpah Teacher Trainings.  He sees it as a complimentary method to opening the channels of the body. Through Thai massage, a student can gain a better understanding of the body and systems, working with energy channels. As a  teacher you may encounter a student that wants to do yoga but has difficulty because of injury, tightness or immobility, he explains. Thai bodywork can help break down those barriers and get them moving. Isaac feels that many teacher trainings don’t give enough guidance and experience with hands on adjustments. Through this bodywork you get comfortable with adjusting all types of people. You begin to learn what works and what doesn’t. Once you can feel the student’s energy you learn not to push them beyond their limits. Pena started doing Thai bodywork as another way to help people but admits that another supplemental income when he was just starting out didn’t hurt.

My final destination is the one I most look forward to: a massage with Ananda Apfelbaum. Ananda trains people in the art of Thai Massage and the author of “Thai Massage, Sacred Bodywork”. Much like a private yoga lesson, she asks me before the massage about my overall health in great detail. She begins to rhythmically rock and roll as she stretches and kneeds my body. Sometimes she massages with a gentle hand and sometimes more firmly. She intuitively is drawn to places that I feel tension and opens the blocked energy. Feeling amazing after my massage, I sit down with Ananda to discuss the growing Thai Yoga Massage trend.

KA: Who do  you recommend this bodywork for?
AA: I recommend Thai bodywork to people who love acupressure, reflexology, stretching, etc.

KA: Are there specific conditions that Thai bodywork would be better for than the other types of massage or vice versa?
AA: Thai is great when one needs stretching and acupressure and when one is open to being transported to a different space emotionally and spiritually. Thai is both deeply relaxing and also energizing. Swedish works well when one wants more nurturing and direct skin contact and when one wants to be more passive for in Thai one does have to participate more and be willing to be moved around more.

KA: Who shouldn’t take a Thai Massage?
AA: Some aspects of Thai Massage are risky for pregnant women.

KA: What would you say are the main differences between Shiatsu, Swedish or deep tissue massage and Thai bodywork?
AA: Thai massage has more stretches and passive yoga postures than any other bodywork modality. Generally no oil is used in Thai Massage and the client stays fully clothed unlike in Swedish or deep tissue where oil is used directly on the skin. Thai and Shiatsu also recognizes pathways of energy in the body whereas Swedish massage does not.  Although both Thai Massage and Shiatsu recognize these energetic pathways the pathways they recognize run differently and are worked on in different ways.  For example, in Shiatsu, there is a mother hand and a child hand with the mother hand being stationary and the child hand moving. Furthermore, in shiatsu one travels up or down a pathway whereas in Thai massage one moves the hands alternately up and down an energetic pathway.  Also Thai massage and Shiatsu are typically done on the floor whereas Swedish and deep tissue massage are usually done on a table. There are many other differences but they all help create greater health and self-awareness of the body.

After taking the course and fully immersing myself in massage, I learned that Thai Bodywork is a way to provide healing energy to a city that so desperately needs some healing. But unlike most yoga classes, Thai Bodywork offers an alternate way to open the body and release blocked energy for all of those individuals who are not ready or able to participate in the physically demanding asana practice prevalent in New York City. People that were too intimidated to take one of my yoga classes were a lot more open to get a Thai Yoga Massage, and in turn became more open to begin to explore yoga.

-By Kristin Auble. For more information about Kristen or a massage, go to www.pureelementalyoga.com

We sang beside a riverbank, golden crowns upon our heads, until we grew old and shrank beneath our clothes. Our skeletons fell to the ground and the song went into the earth. Up through the reeds it sprang and was sung by children as they passed through.

I saw that when I chanted with Nina Rao at Jaya Yoga Center. We sat on the bare wooden floor, the harmonium a lilt to cushion us, and Nina’s voice our guide.  It was a simple act and beautifully so. I have been fascinated ever since. 

Nina is Krishna Das’ assistant and fellow Kirtan performer. Her amazing “Nina Chalisa” track is on his CD “Flow of Grace." She leads Kirtan on her own as well. Beyond that, I realized I knew nothing about the Kirtan.  So –

Gina de la Chesnaye: You learned Kirtan from your grandfather when you were nine in south India. Tell us about that.
Nina Rao: Well, chanting in India is something you just do in the day. You eat, you do your prayers, you take care of your children…you chant. The first harmonium I ever saw was in my grandfather’s house.  One night, they had a big house in the village, the women sat on one side and the men sat on the other and they started singing these songs I’d never heard before. They were Bhajans, prayers to God. All I remember is the place that it brought me…I had no idea what they were singing but I remember that it slowed everything down and brought me inside. I had my first tape recorder, and I decided to record it. 

GC: Do you still have the tape?
NR: I do. I didn’t listen to it for a long time but the songs stayed with me. One day, Ambika Cooper, a fellow Kirtan performer,  the one with the voice, asked me about the songs from my childhood - the Bhajans, which are different from Kirtan in the sense that Bhajan has lyrics and is telling a story but Kirtan is mantra that is repeated for a set number of phrases. But it’s all part of yoga, the Bhakti yoga, which is a devotional practice in India. So I closed my eyes and they all came back to me. I sang them out loud. I used to drum for Ambika and Krishna Das but I wouldn’t sing. After that I started singing.

GC: How did you meet Krishna Das?
NR: It was totally by accident. I lived in an apartment in Manhattan that had a gym. They had yoga classes and I decided to try it out. 

GC:  Had you done yoga before that?
NR: No. Never. But it was just becoming a thing and I thought – ‘I should try this.’ I loved it. It was the kind of yoga that makes you feel strong. The teacher mentioned a retreat up in the Catskills and so we go up there and people are wearing bindis, there was a vegan cook and everybody has tattoos and it was all a very NY yoga scene and I thought “Oh my god, get me out of here…” I come from a banking background and this was all a bit much. In the evening they offered satsang with Krishna Das and I thought this was going to be some failed Indian musician who was coming to sing but I wanted to show respect to my teacher and so I went. In walks KD (Krishna Das)- he was wearing his usual black pants and t-shirt and I thought “Shit. This is gonna be worse. A westerner is gonna sing this stuff.”

GC: I think many people feel that way when someone from one culture embarks so deeply into another. They think how could you possibly understand this…
NR: Exactly, yes; and it’s a prejudice. Anyway, he sat down and started singing Sri Ram Jai Ram. Three hours later I was sitting right in front of the room, right in front of him. I don’t know what happened between then and there. And that was it, you know. I met him the next day and he kept talking to me. I didn’t understand this creature. He seemed so Western looking and so Indian at the same time. I didn’t ask him his background. I didn’t ask him anything. At the end of the retreat, you know, when they do those sharing circles and you  have to share your experience? I hate those things but I had to wait until everyone finished talking and I kept going through different scenarios in my mind about what to say. Just when it was my turn to say something, he walked into the room and I took one look at him and I just burst into tears. I had no idea why either… But all I knew is that it felt right.   

I found out later that he chanted at Jivamukti and my whole life changed. I planned everything I did around being there with him…I picked up a drum and learned to play so I could join him. I went to India because of him, to Neem Karoli Baba’s temple and that’s where I met, Shri Siddhi Ma, his disciple, and she became my guru. That sort of changed everything. That’s how the Hanuman Chalisa became my practice. Because that’s what they do there. When Ambika and I asked what service we could do at the temple, Mataji told us to go sing the name of God. And that’s what we would do, over the loud speaker…(laughs) all day long until we were called to eat or to sit with her.

GC: When you say, “Singing the name of God” what does that mean?
NR: Well, for me it was part of what I knew from my tradition of growing up. It was the names we were familiar with. I had read the stories of Krishna and the Mahabharata. I knew the names of the Gods – they were the foundations of the spiritual practice in India. So it came very naturally for me and that’s what KD sang so we just kept doing the same thing.

GC: Do you believe in them as Gods?
NR: No, no. As a child I was very interested in the stories of these beings. Whether I thought they actually existed as beings I’m not really sure. But something about the stories really pulled me in. Whenever I saw their depictions I always felt something. By the time I started to sing with KD I really wanted to understand. Because I knew when I looked up at the statue that the statue was not God… The more time I spent thinking about it and talking to people the more I realized that all of these deities were created by us. They are a reflection of aspects of our own selves. When we praise these aspects we praise ourselves, which helps us find our own love and peace that exists within us that we don’t feel all the time which is why we’re anxious and afraid and jealous and all that. Then I started reading a lot of Buddhist texts about how happiness is our true nature, that’s who we are, but the only way we can find it in the Hindu tradition is to go out, create these deities and worship them to bring us back in. The Buddhist way is more direct - you go from the inside out

GC: When you say “worship” what does that word mean for you?
NR: Now it means finding a way back into myself. That’s what worship is for me. I need the beauty of lighting a candle. I need to hear prayers. I need to look at beautiful pictures, to pick flowers and place them on the altar. That’s what I need to take me out of my thoughts and put me into this flow of love or happiness or whatever you want to call it…

GC: Which is the same thing as repeating the mantra…
NR: Yes, exactly, it’s the beauty of the sound. However you want to put it.

GC: When I meditate I pick up my heartbeat and follow it until it gets wider and wider and then I’m there. It’s the sound of everything. I literally feel like I’m stepping into a bandwidth.
NR: That’s it. That’s the flow. And whatever you are throwing yourself into …if you can bring that into your life and be a good person then the practice works. 

                                              ******
For more information visit: www.facebook.com/ninalinarao
You can also sign up for a periodic email newsletter at www.chantkirtan.com or email Nina at nina@krishnadas.com

The mercury is rising and summer is in the air. That can only mean one thing- schools out! If you’re looking for ways to entertain the kiddies, check out some of these fun yoga summer camps that will stretch the body, get the creative juices flowing and promote calm little yogis.

Yoga Specific Camps:

Lucky Lotus in Fort Green offers a summer of yoga, nature exploration, gardening, arts investigations and quiet reflection. A six week camp runs from July 5th - August 13th from 9:00am-3:00pm, Monday – Friday. Each day begins with "kidasana" (yoga) and quiet reflection (meditation) followed by a trip to the park for sports. Each week includes a different study module like Book Binding & Tennis, 
Gardening & Soccer, Photography & Skateboarding, Recycled Art / Recycled World, Rock Band & Cartoon Madness and Murals & World Vision. Cost is $500 with the option of early drop off and late pick up for an extra $25 per day. 

Karma Kids down by Union Square offers three hour kids workshops every Tuesday from 9:30am-12:30pm starting June 29th. Each week has a different theme including Yoga Dance Party, Yoga Art and Mat Painting, Circus Yoga, Yoga Games and Flying Partner Yoga and Acrobatics. Ages range depending on the theme for the week so check the website for more information. Each class includes healthy snacks and is $70 per child with the option to sign an additional child up for the same workshop for only $50.

Little Flower in lower Manhattan will be working in conjunction with  The Garden School in Jackson Heights to offer Baby Yoga for tots ages 1 ½ to 3 years and their caretakers at The Garden School Summer Camp. Classes will take place on Thursday mornings, from 10:15- 11:00am starting on June 28th. To sign up or for more information, including pricing, call the Garden School at 718-335-6363. Little Flower will also be adding more sites to their summer program so check the website for the most current information.

General Camps with Yoga Included:

Simply Sports on the Upper East Side provides competitive and non-competitive sports centered activities with a focus on positive reinforcement based on effort rather than results.  They have two June Programs that include yoga as part of their daily activities. The Pre-K program is a co-ed camp, with a 3:1 child to staff ratio. It blends a multi-sport curriculum including soccer, baseball, hockey and basketball with a music, arts & crafts, drama, dance and yoga program. Camp runs the weeks of June 7th, 14th and 21st (except June 25th) from 9:00am-1:30pm at Carl Shurz Park (84th and East River). Cost is $110 per day with a 3-day minimum or $500 per week.

Their second program is The Girls Program, designed solely for girls in grades K-3 and includes soccer, softball, dance, yoga, cheer, arts & crafts, music, drama volleyball, relay races, and more. Camp runs the weeks of June 14th and 21st (except June 25th) at the Marx Brothers Field (97th Street b/w 1st and 2nd Avenues). Cost is $100 per day with a 3-day minimum or $470 per week. This camp also runs from 9:00am - 1:30pm.

 The 92 Street Y offers a variety of summer day camps with yoga on the schedule including Camp Yomi for grades K-4, Yomi Seniors for grades 5-6, Camp Tevah for Science and Nature for ages 8-11, Camp Tova for Campers with Learning and Developmental Disabilities for ages 6-13 and Camp Bari Tov for Children with Severe Development Disabilities for ages 5-13. All camps are help at the Kaufmann Campgrounds at Pearl River in Rockland County. There are numerous pick-up points throughout Manhattan where kids can meet each day to be driven to and from the campsite, except for Camps Tova and Bari Tov, which only offers departure from the 92Y. All camps begin on June 29th and run through either August 6th or 20th depending on the camp selected. Camps run from 8am-6pm except for Camp Tevah, which ends at 5pm. Price varies so check website for registration and pricing information.

--Allison Richard

Forget that looooooong plane right to India.  This season, we have some world-renowned yoga and meditation masters visiting us.   Don’t miss this wonderful opportunity to listen to their discourses, sing, meditate and pray in a style that is so totally different from the hectic one we’re used to.

 (To help you plan, we've arranged the classes according to when they fall on the calendar.)

Authentic Indian ashram discourses with Purush Maha Mandeleshwar Swami Parmanand Giri Ji Mahara
Born in the late 30's in the small village of Mawie Dham in Udaipur, India. Swami  chose the path of a Karma Yogi, dedicating his life for the welfare of humanity after completing his education in Yoga and Meditation.  He became known as Brahmn Gyani, one who is Self-Realized, and was soon after initiated into Sainthood as Swami Paramanand Ji Maharaj. After 50 years, he still continues to share the gifts of his experiential knowledge. He is notably being honored and recognized as the Yug Purush, a world Guru of the present Yug (era). 

As an enlightened scholar and yoga master, Swami Ji has a following around the world. He first came to America when he was invited to address the World Millennium Peace Summit of Spiritual leaders in 2000 at the United Nations.  He travels worldwide through North & South America, Canada, England, New Zealand, Europe and Asia.

Over 100 books have been written about his teachings and techniques. For 5 decades, Swami Paramanand has been guiding others to their own self-realization and working towards the betterment of humanity. He has fostered hundreds of service projects through Akhand Paramdham, the non-profit organization that manages his vast array of projects.

Typically Swami’s lectures include meditation followed by spiritual discourses and awareness exercises and ending with a question & answer session and home-made traditional Prasad.

Notes: All lectures are donation based. It is customary to bring flowers or fruits that Swami usually gives away at the end of lecture at a part of Prasad.

Dates and Locations:
5/21 6-8:30PM Heckscher Park, Huntington, Long Island ,NY
For more info: Debbie Goldman (631)367-3709 or email: toboggan19@aol.com
5/22 & 5/23 10AM -12PM Loyd Neck Harbor, Long Island, NY
For more info: Burt Shaffer (631)-385-7176 or email shafferb@optonline.net
5/23 2:30-4:30PM Shakti Yoga, Victory BLVD, Staten Island, NY
For more info: Pam (718)442-9400 or email syc@shaktiyoga.com
5/31 7:30-9PM 85 N, 3rd St, Brooklyn, NY
For more info: Gerald Leitner (646)415-4539 or email gleitner1@gmail.com
06/1-06/4 7-8:30PM Hindu Center 4552, Kissena BLVD, Flushing, NY
For more info: PT Dixit Ji (718)358-6726 or email kdixit@aol.com

Yoga Sutra Workshop by A.G. and Indra Mohan
Ashtanga Yoga New York is extremely pleased to announce that it will host a Yoga Sutra Workshop during the first 2 weekends of June led by the Mohans.
who  will be visiting from Chennai, India.

A.G. Mohan studied under Sri T. Krishnamacharya for 18 years and co-founded the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in 1976.  He is the author of Yoga for Body, Breath and Mind (1993) and the co-author, along with his wife and son, of Yoga Therapy (2004). He has translated the Yoga Yajnavalkya, one of the most important classical texts on yoga. Indra Mohan received her post-graduate diploma in Yoga from Sri T. Krishnamacharya.  She is a yoga therapist and has been teaching and practicing Yoga for over 25 years.

6/2, 6/4 -6/6, 6/11-6/13 Yoga Sutra Study: (check www.ayny.org for specific times each day)

In this course, you will get to examine the traditional Sanskrit commentaries on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and the teachings and works of Krishnamacharya, including his commentary, the Yogavalli. While the program is rooted in the classical Sanskrit commentaries, it will be presented clearly and accessibly.
Topics:
6/7: Paths of Yoga: 6-8 pm. This lecture will look into the traditional paths of yoga: Karma Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Raja Yoga, Laya Yoga, Nada Yoga… What are they? How are they related? Are they all different? If they are the same, why are there so many? If they are different, which is better? These and other questions will be taken up.
6/9: Freedom Through Surrender: 6-8 pm. This lecture will be focused on the deep psychology and practical methods of the path of devotion.
6/10: Role of Rituals in the Path of Spirituality: 6-8 pm. This lecture will uncover the meaning of the ritual as the spiritual practice, the psychology behind it, and its relation to yoga. You will learn about the view of ancient Vedic philosophies on rituals and ways to use this knowledge about rituals to enrich your life.
Location: All workshops and lectures will be held at Ashtanga Yoga New York at 430 Broome Street #2
Prices: 
Entire 6 day program
 $450 – $400 – $350
Yoga Sutra Study only, including the intro lecture
$350 – $300 – $250
Sutra Study for single days
$105 – $95 – $75
Evening workshops
$45 – $35 – $25
To register for any of these days, please send/drop off a check at the studio, or else pay through PayPal.  For registration and more complete pricing information contact: nikki@ayny.org

Dance for Spiritual Development
Trinayan Collaborations, presents workshops with Guru Ratikant Mohapatra.  The son of the legendary Padmabibhushan Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, Ratikant has carved a space for himself as a master dancer, percussionist, teacher,choreographer and archivist of Odissi. Tutored by the Maestro in the art of Odissi & Mardala Ratikant emerged as a leading male dancer by the time he was in his early twenties. Quoted as “The young Kelu Charan” by Times of India, Ratikant is still one of India’s greatest dancers. His performances at world festivals are magical.  Having mastered the mardala, he has stepped into the shoes of his father as a class percussionist with hypnotic skills.

The workshops, designed to cultivate the growth and artistic expansion of any dancer, utilize a holistic approach to dance training and aim to provide insights into the world of Odissi dance: technique, theory, related philosophy and health/well-being arts.

6/2 and 6/3: The Tenets in Odissi Dance with live Pahkawaj: 6:30-9:00pm
Ratikant Mohapatra will instruct dancers on the basics of TAAL and its application in Odissi dance - to the beat and pulse of a live Pahkawaj!
Location: The Construction Company at 10 East 18th Street (between 5th Ave. & Broadway), 3rd floor
Cost: $90 Before May 28th, $100 After May 28th
Note: (Advance registration required, click here for details)

6/9-6/11 Mini-Intensive: Elements of "Vakratunda Maha Kayaa: 6-9pm. Ratikant will instruct and teach the fine details and nuances of this dance composition in dedication to Lord Ganesh! Participants must have 1 year prior practice of Odissi Dance with a basic understanding of Chowka and Tribhanghi

Location: The Construction Company at 10 East 18th Street (between 5th Ave. & Broadway), 3rd floor

Relationship and Meditation Lessons from a Hindu monk
Dandapani, a Hindu priest and meditation teacher will share his knowledge on tools for a successful relationship and will help individuals prepare for meditation during his three workshops in New York.

Dandapani was initiated as a monastic by his guru Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (affectionately known as Gurudeva) at Kauai's Hindu Monastery in Hawaii.  He lived for 10-years as a monastic at Kauai’s Hindu Monastery studying and practicing the ancient Hindu yogic teachings that focus on the use of meditation, yoga, and worship of God as the keys to unfolding a person’s deepest potential through personal self-effort. Dandapani currently conducts workshops and spiritual adventures around the world. He took hundreds of seekers throughout India, south-east Asia, Europe, Russia, the Caribbean islands, Australia and New Zealand. Dandapani belongs to the Saivite sect of Hinduism and practices the philosophy of Saiva Siddhanta.

6/4: Relationships and Meditation: 6:30-8:30pm
This workshop will focus on the art of maintaining successful relationships. Based on Hindu philosophy and mysticism this workshop will give you the tools and principles that help make a relationship successful whether it be a friend, business partner or life partner. Among the topics explored are: the golden rule, accepting your partner, the art of listening, being happy by making your partner happy, making plans as a couple, and the mystical rule.
Location: The Open Center at 22 East 30th Street, New York (between 5th & Madison Ave)
Cost: $45 pre-registered,$55 at the door
Note: Because of limited seating, we suggest reserving your seats in advance. Bring paper& pen to take notes.

6/5: Preparation for Meditation and Starting to Meditate 6/5: 1:30-3:30pm
This Meditation workshop is targeted specifically for beginners but all are welcome. It will address topics that are necessary to make meditation a part of your life. You will learn about concentration and potential issues with concentration, get a clear understanding of how the mind works, work with your subconscious to remold old habit patterns and create new ones, develop your willpower, concentration and a systematic approach, towards meditation. In this workshop you will discover simple yet highly effective practical tools that when implemented into your daily routine, with consistent practice, will help you sustain a meditative lifestyle.

6/5: Beginning to Meditate: 4-6pm
Having understood the preparation for meditation steps you are ready to begin to meditate. This workshop will dive into understanding the chakras, the forms of energy and how to redirect it through the body, a step by step outline of a meditation and more. A guided meditation will be conducted as well to practice what we’ve learned. With consistent practice and the application of the right techniques the benefits of meditation are endless.

Location: 1 East 28th St, 3rd Floor (between 5th & Madison Ave)
Cost: Pre-registration - $45 per workshop; $80 both workshops. At the Door - $55 per workshop; $100 both workshops
Note: For those who did not attend the “Preparation for Meditation” workshop last year, it is recommended that you take it first before attending “Begining to Meditate”
To Reserve: . For updates on these workshops please visit VedicOdyssey.com, email info@vedicodyssey.com or call 917-574-1637

Nadya Andreeva

This week the East Village gets a new healthy vegetarian café run by worshipers of Krishna who are devoted yogis of the bhakti tradition.  And, their opening celebration includes free food on Friday, May 21st.

The spacious restaurant with stone floors, pressed tin tile ceilings and a large old-fashioned wooden bar is graced by photographs of devotional graffiti and large colorful lithographs of Krishna, Ganesha, Shiva and other gods and goddesses.

Our group of four hungry yoga teachers enjoyed the Call-It-A-Flower (cauliflower.get it?) and Thai Thai wraps.  We also like the Green Goddess Sandwich and the Ca-Praise-EE (mozzarella, tomato and pesto) salad. The café also serves cookies, brownies and vegan desserts.  The chefs make their own breads and use locally grown items whenever possible.

The Bhakti Café is part of the growing and recently renovated Bhakti Center which hosts classes in vegetarian cooking, yogic texts, asana and hosts monthly 12 hour Kirtans.  If you can't make it on Friday, go to www.bhakticafenyc.com and print out a coupon for 25% off.  The offer is valid until July 31st.

The Bhakti Café is located at 25 First Avenue two blocks from the F/V line at the 2nd Avenue stop. 

-Brette Popper

Sahaja Springs is a pitch-perfect satire of ashram life. Written and directed by Rebecca Conroy, it presents a slice of summer getaway life at Sahaja Springs. This particular retreat is overseen by Swami Raava, a mumbling, bumbling guru deftly played by Kumar Pallana, the actor and yogi who’s had a recurring role in all of Wes Anderson’s films.

Conroy includes other well-known ashram archetypes in the short film, among them the spiritual-seeking bachelor and ballistic ashram attendant, and the characters are woven into a narrative that will have you laughing out loud - both as a slapstick misadventure and as a wry satire. Click here to see the trailer.

YogaCity NYC's Jeremy Lehrer spoke to Conroy about why ashrams provide such perfect fodder for comedy.

JL: What’s so compelling about this setting?
RC: Making a movie about an ashram is a great premise, because people there should want to believe that things are going to get better in their lives by being there - whatever "better" means. It's a lit-up version of a job or "regular life" story. People there are striving, and I believe that wherever there’s an effort, there will be some sort of result. The journey to find a teacher is also so interesting because, while you're on a journey, you often ask yourself if it's going to lead somewhere decent or what it all means.

JL: Were there certain real-life figures who gave you inspiration for Swami Raava, the guru at Sahaja Springs?
RC: Yes. At any commune that I’ve ever visited, read about, or heard about, there always seems to be a man of some sort who everyone looks up to: a seemingly all-knowing, virile, kind, strong “leader” type. At a commune I was on in Costa Rica many years ago, the leader was a handsome middle-aged man with a movie star quality who rode a loud motorcycle up a rocky mountain everyday to visit and manage the commune, and he would lead exercise sessions and jump over a picnic table, just showing off his natural prowess. I think he had children with at least two of the women there, but one of the women was his sidekick in helping to run the place.

JL: Kumar Pallana who plays the Swami is hilarious.  Kumar himself is a yogi—did that play a role in the guru’s characterization?
RC: Kumar’s history as a yogi played a big part in the film—we had many talks for hours before filming about his opinions and ideas of what the Swami could be. He's no stranger to these ashram stories and ideas, and to people looking for enlightenment. We both wanted to have fun with it.

JL: How do you happen to have such an insider’s view of ashrams? 
RC: I am a writer and director, so this film did come from my imagination. But, as a child, I was exposed to commune life in Mexico and Wisconsin.  It was basically a group of families that got together to live off the grid.  Then in my early twenties I went to Durika, an environmental commune Costa Rica and another one on Martha's Vineyard. Anytime you have a clique of any sort, it becomes quite a drama.

JL: The bachelor Stryder’s monologues are great.  In one, he talks about digging muck up from the bottom of the pond to make a digestive cleansing formula.  How did you develop the material for these monologues?
RC: My father believed in taking lots of blue green algae from Lake Klamath when I was a kid, so I had to hear about it starting at a young age. It seemed like people on communes gave lots of credit for breathtaking stories of healing and transformation. Then, other narrations were drawn from things that I have actually heard guys I know say, and also from the voice one has in their head while they are on a commune, or in a prolonged communal situation that involves self-awareness. There's a humor in the heightened self-awareness that takes place in these types of atmospheres, I think.

JL: Do you think that striving for enlightenment should be funny?
RC: There comes a point in a yoga practice when, if you don't lighten up or adapt a sense of humor about your life and perceptions, you can become greatly bogged-down and sad. You can lack a certain vitality that comes from humor. Sitting with your thoughts can hurt, especially if you're going through major changes, loss, or realization. It's a major part of my understanding of yoga, personally, to laugh and try to keep things and opinions light. It feels good to laugh, and laughing is an expression and release a lot like yoga is. I think they should go together as much as possible, personally. But I have had some very serious yoga teachers who may disagree. I'm just talking about myself here. 

                                            ********

Sahaja Springs will play at the Tandem Bar in Bushwick this Wednesday, May 19th at 8pm.  For future screenings and info, join the Sahaja Springs page on Facebook.

When it comes to teaching kids some of life’s important life lessons, Susan Kaiser Greenland’s new book, The Mindful Child, is considered a must-read by wise souls like Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield and Jon Kabat-Zinn.

They find her work so compelling because of her story, her simplicity, and her complex understanding of the problem.  Greenland, a former corporate lawyer, started mediating during a serious family medical crisis.  It helped tremendously.  She dropped out of the corporate world and began using her steel-trap mind to help kids – particularly those in the poorest, toughest neighborhoods of Los Angeles - learn to manage stress.  Her work is a combination of cutting edge scientific research and the true spirit of loving kindness which she’s  knit together into  really practical advice, games and ideas.

Yogacity NYC's Susie Rubin caught up with the author recently to find out why it’s never too early to start breathing consciously.   
 
SR: “Mindfulness” has become a big buzz word these days.  How would you describe it for the kids and us?
SKG: I approach mindful awareness from the classical perspective; as a secularized adaptation of the Buddhist tradition.  With kids, teaching mindfulness makes the most sense in terms of real-life applications like focusing on homework or helping them clear their heads when their perspective gets whacked out of order.  For adults, mindfulness is more the cultivation of a way of being in the world.  It requires a strong facility for attention and an interdependent worldview.  It’s the idea that each of our actions effect not just ourselves but other people, places and things too.

SR: So what’s the earliest age you can start teaching mindful meditation to a child?
SKG: In terms of actual meditation, the research is all very new,  so scientifically, we’ve yet to really prove how this all happens in children.  Still, you can start doing mindfulness practice with kids as early as infants.  While they’re not actually making the choice to meditate at that age, they engage in a kind of feedback loop with their mothers and fathers.  For both mother and child, it’s really more of a breath-aware practice than a meditation. 

SR: How does it work?
SKG:  When we hear a child crying, especially an infant, our natural instinct tells us to hold the baby gently against our chest.  In doing so mindfully, we can slowly breathe together, keeping attention on the feeling of movement as the breath rises and falls in our chest.  This kind of awareness practice, whether you’re holding a baby or not, has a way of calming the entire nervous system down.  At the UCLA Krieger Center, one of the early childcare centers I have worked in, the Director often had moms and childcare providers breathing with infants in this way.  It worked great with everyone involved. 

SR:  How does this differ from techniques used with older children?
SKG: By about the age of 4, you can really start teaching kids about mindfulness meditation – with introspective periods lasting thirty seconds to a couple of minutes.  Through fun, simple games like listening to the sound of a tone or pretending to rock a stuffed animal to sleep, the child can learn to use breath to calm them down and relax through stressful or unpleasant situations.

SR: Do the kids seem to enjoy this?
SKG:  Yes, especially rocking the stuffed animal to sleep with their breathing. It’s not uncommon for kids to tell me that they try this at home when they’re having a hard time falling asleep.

SR:  You talk in your book about the four insights of mindfulness.  What are they and how do you use them with children?
SKG: These are really simplified, secular versions of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, slightly modified to fit a child’s outlook.  We use them to teach kids that life has its ups and downs, and it’s easier to cope with the downs if we see them clearly without an emotional charge.  Another big thing we try to impress upon the kids is that happiness is within reach, sometimes with something as simple as a shift in perspective.  The overall message is that through this age-old system of mental training we can learn to make all sorts of changes in our lives.    

SR: Are there certain props you use to get your point across?  
SKG: Sure, everything from bubbles and pinwheels to stuffed animals and glitter balls.  One of the most important tools we have is what we call the ‘mind-meter.’  It’s basically a card where kids can notice and identify what’s going on within their minds and bodies without labeling it good or bad.  We use it to get them to build awareness of what’s happening in their inner and outer worlds without judgement or emotional charge; to notice without analyzing.  

SR: How?
SKG: We show them a card with 3 different colored triangles representing three different emotions and then ask them a question about what’s going on in their minds and bodies.  We might say, for instance, “is it easy or hard to sit still right now?”  Instead of answering verbally, on the count of three they point to the colored triangle that best represents what they’re thinking:  if it’s easy, hard or somewhere in-between.   By asking these questions to kids in a group – with all of them pointing to different triangles depending on how they’re feeling – kids get to really see the commonality between their experiences and others’. 

SR: You talk a lot about breath being the “swinging door between the inner and outer worlds.”  What exactly are these two worlds?
SKG: The inner world begins with an awareness of your body and all the sensory systems.  From there we move to an awareness of thoughts, emotions and habitual reactions.  The outer experience is not just about other people, places and things, but also about the overall idea that we are all connected, interdependent and constantly changing.

SR: Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D.) is a real hot-button these days but you propose the whole notion of I.D.D., or Imagination Deficit Disorder.  What’s that all about?
SKG: It reminds me of one of my favorite Albert Einstein quotes: “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”  Kids are growing up today in a very complicated world.  Yes, they need good attention skills, but they also need creativity and imagination to deal with what’s coming their way. In the process of writing this book, I had a conversation with Paul Cummins, an educator who founded the Crossroads School in LA.  He and I had been talking a lot about the fact that nobody seemed to be worried about our children’s waning amount of imaginative play.  Most schools today are concerned with ‘teaching to the test,’ cultivating a linear analytical, way of thinking.  But this lack of our kids’ imaginative sides, or I.D.D., if you will, can be just as worrisome as A.D.D.  When you combine this with all the funding cuts for playgrounds, lab sciences, arts, music, and libraries, you end up drastically diminishing the fostering of a more creative, wholistic and intuitive mind.  Mindful awareness is quite wonderful because it addresses this by training both sides of the mind.     

SR:  Talk to us about the concept of teaching kids to ‘pay attention.’ 
SKG:  The whole concept of paying attention is confusing because it can mean so many different things.  When we say, “pay attention” to kids, are we asking them to keep quiet and sit still?  Do we want them to look at what’s around them and think about how they fit in?  Or, are we expecting them to classify and prioritize a number of different stimuli?  Classical meditation teaches us the skills we need to handle all the many different demands that paying attention requires.  With children, we use different exercises to help them pay attention in whatever way that is required, either focusing on one thing exclusively, being able to shift attention from one thing to another, or keeping an open, receptive field of attention that can process many sorts of sensory input at once. 
  
SR: Meditation is often depicted as a completely solitary endeavor, yet you advocate meditating with a group of like-minded friends.  Isn’t that a bit of a contradiction? 
SKG: Many people have this image that mediation is about going off to a mountaintop to sit on a cushion and breathe.  That’s one way to meditate and it can be quite wonderful, but it’s not the whole picture, especially when we’re talking about kids, teens and their families.  When we meditate with children we have a responsibility to help them get in touch with their inner and outer worlds while providing a safe place for them to share.  The sharing allows them to see the commonality of their experiences and helps them feel connected and normalized by others’ responses.  After we practice introspection, we sit in a circle and talk about the experience.  Kids tell each other how and what they are feeling and thinking.  Through the process of sharing, they begin to better understand other people and their points of view. 

These sound like exercises that we could all use. To learn more about Greenland's book and her work in LA, go to http://www.susankaisergreenland.com

I first saw the healing power of essential oils when, some years ago, when my mother accidently spilled hot fat on her leg. The doctor told her the scar would never heal. My mother was willing to try anything, and asked about the aromatherapy oils I’d been experimenting with and studying (I had some unusual hobbies as a teenager). I gave her lavender to rub in every day, and within a few weeks the scar was gone.

That hobby has continued into my adulthood. Last month I attended an aromatherapy yoga workshop at the cozy East Yoga studio, led by Tracy Griffiths, an aromatherapist, and Kari Harendorf, yoga teacher and studio co-owner.

The three-hour workshop combined aromatherapy oils with restorative poses. Griffiths kicked off the first hour with a warning: there is no market standard for essential oils yet. It’s important to check that the oil is food grade and can be ingested. A good essential oil extracts the essence or, in yogic terms, the prana of a plant that keeps the plant protected from bugs and disease.

This, in turn, helps protect us from bugs and disease. Griffiths recommended we try Young Living, which offers a variety of oils, lotions, and other wellness products on its website. Good aromatherapy oils cost in the region of $25 - $70 for 5ml.  They are expensive but worth it.

Griffiths picked up a Styrofoam plate and squeezed five drops of lemon oil onto it. The oil quickly ate away the plate, demonstrating the powerful effect that oils can have on damaging chemicals in the body. When the body lacks oxygen, Griffiths said, it starts breaking down. Disease cannot live where there’s oxygen, and oils help our bodies take in oxygen.

When she was ready to show us how to use the oils, she put a couple of drops of lemon oil in the palm of our left hand. We rubbed our hands together and inhaled. (Warning: it’s not good to get oils in your eyes. If you do, use olive oil instead of water because water accentuates oils.) She also said you can buy empty vitamin capsules and fill them with five to 10 drops of oils, or add five drops of oil to a jug of water for ingestion.

But, she said, the bottom of the feet is the best place to put oils because the dermatis is the most absorbent and least sensitive part of the body.  Griffiths also passed around some recommended reading, a book called Reference Guide for Essential Oils which contains excellent information on massage techniques and information on the healing properties of certain oils and blends.

Her favorite oil blend was called “Thieves,” named because criminals from 14th century France used the oil to prevent catching the bubonic plague from the corpses they robbed. This blend of cloves, cinnamon bark, lemon, eucalyptus radiata, and rosemary can protect the body from flu and colds.

Kari Harendorf, assisted by Griffiths, then began the restorative section of the workshop. Our first pose was a backbend with a bolster. Idaho balsam fir was dropped into our left palms. This oil is used for controlling cortisol—the “stress hormone”—levels. The smell was woodsy.

For supta baddha konasana, we used a sweet-smelling floral blend called “Forgiveness,” which contains Melissa, geranium, frankincense, rosewood, sandalwood, and angelica. For a restorative twist with the bolster, we rubbed peppermint over our stomachs to aid with digestion. In our restorative child’s pose we appropriately received a blend called “Inner Child,” with sandalwood, lemongrass, neroli, orange, tangerine, jasmine, ylang ylang and spruce. It was an uplifting and comforting blend and reminded me of those teenage years when I was obsessed with covering my pillow in ylang ylang for relaxation.

Prior to Savasana, we did some alternate nostril breathing with the healing scent of Frankincense, an oil that was considered in biblical times to be worth more than gold. For savasana, Griffiths and Harendorf dropped the soothing “RuTaVaLa” blend into our palms.

I left the workshop feeling that the oils added depth and intensity to the restorative class. And on the way home, I couldn’t stop smelling my palm, which smelled woodsy, citrusy and floral all at once.

—Marie Carter

The elevator opens up straight into a stunningly beautiful loft kitchen and I wonder if I am in the right place. After being greeted enthusiastically by Oscar and Sylvan, a Boston Terrier and Jack Russell respectively, Prana on Prince’s owner Anna Meisel welcomes me inside her home. 

That’s correct; Soho’s newest yoga studio is in one of the most beautiful homes I have seen. Anna’s intention was to create a space more aligned with what yoga used to be when taught in India - in peoples’ homes instead of yoga factories. A Roomba vacuums the pristine exercise space between classes, and there is a full private bathroom to shower in after class. 

Anna and her husband, Ari, moved into the studio cum home late last year. The vision is a community center with monthly events and 22 affordable classes per week ($12, $10 students).  Classes are small and a great variety is currently being offered: Iyengar, vinyasa, Kripalu, ashtanga and hatha. Cardio Insanity on Saturday mornings, one of the most popular offerings, is taught by Ari.

Ari is well aware of the power of yoga and meditation. He’s lived with Crohn’s disease most of his life and since beginning a serious practice has gone from taking 16 pills a day to 3. One of Anna and Ari’s aims is going to be promoting Crohn’s awareness and self-healing through yoga, mediation, and nutrition. Some of their monthly events will include cooking classes in their kitchen with organic chef Connor Yates, meditation workshops, and guest speakers such as Jill Satterfield.
Born to French parents, Anna attended Julliard School of Music and is a concert clarinetist. She loves kids and hopes to soon marry all of her talents in a children’s’ program which will expose kids to classical music, French, and yoga. 

I was curious about how she felt about strangers taking yoga in her home. She believes in the power of karma and says that everyone has been very respectful of the fact that it is a home. Her teachers come and go as needed and she trusts them implicitly. 

I think Anna sums up the Prana on Prince experience beautifully: “Doing something you love with someone you love in a place you love.” It doesn’t get much better than that.

-- Alexandra Blatt
For more information on this studio click PranaonPrince.com

Last month "Downward Dogs and Warriors: Wisdom Tales for Modern Yogis" was discussed and the author, Zoe Newell, joined the group and chatted about her book.  The month before, Namaste Book Club talked about Erich Schiffman's "The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness" and he requested transcripts of the chats.

The other night, they chatted about Alan Finger’s book “Chakra Yoga: Balancing Energy for Physical, Spiritual and Mental Well-Being,” and I joined.  Once I was part of a real life book club that had me trudging back and forth to the Lower East Side of Manhattan. At those meetings heated arguments would erupt about the particle or the wave, which kept members in the room well past the two-hour mark. With founder Nancy Alder’s help in adding the chat application to my computer, I was eager to meet people from around the world and discuss yoga books from the comfort of my living room.

Alan Finger’s introduction is titled: ‘What is Yoga?’ which in itself could have sparked a heated discussion leading to the particle and the wave, or at least about the vritti. With 185 book club members, I was very curious how it would work. Only 5 were signed in when I came on. Someone asked: “Based on this book, would you feel confident giving yoga asanas to help your students balance their chakras? As it goes in book clubs, not everyone had read Alan Finger’s book.  Others read it 5 years ago, when it was released.  The discussion jumped from other yoga books to Alan Finger’s personal life to YouTube yoga videos to psychology applied in yoga teaching, all a little bit mixed together, since several people are bound to respond at the same time in this format.  When you type you are notified of whomever else is typing, and you might find your question answered before you’re finished asking, or the topic might have changed entirely, or two or three topics might be going on at once between various members. 

As far as the discussion around Alan Finger’s ‘Chakra Yoga,’ we seemed to all agree on what a great job Finger had done summarizing both Tantra and Samkhya in the first chapter. Someone mentioned she had particularly appreciated the examples Alan Finger gave to illustrate how chakra imbalances manifested in his students, and how he had helped them, whereas others found the examples lacked sufficient detail to really get a sense of how they had been helped. I thought ‘Here comes our heated discussion,’ but somehow it didn’t. The atmosphere stayed light and no topic was really delved into; it was rather like getting together with yoga friends at a coffee shop.

In the summer of 2009, Nancy was starting yoga teacher training and sent out a Tweet wanting to read yoga books without a local club to do it with her. She wanted her yoga pals to pour over some of the literature with her, and was flooded with replies saying they wanted a book club too.  She asked if they would be interested to start an online club and got an overwhelmingly positive yes. Shortly after Jenny Naes came on board to co-run it. They polled people for three candidates, and “Heart of Yoga” by T.K.V. Desikachar came up the winner for the first book. Soon many blogs were writing about Namaste and it was mentioned twice at Yoga Journal online. 

Bob Weisenberg, co-editor of the book “Yoga in America,” (the story of yoga in America as told by 46 teachers and devotees from every part of the Yoga spectrum) was the only one on the chat the other night who is not a yoga teacher. A retired software entrepreneur living in Milwaukee, he is passionate about the study of yoga. He jokes that before he was into yoga philosophy, he was a hermit. Though he enjoys solitude, he now connects with people every day through popular blogspots such as Yogadork, Elephantjournal (for which he writes and follows the Bhagavhad Gita discussion every Monday night), and Roseanne Harvey’s ‘It’s All Yoga, Baby.’ He also runs his own interesting, philosophical blog Yoga Demystified.

Namaste Book Club, he says, is his favorite, most intimate online community. The live chats, even though their format isn’t suited for in-depth philosophical discussions, really do make a difference as far as connecting with others. Asked if he ever met anyone in person, Bob’s answer was no. Asked if plans exist for the book club to meet live, Bob’s answer was no. “A while back there was one woman,” Bob remembered, "who wanted to set up a retreat in Colorado, and invite everyone to come and teach, but I don’t know what happened to that plan.”

Jenny and Nancy met on Twitter, and started the book club without having met in person. Last month, Jenny moved to Connecticut from Indiana, and they now live 20 minutes from each other, get together every week and even practice yoga at the same studio! Both Nancy and Jenny have met with many of their Twitter pals, and many of those are part of Namaste Book Club, which has 49 followers on Twitter. (Jenny has 858, and Nancy 1077). The 185 Namaste members are mostly from all over the US, some are in Canada, Australia, India, the U.K. and one is in Denmark. In Europe, the once-monthly chat begins at 4 or 5am. 

On the blogspot, Namaste Book Club is described as “a place where we can share our love of learning about yoga. Suggest, review, critique and discuss books. Namaste!” Anyone care to chat?

--Anneke Lucas

I start with a shopping bag full of colored pencils, gold and silver markers, a ruler, an eraser, a compass, and a sharpener.  I pick up a piece of square paper and under the patient and entertaining guidance of Sarah Tomlinson, I create a Yantra. 

It took four hours to draw and the beautiful ancient symbol that I have chosen to replicate will act as a meditation tool over the coming days and months. Its resonance is both universal and deeply personal. I will ponder its significance and utilize it in my yoga practice.

Yantras are Tantric Yoga symbols which hold your focus allowing liberation within that restraint. A Yantra may represent properties of specific Chakras, the energies of Goddesses or the powers of the planets.  They utilize symbols like lotus flower, triangles, circles and Mantras, or chants, to enhance the subtle and vibratory content of the design.  It’s really helpful when you are using them as meditation tools.  

Sarah has painted and studied the meaning of Yantras for more than 20 years.  She first learned about them from Harish Johari.  The author of "Tools for Tantra," he invited a young Tomlinson to come to India and paint under his tutelage.  His teaching helped her gain “new eyes to see with.” And, it is with attentive and intuitive eyes, that she teaches today.  

Beginning a workshop, Sarah lays out a deck of a dozen or so cards. These are mini-representations of the Yantras she teaches to novices.  Sarah asks each one of us not to “think too much” but to pick a design that calls to us. Going around the room we hear about each of the Yantras that we are fascinated by. Her beguiling and detailed explanations about their characteristics entice us to make a commitment to one.  For the extent of this workshop, we will work exclusively with the design we choose and you might actually choose to work with that design over and over again thoughout the year.

Last year, at my first Tomlinson workshop, I chose “The Uniqueness Design” which is “associated with Rahu, the north node of the Moon and one of a pair of shadow planets known as the nodes,” she explains.  It speaks to being comfortable with our own individual personality.  The predominant colors in are warm purples and browns with yellow and gold. Without my consciously knowing, I chose it at a time that I was struggling to find my own voice in both my practice and my teaching. 
This year, I confidently chose “The Bliss Design,” associated with the planet Venus. This Yantra “stimulates the feminine impulse of creativity and the play of the senses.”  This light blue, pink and silver design had been my second choice last year and now it had become my unconditional first choice. 

Sarah leads the group in using rulers, pencils and compasses in a very systematic way to outline the designs we’ve chosen. It takes patience and precision. My Yantra contains a lot of geometric shapes and lines making the drawing work painstaking.  Throughout the process Sarah is there to guide us . She reminds us to breath and to create the design moment by moment. She asks us to finish each task before rushing ahead to the next one.

For some reason I am having trouble finding center. I get dizzy as I work closer and closer to the Bindhu at the center.  Sarah relates the Mantra associated with my design, Om Shoom Shukraya Namaha.  I repeat it over and over quietly. It helps me line up the most complicated portion of the Yantra. 

After the drawing is done, we color. It is a joyful process. There is a sense of creativity and individuality that is sedated during the outline portion of the work. Now colored pencils fly around the room. The room gets quiet and then we all smile as we look around at the progress other attendees are making. A student next to me is mixing dark purples, pinks and midnight blues to achieve a richness of color. Another has pulled out her watercolors and a third is shadowing her colors to emphasize certain rhythms.

We smile, we share and as the sun begins to set we realize that we have spent four hours in an engrossing meditative practice. My Yantra is not done by the end of the workshop but Sarah has taken me far enough that I can finish it on my own.  I can’t wait to get it done and ponder its significance.  And, I look forward to the next time I work with this very knowledgeable teacher.

I first took Sarah’s workshop at Yoga Union Center for Backcare as part of Alison West’s 300 Hour Teacher Training program.  Sarah’s upcoming workshop schedule can be found at http://www.sarahtomlinsonyoga.com/Workshops.html.  She’ll be teaching Yantra Workshops at Sankalpah Yoga on May 8,  at Om Factory on May 15th, at the New York Open Center from July 12 – August 2, and the Ananada Ashram from August 20-22.  You can also find out more about creating Yantras by reading her book “Nine Designs for Inner Peace”.

--Brette Popper

“The first principal of Anusara is to be open to grace,” said Tara Glazier and owner of new Dumbo Yoga Studio, Abhaya. And there is something about the stunning, panoramic waterfront view of Manhattan that renders the city a little more orderly and graceful. “This studio came together with such a natural flow with offers of teaching support, painting, interior design, interns and work study from everyone,” Glazier added.

A one-room space, the brick walls are painted beige and it is decorated with Ganesh, Shiva and Tibetan statues, as well as spring flowers, lilacs and cherry blossoms.
The Grand Opening Celebration and Open House is today - April 29th. $5 classes are offered on the hour from 8 am – 2 pm and then there is a special class with Tara Glazier and musician and Garth Stevenson, kirtan and DJ from 6 – 10 pm. ($20 for entire event/donation after 8pm).
 
Glazier has been teaching in Brooklyn at such studios as Yoga People and Mala Yoga but is ready to offer yoga to the Dumbo community. “The vibe of the neighborhood is dance, music and art oriented,” Glazier said. We want to be more than just a yoga studio but also create a space for a greater community to grow. The people in the neighborhood are so thankful because there hasn’t
been yoga in this neighborhood for some time. It’s a unique part of New
York City; in some ways it’s like a small town. Already I know the
people at the deli and coffee shop.”

Currently, they are offering between three to six yoga classes a day with such Anusara greats as Elias Lopez and Siri Peterson as well as Glazier. Special offers that expire May 1st include $35 one week unlimited and $99 one month unlimited. And as the summer approaches there will be free 2 PM yoga on Saturdays in beautiful Brooklyn Bridge Park on Pier 1.

--Marie Carter

Suryasta, meaning sunset in Sanskrit, sits in a newly constructed residential building in Brooklyn. The name is perfect as it is Sunset Park's newest and only yoga studio.

The lightly stained wood and floor to ceiling windows give the place a refreshing and airy feel - especially on the 4th floor. Great views!

As the days start to get longer, the owner Jenya Andrianova is looking forward to watching the sunset appear during the early evening classes.

Jenya and many of the other teachers at Suryasta hail from the Jivamukti School. Some are even currently embarking on the strenuous, yet rewarding, 800-hour apprenticeship program with Jiva.  So these are all serious yogis.

Classes are small, and that means lots of personal attention and plenty of yummy adjustments. True to their Jiva lineage, classes have a strong flow, but are open to all levels. They also incorporate the Jiva theme of the month, which during my class was Radha-Krishna-Satsanga. Without an explanation I never would have understood the whole idea – which is essentially a sense of absolute be-ingness.  My instructor, Miya, did a wonderful job illustrating the idea with a personal story about a trip to the Caribbean and coming to terms with her fear of deep water in the ocean.

Suryasta also offers ballet moves classes for kids and is working on adding other child and family yoga classes to support the community demographics. They also offer Thai massage starting at $85 for a 40-minute session.

Single classes are $16 and a month unlimited membership is $120. And, best of all, they serve delicious free cup of tea after the class.

--Allison Richard

Sukha means “bliss” in Sanskrit, and now it means “bliss” on the Lower East Side, with the opening of Finding Sukha Yoga School. Our space is your space,” explains Sarah Coleman, founder and vinyasa instructor. “And the space is open to all who come here to practice, study, or just drink tea and be.”

This place was born to be a yoga studio. A circular “8-petaled” window looks down over the altar, and there is a rooftop open to everyone for meditation and reflection. A lending library features books on all sorts of spiritual topics. Pristine cubby holes with glass doors were already there waiting when the team moved in. And the sense of community, and a feeling of belonging, is immediately evident.

“At the (launch) party so many people were telling us that they wished they could live here,” says Sarah. “And that is exactly what we want this to be – a second home for all who come.

Sarah, also a member of the Joschi NYC faculty, is joined on this new and exciting journey by Shaun Granato and Aaron Lackman.  “Shaun, Aaron and I love yoga and want to have an atmosphere that is welcoming to all who want to begin or continue their yoga journey – whatever that means to them.”

Also leading asana classes at Finding Sukha are Joschi grad Kate Ferber, Jivamukti alum Jessica Stickler, and Yoga Works certified Angel Vasquez. The inaugural schedule for Finding Sukha features an “Hour of Bliss” lunchtime class and a Friday Night Partner Yoga session.

 “Each of our instructors have inspired me along my path, and I cannot wait to expand that family in time,” says Sarah.

Finding Sukha is easy; it’s on the 3rd Floor of the East 6th Street Community Center, 2 flights up from the Organic Soul Café. New students (that is, everyone) can take a week of unlimited classes for $25, and teacher training will commence in fall 2010 at a very reasonable price!  


--Jim Catapano

The first thing I noticed when I stepped out of the subway and onto Lenox Ave. in Harlem was the sky. I literally felt like I could walk right up into it. This sense of openness continued when I went to the Harlem Yoga Studio and met the director and owner, Laurel Katz-Bohen, who is effusive, kind, and parlays those feelings into the studio and its classes.

Laurel and her partner, Erica Barth, (both trained at Integral Yoga Institute) opened the studio in September 2009. The classes are held in the spacious ground floor and intimate parlor room of a gorgeous brownstone. Laurel has been a Harlem resident since 1999. She walked past the building daily on her way to yoga class and thought to herself, “This is where I'm going to open a yoga studio.” She went on to tell me that, “I could sense a void waiting to be filled - Everybody in New York should have a yoga studio that they don't have to schlep on the subway to, an oasis of total relaxation in their neighborhood.” And now, “The community has been thrilled to have us here, very enthusiastic, supportive and gracious.”

It is easy to see why.  The Level I/II class began with an opening call and response chant (Laurel is a singer/songwriter and has a clear, sweet voice) followed by some eye “round the clock” exercises and facial self-massages. It was so simple and yet so nurturing, I was immediately hooked. The class was buoyed along by Laurel’s humor and lightheartedness. When a student joked that he thought he had “pulled his liver” Laurel quipped back, with a flashing grin -  “Does that hurt? Then don’t do it.”

She was especially attentive to the beginners in the class. She credits this to her training at Integral Yoga Institute – “One thing I have noticed when I have studied at some other studios is that the teachers do not clearly communicate postures for new students. I have found that my IYI TT training has been really fantastic when teaching brand new yogis their way around the mat.”

Laurel first began practicing at PS 3 in the Greenwich Village at a young age. “My kindergarten teacher had us sitting in full lotus on the rug and massaging each other. It was wonderful and sparked a life-long love of yoga!”

This transcends into the work Laurel and Erica do within the community as well. “Our goal for Harlem Yoga Studio is to make the physical and mental benefits of yoga accessible to a much broader community.  In the seven months they’ve been open they have worked with the Children's Aid Society providing “Introduction to Yoga and Stress Reduction” workshops to the Social Work division as well as workshops to the staff at the Headstart program at the Educational Alliance.  They’ve provided local teachers with a unique course on how to bring Yoga into their Classrooms, both with instruction on how to practice pranayama to manage their own stress throughout the day and how to teach basic yoga techniques to the children in their program. The list goes on and is quite impressive…

Harlem is such a glorious hodge podge of people.  What is the typical clientele like, I asked. “We have professors, opera singers, students, people from the local congressional office, chefs, 5 year olds, teachers, social workers, marathon runners, Broadway dancers, new moms, mother and daughter teams, philosophers, rock stars, writers, poets, rappers, architects, etc.” And this is true. The class was a perfect mix. It’s really quite stunning to be surrounded by so many different kinds of people.

We ended the class with a Seated Yoga Mudra in which Laurel asked us to envision ourselves as an oyster, closing and opening around the pearl of our hearts. Lovely. Harlem Yoga Studio really is Open.

-----Gina de la Chesnaye

What began with Bryan Krest’s donation-only “Power Yoga” classes on the West Coast, some thought ended with Yoga to the People in New York City’s East Village.

Wrong!  Whether it’s due to a new generosity or the brutal recession, donation-based studios and brand new, exceptionally cheap studios are blossoming around New York.

In expensive cities like San Francisco and New York, donation-based studios may seem like a less-than-viable business model. But according to the brave owners, it seems to work.

Lily Cushman and Jeremy Frindel opened Dharma Yoga, a donation-only studio, last month in Park Slope with the intention of bringing affordable yoga to a community that normally trucks to Manhattan for their practice.

“The donation based idea was the reason why we started the studio,” Jeremy said, adding that he and Lily took their inspiration from donation-only studios on the West Coast. “We want to teach so that anyone can come and be able to practice.”

And, he and Lily said, it works—even in gentrified Park Slope, one of the more pricey pieces of real estate in Brooklyn.  The secret? People are inherently generous, they said. And although donations vary from person to person, if you get enough customers, you’ll make rent.

“Even if people are only giving a few dollars, if enough people are coming, it’s enough,” Lily said.

Always-At-Aum Yoga School opened this March in West Babylon. Always-At-Aum is Long Island’s only donation-based studio and offers everything from hip-opener classes to Tantra workshops to kids yoga to candlit Vinyasa flow classes. Body & Mind Builders in Tribeca recently create a donation-based offshoot called Do Yoga Do Pilates. It offers Vinyasa, restorative yoga, Pilates, meditation and other classes seven days a week.

Cheap studios have also been springing up around the city. Yoga celebrity Tara Stiles recently opened a studio in Noho, Strala, offering multiple class levels for $10 each.  Yoga Vida NYC, a sunny loft-style studio in Greenwich Village opened in January, offering $5 basic, intermediate and advanced Vinyasa classes for students and $10 for non-students.

Keeping it affordable was the point, said Yoga Vida owner Mike Patton.
“Yoga shouldn’t cost 20 bucks,” he explained. “It should be available to anyone and everyone.”

His business model, Patton points out, is the same as donation-based studios: attain high volume by providing a high-quality but affordable service.

And then there is the yoga that won’t fit into either category—New York Yoga Club.  Founder Melanie Snyder, a health food distributor and retailer, came up with the concept of the Yoga Club in Charlotte, North Carolina about two years ago as a way to make yoga affordable to everyone.

The idea is simple. Recruit well-respected teachers from different studios to teach donation-based or ultra-cheap ($5 to $7) classes, convince yoga companies, health stores and other businesses to offer discounts to members and you’ve got a club.

Melanie started the club while trying to find cheap studios in Charlotte. She began taking free classes at Lululemon, and found that her favorite classes were held outside in the park.

“I’ve got to continue doing this,” she thought at the time.

“I grabbed some instructors and asked them to come out, and they did,” she said. The club in Charlotte grew to offer 25 classes a week, with eight different styles of yoga. Most of the time, Snyder said, the club holds classes outdoors. But when they can’t, they partner with local gyms and studios that donate their space and hope the free advertising will attract newcomers.

 Snyder recently flew to New York to hold auditions for teachers and organize the logistics for New York Yoga Club’s inaugural classes, which will kick off the first weekend in May. She plans to hold classes in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, in Central Park in Manhattan, a class in Hoboken and a class in Queens.

The club concept has caught on in many other cities, including Atlanta, Dallas, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. That may be because as Melanie pointed out, the club is so accessible.

“We try to offer a smorgasbord of activities and make sure we have high quality instructors,” she said. “We just want to have a little bit for people to sample. People who can’t afford yoga can find it through us.”

Melanie added that despite the fact that membership and the classes are so cheap ($35 a year for a membership and only $7 classes for non-members) cutting out the studio and owner increases profit.

“Instructors tend to make as much if not more than they would through the studios, because there’s no rent overhead and because I don’t touch any of the money that funnels through the classes,” she said. “There’s no studio owner or rent to pay.”

The common thread that runs throughout this growing trend is the determination to make yoga affordable to everyone, regardless of their income level or familiarity with yoga. Bringing yoga to people while simultaneously easing yoga away from its business focus may, some hope, will help bring Western yoga a bit more down to earth.  

“Yoga has been pushed through the western business model,” Lily said. “It’s started to affect the purity of the teachings. If you have to pay a lot of money for something and the teaching is spiritual it just….Feels really different.”

Lily trailed off and paused.

“If it doesn’t work,” Jeremy said, laughing, “We’ll shut our doors and go home.”

--Hannah Rappleye

Clear Your Schedules this morning for a Great Workshop with Richard Freeman  

Pure Yoga West
Today:  9:30am - 12:30pm

Richard Freeman was one of Patthabi Jois’ first Western students.  He brings a unique approach to the practice from his studies in Ashtanga,  Iyengar, Sufism, Zen and Vipassana Bhuddist meditation.

This workshop will be a step by step exploration of the basic thread of form, breathing, and movement upon which the primary series of postures is strung. The bio-mechanical principles of alignment and the meditative principle of awakening core breathing will be studied in context of the Ashtanga system to give participants a new degree of freedom, technical skill and compassion.

          ***************************************************

1. Yogaworks (Soho)
Erika Hildebrandt

The stairs up to the Yogaworks Soho studio are narrow and shabby, as you’d expect from any loft building in this neighborhood, but lo and behold: the lobby alone is larger than most yoga studios: floor to ceiling windows, plenty of crisp unused space around the racks of the boutique and the enormous front desk. I was reminded of the smallish studio in Santa Monica where I took led Ashtanga classes with one of Yogaworks founders Chuck Miller, long before the studio was sold and went corporate in 2003, and worried that the Ashtanga experience in one of 23 Yogaworks studios (24th under construction) is mostly about the work-out, and the rest about the pampering you can receive afterwards. (Yes, there are saunas in the locker rooms.)

What about going inside and gaining awareness of the self? I took my rental mat smelling of fresh lavender into Erika’s led Ashtanga in studio number 1, with large windows showing a pink and blue morning sky, with about fifteen early risers already sweating to Surya Namaska B. Erika led the class with purely yogic ease and poise, giving extremely accurate and interesting verbal instructions, pacing the class, which was challenging for most students, in such a relaxed and even manner that you just had to focus on the breathing. She reminded you often enough about the drishti (gaze) and very soon I was concentrated and inside my body, enjoying Erika’s calm state reflecting the deeper self throughout the class. Erika took the class to navasana before guiding everyone into the finishing postures, even though it is listed as a full primary.
   

2. Yoga Sutra
Erika Berg
Tuesdays, Thursdays 7:30-9pm


Erika quickly guides students through poses, switching from Sanskrit counts to English instructions in one gentle, undifferentiated, melodious flow, in which, to tell the truth, I sometimes got a little confused. Erika is a gifted narrator telling a fairy tale to little children with much sweetness, but dark, warning notes hint at frightful shadows on the lure. Of course it does get scary, at least for those of us struggling to align our foot according to Erika’s dreamy but insistent directions in Janushirsasana B, sitting on heel with foot flexed, not pointed… Erika lightly admitted that ‘Yes, it feels awkward!’ when some students tried to make her understand the pain they were in! Catch whatever you can of Erika’s detailed information packed in her narrative and the class will be an enriching experience. The schedule specifies that the class is full primary, but on the day I went we were guided into the finishing series after Upavishta Konasana, and reminded of the approaching end of the class time.


3. Green Fitness Studio (Bushwick)
Elise Espat
Monday 12:30-2pm, Saturday 1-2:30 (Community ashtanga yoga class)

The spectacular light of the glass rooftop over the yoga studio seems to take you right outside. Unless you are outside, in the sun, on the roof, on which soft grass grows, and where Elise thought the led ashtanga class last week. It’s a wonderful way to celebrate spring, yet it won’t distract you: Elise perfectly cues; you breathe. Elise has yet to compromise the Ashtanga practice to please general yoga audiences: she encourages everyone to take up Mysore style if they haven’t yet, and in the led she only takes the class as far as all students know the sequence. You are left alone with your practice, creating heat and focus; the class is a moving meditation. Elise does give assists, but quietly, keeping the peaceful flow intact. Her insistence has already borne fruit. Though she started at Green Fitness only a short while ago, the class already goes through to Janushirsana A. Some of her Mysore students from Go Yoga (where she rents space) quietly continue on their own, Mysore style. I loved those calming, regular counts in the finishing series. Elise is a talented young teacher of unusual integrity who really knows how to pace her class. The Saturday class is by donation ($5 suggested) to give everyone in the community a chance to discover Ashtanga yoga. Proceeds go to a local Bushwick charity. Well done, Elise!

Note: On April 25, Elise Espat is hosting a one time led Ashtanga class with Mary Flinn, who will be coming in town from Philadelphia, at The Change You Want To See gallery in Williamsburg at 12:15, followed by discussion and Indian food. $25.



4. Greenhouse Holistic (Williamsburg)

Andrea Matura
Tues and Thu 12:30-2pm (full primary)
Mon. 3-4:30pm (half primary)


It is very pleasant to take a class with a teacher who really loves teaching, who, without interrupting the rhythm of the class, knows just what to say to help all students get more out of the poses into which they are wringing their bodies. Andrea cues in Sanskrit, and then directs the class in English with what sounds like a Sanskrit accent. (Andrea is from Croatia). While the atmosphere in the narrow space the size of a large living room is light and comfortable, Andrea can be firm. “I can’t assist you if you don’t breathe,” I heard her say to one student. Andrea showed other marks of a good teacher when she first asked if she could assist in Prasarita Padottanasana C, instead of jamming those hands down to the floor to open up those shoulders. For Urdhva Dhanurasana we were put in groups for some partner work, a very unconventional practice in Ashtanga yoga. Two students help a third get an incredibly nice back stretch, taking the work out of the backbend. Well worth the deviation.



5. The Shala (Union Square)
Jenny Meyer
Saturday, Sunday, 12:00-1:30pm


If you’re interested in going to Mysore, India, Jenny’s class somewhat resembles the led classes with current director of the Ashtanga Institute: R. Sharath Rangaswami, grandson of the late Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. All the poses are called and fully cued in Sanskrit, just like Sharath does it, with sparse and precise verbal directions. There were eighteen students in the Sunday noon class I attended, and not many of them were able to do the full primary series, though Jenny goes all the way through to the last pose of the series proper, to Setubandasana, (in the Ashtanga version only the crown of the head and the outer edges of the feet touch the mat). The few brave ones who made it through had the pleasure of having the backbends and all of the finishing series called and cued. Jenny did give those who finished early the option to rest or watch until back bending, (just as is done in Sharath’s classes). Jenny was very helpful to two brand new students, helping them figure out how to get into certain postures without interrupting the flow of the class. You don’t hear it in Jenny’s counts or instructions, you don’t feel it in her gentle assists, but when you see Jenny smile, you know that you’ve been feeling that joy in your practice.



6. The Giving Tree (Astoria)
Tuesday 6:30-8pm, Thursday noon-1:30pm (half primary series)
7.  Yoga People (Brooklyn Heights)
Sunday 5-6:30 PM

Matthew Seidman teaches half primary at The Giving Tree and full primary at Yoga People

In the front of the room at Yoga People are those who do not know the primary series by heart; in the back are those who do. The front half follows along as Matthew Seidman calmly counts and instructs the led class, while the back half ignores those counts and does their own Mysore style practice. Somehow Matthew manages to make it all work. Moreover, while he may be counting or offering directions, he assists with such concentration and awareness that a gentle physical hint suffices to give you a revelation about what a particular pose is supposed to feel like, or what it can do for your body. Matthew hasn’t followed the beaten Ashtanga path; he has not made pilgrimages to Mysore, India, and while he deeply respects Sri K. Pattabhi Jois for giving the world the Ashtanga series, he does not consider him his guru. What Matthew has done is practice for many years, and, being a versatile artist (actor, playwright, and until May 14th his paintings are on display at The Shala, where he also teaches a vinyasa class) his personal experience is expressed through his awareness in his teaching, giving you a very worthwhile experience.


8. Urban Zen Foundation (West Village)
711 Greenwich Street
New York, NY 10014
Eddie Stern
Wednesday 6-7:30pm. Led class + Theory

Though this class is taught at the Stephan Weiss studio at Urban Zen, Eddie Stern’s regular surroundings are recreated by a rotating slide-show of objects of worship from his own studio, AYNY and Sri Ganesha Temple. As we practice the postures of the primary series listening to Eddie’s Sanskrit counts to guide our movements, it seems obvious that there is a lot more to this practice than physical exercise and purification. Maybe it is the effortlessness of Eddie’s verbal instructions, or maybe the quick, relaxed way in which he gently corrects students individually; there is a sense of ease and non-attachment in the air. During the talk after the led class, reciting with great ease and perfect pronunciation from Hindu scriptures and referring to counsels of Pattabhi Jois, Eddie speaks about the purpose of the practice with grace and clarity. In Ashtanga, theory is usually only given in workshops; to have a weekly class with theory costing only $20 is an opportunity not to be missed.



9. Pure Yoga (Upper West Side)
Scott Harig
Fri. 9:30-11am, (half primary)

Spacious bathrooms with bamboo lockers, water-saving, eco-purified water fountains in large lounge areas; you feel part of a changing world at Pure Yoga. The large, windowless yoga space glowed in dark purple; at least 40 mats and blocks had been lined up by the cleaning crew and atmosphere was provided by candle light, which took me a few minutes to realize was battery-lit. There were eight students, but with so many empty mats it looked like less. When Scott turned on the soundtrack, I felt I was in a gym class. As soon as we got going, Scott’s friendly and fun energy began to transcend the externals, and he gave some helpful tips for proper alignment in Utthita Trikonasana and Marichyasana A. Though Scott had warned me about the music before the class, I can’t say I warmed up to it, but at least it wasn’t loud. As there were several students for whom the Ashtanga primary series was clearly new, Scott was doing a great job providing a transition into this challenging yoga practice.



10. Peridance Center (Union Square)
Christopher Hildebrandt
Fridays 8:30-10am

Christopher Hildebrandt was the inspiration for Yoga Sutra, opened by one of his students, where he was in charge of the Ashtanga program for several years. Christopher exudes authority; when he speaks he sounds oracular, and a small comment of his can turn someone into lifelong fan, or, as the case may be, enemy. Friend or foe, Christopher has a solid knowledge of the science of yoga and the Sanskrit language, and he has practiced and taught extensively. Though several of his students are very devoted and have followed him around town from yoga studio to yoga studio (he seems to have trouble staying put) only a handful have joined him at his latest venue, Peridance, primarily a dance studio that also offers yoga classes. Still, weeks after leaving New York Yoga, Christopher ran a new Mysore program at Peridance, and recently began teaching the led ashtanga class there. An impressive teacher, highly intuitive and deeply sensitive, and probably a good time to start classes with him.




11. Ashtanga Yoga New York (Soho)
Jocelyne Stern
Saturday 10-11:30am

The very petite, longhaired blonde Fenchwoman who leads this class has spent much time in Mysore with Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and his entire family, and though at first you may be fooled by her tiny frame and gentle voice, the moment Jocelyne Stern gives you an assist, you feel incredible strength emanating from her, and she will put you in the pose with surprising ease, no matter how big and tall you may be. While the Hindu deities shine down from their altars to guide you on your way, Jocelyne’s fresh energy takes you all the way through primary with and grace and simplicity. Humble by nature, her vast experience and teaching skills may elude the untrained yogi at first, but as you practice you’ll notice that Jocelyne seamlessly paces the vinyasas, and that poses are held just for just the right length of time, so that you feel really good during the practice and energized afterwards. The purification series at its best.


12. Ashtanga Yoga Upper West Side
Lorrie Dirkse
12:30-1:45pm – half led primary

This class started on April 17. Lorrie has been a longtime student of Zoe Slatoff, who opened up Ashtanga Yoga Upper West Side only a few months ago and has attracted many students already. Support the studio and try the new led class with Lorrie!

13. Nava Yoga (Park Slope)
Anneke Lucas
Sunday 5-7:30pm
Yes, I wrote the article and teach also!

Born a 12-pound baby with club feet, Max Strom spent the many years of his early life in casts and braces—or in surgery—before he learned to walk. In 2002, he established the center for Sacred Movement in Venice, California, now home to such teachers as Shiva Rea, Saul David Ray, and Eric Schiffman. Twelve years in the making, his book, A Life Worth Breathing: A Yoga Master’s Handbook of Strength, Grace and Healing (Skyhorse Publishing, $24.95) collects his insights on yoga practice and life, incorporating stories and exercises for yoga students and teachers.

Based in Ashland, Oregan, Max is New York for a book signing tonight at Pure West and workshops this weekend at Pure and Yoga High.  Luckily he had time to talk to YogacityNYC about his new book and what he’s been up to recently.

Joelle Hann: You've been teaching for 20 years. What motivated you to put a book together at this point?

Max Strom: During teacher trainings I would feel compelled to say things that seemed to come from a source inside me that I wasn't that familiar with. I would think, that was a really nice quote, who said that? Then I realized I'd said it. I jotted these things down until I thought of making them into a book for yoga teachers.

But the book shifted focus over time. In 2002, I opened a yoga school in Venice, CA, and sold it to Exhale in 2005. I didn't work on the book in that time—I was much too busy.

Now I travel a lot—220 days last year. That helped the book. It grew my focus from local, LA-oriented, to national and then to international, including Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur.  That helped feed the book, giving it more of a general appeal.


JH: Who is this book for?

MS: First, I wanted to reach yoga teachers. Then I wanted to reach yoga students, but also more than yoga students. From owning a studio and traveling, I realized I wanted to reach people who are starting to ask the questions: who are we? where are we? where are we going? The book is geared towards that person who is already a bit of a seeker. 

JH: Your book is called a “handbook” from a yoga master. Some sections contain exercises, quotations, and other reflections based on yoga or Buddhist ideas. How do you imagine people using it?

MS: It's not a book to read once and set aside. Ideally people will read it and consider the exercises. Sometimes they are very simple.

For example, when you walk through a busy area like a busy mall or the streets of New York, notice what your habits are: are you only looking at people you are physically attracted to, wondering about them as a potential boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife?

Do you notice the older people, the children, the homeless people? What if you looked for a saint or master instead? How would that change how you assess people?

It's a way of looking at your present life with your present attention, broadening your perspective and breaking unconscious habits. And it's an exercise that changes not only how you look at people but also how people look at you.


JH: So instead of looking at the world as a consumer, you’re looking at it as a responder?

MS: You're aligning your intentions with your actions. You may really want to transform, but if you go about your day acting from your unconscious habits, then not a lot of transformation is going to happen. But if you look anew then you can transform.

JH: Have you had personal experience with that exercise?

MS: In India, I met a homeless woman who had withered legs from polio. She had a profound effect on me and we didn't even speak, because we didn't know each other's language. Her presence was powerful. 

JH: Have you had similar experiences in the United States?

MS: I might not necessarily see a sage, but I might see people who have an open heart or are kind or who are walking through the world trying to see everyone, seeing souls rather than bodies. You start spotting them and they spot you. It's not a special skill; anyone can do this. It changes your energy field. 

JH: How did you come up with the idea of looking at people anew?

MS: I realized that often when I would walk I would have a story going through my head. I wasn't really present. When I learned more about being mindful I tried to walk slower, with a different awareness. I started to notice people differently. I thought, why not actively look, actively seek out people with more developed souls and open hearts? 

JH: You had quite a journey from being club-footed and growing up in pain, to becoming an international yoga teacher. What about that experience informs your book?

MS: When I first started practicing hatha yoga it immediately became clear it was affecting me in a healing way. Besides becoming more flexible and more fit, it was opening up my feet from years of tension from the club feet. It helped my lower back and my neck pain. When you can get someone out of pain quickly you know you're on to something big.

Then, an Australian Ashtanga teacher taught me how to breathe. Once I started focusing on different breathing practices it became a centerpiece of my practice. It started to affect me emotionally—it had a powerful accumulative affect.

I have no problem with the physical benefits of yoga but it’s kind of missing the best part. It’s hard to describe. It's like, you can make love with someone just for the exercise but you're kind of missing the point. 

JH: So your book is saying that yoga can transform you. 

MS: Over time, especially running a studio, I would see people make new choices. They get out of bad jobs or relationships or into good ones. They realize what they need to do. All kinds of changes beside the physical ones happen.

Physical yoga will change you to an extent. It will have its way with you. But then after that it takes discipline. You have to learn your strengths and weaknesses, and take initiative to make yourself do things you don't necessarily want to do. 

JH: You're helping people with their tapas. 

MS: Exactly.

--Joelle Hann.  To read more of Joelle's writing go to joellehann.com/yoganation

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Max Strom will be doing four workshops in this week.
Pure Yoga West, Strength, Grace, and Healing, Friday April 16, 6- 8pm
Book signing 8 – 9pm
Yoga, An Act of Rememberance10am-12:30, Saturday April 17, 2010
A New Way of Life, 2 – 4pm

Yoga High
The Power of Intention, Sunday April 18, 2:30-4:30pm

Though initially practiced by men, yoga has in modern times become to be known by many as a “girl’s thing,” particularly in the West. “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche,” has become “Real Men Don’t Do Yoga,” to many pseudo-macho naysayers. Those of us in the community know this is nonsense, but still many male yogis seem uneasy about how this lifestyle is perceived. 

Case in point: Diamond Dallas Page, a former wrestler turned yoga instructor, admits he once thought this ancient art was nothing more than “girlie-man hippie crap.” Even now, he touts his version of yoga as being for “Regular Guys,” suggesting that the stigma still exists for regular yogi and he even agrees with it. Couple that with concerns about etiquette in a female-dominated studio, how to apply yogic principles to relationships, and it is clear that the malehas quite a few questions and concerns about his place in the Asana-verse lifestyle.

Recognizing the problem, Jai Sugrim and Matthew “Satyavira” Lombardo created “Mukti Man: The Yoga Workshop for Men,” and invited Shivas from throughout the community to converge, practice, meditate, dine, talk and bond. Jai was a massage therapist and trainer with the New York Yankees during their 2000 championship season. Matthew is an activist and blogger with a keen insight into the needs and journey of  “The Yoga Man.” This formidable duo, with 1600 hours of Jivamukti training under their belts,  led 15 Yogis on an incredible journey at Jivamukti that began on the mat and carried over into our lives. 

The 2.5 hour asana portion was one of the most intense, vigorous and enlightening that I have yet to experience. Not knowing the best Sanskrit term for this practice, I will describe it in layman’s terms: “butt-kicking.” Jai and Matthew took turns teaching and guided us through more poses than many practitioners do in a whole week. 

Our teachers’ theme for this practice was the importance of activating Mulabandha, the Root lock. “It’s like Hemp,” said Matt, “good for everything!” Taking this to heart (and pelvic floor), we squeezed our perineum muscles for all we were worth as we pushed ourselves to our edges.

To drive home the importance of the lock, we experimented in doing a crow without locking up. This required us to rely solely on our upper bodies for strength and resulted in most of us eating mat. We then repeated bakasana by squeezing the perineum and lifting from the core. The difference was palpable. Likewise, my Side Plank, which I had attempted to achieve solely through arm strength in the past, was bolstered tremendously by engaging my core and activating the root bandha.
 We workshopped handstands in multiple variations—from L shaped against the wall to “hopping across the room” from a wide-legged squat.

After a foray into forearm stand (Matt helping me with a strap to get my arms just right) we were rewarded with a lengthy rest with legs up the wall, and a long savasana.

Settling in easy pose afterwards, we meditated on the very essence of who we were as yogis and as men. Matt and Jai suggested that we think of one person whose qualities we admire and aspire to, imagine them before us, then allow their light to join with our own, that we may become more like them. The experience was transforming and regenerating.

After a break we reconvened in the vegan JivamukTEA Café, where we dined on tempeh, rice and broccoli seasoned with organic mustard and soy sauce. Executive chef Ayinde Howell assured us that we were getting all the protein we needed (a major concern for those reluctant to join the vegan party).

 Jai discussed his experiences on the vegan diet as outlined in the book Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life by Brendan Brazier. He told us that a vegan diet followed correctly will result in more energy, mental clarity, better quality of sleep and an incredibly improved asana practice, and the difference will be felt in mere weeks. “If you want to be a vegan, New York is the place,” added Matt. Restaurants such as Curly’s and Quantum Leap, and stores like Westerly Natural Market, Integral Yoga Foods and Whole Foods ensure that the NY vegan is well nourished. 

The workshop culminated in a discussion about relationships with women. At this point our mentors blended the Yoga texts with some more modern approaches to male/female relationships.  Matt made it clear that this was not about flings and brief encounters, but about long lasting, satisfying, genuine relationships.  “ Exude confidence,  maintain self-control, and be a challenge,” was the mantra he instilled in us. It was advice more akin to Neil Strauss (The Game) than Patanjali (The Sutras), but still very valuable.

Many of us expressed concerns about practicing in a female-dominated studio. What if you do start to feel closer than mat-distance to a certain yogini?  “NEVER go up to someone you don’t know and tell them they have a beautiful practice,” cautioned Matt. It won’t be appreciated, as it will sound like you’ve been leering at them the whole class! They reminded us to keep that sort of thing out of the asana room, and get to know our fellow yogis in a gradual and respectful manner off the mat.

With a vegan meal in our bellies, hearts, hips and shoulders opened by asanas and minds filled with valuable information, we Shivas went out into the evening, secure in the knowledge that our yogic journeys had taken another leap forward. The duo promised more MuktiMan events in the future, so Yogis, watch this space.

--Jim Catapano

Despite the repeated warnings, the waves are calm today. A the beach, Refrigerators and pine trees and dead pelicans and baby dolls spread along the shoreline along with the guts of entire houses, overwhelming evidence of last month´s tsunami.

There was no alert after the earthquake hit. But the fishermen of La Pesca sensed the urgency to gather their families, and everyone except four people escaped safely up  to the forests. They had ten minutes before the tsunami arrived, flooding hundreds of miles of coastline and wiping out major coastal towns. 

Everyday since the quake, replica earthquakes ripple across the land, short vibrations that keep people on constant alert.  Its as if the earth is constantly humming, more aggressively than ever, an unsettled snake shaking its rattler.
 
But today, the 30 families who lost their homes are focused on more enlightening matters.  The circus is in town, and with it, a group of yogis who are here to uplift their spirits.
 
I had no idea that I was coming to Chile to witness the power of yoga and art during times of disaster. I thought I was going for an arts festival.

Levanta el Alma (Raise the Spirits) was created spontaneously as an act of unity to help rebuild communities on the emotional, psychological, and spiritual levels in the middle of this devastation.  The collective of artists and holistic practitioners from prioritize the work with children, many who are experiencing anxiety, insomnia, depression, and trauma. A month after the 8 point earthquake hit - Haiti's was 7.2 to give you a point of reference - we are here to bring the tools to process this reality and imagine positive possibilities from the future.

I tell the children I am working with that the ocean delivered me here.  As the group of pre-teens and I inhale and bend into warrior two pose, I remind them that the waves are not always so destructive.

Every weekend until September, this collective will be here in these camps, returning to these communities with practices like yoga and dance, arts like painting and ¨recycling sculpture¨, and permaculture workshops like compost and super adobe construction for new shelters. 

Being here with these artists, yogis, and healers wakes me up to the urgent need for this kind of service in places across the United States.  Physical conditions might not be as extreme, but children and women in shelters are experiencing a similar crisis in New York City.  We paint a giant mural on the side of the dining hall, that says  ¨...Raise up La Pesca, with joy, love, and unity¨.  It reminds me of NYC´s infamous graffiti activist, De La Vega, whose murals still stand in East Harlem. 

My original intention for coming to Chile was to teach yoga at Festival Rumpanco, the largest yoga festival in South America.  But Mother Earth shifted my course. Now, instead of creating a more individual, isolated vision like building reputation as an international yoga teacher, I see a more realistic, supportive reality.  I recognize yoga`s power to align, clarify, and empower, and in these uncertain times, unite communities.

Whether it is here or in Bed Stuy, when yogis are collaborating with The Department of Homeless Services, arts activism is a crucial method to bring the spirit back to our daily lives. 

--Katie Clancy

We are raising money to sustain our work through the winter here.  We need your help to, cover travel expenses for the artists and materials for the kids.  All contributions are tax deductible, under the umbrella of a non-profit cultural center here.

For more information, write to levantaelalma@gmail.com, or find Levanta el Alma on Facebook (it’s in spanish so if you don’t have that language down you´ll need a translator.)

Day #2  Sneak in a Walk

"The air is our food," Ghandi wrote.  Walk to the corner, walk along the river, walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. See the beautiful world you live in foot-powered.  Your lungs are a filter. Sometimes when I'm walking, I incorporate a yoga breath.  Breathe in for three steps, exhale for six steps.  A yoga walk is mindful and teaches you breath control. The longer exhalation is believed to squeeze the stagnant air out.


                                           ***

So far I have been talking about cleansing practices that you can do every day. Once a week or month, try fasting.

Fasting purifies the body and the mind.  I keep my fasting to one day.  Just one day of drinking tea or juice will train your body and mind to think and feel differently about food.  Drink only herbal tea, caffeinated tea will make your teeth chatter.
Or drink fruit or vegetable juice, if you like.  Sometimes I squeeze lemon juice into cold or hot water which the Ayurvedic Chef tells us is very good on her blog. I sip peppermint tea when I'm hungry.  Some friends prefer apple juice, others are enlivened by green juices- parsley, celery, beet tops and kale is a good mix.

Don't torture yourself.  Make up your own fasting diet.  I like to spend a day eating nothing but fruit.  I include avocado in the mix.  Having a raw day is another way to go. 

If you decide on a juice fast, these days you can buy a good juicer for as little as $100 at Amazon.

Whichever fasting menu you choose, you will be practicing discipline and cleansing, two bedrock layers of the yogic body temple.


NIGHT CLEANSING

Water is sacred. The bath is my Ganges in a cup.
Soak in a bath of 1 cup Epsom salts, 1 cup sea salt and 2 cups baking soda. Or just mineral salts and baking soda feel great. Add a few drops of lavender or rosemary oil. It's best not to keep the water too hot. To cool off hang your feet out of the tub or splash cold water on your face.


While you're relaxing in the bath, practice anja kriya, third Eye cleansing. Let your head fall forward and relax.  Place your thumb, pointed down, on your third eye with your fingers pointed up.  Massage this chakra with your thumb.

Next using both thumbs and starting in the hollows between your brows, work your thumbs above the eyes and then back to the bridge of your nose. Move your thumb pads to either side of your nostrils and work them under your cheekbones to the top of your jaws and up to your ears. Both of these thumb massages will help you clear your sinuses and enhance your mental clarity.

The tub is the perfect place to massage your back with a ball. Any orange-sized solid ball will work - solid, to keep water from going into the ball. I use a La Crosse ball, useful as well in other kinds of body work to release muscle knots. Press the ball alongside the spine and work it up and down along your back.  Move the ball to the other side of the spine and work this side too.  You can also work the ball around buttocks.

Yogis can touch their toes to their nose.  Try some hand and foot reflexology.  Pressure points reflect the parts of your body. Spread your toes with your fingers, each finger fitting between a toe.  Hold this stretch for a minute or two.  Practicing this every day will change the way you stand in tadasana. And every other yoga pose.

The toe pads are points for the sinuses and the brain.  Massage these points. If you want to work on points connected to specific organs pick up a plastic coated reflexology card at the health food store. I keep one in the tub corner next to a candle.

Scrubbing

Male readers - don't skip this part.  This skin cleansing is for you too.  If you've never tried it, you're in for an easy luxury. Your partner will definitely notice your polished softer skin.

Rinse off the cleansing bath powder mix and then reward yourself with a salt scrub.  Often you can find homemade ones  at farmers' markets.  I have a favorite that Suzi Gruschkus sells at Farm Stand Marfa in Texas made of sea salt, almond oil, shea butter and organic essential oils. I also like some of the scrubs I find at the health food store.  The one I'm using now is grapefruit infused Himalayan Pink Salt.  It has silky oils in it that turn your skin soft and keep it from drying out.  Who can resist?

Tip - use a scoop or spoon with the scrub to keep water and bacterial growth out of your salt scrub container.

If you want to learn about commercially available cosmetics and  their impact on the earth, people and animals go to the Skin Deep website.
 

Moving to the Eyes

Once the tub is over, it’s time to care for the eyes.

Eye gazing is the kriya for cleansing the eyes.  But it does much more by strengthening your eyes and improving your concentration. Beyond that, it fills me with a sense of contentment.

I start the session with candle gazing, placing the candle at eye level. According to teachings, the most pleasant experience comes from gazing at a flame made by dipping a wick in ghee. Easier to come by are beeswax candles that I buy at farmers' markets. 

Gaze at the flame as long as you can without blinking.  The cleansing happens when your eyes tear and wash themselves.  But this practice should be a pleasurable one, not a tense one, so don't strain.  Over time you will be able to hold your gaze without blinking for longer periods of time.

Candle gazing is relaxing and mesmerizing.  As the flame wiggles gracefully back and forth and grows larger and smaller and changes colors, I have the feeling that it is my friend.  Maybe this is why candle gazing makes me feel content.

At the end of the practice rub your hands together vigorously and cup them over your eyes.  You will feel a healing warmth.

A Light Supper

Now you need some plant nourishment. A quick lentil soup can be made using sprouted green lentils, cutting down their cooking time to 5 minutes.

Sauté finely chopped spring onions and garlic in olive oil.  When they have softened add a pinch of cumin, a small stick of cinnamon, 2 small red chili peppers and the cooked lentils.
Add a cooked potato, chopped, if you like. Salt and pepper to taste. If you want it more soup, add a little more water.  Simmer until it's cooked the way you like it.
Remove from the heat and add the juice of a lemon to the broth and some lemon zest. Serve the soup with a few thin slices of lemon and chopped cilantro.

At this point you should be fully infused with santosa, contentment, and a deeper understanding of how the yoga path works in your life.

--Sandra Harper

My first clue that something was amiss should have been when I was putting makeup. Then checked to see if my outfit matched – normally it’s hair in pony and yesterday’s sweats. I was nervous. 

For yoga? 

Of course, we aren’t talking about a regular class here; I was headed for Speed Dating Yoga. Recently single and passionate about yoga, it seemed like a no brainer.

After finding what I deemed to be a suitable spot in Crunch’s large studio, not in the middle but also not too far in the corner, I grabbed blankets and blocks. Dating yoga or not, I refused to compromise my practice for ego. 

Surely no one would be showing up to this, I kept thinking as about 40 women and men drifted into the room.

The class was co-taught by Jess and Nancy, two Crunch teachers whose first aim was to put everyone at ease. It wasn’t until Jess offered that we weren’t here to make love matches, just to have fun, maybe meet a friend, or find a friend for a friend that I began to relax. The pressure I felt to be liked or noticed, like I was in some bar or at a party, felt really awkward and intrusive at yoga, and I wasn’t fond of it.

Jess led us through about a half hour of basic vinyasa, into standing poses which included the option of going up into headstand. All of the sudden my feet were over my hips before I knew what happened. (Apparently my animal instinct to “preen my feathers and show my prowess” was a lot stronger than I thought, after all I was really here as a reporter, not a searching single, right?) During the pass through on the other side, I took the shoulder opening version, and let of go of the thoughts that I wasn’t going to attract/impress a mate if I didn’t push my practice to my edge. I was now conscious of doing yoga however where the POINT was for people to be checking you out. It made me a little nauseous.

The last hour was spent in partner exercises; stretches and postures for two where Jess would give us fun and silly questions to ask our partners. We were a pretty large group, about 2/3 women, and the rotation never seemed to go very smoothly. A bunch of us were just lost at each swap, and I saw one woman with the most unhappy expression on her face as she was partnered with the same man twice. Friendships seemed to be unlikely for some of us, let alone love matches.

One very enthusiastic man seemed to be messing with the rotation so he could keep getting paired with me, which wasn’t much better than the round when I found myself partner-less. Thankfully Nancy stepped in and we had a nice chat about our greatest strength and weakness – mine apparently some latent insecurity and the need to please. 

I honestly don’t mean to sound ungrateful or bitter about the experience. Jess and Nancy were fantastic and upbeat and clearly talented yoga teachers with a positive intention. The idea of simply finding a friend or being your friend’s wingman, all make perfect sense. So what is my problem?

After many weeks of reflection I have come to realize this: to say that I credit yoga with saving my life is to put it mildly. My practice has opened my once stone like body creating an intimacy with my self that I never thought possible. Aside from awareness and spiritual development and all the other fancy things that I am working on, yoga has for me been more about working through past trauma and strongly held beliefs about myself that have been keeping me bound and unhappy for over 30 years. 

So although yoga and dating would seem like a great match, for me it was more akin to a surgeon playing a game of Operation. Trying not to buzz while removing the funny bone and the spare ribs; wondering all the while when she can get back to the real thing.

Speed Dating Yoga is fun and entertaining and yes, can be a great way to meet people. I did see one couple exchanging numbers after class which warmed my slightly jaded and bitter heart. I will say however, that it is probably not for anyone who has a serious practice to go into without thinking about their true intentions beforehand. Otherwise, like me, you’ll get some big lessons that you might not have expected to learn.

-Alexandra Blatt

For more information about Speed Dating Yoga, click here.

Your body is a temple.  Spruce it up.  Do a little spring re-decorating - scrape it down, power-wash the walls, blow out the bad air, and color it with stimulated blood flow. 

For our temple cleaning, I'm not going to talk about swallowing a cloth, (vastra dhauti) or sucking water up your rectum, (jala basti), or vomiting salt water to cleanse your stomach,( kunjar kriya). Even though these kriyas are relevant to yoga purity, I'm going to suggest cleansing practices that are easy to do and fun, not at all intimidating or disgusting.  Most can be done every day.

Start with a Glass of Warm Water
When you get up, drink a cup of warm water with a few squeezes of lemon juice if you like.  It will wake up your digestive process and get it moving.

Time to get naked. Dry brushing wakes up your entire body.  A long-handled brush works best for reaching your back.  I use a hand held one for my feet. In a pinch you can use a rough washcloth, but the natural bristle bath brush feels so good, you'll want one. Most health food stores sell the brushes, along with body shops.

Start with a foot. Sit on the edge of the tub and take your time and enjoy it. Brush the sole and in-between the toes. Move up the leg using upward strokes. Then do the other leg.  Buttocks next. Keep brushing up. Brush in circles around your navel. Then brush up towards your heart.  When you work on your arm, start with your hand first. Move to your neck and then your back.

Your skin will be scintillating.  You have brushed off the dead skin, gotten the blood going, stimulated the lymph system. Dry brushing is fun to do it with a friend. Just another way to ruddy each other up.


Head for the Shower.

 I practice a short yoga sequence every morning in the shower that begins with uddiyana bhanda, stomach lift.  Blow all the air out with a strong exhalation. This draws the diaphragm up out of the way. Bend forward slightly and rest your hands on your thighs. Pull your stomach up and press your navel against your spine.  Hold the breath only as long as it is comfortable. Inhale on the release.  Repeat several times.

While holding the pose you can move into nauli kriya, stomach churning, rolling your stomach from the left to the right. This takes practice, but you'll get there.

Uddiyana bhanda alone will get your gastric fire going.


Yogis clean their noses .  The most popular technique uses the neti pot.  Dissolve 1/8 - ½ teaspoon of sea salt into a cup of warm water.  Fill your neti pot with this mix. Lean over the sink, fit the pot spout into your nostril, tilt your head to the side until the water pours out of the opposite nostril.  Do this in both nostrils.

Next: the mouth. You can chew on neem sticks like a real yogi to clean your teeth or you can find natural tooth powders and mouth cleansers at the health food store.  My favorites are made by Uncle Harry's.

Or make your own tooth cleaning powder by grinding dried sage leaves, sea salt and calcium carbonate with a mortar and pestle.  Start with 1 sage leaf, ½ t. sea salt and 6 t. of calcium carbonate.  Adjust the ingredients, all readily available at the health food store, to your liking.  Add a little hydrogen peroxide if you want to make a paste.

For mouthwash and to heal my gums, I squirt a half dropper of myrrh tincture into a glass of water and swish it around my mouth. Gargling with homemade ginger tea is good too.  Make this by pouring a cup or two of boiling water over a knob of fresh peeled ginger and letting it steep for ten minutes or longer.

If this seems like a lot of bother, remember that stuffed noses, painful sinuses, earaches, sore throats and coughs often get their start from some insidious microbe entering the mouth and traveling from there to lodge and grow in a physically unreachable environment. So keep your mouth clean with herbs and spices and gum massage. 

Gum massage is another essential part of yogi cleansing. First, wash your hands in cool water. Using your thumb and index finger massage your gums along the inside and outside of your teeth.  Go to the back where the wisdom teeth are and move around this area. Rub fairly hard.  This will stimulate blood flow to your gums.
 
Massage your hard palate, which is in the front of the mouth. Then move to the soft palate further back in your throat where the inner moon resides.  Your sun is behind your navel in the solar plexus.

After gum massage you will feel more open in the face and less clenched in the jaw. The space between your ears will expand.

If brushing your tongue with your toothbrush doesn't seem like it's getting the job done, you're right. Try  a tongue scraper. Clean as far back as you can. The tradition comes from using a bent palm frond. Practicing this not only stimulates my mouth but also my imagination.

Yogis are very serious about maintaining a healthy mouth. Tongue milking is another massage they do regularly. Holding a washcloth grab your tongue and pull it out, twist it side to side. Keep at it for a few minutes. When your tongue gets tired, massage it. Then curl your tongue up and touch your upper palate.
 
As children our tongues got a lot more exercise sticking outside of our mouths and were much healthier.  Tongue milking strengthens the tongue and prepares it for a nice round of simhasana, Lion's Pose.
 
Time to move up the head to the ears. Many of my friends swear by ear candling.  Personally I opt for an easier and less expensive way of ear cleansing.  Buy a glass bottle with a dropper.  Fill it part way with hydrogen peroxide and a few drops of almond or olive oil.  You can also add a little white vinegar if you like.  Put a few drops of the mixture into each ear.  Do not stick a Q-tip in your ear to clean out the loosened ear wax because you can perforate your eardrum.  Use a tissue to wipe the ear without going into the canal.

 
Now give them a little love. Rub your palms together to work up some heat. Cup your palms over the ears. Gently massage in clockwise and counterclockwise circles.

Once you know how to do this, you can practice this technique whenever you like.  If your ears feel stopped up, this will relieve them. I find that when I need to treat myself to a calming technique, this works well.

Once your outside is scrubbed clean, it is a good time to practice a few cleansing breaths.  I like to start with a simple nasal cleansing breath, anunasika pranayama.

Inhale deeply. Exhale through both nostrils, six short blows. Try this six times. Then hold your left nostril closed and exhale 6 short blows through your right nostril.  Do this six times before switching nostrils.

Make these practices part of your morning ritual temple cleansing. You'll notice a difference right away and so will everyone else. Your body temple will sparkle with fresh prana and feed your soul.

Come Back Thursday For Cleansing Techniques to Take You Through the Day!

--Sandra Harper

In these increasingly stressful, financially strapped, and otherwise not-so-great times, it takes a bit of resourcefulness to find peace and relaxation. Yoga teachers Eileen Rachelson and Maura Nolan have been working on a series of restorative workshops that aim to pack a weekend spa retreat into two hours of breathwork and meditation, hoping to offer some solace in the midst of chaos to experience yogis and novices alike.

The two met in teacher training and bonded on a yoga retreat in Tuscany when a bout of insomnia left Nolan unable to sleep. Rachelson propped her up in a supported savasana to encourage yoga nidra or ‘yogic sleep’, which mythically offers four hours of rest in only 60 minutes. After seeing how transformative it was, an idea hit: why not create a type of yoga class that could supplement a pricier, travel-required getaway, and offer an oasis to the student looking for a restorative practice in a supportive and inexpensive environment? Thus, in July of 2009 the mini retreat was born.

Setting up shop in yoga centers like The Three Jewels, the mini retreats, which typically run 2-3 hours, begin with a ‘body inventory’, a head-to-toe check-in while lying in savasana, allowing for a full 15 minute buildup of complete body awareness.

The goal is to build an intention on the mat that will be brought into the student’s life and maintained through times of stress. Rachelson says “taking the resolutions and intentions out of the mind and installing them into the body to create a foundation is what will truly stick—allowing the student to really take their intention into their life and make changes.” 

Different massage and stretching techniques along with extensive use of props like bolsters and blankets offer myriad options for finding neutrality in the body to encourage peace in the mind and breath. The flow of the retreats is rooted deeply in Metta or loving-kindness meditation, following the four universal wishes-to live happily and to be free from hostility, affliction, and distress. Breath awareness is another central focus—different breathing techniques are taught, offering several ways for students to connect to their breath. 

Tomme Berg has attended several retreats and says she leaves each time feeling completely relaxed and refreshed. “It’s like going away for a weekend in two hours,” she says. The teachers seem to take away just as much peace as the students do from the sessions. Nolan says “To witness people not wanting to leave, to watch them almost float out of the room - well, to nurturing personalities like ours, it is an amazing blessing.” Judith Lasater, who Rachelson has also studied with, calls restorative yoga the "antidote for stress".  Rachelson notes that restorative yoga has been shown to improve circulation, lower high blood pressure, insomnia, and reduce muscle stress.  

The retreats are designed for both the drop in student and the repeat yogi seeking a more consistent practice. “It works for all levels,” says Rachelson, “ The postures are great for exhaustion, injury, illness, pain and other stressors,” and all aim to promote the kind of rest that promotes true healing. The best part, they say, is to hear a student cry “I’m not leaving!” as they lay in savasana at then end of the session. Then they know they’ve done their job.

 –Biba Milioto

The next Escapes & Retreat program is Sunday, April 11 at YogaVida.
Cost $30. Advance reservations are required - contact Eileen Rachelson, fileen@aol.com or Maura Nolan maura47@earthlink.net to reserve your spot or find out about upcoming retreats.

In New York City there are over 500 yoga studios. But how many of them are consciously trying to be “green?” While we can probably all agree that being environmental conscious is yogic, we may not agree on how to get there. Is it better to rip out a perfectly good studio floor and install bamboo flooring shipped from China (that’s a hefty carbon footprint), or leave the floor as it is and “re-use” it? As yogis, we all know the three R’s—Reduce, re-use, recycle—but how well do we incorporate them into our lives? As Robert Thurman recently said at The Tibet House, maybe we need to stop practicing and start performing.

Let’s start with the basics. Water. At this point, we should all be aware that we don’t need bottled water, even after a hot and sweaty class. According to a 2001 report from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), roughly 1.5 million tons of plastic are expended in the bottling of 89 billion liters of water each year. The petroleum from the bottles can take centuries to break down. Those plastic bottles, recycled or not, are a severe detriment to the environment, and may be dangerous to your health—reusing the plastic bottles can cause phlates to leach into your water. The Green Yoga Association has recently partnered with Yoga Journal to start greening Yoga. During Yoga Journal’s 2009 conference in Colorado, the Green Yoga Association sought  to eliminate 8000 bottles of water by providing stainless steel reusable containers. 

Many studios in NYC are already providing reusable containers, but many aren’t. Luckily for us, NYC is rated among the highest in the country for tap water standards.

Perhaps the most basic step in greening your practice is your mat. But this isn’t as simple as it seems. Enter, the “Mat Conundrum.” As Carla Stangenberg from Jaya Yoga  said recently, “Do I get one that I can use my entire life or do I get one that constantly needs to be replaced? I’d rather will it to my grandkids for their practice.” After much debate, Carla opted for the Manduka Black mat. She choose the black mat both because of the lifetime guarantee, and the fact that it can  be recycled if you ship it back to the company. It is labeled as a zero-waste, sustainable mat created through Oeko-Tex certified, emissions-free manufacturing. (Disclaimer: I have one myself.) 

“Eco,” or green mats, utilize natural materials such as rubber (from rubber trees) and jute. Rubber wood is decidedly sustainable. The trees are felled after latex production stops (typically 30 years into its lifespan) and the lumber is used for furniture, flooring, construction, even toys. But we should remember that any manufacturing process leaves a footprint. So what is the environmental cost of harvesting these materials? How many of these mats will a yogi go through? Is it better to buy ten mats or one?  

Or is it better to go completely mat-less? In an article for the Green Yoga Association  Laura Cornell writes that she has stepped off the mat with her practice. Just as B.K.S. Iyengar and Pathabhi Jois practiced their standing poses on the wooden floor, so does she. When I look at my mat, made extra long for my extra long body, I wonder: am I ready to give up this security? I don’t like slipping when I do certain poses, and I’ve had enough injuries in my life to be a little wary of pain.

Now that you have your re-usable, stainless steel, tap water-filled bottle and your carefully chosen environmentally conscious mat or wooden floor, what about where you practice? Does your studio have brand new bamboo floors? Or are you doing ardhachandrasana while gazing down at decades old polyurethane coating on that lovely oak floor? I think most of us wouldn’t mind performing our asanas in a brand new completely green gorgeous studio, but this is New York City—brand new is expensive and not very green. Jivamukti did an excellent job by re-using fixtures and furniture in their Union Square studio. Their floors are made of recycled car tires. From Asia. But of course, not many studios can afford to do that.

Lucky Lotus  in Fort Greene re-uses materials necessary for their studio – the altar and sign-in table were found in the trash and the changing bench was made from a log. The clock was simply just there from the beginning. They reduce waste by having cloth towels in the bathroom instead of paper. These are simple things that many people forget about.

Lotus is a small studio in Brooklyn, dedicated to teaching the way of yoga and studying Buddhism. The studio “doesn’t count the money,” as owner Ava Gerber said recently. Instead, they focus on following the niyamas. To them, being green is just a way of life.

Green Fitness Studio  in Bushwick has created an impressive array of greenness. Their newly built studios include everything from infrared saunas, to remanufactured treadmills, to low-flush toilets. They use only compact fluorescent light bulbs (you don’t need a yoga studio to do this – just look around your own home) and have a living roof.

But when greening a studio, it’s also the little things that count. Most people already use environmentally friendly cleaning products, but Yoga for Everybody in Fairfield, Connecticut takes it a step further by only using and re-using rags and washable mop heads to clean the studio. They purchased furniture from Habitat for Humanity and donated it back to them when they closed the store section of their studio. They sponsor clothing drives annually.

Elena Brower of Virayoga  says that typical gifts to her staff include re-usable shopping bags and/or re-usable cutlery. They also fill their studio with actual green organisms (yes, plants!) to help with air quality. And every studio I spoke to mentioned donations to charities as a big part of being green. Giving back really is re-cycling, isn’t it?

So, ask yourself…what are you doing to be green?  Do you perform it, or are you just practicing?

---Gina de la Chesnaye

As if teaching yoga to Deepak Chopra, publishing your first book, and being the Yoga Master for Nissan’s Master the Shift Program weren’t enough, Tara Stiles has embarked on the new adventure -- becoming a studio owner.

Strala Yoga sits perched atop the hustle and bustle of Broadway just north of Houston Street. Visiting on a Friday evening I was shocked (and thrilled) to find that none of the traffic noise from the street 4 stories below found it's way into the studio creating a true feeling of peace and sanctuary.

The building used to be the home of a Crunch Gym and Strala is utilizing the old yoga room, a place Tara spent a lot of time when she moved to the city in 2000.
The huge loft space has tin ceilings, an expansive white brick wall and even a comfy sitting area to hang out before and after class. And with Tara's laid-back vibe and infectious laugh, you feel like you could be hanging out in your friend's very cool apartment.

Tara's classes are slow flowing meditations set to beats from Pearl Jam and Edie Brickell.  And while Tara moves you through strong sequences and poses like twisting pigeon and one-legged vinyasas, she also encourages everyone to move at their own pace and just be. As Tara says, “I'm an advocate for yoga, not for a style of yoga.  Do yoga.  Be your own style.”

As for styles at Strala, their classes are taught by an eclectic group of instructors with a wide variety of backgrounds including ballet, eastern movement, meditation and alternative medicine. Class names on the schedule range from the more restorative “Recover” to the more intense “Strong” vinyasa flows.

Strala currently holds 3-4 classes per day starting around lunchtime and running through the evening, but morning classes are in the works for the NYC early birds. Classes are only $10.  And you will always come out polished and new. Recently, Stiles looked up the word Strala, which she thought she’d invented, and found out that it means to shine very brightly in Swedish. That makes sense.

--Allison Richard

When a friend, the editor of a hipster newsletter in NYC  asked me if I’d try out this ‘intriguing’ breathwork meditation/energy healer she was hearing about, I instantly said yes and then immediately starting coming up with all kinds of reasons why it wouldn’t work. That’s just me.  I’m not a big sitting-still kinda yogi.  Meditation has never been my thing.

When I first met Stephanie Jones, in a small private room at Golden Bridge, she looked like someone who maybe should work at the Hollister store -- postage stamp denim mini skirt over leggings, tank top, a breezy ponytail,  and a demeanor that seemed far younger than my 28 years (she’s over 30, I swear).

 I know, I know - books and their covers. Once she started talking, I could not believe that such a seemingly ‘normal’ person (she went to Yale for American Studies!) had devoted herself to this New Age-y practice. Here’s the backstory—Jones’ sister had emergency cardiac surgery several years ago, which brought on a near death experience and some serious existential questions in both their lives. Stephanie’s search brought her to Los Angeles, where a Kundalini yoga practice, breathing circles, and meeting and studying with energy healers Jenny Miller and David Elliot (author of The Reluctant Healer)  helped her cut through many layers of emotional weight that she was battling. Jones was left feeling more lighthearted and clear, with less of a drastic emotional reaction to difficult times. After a weekend training retreat in a yurt with Elliot she set on her path to start her practice.

Back at Golden Bridge, Jones, a friend and I started the session by joining hands in a seated circle and focused on our own personal energies, within our bodies and then through our joined hands.  Well, we tried. Jones then asked us to set an intention for our practice. I decided I’d try to focus my brain and heart on my new state as a happy but frazzled freelancer;  my friend offered up the hope of finding the correct path to some big-picture life decisions she was in the midst of.

We were instructed to lie down, and Jones demonstrated the breathing for us – a simple three-part breath that goes deep into the belly, then the lungs, then out, all through the mouth. She told us we’d be doing it for 35 minutes. Whoa. She put on some music, great stuff like Rufus Wainright and Beyonce, which I enjoyed because it was a vague thing to focus on while working through the breath- and it was work!

Oils were applied to the chakra points to stimulate various energies, so our feet, bellies, hearts, third eyes and crowns of head were daubed with different blends. The breath was extremely uncomfortable at first- my mouth was really dry - and it was a strange flow for the first few minutes. Once my body and brain adjusted, I began to feel some tingly vibration in certain points in my body, especially at the site of a year-old incision scar on my throat (from a cancer scare that required the removal of half of my thyroid). Surrendering to the flow got a bit easier, and as we kept breathing, I became more buzzy—my mouth and hands began to feel seized up or cramped, (Jones offered me stones to clutch in my palms to help with this) and as we neared the last few minutes I felt a huge vibration throughout my entire body. I had a visual ‘this is your life’ montage of images running through my head- moments, people, experiences I hadn’t thought about for years passed on through, conjuring some emotional reactions that at times brought me to tears.

To wrap up the session, we closed our circle and joined hands again, again attempting to harness our energies within our bodies. Chatting afterward with Jones, I mentioned the specific thyroid-centric action, and she suggested that trauma sites often hold blocked energies, and that perhaps that was what I was experiencing.

While it certainly was a sensation-filled experience, I kept wondering why, exactly, should people do this?  Was this a tool or a method that could be used or applied in my life? The whole idea of ‘energy blocks’ challenges my skeptical nature.  Isn’t is possible that it’s just a party trick, that anybody could do some heavy breathing and conjure up this physical sensation, and call it ‘meditation’?

 I mentioned that I had tried energy healing to a yoga teacher recently, and she balked at the notion.  Knowing that I was not a meditator, she likened it to throwing someone into a pool when they didn’t know how to swim. Her opinion is that this level of meditation should only be practiced by those experienced in the school of focused breathwork, and that the physical reactions experienced by some can be too overwhelming for someone who is taken by surprise. I saw her point, and as a newbie it occurred to me that I hadn’t looked before I leaped, which I think contributed to my experience in a positive way. I couldn’t deny the cathartic effect that the session had offered me, even though it was totally unexpected. Now what?

I went back to see Jones a second time, with some other friends who I told enough about my experience to intrigue but not enough to freak out. We met at a private room in the Universal Life Force Center. The four of us started again in the circle, hands linked. This time Jones had selected a theme for us to focus on – taking risks. She offered a quote from William Shedd: "A ship is safe in harbor but that's not what ships are for."  We then decided on a part of our life where we might focus on branching out a bit- setting our intentions again. The breathing was still arduous at first, but it came a bit easier, and I had similar physical reactions.

My friends felt similar sensations, and afterward as we discussed it, it became clear that while our physical experiences were similar, the emotional reactions we had were quite different. I think this helped me understand why I couldn’t exactly put my finger on the ‘why’ of energy healing—it’s different for everyone. While I might use it as a decompression tool, or a way to work out some specific buggy life troubles, someone else may see it simply as a way to take an hour to step away from the world, and yet another person may see it as a way to heal some truly hurting part of their soul. You get out of it what you put in, and, with your breath as the tool, each experience is completely unique. It’s not for everyone- but if it interests you, and you can tune your mind to the frequency of gentle curiosity and open-mindedness, you can find a portal of energy that’s yours and yours alone, to be tapped and used as you see fit. 

In early January, Jones began setting up shop at various Crunch gyms around New York City. Why is she reaching out to a decidedly non New Age audience? “I feel that if people did this breathwork once a week, it would have the power to truly change their lives.” Her first class on January first left two first-timers sobbing. Even if you’re not looking for full-scale life transformation, it’s worth a try- you may find yourself a little looser, lighter, and less bogged down by all that weight you’ve been schlepping around.

-- Biba Milioto

Join Stephanie Jones on Friday, April 2nd at 7pm at Golden Bridge for a Breathwork & Energy Healing workshop. $30/advance registration, $35/walk in. She is also available for private sessions, for more information go to http://www.stephaniejones.vpweb.com/

You could hear the kirtan blasting down the Park Slope block where Krishna Das was rocking out the neighborhood - celebrating the new Dharma Yoga Brooklyn. People stopped outside the stoops to their brownstones and stared in at the stained glass bay windows where fifty or some yogis were chanting “Bhaja Govinda.”

Welcome to the new donation based Brooklyn offshoot of the Dharma Mittra Studio, Dharma Yoga Brooklyn.  The opening day in early March began with a blessing from Dharma Mittra; then kirtan (and Hanuman Chalisas) throughout the day with a variety of artists such as Krishna Das, Nina Rao, and Amibka Cooper.

The studio was started by Lily Cushman and Jeremy Frindel who taught, worked and practice at the Dharma Mittra Yoga Studio in Manhattan. They became friendly with workers at the local juice bar and vegetarian restaurants w ho were curious about yoga but said they couldn’t afford to take class there. Out of this conversation, the idea of a donation based studio was born.

After coming across an affordable Park Slope building, Cushman and Frindel put out a message on Facebook asking for financial help with the project and received a terrific response from the yoga community including Dharma Mittra himself.

Within six weeks of signing the lease, doors opened and they now offer four to five Dharma Mittra style classes day with an assortment of levels, relaxation, meditation and kirtan from a variety of artists every Friday. In the future workshops will also be added.

“The beauty of a donation-based class is that it allows the person to put their own value on the class,” said Cushman. “They decide what it’s worth to them. If they found it of great value they can put in $100 and if they didn’t get anything out of it then they don’t have to donate anything.”

--Marie Carter

The battle is finally over. A bill called A.8678-A/S.5701-A exempts yogis and martial artists who run teacher training programs from licensing in New York State.

We’re way ahead of yogis in many other states who are being forced to pay new taxes and comply with additional codes.  Teachers and students in our state are breathing a collective sigh of relief.  Or as Governor Patterson explained it, "This legislation is important in that it will not place added expenses on our local governments, in addition to not enacting stricter requirements on New York's yoga studios during these difficult times."

Of course, nothing is free.  We have Alison West’s Yoga For New York committee to thank for spearheading the effort, organizing, making zillions of calls, going to Albany on our behalf, etc. etc.

As West reminds us, the committee still must pay their talented lobbyist Gene DeSantis. If you haven’t made a contribution, please do by contacting www.yogaforny.org

Eddie Stern recites Verse 32, Chapter 1 of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras with the ease and pronunciation of one who is as comfortable in Sanskrit as his native language. Sitting in front of a group of 40 or so students in the large Stephan Weiss studio at Urban Zen, he explains that his guru, Pattabhi Jois, (who passed away last year on May 18) used to talk about following a one-pointed practice, as advised in this verse. “For the removal of the obstructions of the mind, practice one truth. If you do one thing repeatedly, and practice it every day - such as the Ashtanga practice, or something else; it can be whatever you choose - and learn that one thing very deeply, your understanding of yourself will increase. It is not necessary to learn a thousand different things, because truth is a single principle that lies at the core of any practice.”

Eddie Stern does not lose sight of the ultimate goal of yoga. As we practice the postures of the first class Eddie is teaching at Urban Zen, surrounded by walls with rotating projections of beautiful images of objects and statues of Hindu worship, listening to Eddie’s Sanskrit counts to guide our movements, it seems obvious that there is a lot more to this practice than the physical exercise and purification. I usually practice by myself, and it is often hard enough just to get through the physical postures. Maybe it is the effortlessness of Eddie’s verbal instructions, or maybe the quick, relaxed way in which he gently corrects students individually; there is a sense of ease and non-attachment in the air. I feel very light, as if the physical somehow has become a non-issue. Towards the end of the practice, as we sit in padmasana for 15 slow counts, the large space is imbued with peace and harmony emanating from each one of us, uniting us. While resting after practice, Eddie concludes a guided relaxation with the reminder that we are condensed forms of energy, and encourages us to be aware of this. My soul rejoices, grateful for this practice, and for my teacher.


Anneke Lucas:  Why did you choose Urban Zen Foundation to give of your time and service?

Eddie Stern: “Urban Zen has several points of interest that coincide with the organization that I’m involved with, Bent On Learning. Donna Karan is very interested in creating partnerships with like-minded people, and one of the things she focuses on is the empowerment of children.  Bent On Learning (BOL) implements programs into New York City public schools and youth centers, bringing yoga, meditation, healthy choices and conflict resolution to help children with physical, emotional and cognitive well-being. Right now BOL is reaching 1500 children in public schools in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. Several conclusive scientific studies have been done that show the benefits of children practicing yoga and meditation, and both Urban Zen and BOL are trying to introduce these practices into the public health system.”

AL: So you teaching this class also fits into Donna Karan’s mission: to use yoga among other things as a means to create a more holistic, integrative approach to healing in general, combined with Western medicine?

ES: “Donna Karan has been extremely generous to New York’s yoga community, including the Ashtanga community. Last year, after the passing of Guruji, (Sri K. Pattabhi Jois), she opened the Stephan Weiss studio for a memorial service, and she also collaborated with BOL for a fundraiser [hosted by Gwyneth Palthrow] that helped raise enough money to fund the program for an entire year.”

AL: You are teaching the Ashtanga primary series every Wednesday night at 6:30pm at the Stephan Weiss studio at Urban Zen. You don’t usually teach anywhere but at your own studio.

ES: “It is a gesture of friendship, to help support someone who has shown her support to us in the past. As I said, our interests happen to coincide; we work together for a common goal, and I would like to nurture that relationship and see how we can all come together for the purpose of doing good, positive work.”


Positive work it is indeed: After the class, I feel exceptionally good. Living with serious injuries, I experience the healing benefits of this daily practice in great abundance, but tonight it is as if a little bit of what Eddie suggested in his closing talk has rubbed off: “During the practice, the body, nerves and the mind are not pulled into various directions, but come together to work as a single unit of concentrated energy.  As stated in the definition of yoga given by the sage Vyaasa, yoga is the process of bringing ourselves from a state of distraction to a state of attention, accomplished through the harmonious efforts of the faculties of the body, breath and mind.”  I certainly don’t always reach a state of serenity after yoga practice, but tonight I feel very clean and somehow clear. When I arrive home I sit in meditation, and it is much easier than usual to become quiet. Tomorrow I will be back on the mat for my practice of Ashtanga yoga, and I look forward to my next class with Eddie Stern, reminded that I chose him as my teacher because he is unassuming, devotional and entirely sincere in his spiritual studies.

“Tad Pratisedhartam eka tattvabhyasah”
The practice of concentration on a single subject [or the use of one technique] is the best way to prevent the obstacles and their accompaniments. (translation by Swami Satchitananda)

By Anneke Lucas

Eddie Stern will teach the series every Wednesday, 6:30PM at Urban Zen.
(212) 414-8520 // rsvp@urbanzen.org  $20 for the class.

Lara Baumann, creator of Quantum Yoga, doesn’t claim to have invented a new style of yoga.  Chiseled body, deep secure instructive voice, brilliant brown eyes—Baumann is more of a well-educated conduit between yoga, ayurveda, and quantum physics. 

And whether you have studied ayurveda or Nassim Harim’s most recent quantum theories, the connections are clear: we cannot separate our own existence from that of the world outside. We are intimately associated not only with the earth we inhabit, but with the farthest reaches of the cosmos. 

Baumann is doing her part to weave ancient wisdom to our modern lifestyles by creating a method that will serve each individual.

After a year of promoting her method around the world on a non-stop turbo tour, Baumann has finally arrived at her last frontier:  USA.  She isn’t well known here yet, but with the help of her stellar promoting agency, it’s only a matter of time until her new book, "Quantum Yoga, Creating Your Ideal Practice from an Ocean of Possibilities", instructional CDs, and DVD go platinum.

One Friday night at The Om Factory, I arrive early for Bauman’s “Capricious Shiva” advanced sequence.

“Quantum Yoga is a way to create an ideal practice based on what your body needs in the moment,” she explains. Sitting in lotus with her iPod and coffee cup resting on the mat, Baumann looks like she just stepped off the cover of Yoga Journal.

Before I judge the shiny façade, she gets down to business.  The advanced “Capricious Shiva” sequence feels like a thorough Ashtanga class on steroids, full of half-lotus-vinyasa-kickback-split-into-dancer-eat-your-foot-and-throw-it-behind-the-head-to-balance asana.

Baumann doesn’t give us a chance to gape. One demonstration of a half-lotus scorpion, she’s talking us through the pose as if we are Shao Lin monks in training.  I topple out of an impossible “horse face” hip stretch, and realize the sequence name is self-referential.  She stands over us, calm and assuming like an enchanted manifestation of Lord Shiva, and demands the impossible. 

This is where true change happens, according to Baumann.

“Quantum physics has scientifically proven what the yogis, Buddha’s, and mystics have always taught, namely that the reality we perceive as being ‘out there’, in a fixed state, is in fact an illusion.  Instead, what we are actually dealing with is a field of infinite possibilities, which I in a constant state of flux. The reality we perceive is what our brain has come to assume is there.  Our experience therefore is merely a result of conditioning.  “

She’s got the credentials to back her theories.  She’s earned masters degrees in Religious Studies, delved deep into Buddhist Meditation, and trained with the crème of the yoga masters such as Pattabi Jois and BKS Iyengar.

The interesting ingredient in her work is how she blends all her experience into the method.  She designs specific sequences—entitled Hero, Bird, and Lotus Mandalas—to fit each person’s specific dosha, or body type. Depending on if you are primarily a Kapha, Vata, or Pitta personality (in Ayurvedic medicine), you will find your ideal sequence.

“I teach based on the time of day, season, body types there are in class. ayruvedic wisdom feeds our asana/pranayama practice. In the end, it’s about finding the perfect rhythm for yourself, and learning how to listen to yourself well enough to know what you need,” she said.

And sometimes, as I am reminded, what I think I need isn’t what my body needs at all. When I’m ready to sit down and take an early sivasana, for example, Bauman keeps the energy high in order to penetrate through our resistances.  Of course I would skip my least favorite pose, warrior three, if Bauman weren’t right behind me.  But in the spirit of the method, I sweat through it.

“The trick is,” she smiles,” learning how to listen past the instantaneous desires and hear the deeper urges that will bring you to your higher form of health.”

--Katie Clancy

Lara Baumann will coming to Kripalu, April 9-11th.

This unique and beautiful space, called Studio Anya, includes a Pilates reformer area, a large yoga room, meditation room, office and library.  Every detail of the studio from the art on the walls (which include originals from the owner) to the books in the library inspire one to think, move and grow. 

There are several types of classes offered, including vinyasa yoga, mat Pilates, modules and flow. Courtney Bauer, who created the Studio, has an MA in Psychology and has been teaching fitness for over ten years – and it shows. She has created a mind body curriculum that includes Thai dance, yoga and Pilates in her module and flow classes. You can tell this is her true calling from the ease in her voice and movements.

I decided to try out her flow class and found a spot on the shiny wood floor and took in the warm inviting light.  Courtney began with a few inhales and exhales to warm up our bodies.  I was later told that each movement in the sequence corresponded to the mind body curriculum. At first I felt awkward doing a brand new sequence, but it didn’t take me long to find my inner warrior and dancer inside.  After several specific foot, leg, hand and arm movements we started to move faster into more complicated dance moves, chatarungas, side planks and shifting movements.

Courtney demonstrated several advanced arm balances such as Eka Pada Koundiyanasana.  She talked us through them in stages, making it a really safe environment to take a risk and try something new.  This workout literally crept up on me because I was having so much fun.  We cooled down with some Thai massage, firmly stroking our thighs and calves and  pressing pressure points on our feet. It felt so good that I now do it every day! It was empowering to try something new combined with familiar poses.  Studio Anya is definitely a place to expand oneself from the serene environment to the classes to the library for self-study and a great new addition to NYC yoga.

First class is free; Single classes are $20; Ten packs are  $180. The studio also offers a discount for dancers.  An added bonus is that Courtney keeps the kitchen stocked with snacks and drinks for anyone that wants to refuel after class.

--Margie Suvalle

Author Dani Shapiro is known best for riveting fast-paced best-sellers of trouble and tragedy. Her new memoir, Devotion: A Memoir" target="_blank">Devotion, takes on much quieter, more oblique material—that uncharacteristically resolves in a series of questions that beget more questions.

YogaCity NYC sat down with the author in her cozy office to discuss Devotion. The book, a fascinating meditation that takes us through her Orthodox Jewish upbringing, intense brush with Christianity, and her long and evolving yoga practice, ultimately becomes the perfect guide through the thorny landscape of the religious experience in contemporary America.


MINNA PROCTOR: At a certain point in Devotion you compare getting onto the mat with sitting down to write? Are yoga and meditation and writing part of the same practice? Can you draw a comparison between the three?

DANI SHAPIRO: The yoga and meditation are not part of the same practice but they're part of the same block of time in a way. I don't find myself able to sit down and meditate unless I've just done yoga. It sort of opens the gateway to that.

The great paradox in my life right now is that I'm out there promoting this book, which is all about yoga and meditation, and I have less time to do them. I was talking about this to Silvia Boorstein the other day she said, "Well, it's all a practice." I just blogged about it… How do I maintain these practices when I'm not actually able to take two hours everyday, like when I was in the middle of writing Devotion. I just wanted to keep going. But the book had the place where it wanted to end.

MP: The rhythm of your life in this practice is palpable in the book. There’s a way in which it's almost the portrait of a writer's life. You're thinking and you’re sitting; in a way, you project onto the sitting practice the hard work of the writing. It’s hard to write about writing, but you’ve managed to dramatize the writing process by talking about the difficulties of mediation, as in this moment you describe—your first retreat at Kripalu:

“Breathe. I felt like I had taken a wrong
turn, gotten off at the wrong exit. I should have been at the
Canyon Ranch resort down the road, getting a hot stone massage.
I needed to relax—and spa treatments seemed a lot more relaxing
than sitting erect on a meditation cushion with hundreds of
strangers. But I wasn’t here to relax—at least not in that way. I
needed some space in my head. I was practically hyperventilating,
taking in sips of air as I waited for the morning program to start.
Instead of the world opening up to me, it had grown increasingly
constricted. The walls closing in.”

DS: I think the structure of the book speaks to that in a way that I didn't entirely understand at first. I was terrified when I realized how the book was going to have to be structured, because I’d never read a book like that before—though now I have. Annie Dillard’s For The Time Being, has a wonderful structure and so does this gorgeous memoir I just read, The Glen Rock Book of the Dead, which is all told in short portraits of people that the writer Marion Winik knew who’d died. Part of the reason I responded to it was that it showed me it's possible to tell a book in the pieces of a puzzle and have it add up. Someone suggested to me that the structure of Devotion is like yoga, there are pauses between each section like the pauses between poses. That was such a helpful idea because each time I finished a section as I was writing, it was as if I was coming back into Namaste—and I didn’t know where I was going to go next.

MP: So that is how you wrote?

DS: I did! And it was killing me! I told my agent that it felt like death by 102 prose poems each time I finished a section. The great thing about writing a book is that once you’ve started you’ve started and even if you digress you can pull back. I think beginning is the hardest part; that’s the big leap of faith. But with Devotion I felt like I had to leap and then leap—it was beginning again and again and again, all the way through.

MP: Did you see the book as a spiritual autobiography when you made that first leap? Because ultimately spiritual autobiographies tend to follow clear paths—in the sense that you come through the long dark night of the soul and then you're out the other side. That’s not the way this book works.

DS: To me, this book was about the asking of questions. I can't imagine having experienced everything that I experienced and then trying to write a book about it all in retrospect. I don’t think that would have interested me. I wanted to understand something through writing about it—living it and writing about it as I was living it. Writing from the center of that place. . . which is something I never recommend writers do! This whole notion of writing about something as I was trying to digest it—well, I couldn’t have done it any earlier in my writing life.

MP A portrait of digestion!

DS: It was an incredibly intense process. I felt like my head was going to pop off. I was being infused with so much that was so important and almost hard to take in as it was happening to me. For example, how did it happen that in the span of a couple of years I encountered and became close to Steve Cope (a yogi) and Sylvia Boorstein (a Buddhist) and Burt Visotzky (a rabbi). I don't think I could have searched the world over and found three more perfect people to have been my teachers. And I wasn't looking for them. I was just opening my eyes, and being available to whatever it was.

MP: A very deeply held yogic idea: We practice so that we can receive more clearly.

DS: I wasn't religion shopping. Not only did I want this exploration to be organic. It had to be organic, otherwise nothing about it was going to be real.

MP: You really talk more about your ideas in terms of sitting. That’s where yoga is part of the struggle. While writing is almost the devotion itself; it’s the faith.

DS: The writing is definitely the practice. In fact, there was more specifically on the page about writing, but when you write too much about writing, it reminds readers that they're reading and pulls them out of the experience

MP: It's a more quiet presence in the book. As you said, you were using your writerly tools to bear on this world that you were trying to read.

DS: Writing is where I'm most alive, and it's also how I understand the world. I couldn’t have understood it so deeply and internally without writing. In part, because I wouldn’t have had the nerve.

MP: There was a certain point in reading when I realized that I had assumed you meant that you weren’t religious, weren’t Jewish, because you label yourself as very assimilated. But that’s completely wrong. You are a very Jewish person and there’s a lot in this book about figuring out your Judaism and making peace with it.

DS: That all had to do with motherhood too. Would I have felt the need to figure that out if I weren’t a mother? I don't think so. I felt like it was something that i needed to pass on to my son. Yes, in moments of grief and great intensity, Hebrew comes flashing into my mind. …There's a moment in Devotion where somebody asks Silvia Boorstein why she complicates her Buddhism with Judaism, and she answers, “Because I am complicated with it.” That is so important to me. I am so complicated with this.

MP: That is the leitmotif of the book.

DS: I guess it’s the realization that we're all complicated with something. And I wanted to present that to my son Jacob—my religion and its culture. When my father died, even more when my mother died because I was a grown up at that point, religion is where I went and I was grateful to have that. I wanted Jacob to have some kind of foundation—it’s his, it’s mine, it’s where we come from. I wanted him to have a place to go if should need it. While I was writing the book my father in law, who’s an atheist, said, “What are you doing with this book? When I die, they’re donating my body to Harvard Medical School and that’s the end of the story.” I asked him then, why it was so important to him that his grandchildren be bar and batmitzvahed. He answered that “You owe them that. That’s something you can give them and then they make up their own minds.”

Also, yes, it did have something to do with making peace with Judaism, feeling that my religious relatives didn’t have a lock on it. Just because I’m not Orthodox or even tremendously practicing doesn’t mean it’s not there for me—which was how I did feel, that it was an all or nothing deal and that there was no middle ground. I don’t feel that way anymore. Even if it all still confuses me.

MP: I wonder if there’s a way Judaism, the way we practice it today, allows for different interpretations for living.

DS: I have felt a closer connection to whatever the divine is—that's not even a word I'm comfortable using—sitting than I have ever felt anywhere else. In temple, I feel a lot that I think has to do with memory and with a connection to my father and but it's not what I feel when I'm meditating. I don't feel closer to God when I'm sitting in temple. I feel closer to my father and I feel closer to my childhood and I feel very emotional but I don't feel a sense of connectedness to something greater than my self. I don’t pray, but when I’m sitting, I have moments where I feel like my consciousness is part of a greater consciousness. It’s almost hard to talk about. The hint of an awareness that my perceptions are not where everything begins and ends. 

MP: So it is religious?

DS: It certainly is.... Now, there is a tradition of meditation within Judaism and I haven't been all that interested in. I had considered asking Sylvia Boorstein if I could tag along on her annual mediation retreat for rabbis, but I didn’t. I kind of don't want to make it Jewish. I'm good with meditation the way it is. It's working for me. I’m curious, but I’m also fine with the way we are. We have our synagogue; I like the rabbi a lot; and Jacob goes to Hebrew School. I like that community. And I meditate. These are two different things within me, residing together, but I don’t feel like they need to marry!

MP: When I first started yoga, I was in a class at Jivamukti with Kelly Morris, and I was still at the point where I felt imposed on by the various yoga “teachings”, especially those opening lectures. But we were in the middle of a ridiculously athletic class and she was trying to get us all into Hanumanasana, and there was a lot of frustration in the room. She said something along the lines of, “So, the pose defeats you. That’s the point, isn’t it? When you go to meet God, you go on your knees.” Now that resonated. It was my introduction to the idea of practicing humility, and actually, practicing defeat. But I also feel like that was absolutely a religious idea—that in a sense crossed religions.

DS: I've experienced that in the reverse. I was at a Rosh Hoshana service in Brooklyn years ago, and the absolutely gifted leader of this coalition was named Tamara. She undeniably brought yogic principals into the service. And it was so much about the body. In the moment before the shofar was to be blown, she told us to look around us and notice that some people were wearing tallises over their heads. I’d seen that over the years and always thought it was a little overly dramatic, my own secret judgment about ecstatic Judaism. She said that wearing the tallis this way created a sacred space in which to hear the shofar. Then, she told us to take a moment and just create that space around us for ourselves. …I have never heard the shofar the way I heard it that day.

MP: There's so much that's physical in a yoga practice: you wear yourself out so you can sit quietly, you loosen your hips so you can sit comfortably, strengthen your stomach so you can sit still. There's a link between spiritual and physical practice, all channeled through the body and your hyper awareness of it. Can you relate that to anything in Judaism?

DS: Only in the sense that yoga saved me. As a woman, especially growing up Orthodox, there's all the menstruation stuff. I have first cousins who I don’t know if I’m can hug them when I see them, even if that is my first impulse. There is so much restriction in Orthodox Judaism, and even if it comes out of a great respect for the body, growing up, I felt it as a tremendous disconnect. The other thing that I think of immediately when you ask about the body and Judaism is death. Which has to do with my own experience. But it’s not a place of opening or entering. It’s not thinking of the body as a way of experiencing memory or emotional life. The whole notion of samskara is so important to me—that stories are inside of us.

"Almost a decade ago, two of my amazing, beautiful and talented friends from Juilliard died too young from cancer,”  explains Bo Chang, CYT and founder of the humorous, irreverant, and useful website, bitesizeyoga.com.  In an effort to help those currently struggling with the disease, Bo will be teaching Yoga by donation at the Shetler Studios on 244 West 54th Street during March and April, every Sunday at 4pm. All donations will go to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  Her thinking:  “It's never too late to get off the couch to do something useful, and I would like to ask for your kind support to achieve that.”

The suggested donation is $10 for each class, $25 for 3 classes and $30 for 4 classes. For a donation of $100,  students can have a one-on one- 60-minute private Yoga lesson. All lessons and classes  will include follow-up consultation and home practice plan via email.

Bo is also participating in the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in June to raise money for the foundation. More information can be found at http://pages.teamintraining.org/nyc/rnr10/bchangf83x.

“Small steps add up to a great distance when you take enough of them,” says Bo. “So here's step number 1.” Ok people, take your first step and get to her class - or better yet, sign up for a private.  For more information, contact bitesizeyoga@gmail.com

--Jim Catapano

The other day a student asked me how she would ever be able to do more “advanced” poses. I told her the same thing that the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali say…through practice.  That practice should be motivated by your needs, not those dictated by a teacher. That’s why we emphasize “self” vs. taking a class or watching a DVD.  But still, my student got me thinking, really how did I start my own?

When I was in journalism school the key to any writing assignment was to find out the “5 W’s”.  The Who, What, When, Where and Why of a story. The “5 W’s” not only hold the keys to a good newspaper article but my practice as well.

WHO:  This is an opportunity to listen and pay attention to your own inner voice.  In our society we spend so much time listening to others that we frequently turn our internal volume down.  Your voice is the one that will tell you about a tight left shoulder, or a shallow breathing pattern or the need to move in a Vinyasa flow to a hard rock soundtrack.  You are also the one who recognizes when you are straining in an asana or when you finally “crack the code” to a pose that has bewitched you for months. In self-practice, you are your own guru and in taking on and eventually maturing in that role you will begin to recognize your needs better than any teacher. Self practice allows you to witness your own development. And, there is no better audience as you progress on your path.

WHAT: Sometimes students tell me they just have too many options and can’t narrow their focus. If this is the case, start by taking part of a sequence you’ve learned in class.  I went to a Teacher Training with Rodney Yee and he suggested taking three poses that you learned one after the other in class and begin by working on those.  Work on them by holding them each for a ½ minute and then try them as part of a flow sequence.  Use a block, wall, ledge, strap or blanket in the pose so that you can experiment with getting more support or more opening in a hard to reach area of your body.  Your practice can be vigorous or slow depending on your emotional or physical state. Or pick one pose you hate and one pose you love and practice them one after the other trying to find the equilibrium between the two. Eagle pose is my nemesis. My shoulders are tight, I have a large bust and my abductors resist stretching. I practice this pose regularly and try to find my breath when doing so. The opposite is true for Half Moon Pose, where I feel very open, maybe a little too unrestricted, and I have to work hard to find stability.  Yes there are an infinite amount of options, so make choices and use that containment of ideas as a way to find more freedom in your practice.

WHEN: Any time. I am an early morning riser and have a 5:30AM ritual.  In addition I may go to a class or do a more vigorous or perhaps a restorative self practice later in the day (around 4PM or so). Many students tell me they sleep more soundly after a quiet sequence of asana, that includes inversions, before going to bed.  Busy moms might find a 2PM set of poses before rushing off to meet the kids after school adds a whole new dimension to their family interactions. Your practice doesn’t have to be long.  10, 20, 30 minutes.  It will inevitably grow in length once you notice the benefits.

WHERE: Pick a spot in your home that will be available to you any time you want to practice.  You only need a space the size of your mat.  A hallway might work or next to your bed.  You might be able to move your dining table to a wall and use the space you’ve created to practice.  Because my home is busy, there are two spaces I use one for my morning practice…away from everyone’s waking up noises…and one for my more vigorous afternoon practices. Some say that you should “ritualize” the space with candles and icons.  I prefer a space that can go right back to functioning some other way as soon as I am done. What’s more important is that you have designated it as your practice space for the time you are practicing. Own it.

WHY: This week I was talking to my students about the concept of “Correct Knowledge” as mentioned in the Yoga Sutras (Chapter I.6,7).  We discussed how the cultivation of correct knowledge allows a student to purify their body and mind before the process of emancipation.  Correct knowledge is created by “direct perception, inference and scriptural testimony” according to Swami Satchidananda’s translation of Patanjali’s verses. Self practice gives you direct knowledge. You are your own scientist.  You can also begin to understand that if you do an asana a certain way and it feels good and you do it another way and it doesn’t that there are other parts of your life that can be explored in the same way.  Finally, the idea of practice is one of the central concepts that run through many ancient yoga texts. Except for a very few karmically advanced beings there is no other path to enlightenment. 

--Brette Popper

To obtain more of Popper's wisdom, check out her classes at Practice Yoga

The announcement of the workshop at the Atmananda Yoga Studio evoked thoughts of a plotline from the infamous TV series (no doubt involving Samantha). And as a curious, ever-learning yogi, I wanted to see how the practice of Tantra in real life might tie-in to where I was heading. What was to take place that weekend was shrouded in mystery, as the schedule provided only a truncated list of speakers and topics, concluding with the intriguing “many more to be announced...” I knew at once that I was signing up.

 We gathered in the beautiful main room of Atmananda at 10 am. The studio was adorned with chakra symbols on the walls and central columns. Seated in floor chairs, folding chairs or just sprawled on the floor were about 30 people. Most were very-much-in love couples looking to further enhance their relationships and their experience of each other. This was no place to mutter, “get a room,” as public displays of affection were welcome, and gave the entire room a feeling of warmth. The other attendees were Atmananda Teacher Trainees, men and women thinking about becoming practitioners, and the curious. Me.

The weekend began with an Introduction to Tantra by husband and wife team Patricia Johnson and Mark Michaels.  They defined Tantra as “an ancient Indian tradition that recognizes sexual energy to be, not simply a animalistic physical activity or a means of procreation, but “a source of personal and spiritual empowerment.”  Their lecture was the most “textbook” but they did demonstrate the concept of “eye gazing” to use following a disagreement, where each partner stares intently at the other’s left eye.

 If done regularly it is supposed to create a “shift in consciousness,” diffusing a volatile situation as it restores the couple’s true commitment and devotion.

Eye Gazing would be put into practice throughout the workshop. Since I didn’t have a partner, I tried it with several people I had never met before. I found I was able to meet their gaze and hold it with no discomfort. My temporary partners were all likewise willing, except for one person who entered the exercise with reluctance and was unable to return my gaze. Her eyes were constantly darting away nervously. I did not take this personally, instead I was rather saddened that she hadn’t yet found the comfort and freedom the rest of us had.

Fab Serignese's talk was one of the most emotional, as she discussed how to heal sexual trauma and repression, something just about everyone in the room could relate to. This certified Tantric Counselor and Relationship Coach, immediately lit up the room with her alive eyes, wild curls and warm demeanor. After joking that she had been saddled with the "graveyard shift" of the workshop (just after lunch), she became serious. She told the story of a boy she had known who had been sexually abused by an aunt at 12 years old and then chastised by that aunt for his inability to perform.

Asking about our own experiences with either sexual abuse or repression, I volunteered that as a child of Catholic School, “I was convinced that I was going to hell if I even had a sexual thought.” (Which I of course did, so let’s hope it’s not too hot down there.) Many in the room had similar childhoods, with one person joking that as a product of Catholic and Jewish parents, “it was guilt on top of guilt.”

We paired off and I found myself pouring my heart out to my partner about the past–about being afraid to be myself in a repressive and dysfunctional childhood environment where any deviation from the “norm” labeled you a freak. My partner responded sadly that her experience was similar.
 
We concluded with a healing meditation, where Fab took us mentally to the point of past hurts. We became witnesses to the event, trying not to get emotionally involved, as we asked our inner selves permission to move past these moments of pain. I chose a moment in my childhood where I was hurt physically and emotionally by someone I trusted. Breathing deeply into that moment in time, but staying detached, I requested permission to leave it behind. My inner voice provided a resounding "yes," and I planned to include this healing meditation exercise into my regular practice. To try this meditation, close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Take yourself back to a time in your life that still causes you pain. Enter into that place mentally but NOT emotionally. Be a detached observer. Request permission from your higher self to leave it in the past and move on.

Sadly, another person in the room somberly admitted that during his meditation his inner self had actually said “no” to him, he was not allowed to be free. Fab consoled him by explaining that it only meant he had more work to do and would find his peace in time.

Teeni Dakini took center stage that afternoon. The petite energetic instructor, who had the air of a “sexual schoolteacher”, constantly (and rightfully in my opinion) scolding the class for talking and not paying attention.

Her focus was the difference between masculine and feminine energy, which both genders possess, but are balanced differently depending on the individual. Masculine energy is described as competency, feminine as feeling. If a person is deficient in one, their partner might increase their own levels to compensate. If a woman’s feminine energy gets too big, going into “goddess” territory, the male should hold his energy steady, acting as an anchor until the woman’s energy settles down to earth.

 Likewise if a man becomes too alpha, his partner can use her femininity as a lighthouse. This was of particular interest to me as a yogi, constantly struggling with not being too “alpha male” in a world where balanced masculine and feminine energy is still largely frowned on.

As usual throughout the weekend, yours truly was quick to volunteer to participate in an exercise. Teeni  “challenged” me with her masculine energy, and I had a choice: to either allow myself to be overpowered and submissive, to stay balanced, or to increase my own masculine power (which of course I instinctively did). As my rigid body language illustrated, this results in conflict. It made me think a lot about male-female interpersonal relationships and my own history with them, and I filed this experience away as something to bring to my future encounters.
 
Valerie Greene and Bruce Lindsay, A much in love couple who taught us about Energy Orgasm, provided some of the most intimate yet kinetic moments of the weekend.  Rather than lecture, Valerie went right ahead and demonstrated one, involving yogic breathing, concentration on the chakras from the first to the sixth, and the mulabandha lock (tightening of the pelvic floor), with Bruce taking us through the steps as she experienced one before our eyes. Following this the whole, rather stunned, room was invited to try it, cueing some nervous giggles from the peanut gallery.

Bruce advised us not to have expectations or to get caught up in the storyline of our lives as our emotions were stirred. We were encouraged to just be in the experience and to make any sounds we liked. This was one occasion where I indeed felt a twinge of self-consciousness, and while I did technically perform the exercise, I kept my “conclusions” to myself.

However, many people threw themselves into it with abandon, making noises of ecstasy that were encouraged heartily by our instructors. The energy of the room was raised dramatically, and the lack of self-consciousness was striking and rather inspiring, and made me realize despite my initial gusto I still had a ways to go to finding my own liberation.  Who knows?  Maybe next time I’ll be the Samantha in the class.

To learn more about Tantra and the above practitioners, please visit the following website: Sexyspirits.com (a listing of country-wide Tantric practitioners and events) in addition to those practitioners highlighted above

--Jim Catalpano

In front of tens of thousands of people, the guru motioned. “Tell that young man to come.” But the young man sitting shyly at the very back of the enormous tent didn’t understand. After waving and gesturing to no effect, an assistant went to get him, parting the awed crowd. So Radanath Swami, formerly Richard Slavin of Chicago, met the man who ultimately became his teacher, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.  Or, some might say, this was how Srila Prabhupada chose him.

On a bitterly cold December night, Slavin, now 59, read from his recently published memoir, The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami (Mandala, $24.95) at Eddie Stern’s Ashtanga Yoga Shala on Broome Street. A slight, unassuming man, he sat quietly in the audience next to one of his students, wrapped in the light orange robe of a monk (unbeknownst to me; I sat down right beside him, in one of the only open spaces in the room). As Slavin approached the stage, no flowers were thrown or gifts given, Rather, his New York-based students revered him quietly from their cross-legged seats, as Eddie gave him a warm introduction.

Radanath Swami explained how he got to India at age 19 from an impulsive summer jaunt to Europe with a childhood friend. While abroad, their god of the counter culture, Jimi Hendrix, overdosed and died, just after the two youths had seen him perform in England. Fame, money, and talent hadn’t saved him. Wasn’t there a better way? Driven by his hunger for knowledge and relief from suffering, Radanath traveled from England to Crete where, meditating in a cave, a voice told him to go to India. Parting from his friend, he traveled overland for six months and entered the country penniless.

Reaching the banks of the Ganges, Slavin tossed in his American jeans and turtleneck, and adopted the life of a sadhu, a spiritual seeker. For more than a year, he traveled to the heights of the Himalayas, to the lush forests of Vrindavan, to the city of Bombay and many places in between. Like many young Americans in the late 60s and early 70s, he was on a quest to make sense of life’s larger import, that until recently had included the Vietnam war and the ordinary middle-class life that awaited him back in Chicago. By the time he met his guru in 1971, he had already studied with many spiritual dignitaries such as S.N. Goenkaji, founder of Vipassana, Maharaji Mahesh Yogi, with whom the Beatles briefly studied, and Swami Muktanada, founder of Siddha Yoga. He had been invited to take diskha, initiation vows, with high babas and gurus unknown in the west.

It might seem ironic that Slavin had traveled to India, searching in poverty, physical danger, illness, and sometimes extreme discomfort to find the man who, in 1966 and 1967, had already established an International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON)—otherwise known as the Hare Krishna Movement—in New York and San Francisco. Ironic, too, that once he found his teacher, he returned to the US and only once he was living in an American ashram did he at last cut his hair and take initiation vows in 1973.

But at the reading, Radanath made clear that his search overseas was an important part of his quest: it transformed him.  It also tested him. His long silences worried his family back home, a burden he keenly felt. He wrote them ardent letters that instead of comforting them only served to heighten their concern. “I thought they would be so proud when I wrote that the forest animals spoke to me and the butterflies were chanting OM. But my father went straight to the consulate to demand that they find me.” Alas, the consulate could not help: no man living in the caves of the Himalayas could be tracked down.

After teaching in the US for many years, and taking vows as a swami, in 1983 he returned to India where he lives today. His ashram in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) feeds almost 200,000 school children daily, runs a busy urban hospital, and offers spiritual instruction for all who seek it. Everything is done in the spirit of service and devotion, or bhakti, the true spirit of vaishnavism, his lineage.

Radanath’s slim quiet form, his story of determination and love, bears little resemblance to the rowdy Hari Krishnas we typically encounter today, who chant and dance en masse in public parks or harass people with copies of the Bhagavad Gita on subway platforms.

His mother, who had to look up the word “vegetarian” in the dictionary before preparing her son’s long-awaited homecoming meal in 1972, came to accept and take pride in Slavin’s vocation as a Krishna priest. On her death in 2003, Radanath took her ashes to India, spreading them on the Ganges as 2,000 devotees chanted kirtan on the banks of that sacred river.

Radanath’s memoir not only describes the journey of one spiritual seeker but also a world of spiritual leaders and their mesmerizing feats. “The supernatural powers of extraordinary yogis had begun to seem ordinary,” he said. Readers are reminded that even though these leaders have siddhis—unusual abilities that defy time and space—they don’t always use them to good ends, something we would do well to remember in the West. The memoir also serves to remind us that a spiritual quest requires hard work, a desire to learn, and a true heart: it’s not mere fashion and certainly not for the meek.

The evening ended with hot tea, havala, a traditional sweet made of shaved carrot, sugar, and raisons, and a book signing. I left after 11pm, before Swami had patiently signed all the books and the kirtan band had begun to sing its praises to Krishna.

-- Joelle Han.
To read more from Joelle, check out her blog, Yoganation.

WHAT: Much celebrating at the March 10th meeting for Yoga for New York. Almost a year after many studios received a letter from Albany threatening a $50,000 fine for non-compliance with licensing; a bill to protect yoga studio teacher trainings from this burdensome regulation is slated to be signed by Governor Paterson any day now.

NEXT: To toast this success and increase awareness of future Yoga for New York initiatives, YogaWorks SoHo is planning an all-yoga-community party for May 15 at 7:00.
Save the date!

INTO THE FUTURE: Yoga for New York is looking into new initiatives like the possibility of offering health, disability and other insurance to teachers and studios, "Webinars" and conferences for continuing education and the promotion of yoga throughout New York State.

WE WANT YOU: Fund-raising is ongoing and volunteers are still needed.  If you are interested in becoming a member of Yoga for New York, go to their website at www.yogaforny.org.

A new form of celebrity yoga has popped up in Westchester at The Bedford Post Inn where owners Richard Gere and his wife Carey Lowell have set up a studio called, The Yoga Loft.

Would it really be possible to do serious yoga with one of People Magazine’s “Sexiest Men of the Year,” chaturanguing next to you, I wondered on the hour-long train trip from New York City to Bedford; land of horse-farms, organic haricot verts and houses large enough to land a plane in.  

A die-hard Vinyasa “Flow-er” by nature, I was on my way to experience my first-ever Iyengar class, the mere thought of which set me slightly askew.  The idea of spending 90 minutes working on ‘precision alignment’ was not something I was looking forward to and no matter how many times I attempted it, I couldn’t help wishing I was really going there to just ‘go with the flow.’ 

Entering the studio, my reservations began to melt, right down to the buttery-soft floorboards beneath me.  Simply put, the architectural details surrounding me were nothing less than idyllic.  Rusticly-chic, the studio possessed a light, infinite aura thanks to three sides of floor to ceiling wood-paned windows and a high-beamed skylit ceiling.   A simple outdoor meditation garden completed the picture gracefully, providing a tranquil point of focus from any vantage point in the room. 

After loading me up with more blankets, straps, blocks and bolsters than I thought humanly possible, our teacher Judi Friedman began class by introducing herself and asking the usual round of questions about previous injuries and physical limitations.  Noticeably absent was that age-old inquiry regarding yoga-position requests.  Clearly, this was going to be a carefully constructed journey with no unplanned rest stops along the way.  Already along for the ride after traveling all that way to get there, I decided to go with it and gave myself over.  I rooted my sit bones down and began doing just as I was told, which was to close my eyes and “Meditate on Haiti…”

Throughout our practice, Judi skillfully educated us about the origin and nuances of Iyengar, acknowledging there were others like me who avoided it for all different reasons.  "If you’re new to Iyengar Yoga..." she said, "treat yourself to its intelligent precision by allowing a reframing from your regular flow practice.”  As class went on she talked a lot about a fascinating and recently-proven theory that changing your routine can actually help strengthen your brain power. 

Before long, I became completely transported as I moved through the postures and visualized the development of all sorts of new neuro-pathways for myself.  As Judi intoned, “let’s get out of our brains and into our bodies,” I accepted the idea that maybe the Japanese had it right all along.  Their philosophy of Kaizen talks about how, over time, even a small series of adaptations can yield significant incremental improvements.  Regardless of where these ideas originated from, I thought, I definitely wanted to know more. 

Following class, during a light meal with Judi at The Barn, the Inn’s more casual of its two restaurants, I had the opportunity to do just that.  Along with everything from the teachings of the late renowned Iyengar teacher Mary Dunn and a recent Martha Stewart episode about the benefits of yoga, I learned a lot about how sometimes the best way to wrap your brain around something is to just let your yoga do the wrapping for you.

The Yoga Loft’s weekly schedule is still evolving so if you’re planning on making a visit make sure to check their schedule at http://bedfordpostinn.com/yoga-loft for the most current class information.  In addition to Anusara, Integrated Vinyasa, Hatha Blend, Kundalini and Tai Chi classes, there are also a number of upcoming workshops if your schedule and wallet can accommodate them.  Another option is to just show up for the weekly Buddhist Meditation, a delicious experience which the ‘American Gigolo’ himself has been known to frequent.  

--Susie Rubin

Suryasta which means sunset in Sanskrit, sits in a newly constructed residential building in Brooklyn. The name is perfect as it is Sunset Park's newest and only yoga studio.

The lightly stained wood and floor to ceiling windows give the place a refreshing and airy feel - especially  on the 4th floor. Great views! As the days start to get longer, the owner Jenya Andrianova is looking forward to watching the sunset during the evening classes.

Jenya and many of the teachers at Suryasta hail from Jivamukti. Some are even currently embarking on the strenuous, yet rewarding 800-hour apprenticeship with Jiva - so these are serious yogis.

Classes are small, and that means lots of personal attention and yummy adjustments. True to the Jiva lineage, classes have a strong flow, but are open to all levels. They also incorporate the Jiva theme of the month, which during my class was Radha-Krishna-Satsanga. Without an explanation I never would have understood the theme,  - which has to do with finding pure awareness in your Absolute being -  but my instructor, Miya, did a wonderful job illustrating the idea with a personal story about a trip to the Caribbean and coming to terms with her fear of deep water.

Suryasta also offers ballet moves classes for kids and is working on adding other child and family yoga classes to support the community demographic. They also offer Thai massage starting at $85 for a 40-minute session.

Single classes are $16 and a month unlimited membership is $120. And best of all, they serve delicious tea after class.

--Allison Richard

Yoga for New York (YFNY) will hold its next organizational meeting at Pure's new Westside digs (77th and Amsterdam) on Wednesday, March 10 at 1PM. The agenda will include a recap of the recent passage of legislation that protects yoga teacher training in the State. The bills that passed in both the Assembly and the Senate still need to get our beleaguered Governor's signature.

There will also be information about continuing fund-raising and memberships drives. And, the organization's leadership will discuss upcoming events.

Perhaps most importantly, there will be a discussion about benefits YFNY can now offer to its members after its 10-month program of ceaseless negotiations and lobbying efforts with Albany lawmakers. These benefits could perhaps include health and liability insurance for New York State yoga studios and teachers.

I had a mind-blowing experience during Sharon Salzberg’s Intro to Meditation class at The Tibet House on Tuesday but I’m getting ahead of myself…

I have always wanted to be mindful. I believe the desire to be more fully aware and present to this life will lead me to being even more so. But, it’s not easy. My friends and I joke that the Buddha didn’t have children. Well, he did but then he left home and became enlightened. I know that being around kids makes it hard to find enlightenment: I can intuit that being around kids leads us to enlightenment. Hmmm.

When my daughter was born I was acutely aware that just as she came into this life so too would she pass out of it. She would pass.  This caused me great pain but I knew simply that it was so.

Things come up. Things change. Meditation is like that. The breath rises and falls. We focus on it. We lose it. We come back to it. Children are seeped in mindfulness and I promised myself that at least once a day, every day, I would stop and watch them breathe, smell them, touch them and be present with them because it makes me more mindful. It brings me back to my breath.

This is especially difficult in the toy section of Target.

But, it’s a start. I am that person walking down the street who suddenly beams when the wind rushes past. Because the wind reminds me that it’s all passing. We’re all passing. But then again I am also that person who can be quick to anger and then shameful because of the anger – again with the toy section of Target.

Oh, Target.  It has it’s own mantra. Something like this – “Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. I want this. I want this. I want this. ” Followed by “No. Put it back. No. Put it back. No.” “Mommy. Mommy. Mommy!” It’s hot, crowded, the fluorescent lights buzz. “Mommy. Mommy. Mooommmmy!” “Goddamn it, I said No!” And then we’re all sad and mad and I feel BAD.

But, I’m learning. The desire is there. When I learned that Sharon Salzberg, well-known for her lectures on lovingkindness, would be teaching a set of meditation classes I leapt at the chance to go. Lovingkindness. I could use more of that. I could be more of that. 

 “Our potential is never destroyed.”

Ms. Salzberg, comfortably perched atop a raised platform, explained to a group of about 75 students, seated either on folding chairs or cross-legged on red pillows, and ranging in age from twenty something to eighty something that when we stray from our attention to the breath we can always come back to it. The breath can be our secret. “You’re breathing anyway, you might as well use it.”  If you find yourself on a crowded subway, or with your children and you are pushing the edge of irritation – you always have your breath. You don’t need to whip out any equipment or go anywhere; your breath goes with you. “It can be a refuge.”

I had never thought of learning meditation as learning a skill set but when Ms. Salzberg mentioned this it seemed obvious. There are many meditation skills, attention to the breath being the most basic. For most people focusing on one breath can be a challenge. An associate of Ms. Salzberg’s recommends trying for half a breath. And then when you find yourself straying to thoughts of a plumber, where can you find one, how much will it cost or the car that needs to be moved – is it Monday at noon or Wednesday and where did you park it anyway? Come back to the breath. Being aware that you left it will bring you back to it. “That is the magic.”  The next great skill, she said, is “to begin again.”

Sometimes people torment themselves with the fact that they lost the breath. They think, “I’m no good at this.” “I blew it.” or “I give up.”  Ms. Salzberg reminds us that these “defilements” are like visitors to our homes, to our true self. They are not us. But, they can be seductive and so we cling to them. “The way in which we bring our attention to the breath is exactly the way in which we bring our attention to other things.”

And so, when we fail, we must try again. We must forgive ourselves (Target!). The purpose, she says, “Is not to annihilate thinking but to cultivate a different relationship to it.”

I try. I try every day. A young dark-haired man raised his hand from the middle of the spacious room to ask whether it was best to meditate in the morning or the evening and for how long, “ The everydayness of it is more important than the length of time.” She continued by saying that it was a “common cultural tendency in this country to exclude possibility. To think – ‘I live in NY. Buddha lived under a tree’.” And that it’s “all about doing it, not thinking about it.” Just Do It. And, yes, here my mind wandered to thoughts of running and playing sports but I realized as well that all of those moments when I was “in the zone” were when I was fully present. We find it where we can.

She went on to say that it can typically take at least five minutes to settle the mind and sometimes even twenty. 

Ms. Salzberg recounted seeing an image of Buddha in the early years of her training -  “Buddha was a completely integrated person. He was who he was. And I thought, ‘That’s what I want. That wholeness.”

I want that, too. Integration is a process of wholeness, a path towards healing. “As we stabilize our attention, the ‘visitors’ keep coming but we are different. Centeredness gives us a choice, a sense of options. We no longer react.”

I know my children are not “visitors” but the feelings that arise in me when they fight, whine, or throw their toys are. Which leads me to that mind-blowing experience…

After the forty five minute talk Ms. Salzberg gently coaxed us to begin meditating by bringing our attention to the breath. It was for her “like holding something delicate in your hand. Grasp too hard and it will be crushed. Hold it too gently and it will fall away.” There was a palpable energy in the room. A quiet thrumming. Buddha statues stood sentry in the corners, the sound of flowing water lulled the senses. I focused on my breath, which I am used to from meditating in yoga, and then waited to feel my heart beating. This is something I have been able to cultivate over the last couple of years but it doesn’t always happen. (Virasana seems to help) That night, however, I felt it fairly easily. I visualized the path my blood took as if I were looking down and into my body. Each breath brought oxygen into my lungs, my alveoli absorbed it, then into my heart, through each chamber, to my brain, carotid and thoracic aortas, to each limb, fingers and toes. Back again. I soon found myself becoming Heart. I was my own heart like a jellyfish with tentacles floating on each wave of breath I took. Pulsing and floating and then Ms. Salzberg rang a bell. Three times. I did not open my eyes right away. I was still there. Floating. And when I opened them it wasn’t so much a “Wow” as a “Whoa…” I felt like I was being pulled back into that room.   We had meditated for 15 minutes.

We took a short break in which I felt like my feet didn’t actually touch the floor. (A recommendation: The ladies should enlist each other to guard the empty men’s room instead of waiting for the single women’s bathroom to become available…)

When we continued Ms. Salzberg said she knew we were not a “sea of serenity” seated before her in meditation but rather a “sea of riotousness”.  She quoted one of her favorite lines -“ The mind is naturally radiant and pure. The mind is shining.” She reminded us that finding centeredness releases the “glue” of the obsessive defilements. “Find your breath. Come back to it.” And that, “You don’t have to believe in anything to feel the breath.”

We began the next meditation session in which following my breath and feeling my heart beat lead me to “see” that within me was a glowing ball of light, this light had tendrils spoking out of it which connected to each person around me and in turn each person was their own glowing ball with tendrils spoking out to me and everyone in the room. We were all connected. Everywhere, until the entire earth was a woven ball of golden threads. When the bell rang and I pulled myself out of it I thought, “Wow.”

I carry that with me and I smile when my daughters hurl vitriol at each other or at me because I know that beneath it, there are golden threads of light pulsing from their hearts into each other’s and mine and all of ours. We are all connected and one. I saw it. 

The experience caused me to see everything differently - more clearly, perhaps and I want more.  I look forward to learning more skills from Ms. Salzberg. She will be introducing them throughout her classes. Each class can be done as a Drop-in, however. Please visit her to learn more at www.tibethouse.us.  You may have your own mind-blowing experience. 

---Gina de la Chesnaye

Most of us would agree that either creating and launching an iPhone application, graduating with a Masters in Acupuncture, or opening your first yoga studio would mark a successful year.

How about doing all three?

While working on the iPhone application YogaLocal (which is a schedule listing of over 200 studios in the 5 boroughs) Ben Fleisher was offered the opportunity to open a studio in the Toren, a new green building in Ft. Greene. He's been practicing yoga since high school, and the idea of owning a studio had been appealing to him for a long time.  "Studio owner" became a natural occupation when the opportunity to launch one landed on his path.

To celebrate the launch of Brooklyn's newest studio, called YogaLocal Studio at the Toren, Fleisher will offer an entire week of FREE classes from March 1st through the 7th. Fleisher feels that studios and teachers are leaders in the community and have a responsibility to see yoga grow.

He's been on a yogic and spiritual journey for many years.  He studied Buddhism and Psychology in college and then went on to pursue a career in bodywork - massage and Zero Balancing.  He'll be a certified acupuncturist later this spring. Fleisher's passion for helping people heal and grow is palpable as is his desire to share what he loves.

His new studio will offer a "bouquet" of yoga, which is the variety of teachers and traditions that he is inspired by. The schedule will start off with 25 classes a week in Forrest, Kundalini, Dharma, Core Strength Vinyasa and something he is calling Yoga Local Vinyasa.  There will also be meditation, shiatsu and osteopathy.

"One tradition can't possibly capture it all," he says.  And, he wants to create a space where teachers have the freedom to open up the form and expression of yoga. He also looks forward to the possibility of fun events in the beautiful new space.

For more information please visit www.yogalocal.com or www.benfleisher.com.
I look forward to taking some free classes this week.  I hope you get a chance to as well.

-Alexandra Blatt

The shiny new Yoga Vida studio on University Place is a true labor of love for founder Mike Patton.  He built out nearly the entire studio by hand with his father (also his business partner) and his uncle.  At 27, Patton has decided that yoga is next step in his business life after losing his job as a futures trader at Bear Sterns  in 2008.

The former Princeton-educated hockey player from Harrisburg, PA, never dreamed he’d end up the proprietor of a 4,500 sq foot yoga studio in New York City, taking off his shoes as he arrives at the ‘office’.  But then, his life hasn’t exactly gone according to his plans.

When the economy started to crash and his company folded, Patton was soon offered a gig at Citibank, instructed to take two paid months off to ‘hang out’ and that there would be a job waiting for him upon his return. After two leisurely months in Costa Rica—where he tried yoga for the first time, he came back to New York to learn his job offer was null and void.

Rather than freak out, he turned yoga into his work—it became the structure of his days, his coping mechanism through endless job searching, and soon turned into what he thought might be  a pretty darn good business plan.

The plan rests on his own really rudimentary yoga experience.  As a hockey dude who had never tackled a down dog, Patton had plenty of  pre-conceived notions of yoga (it was weird, for hippies, etc).  Once he tried it, he liked it. Actually - he loved it. He figured it would be smart to find a market that was under-exposed to yoga and try to broaden their horizons - and hopefully encouraging the same conversion that he had experienced.

Putting out his shingle on University Place, in the backyard of NYU and The New School, he’s set Yoga Vida up to be the place where college kids, who've never unrolled a mat, might give yoga a try. “Our goal is to bring yoga to as many people as we can,” he says. “And colleges, where there is a constant stream of new students each semester, many who are moving here from parts of the country where there isn’t that much exposure to yoga, seem like the perfect place for spreading the word.”

That’s part one of the plan - finding a market.  The second part: accessibility. Going where few yoga studios have gone before (with the exception of donation-only studios like Yoga to the People), the price structure for classes at YogaVida is low - really low. If you are a student, classes are $5. Everyone else pays $10. With most prices for classes in NYC ranging from $15 to $25, that’s a serious price cut- especially for his targeted demographic.

How can he afford to keep prices so low? “Well, right now, we can’t”, he laughs. “But we will.” Open for only about six weeks, attendance has risen each week, and with plenty of room in the two spacious sunny studios, there’s space for lots more yogis. 

Interestingly, Patton is not a yoga teacher, and isn’t sure that he wants to be one. “I definitely want to understand as much as I can, and take as many teacher training courses as I can,” but he’s leaving the instruction to teachers he’s sourced from taking many many classes around town (sometimes 3 a day) to find the right fit.

 In a city filled with teacher-owned studios, this seems to be yet another feature that sets Yoga Vida apart from the rest, and somehow symbolically enforces the idea of the journey of the ‘student’.   The structure of classes is also inspired by Patton’s begin-at-the-beginning philosophy of gentle immersion for the new student- and it might seem a bit unconventional to some seasoned yogis—there’s no chanting, for instance.

The decision to leave it out came again from Patton’s desire to de-bunk yoga for the newbie—chanting can just seem too out there, he says, or confusing, or exclusionary to those who don’t know the chants. While he understands that there will be purists out there who miss the OM’ing, Patton clarifies that he’s got nothing against chanting—he hopes to add some introduction to meditation and chanting to the schedule. But taking baby steps into yoga is what the majority of his audience needs- and the physical practice and asanas are where the instruction starts at Yoga Vida.

While the idea of affordable yoga in a beautiful environment seems to have no downside, there is the little matter of what the competition thinks of all this crazy business. Patton has set up shop in the shadow of Jivamukti, after all—he’s even hired some of their younger teachers. Doesn’t that spell trouble? “Everyone has so far been really supportive”, he says, stressing the so far part. As far as sharing teachers with Jivamukti, he’s quick to point out they are younger teachers who don’t have the rock star draw that Jiva is known for, and since he’s offering them teaching experience, it really serves everyone. What about those nasty non-compete clauses we’ve all heard about? Seems the boyish smile gets around that pretty easily.

Yoga Vida’s plan is grow naturally, by word of mouth. Patton understands that a referral from a trusted friend goes a lot farther than a splashy advertisement in a newspaper or magazine. He also seems to get that investing in his teaching staff is a sure way to remain consistent—rather than splashing out on balloons and loud announcement signage, he’s sending his teachers to an adjustment workshop. Putting all his eggs into this basket may seem kooky to some of his former Bear Sterns colleagues who jumped right back into their suits at another corporate gig, but he’s not too concerned. Patton’s dad wanted him to plot out another tiny studio for 10 people in the back of the studio, where a cozy seating area next to big windows exists now. He fought for the lounge—encouraging community is where his head is right now, and abandoning frantic guessing about futures for  investing in the individual futures of each and every student along the way seems a surer path to a much higher rate of return. 

-- Biba Milioto

NEWS: New York State Senate Passes “Yoga Bill”
Governor’s Signature Will Close the Deal

After 10 months of ceaseless negotiations and lobbying, the New York State Senate passed the “Schneiderman” Bill. This law will exempt yoga teacher trainings from burdensome regulations. (Yeah!) The bill, along with similar legislation passed last week, goes off to Governor Patterson’s desk for a final signature.

“This is a great day for yoga,” said Alison West, Executive Director of Yoga for New York (YFNY), the organization that mobilized yoga studios and teachers to protest actions by the Bureau of Proprietary School Supervison (BPSS) which a little less than a year ago sent letters to studios threatening fines of up to $50,000 for non-compliance with state licensing laws.  BPSS later suspended its licensing requirements while legislation was pending and strong efforts to move it forward gained momentum.

Since last spring, the issue gained the attention of national news organizations via The New York Times and National Public Radio.  The well-known lobbying firm of Malkin & Ross was hired to keep the interests of yoga in front of Albany lawmakers.

If efforts by BPSS had not been blocked, all studios and teachers that offer teacher trainings in New York State would have faced severe increases in the cost of doing business.  Not only would licensing fees have been charged but curriculum and financial statements would have been audited and facility inspections would have been mandated.  All of this without any quality control. According to West “the State is not in a position to monitor the quality of a program, nor its teachers, this was merely a business regulation that would have had a disproportional impact on small and non-urban studios and teachers.”

YFNY and indeed all friends of yoga in New York State are cheering today and look forward to Governor Patterson’s signing the bill into law.

--Brette Popper

There are no longer any excuses!  Even if you have to work late, there are still plenty of opportunities to practice yoga.  Besides, most of the evening classes are usually only attended by a smaller group of people so you get more teacher attention and adjustments. Here is a roundup of our favorites…

Sangha Yoga, Monday and Wednesday, 9:30 PM, Vinyasa Flow (Open Level)
107 North 3rd Street, (between Berry and Wythe), 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY

Housed in a former chocolate factory the strong scent of chocolate persists at this yoga studio. Jessica Chazen had us chant the Gayatri mantra with her relaxed, silky voice then played Deva Premal’s version to start the class. As well as standard Vinyasa standing poses, we did lots of yummy hip openers: an ankle to knee pose with a twisted variation Chazen called a “hippy twist,” Upavista Konasana and half Pigeon. $20 single class.

Mala Yoga, Monday and Wednesday, 8:45 PM, Flow and Restore
162 Court Street at Amity Street, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY

Just off beautiful, restaurant-filled Court Street and up a flight of stairs is homey Mala Yoga. This class started off with some gentle flowing standing poses ending with a long Child’s pose and half Pigeon. The last half of the class is restorative. We took three restorative positions: Viparita Korani (Legs up the wall), supine twists with the bolster and a Supta Baddha Konasana with bolster and blocks. $16 single class, $1 mat rental.

East Yoga, Tuesday beginner at 8:30 PM, Wednesday intermediate at 8:15 PM
212 Avenue B (13th Street between A & B)

Megan Murphy teaches an alignment-informed beginner and intermediate class at this intimate studio frequented by East Village locals. The theme of the evening was backbends working toward a forearm stand at the wall as well as the transition from Catturanga to Urdhva Mukha Svanasana with the aid of blocks. At the end of class we rested in a restorative Supta Baddha Konasana lulled by the sounds of Satie’s “Gnossiennes.” $18 single class, $1 mat.

Prana Power, Friday, 8:00 PM, Hot Vinyasa (Open Level)
862 Broadway (between 17th and 18th Streets)

Heated to between 90 and 95 degrees, this studio is a perfect retreat from a cold winter night and Friday night is music night at what is usually a music-free studio. Carlos Rodriguez teaches a rockin’ fast-paced, creatively sequenced class moving through a series of revolved lunges, Warrior poses and squats to the front and back of the mat with many hands free Ardha Chandrasana variations and forearm stand in the middle of the room to the beat of Michael Jackson and Sade. $18 single class, $2 mat rental.

Sankalpah Yoga, Monday – Thursdays, 8 PM, Vinyasa (Open Level)
254 5th Avenue (between 28th and 29th Streets), 3rd Floor

The pace of Renee Greiner’s friendly, relaxed Thursday night class was slow and yet the asanas were challenging and hip opening sequence thoughtfully done: a half Pigeon catching the ankle and folding forward, Mandukasana (Frog pose), Prasarita Paddotanasana splitting all the way down to Upavista Konasana and Kurmasana (Tortoise pose). $18 single class, $1 mat rental.

Other late night classes

Yoga Room
38-01 35th Avenue (between Steinway and 38th Streets), Astoria, Queens
8:30 PM, Hot Vinyasa Power, Monday – Friday
$18 single class.

World Yoga
265 West 72 Street (corner of West End Avenue)
8:30 PM, Gentle/Restorative, Wednesday
$17 single class, $1 mat rental.

Mang’Oh
322 East 39th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenue)
8:30 PM, Candlelight Yoga, Level I, Mondays and Wednesdays
$20 for a single class.

—Marie Carter

SHOWER YOGA

Getting out of bed in morning…how do you do it? Sleepily, I unfold myself and head for the shower. Lines from old songs stream through my mind. Harry Nillson’s, “Put de lime in de coconut and drink it all up, den you feel better,” describes my earliest hour. On more energetic days I hear Woody Guthrie singing “Wake up, wake up, wake up, stretch your arms, stretch your arms, stretch your arms.”

And that’s just what I do.  But I do it in the shower, where the warm water loosens my cold stiff muscles.

I call my morning routine, Shower Yoga. You can do this practice too.  All you’ll need, a shower (with a tub it is easier, but you can adapt this to a stall) and hot water.

With the water streaming down your back begin with a cleansing breathing practice.  Take Kappalabhati or “Shining Skull” practice first.  Place your hands on your belly, relax your shoulders down your back, exhale and then inhale about half way and then take about 30 quick pumping breaths. Exhale the last one slowly, inhale and then hold your breath for as long as its comfortable.  After exhaling repeat two more times.

Next, try Uddyiana Bandha, Stomach Lift. This must be practiced on an empty stomach. So first thing in the morning is perfect.

Stand with your feet hip width apart.  Exhale completely and hold. Tuck your chin, bend forward and rest your hands on your thighs. Then lift your stomach up under your ribs and against your spine without inhaling. Straighten your arms but keep your chin tucked. Stay in the position as long as it is comfortable. Return to standing and exhale all the air out. Inhale, exhale, hold and bend forward into stomach lift again.

As a bonus, if you have a light overhead your head and shoulders will cast a Buddha-like silhouette onto the tub floor. Besides cleansing your organs and allowing prana to circulate these “Kriyas” will strengthen your muscles and enhance the suppleness of your spine.

Next you can begin a simple asana practice. Take your arms overhead in Urdhva Hastasana.  Spread your toes and anchor your feet to the shower or tub floor. (A towel under your feet may make you feel more solid on the ground.) Let the water stream down the front of your body and then turn around and allow the shower to soothe your back.  With your back to the front of the shower, take a forward bend or Uttanasana.  You can place your hands on the back of the shower stall or the edges of your tub to come to a flat back.  You can bend your knees or straighten them as you want.  Allow the steaming H2O to pour onto your sacrum.

Face the back of your shower and take your right food forward and keep your left leg back.  Heel down with both hips facing the rear of the shower take an easy Parsvotanasana, either holding on to the tub sides or pressing your finger tips into the wall. Stretch both sides of the torso and allow your hamstring muscles to open.  Then take your left foot forward and right foot back to repeat the pose on the other side.

To take a modified version of Triangle pose, have your parallel feet about 2-3 feet apart.  Stretch your right side by taking your right arm overhead and allowing your left arm to softly drape down your thigh. Then switch sides.  Remember, you want to stay safe in the shower so this is no time to come to the most “advanced version”.

If your knees are not sensitive or if you have a rubber mat or towel, place one knee on the floor and place the other leg in front of you bent with the ankle right over the knee.  You can begin to bend your front knee to release your back hip crease a bit and then bring your knee back over your ankle.  Do this 3 to 5 times and then switch legs.

Come back to your low lunge and take a twist by placing your right hand on the outer side of your left knee.  Take your right hand to the shower wall or side of the tub and gently push it away allowing you to come into a deeper rotation.  Again change sides. 

You can feel like a child again by sitting on the tub floor legs straight ahead and bending forward.  If you are sitting with your head towards the front of the tub you can enjoy the sensation of droplets hitting your neck. 

Now it’s time to soap up with Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Soap or your own favorite morning scent. When you emerge from your morning shower you will feel alive, awake and ready to take on the day.

--Sandra Harper

For many Harlemites, yoga conjured up an image of people sitting crossed-legged and humming. But the 26-posture, 90-minute, sweat-drenched workout at the Bikram Yoga East Harlem (BYEH)  puts a new spin on meditation.

Before a 6 p.m. class, the office buzzes. Regulars rush to change. New members fill out clipboards and rent mats while sweaty yogis hit the showers. At the end of a Bikram yoga class, regular members clap for first-timers. Anyone who’s taken a class knows why.

“I feel like I’m getting younger,” said Lisa Timmons, a 36-year-old hair stylist. She started Bikram in September and practices four times a week. “I'm never going to stop. I've found it.”
 
This kind of enthusiasm was what owner Stephanie Pope Caffey hoped for when she opened BYEH in November 2008, smack in the middle of the recession. At first, she was skeptical about the studio’s reception in Harlem.

“People would laugh at me when I said it, like, ‘Who’s going to come? What do they know about yoga in Harlem?” Stephanie said.

But after a year, Stephanie’s studio is blossoming. Stephanie, 45, grew up in the projects a few blocks from her studio on 116th Street. She was first exposed to yoga 20 years ago when a friend took her to a Bikram class in Los Angeles. She loved it and always wanted to bring it back to her hometown. After a career as a Broadway dancer, she went through the nine-week training course three years ago and became a certified Bikram instructor.

Stephanie has had to reach out to a community that often misunderstands yoga. Joycelyn McGeachy Kuls, 45, is a lawyer and a lifetime Harlem resident. She didn’t think yoga was for her, she said.

Seeing an African-American studio owner, Joycelyn said, made her reconsider.

“[I thought] Yoga’s what people with money did, what people on the East side did,” she said. Now, she credits Bikram for helping to stave off knee surgery.

Like Joycelyn, most members at BYEH are new to yoga but end up making Bikram part of their daily routine. And the community continues to grow. Since its opening, BYEH has had to add more classes to meet demand.

Lisa, who has lived in Harlem for 10 years, thanks yoga for helping save her marriage. She used to be high-strung and easily angered, she said, which took a toll on her marriage. Before yoga, she separated from her husband and anticipated a divorce.

But now, she has a new mantra.

“It’s better to understand than to be understood,” she said. She’s lost over 25 pounds and closed her memberships at the YMCA and Planet Fitness.

“More people should know about [Bikram yoga],” she said. “Then we can say we changed Harlem.”

The other benefit of BYEH, according to its members, is its non-judgmental atmosphere.

At some gyms, said 30-year-old Whitney Perdue, people act like they’re better looking or stronger than you. Whitney, who has been practicing Bikram on and off for nine months, started the practice after seeing her mother lose 70 pounds with consistent practice.

She now enjoys her newfound vitality. “I can’t remember the last time I was sick since I started yoga,” she said.

Yvonne Stafford, a member in her 60s, was one of the first members at the studio. She still remembers her uneasiness in those first few classes.

“What am I doing here? Am I crazy?” she said. But she surprises herself during practice. In Eagle posture, she can now wrap her foot around her leg. “I never thought I’d be able to that,” she said. “But I’m doing it.”


The studio is a five-minute walk from the 6 train and has two levels. At the end of the first flight of stairs, members check in. The studio offers at least four classes a day and two classes a week in Spanish. On Friday afternoons, there is a pay-what-you-can class and they offer babysitting. See www.bikramyogaeastharlem.com for more details.

--Matthew Robinson

According to Alison West, Executive Director of Yoga for New York (YFNY), Assembly Bill 8678 passed today with a vote of 127 to 7. The "Rosenthal" bill protects yoga teacher trainings in New York State from licensure. Two more hurdles remain for YFNY. A similar bill in the New York Senate known as the "Schneiderman" bill needs to pass.  Both bills would then make their way to Governor Paterson's desk for signature.
To find out more about this issue, the goals of YFNY and how you can help by volunteering, becoming a member or donating to the cause of minimizing government intervention in the teaching of yoga, go to the YFNY website at www.yogaforny.org.