Along the yoga journey, many of us wind up studying anatomy in some form or another.  The exercise can be a chore to scratch off the “to-do” list, or it can be profound and inspiring.  Enter Amy Matthews, head of the Body-Mind Centering & Yoga program.  Amy synthesizes her deep knowledge of anatomy with philosophy and movement to create experiential anatomy that delights the curious mind and resonates in the heart and bones.

YogaCity NYC writer Chintamani Kansas had tea with Amy Matthews to discuss the Body-Mind Centering (BMC) work.

CK: How would you explain Body-Mind Centering to someone who hasn’t heard of it?
AM:  BMC is an approach to studying movement through anatomy and how we learn to move as infants.  The goal is to give us possibilities.  The way we do that is through in-depth study of the body, what it does, and what is possible.

The patterns we learn as infants influence us throughout our lives.  If we’re stuck in a pattern, we need to see what it’s supporting, and find another source of support before we can change it.

For example, if someone habitually tightens their back muscles to feel ‘strong’ or their hamstrings to feel ‘grounded,’ they can stretch and stretch those muscles, but not increase their range of motion because whenever they stop stretching, they will go back to tightening up those muscles. Instead, I often find that if I educate someone about other ways to feel stable or centered or grounded (by sensing where their spine is, for example), the ‘tight spots’ let go, more movement is possible, and stretching isn’t necessary.

CK: Why is this work important?  Is it about learning how to move so we don’t injure ourselves?  Is it more about the mental exercise?

AM: Yes it helps prevent injuries, and as a culture, we abdicate responsibility for our own bodies.  I feel that BMC and Laban  give us opportunities for knowing the self-- so I decide  am the one who decides what I want to do and when I’ve done enough.  When I don’t take responsibility of knowing when I’ve done enough is when I get hurt.  Knowing where my edge is, where I’m comfortable playing—not that we don’t ever try to expand past our comfort zone and grow - but if I grow, I direct that.  I play to the new edge and I stop when it’s enough.  I won’t let someone else tell me when I’m good enough, when I’ve worked hard enough, when I get to say “that’s enough.”

Letting yoga teachers physically adjust us past the point of comfort, and even to the point of injury, is the most obvious example of abdicating responsibility.
People also abdicate responsibility by letting some outside source dictate what is ‘good enough’, ‘smart enough’, ‘rich enough’, ‘thin enough.’  As a culture, we are caught up in over-consuming and constantly referencing someone outside (doctor, yoga teacher, physical therapists, personal trainers) to tell us when we’re doing it right. I had a client a few years ago that had worked with a physical therapist that told her “if it didn’t hurt, she wasn’t doing it right.” As I watched her move her arm, she was wincing and bracing herself to get through the movement. I suggested that she find the range she could do it in where the movement was interesting but not intolerable – she had never had the opportunity to decide for herself how much was enough. And from that point on, her range of motion began to change, when it hadn’t before.


CK:  So it’s part of the self-actualization process?  Learning everything you can, becoming self-aware, so you can make informed choices for yourself?

AM:  Yes, and in that, it’s important to give permission to do things differently.  This is where it bleeds over into education.  People learn in all kinds of different ways.  “There are many right ways to do something” is a radical statement in our culture and underlies what I’m trying to do—to empower people to say “my way is right for me, and your way is right for you, and how can we be in relationship?”

One of the ways I give permission in class is to explicitly have people do a movement two or three different ways – maybe to even set up a traditional way of doing a pose, and then to do the same pose in a way that ‘traditionally’ is wrong – like initiating a twist from the bottom of the spine instead of the top. Then I invite people to see how the two ways are different, and (if it’s a class with room for discussion) to share which way felt better – there’s always different experiences in the room, and a case to be made for both ways of doing something. If as a teacher I am choosing a particular approach to an asana, I will also be explicit about why I am doing that particular way. And the next week do it another way . . . so that it’s about the process of exploration, rather than any one particular experience.

CK: So much of BMC is exploration.  Would you say BMC is never setting out to cure anyone or help them cure themselves of a specific illness?

AM: No I wouldn’t say that.  We set out to help people.  And there’s certainly a therapeutic aspect of it.  If you came to me with a specific thing, like a thyroid problem—this is my approach--I would make it an educational experience.  Explain the endocrine system and how it works.  Another might use the hands-on work of BMC to practice explorations with you, and see what is possible.

CK: You co-teach the Embodied Anatomy and Yoga Program in New York with Roxlyn Moret.  I felt that you and Roxlyn worked together beautifully to create this incredible program.   What do think is behind your chemistry?

AM: If you put 5 BMC teachers in a room, you might get 5 different takes on the material and radically different ways of exploring something, and it would all still be BMC. So for me, it is very important that the BMC & Yoga programs have more than one teacher transmitting the material, so that range of possibilities is manifested.

CK: I have heard Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen mention Taoism more than once, but I also know she draws from many sources.  My understanding is that BMC is an organic practice, and each student, teacher and assistant has contributed to BMC.  There is no particular spiritual or philosophical tradition that influences BMC more than any other.

AM: I’d agree with your last statement, and then point out that Bonnie herself did bring to the practice her study of dance with Erick Hawkins, the Laban/Bartenieff material, Aikido and Tai Chi and yoga and more . . . From ‘era’ to ‘era’ it depends what she’s highlighting in her teaching . .

CK: Is there a spiritual component to this self-knowledge you are driven to practice and explore? 

AM:  It’s profoundly spiritual for me – the more details I map out and sort through and absorb about the body and how it works, the more deeply I feel the mystery and magic.

Amy Matthews teaches Embodied Anatomy at The Breathing Project. To find out more, click here.

With the publication of the New York Times Magazine article “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body”, the New York City yoga community has been aflurry with responses, questions, criticisms and reactions to the article and its implications.

The article was an excerpt from a larger book project “The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards” which delves into the numerous scientific studies on the benefits, dangers and effects of yoga asana and pranayama on the human body.  YogacityNYC's Alex Phelan sat down with Broad to discuss the book, the science and the controversy.

Alex Phelan: How long did it take you to research and write the book and how many yogis did you interview in the process?

William Broad: I saw that there was a lot of science out there and I thought that I could do it all in 9 months.  But it took a little over 5 years.  I don't know how many practitioners and teachers I spoke to because I never added it all up, but the thing that is novel and interesting about this book is that it deals with the science.


AP: You have said that you hurt yourself in side angle pose when you were straining to impress a good looking yoga babe. Is it ego and inattention that causes injuries or is it the yoga?

WB: Obviously it was a combination of ingredients. I wasn't respecting my limits and I knew that I had a weak lower back.  So there's lots of blame to go around but most of it is on my shoulders.  If I were in that class today I would have told that teacher, “these are poses I shouldn't be doing” and he would have paid more attention to me.  Clearly I was not the ideal student in that case.  But, the scientific evidence shows that there are some postures which are intrinsically very, very dangerous, even if you do them perfectly.  The risk may be low, but the results are so catastrophic (brain damage, possible death), things that are much wilder than you usually associate with sports and other physical activities.

AP: Some would argue that non-life-threatening injuries, though ideally avoided, can also be the source of greater awareness.  How do you respond to the notion that there is valuable learning experience in everything, including injuries?

WB: I frankly never really thought about that.  With my own injury you could say “well, because I've learned over the years that its a weak part of my body, I have to be very careful”.   But its like everything, you get lemons, you try to make lemonade.  If you have a problem, the challenge is to learn from that and go on with it.  Its a life attitude rather than a yoga thing.  You can always learn from adversity.


AP: What have you cut out of your practice in light of this research?  What does your practice consist of now?

WB: I do about 20 mins of postures and 20 mins of breathing every day.  I don't do plough or shoulder stand anymore; I didn't love them so much that I couldn't live without them.  I don't practice headstand on a daily basis anymore; I used to do it more often, but now I just do it occaisonally and try to keep pressure off the neck and head.  I find inversions relaxing but there are a lot of risks associated with them, so I ditched some and others I do occaisonally.


AP: The underlying assumption of this book is that yoga is the same as asana.  How do you respond to those in the yoga world that see the asana practice as only one piece of a bigger puzzle?

WB:That depends on the school, some in the yoga world would not agree with that.  Some would say, “bah on all that stuff, we're going to do poses kind of fast and we don't want any of that philosophy.”  It's very hard to make generalizations about yoga because it's really “yogas,” there are so many styles and brands and ways of doing it.  Yoga is also very complex and there is a spectrum of effects.  On the far end of the spectrum there are extreme states that are very different from the way that people usually regulate their nervous, sexual and endocrine systems. That was one really big surprise of my research there are lots of really really good things, but there are also lots of bad things.

AP: Who was your intended audience with this book and with the NYTimes article? 

WB: I really wrote the book for myself.  I had some questions and some doubts about yoga.  The things I've learned have helped my practice and I think could potentially help a lot of people.  I tried to make it less technical so that it would attract a wide audience, because I think there's a lot of good information there that can help people with their practice.  I think this book will help save people from some serious injuries, and hopefully save some lives.


AP: Mr. Iyengar seems to be both praised and damned in your book. Which is it?

WB: My bottom line is unadulterated admiration, because Iyengar is a giant and a pioneer.  He has suffered huge tragedies in his life and has had the fortitude and the courage to go put himself back together.  He's also a genius businessman and a gifted entrepreneur.  That said, Iyengar talks about Light on Yoga being a dead book;  there are there things in there  that shouldn't be done anymore because we know better, but it is still sold on Amazon.  So those kind of things rattle around in my head and make me uncomfortable.  On the other hand, he has addressed lots of questions that other people haven't.  Iyengar teachers as a group though, you've got to love them, they undergo super-intense training and have all these clever props that they use to tailor yoga for individual bodies.  All that stuff is smart and it goes to the element that I talk a lot about in the book which I call the “reformers”.


AP: You said in your NPR interview that many yoga teachers have reached out to you since the NYTimes piece.  What was their response?

WB: One of the big surprises from the NY Times Magazine article was the responses from all the reformers out there who do yoga, love yoga but want to make yoga better.  Dozens of different groups wrote to me and said “we're already hot on the trail buddy”.

AP: If you had been aware of these groups and teachers before, would you have written anything differently?

WB: Sure, I would have had more examples of the reform movement. The structure of chapter 4 looks at the medical community and their findings, but it also looks at the reaction to it.  The thing I didn't understand before was how large and organized the movement of yogis reacting to yoga injuries was.  There are lots of styles, people and groups working to make yoga safer.


AP: You talk about yoga “growing up” and becoming more integrated into science and medicine.  Do you see anything as being lost along the way if yoga goes this way?

WB: I don't think you have to lose anything.  I think it can still be all the things it already is because science can't answer every question.  Bad scientists will say “science gives you all the answers” but if you talk to a really good scientist, they will admit that science only adresses a very narrow set of questions.  Science can't answer “what is life”, “what is spirituality” “what is it all about” but maybe yoga can.  I think you can professionalize yoga and still keep all the other stuff, because the truth is that science can't go there.

I walked into a brightly lit Soho loft and psychic / reiki master / sound healer / classical flutist / and 4th generation chaneller Karin Marcello met me at the elevator.  She had a big smile on her face and was wearing a hot pink one-shouldered dress over yoga pants.  

The outfit alone sums up her personality: charismatic and warm. Karin is from Long Island and still lives there when she’s not traveling to India or Spain to deepen her study of the crystal singing bowls, bansuri flute or yoga.

I was curious to try the sound healing which has taken off as a strong yet subtle healing tool in hospitals and wellness centers around the country. Or as Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, director of Medical Oncology and Integrative Medicine at Cornell Cancer Prevention Center says, “One reason sound heals on a physical level is because it so deeply touches and transforms us on the emotional and spiritual planes. Sound can redress imbalances on every level of physiologic functioning and can play a positive role in the treatment of virtually any medical disorder."

As the nine of us settled onto our mats, I wondered how these large white bowls were going to sound compared to the Tibetan metal bowls you hear at studios.  Would I like the music, and really feel more relaxed afterwards?  I pulled the blanket around me, got into nap formation and tried not to anticipate.  Karin dimmed the lights, lit several candles and the healing began.  

As I listened, I reflected on Karin’s unique history.  After finishing a master’s degree at the University of Chicago in flute performance in 2002, Karin traveled to Spain, where she met the Sufi master who would become her singing bowl teacher, and where she received a life-changing sound healing session.  From that moment on, Karin’s path was clear; any previous doubts about her career evaporated, she came back to New York, purchased two bowls, and with her teacher’s blessing began to offer long-format sound healings, which is primarily what sets her apart from other sound healers.

Although Karin is already working to help heal and balance New Yorkers, she continues the studies that keep her balanced as well.  When I first spoke with her in November, she was in the midst of an intensive six-week study period in India, with her time split between her bansuri teacher, Ravi Shankar Mishra and her yoga teacher, Louis Ellis.  

As she rang and sang the crystal bowls of different sizes and pitches (which by the way, sounded just like the metal bowls that I know), Karin led us through a gentle breathing meditation.  The relaxing and enjoyable sounds of the bowls mixed with Karin’s calm voice and I found myself drifting effortlessly into a deep and restful sleep.  

Although Karin doesn’t seem to incorporate yoga into the healing session, she does include a few notes on the breathy bansuri flute and she also uses the Japanese technique of reiki, a healing and stress reducing method thought to increase life force energy in all sentient beings.

I awoke from sleep to the chaos of ringing and singing, of colliding pitches and pulsations, to the beating waves of sound, one against another.  Karin was “toning” or singing vowel sounds either at the same pitch as the bowls, or just below or just above, creating an eerie palate of tone colors.  Dissonance to consonance and back again.  Beautiful, strange, wailful, haunting and serene.  Admittedly a little jarring at times, how would the music give me reprieve from my anxious life? 

After an incredible night’s sleep, I knew that my sense of groundedness and relaxation could only be the result of the sound healing from the night before.  I felt a great sense of rest and ease at a physical level, deep in my bones, which is something I haven’t felt very often in my life.

For Karin, who runs her sound healing sessions intuitively, according to the energetic demands of the participants, the whole art of healing is completely interdisciplinary.  Not surprisingly, early 20th century channeler Edgar Cayce, the father of holistic medicine, who considered sound the medicine of the future, was one of her first inspirations. 

 “If you’re not working on yourself,” she mused, “if your mind is well trained but your body isn’t healthy, or if you’re in good shape but you’re not grounded…” then you don’t get all the benefits.

The benefits of sound healing, according to Karin, include better sleep, less anxiety, and improved physical health.  She says “the healing starts after clients leave and go home,” and for some, the healing works as a clearing out session, helping clients make better emotional choices or it helps them feel mentally ready to start developing a regular meditation practice.

Karen’s next session is on March 7th at 6:30 pm, at a private residence. To register call Karin at 631-220- 5228.  For $45 you can sign up for the two-hour group sound healing session or contact Karin directly for info about privates.

-Molly White

New York is jock town with our boutique boxing gyms, weight lifting contests, tennis courts and marathons for every good cause.  Maybe we need it to blow off steam. But more and more athletes are finding that adding yoga to their mix helps them with their mental focus, physical strength and flexibility.

As a long time runner and yogi, I decided to interview four others to see how yoga has changed their sport and why.

Gillian Mollod is a biker
Chris Granville is a triathlete
Alexandra Sorota is a tennis player
Kristen Engles is a runner

Why did you start doing yoga and how long have been practicing?

GM: When I was in college, a friend recommended it.  I was curious, so I went to class.  I have now been practicing regularly for ten years. Mostly vinyasa, but I have also done some Ashtanga.

CG: I suffered from severe lower back pain in my early thirties.  It got to a point where every time I went running I would have serious pain, so I went to a sports medicine doctor and his diagnosis was that I was really tight and that I should try yoga!  I have been practicing for five years, vinyasa and hatha

AS: I started fourteen years ago when I moved to Los Angeles after college. I like vinyasa flow the best, usually in a heated room.

KE: I was first introduced to yoga by a friend in 2000 and my first class - though challenging - was life-changing. I practice mostly in the style of Iyengar. 

How do these two intersect for you?

GM: After doing yoga, I started thinking more about my breath when I was biking.  I noticed my alignment and how I was holding my body.  I also felt my whole body connected.

CG: Yoga balances me for my triathlons.  I use muscles in yoga class that I wouldn’t ordinarily use.  I also find more peace in competing because of yoga.

AS: Yoga helps me stretch my muscles, realign and elongate my body, and build strength.  I also suffer from back issues and yoga has been the only true source of relief for me because it keeps my back flexible.  When I am on the tennis court, I feel stronger and more flexible.

KE: As a runner, yoga has literally changed the way I think, approach, and train for runs. It is an aid for my training and without it I don’t think I would have gone so long with little to no sports related injuries.

How long did it take you to notice a difference in your sport?

GM: After just a few months, I quickly saw a difference.

CG: It took me about three months to feel a difference.  I would go on long runs and feel no back pain.

AS: Yoga has been a part of my routine for so many years that I experience the benefits from the practice every day, during tennis and even sitting in my office.

KE: When I started training with other runners in my age group, with the same level of running experience, I stayed problem free and they were dealing with injuries!

Are there any physical moves that have shifted since you started yoga?

GM: I have a greater understanding of the core.  I now use my core to make biking more efficient.

CG: I used to be tight in my back and shoulders.  Now, I am looser, I have a greater range of motion and I can feel my body moving through space differently.

AS: I have been doing yoga so long that I can’t remember any particular moves that have shifted for me.  However, I can say with confidence that my back has benefited immensely from yoga and I believe without it, I would suffer from way more back pain.

KE: Breathing. I feel as if my lungs are a lot more open to help me in my long runs and cold days. Also, I would say my running positioning. Understanding the alignment of yoga postures is similar to how a runner should distribute weight, keeping my chest lifted and legs underneath me.

Have you had a mental shift as well?  

GM: I feel less stressed.  I notice it even when I am on the subway.

CG: Racing can be really stressful.  Yoga helps me focus inward before and during races.  I was doing a triathlon in NH and I knew I was behind when I got to the running portion.  I told myself I could do it and I pictured myself balancing in yoga class, my mental focus was so sharp that I won the race!

AS: When I take a yoga class, I feel a sense of release both physical and mental, that always brightens and relaxes my day.  I get a general sense of well-being.

KE: A shift occurs, mentally, and I can respond to challenges in a more productive way. It provides me with strength in my body and mind to endure great obstacles. Just like the discipline of training for any sport.

What is the balance of yoga and your sport these days?

GM: I usually do two or three yoga classes a week and bike or go to the gym three times a week

CG: I usually go to the gym five or six days a week, run, swim, lift weights, circuit train, etc. and then practice yoga once or twice a week.

AS: I try to go to a hot vinyasa class once or twice a week.  As for tennis, I usually play once a week.  I also bike, spin, run and do the elliptical at the gym four or five days a week.

KE: It really depends. When I am in the middle or at a high point in training for a race I do more restorative or gentle yoga. When I am off training or just starting up I will practice more vigorous yoga and do it more frequently.

Has that shifted since you started yoga?

GM: Yes, I used to only do yoga once a week and now I do it more.

CG: I started doing yoga once a week and now I go through phases where I go to more classes when I have the time.

AS: No, since I first started yoga I was doing it once or twice a week.

KE: Yes, before I was really committed to yoga, I would take a class twice a week. Now I feel as if I need to move or go to a class at least 5 times a week.

If you had to give up one of these - which would it be?

GM: I couldn’t

CG: I need them all to have an active healthy life.  I see running, weights, yoga, as a whole!

AS: Don’t ask me such a horrible question! I couldn’t give up either, they provide me with entirely different benefits to my overall health and a sense of well being.

KE: Oh goodness, I couldn’t even imagine it. I don’t think I can answer it. They are both meditative in nature for me.

-Margie Suvalle

I met Lenny Williams, the founder of Mandala House, at a yoga teacher training a few years ago. We shared a passion for yoga as a healing art and a love of cupcakes. However, whereas I had turned my attention on survivors of sexual trauma in our city, Lenny had her eyes on the world.

Currently she is in Goma, one of the Congo’s eastern-most cities, working with counselors from War Child, a non-profit that sends people to help children and young people in war torn places. The counselors learn yoga from Lenny and then return to Iraq, Uganda, Afghanistan and other hot spots, to teach the others. Lenny is ecstatic about this as a model of the power of the ripple effect.  In addition, she is teaching community classes for street children in Goma.

Through emails, I re-connected with Lenny to interview her about the work she is doing now.

First off,  I asked how her dharma had come together. It started slowly, “but, it all came together, rapid-fire, after attending a trauma sensitive yoga teacher training with David Emerson and Bessel Van Der Kolk," she explained.  “I knew I had to let go of my fear of not trusting myself with the wisdom of my practice.  I realized I could, and more importantly I should trust my experience implicitly.”

Through her practice and trainings, Lenny developed a teaching methodology for working with kids and aid workers under horrendous conditions. She calls it “The Tool Kit for Trauma.”

She came to these tools through her breath.  “It is such an intimate teacher and when I authentically connect with that, I discovered so much about my internal environment.”

Elements of the kit include Surya Namaskar, Pranayama, meditation, and partner yoga. According to yoga science, Surya Namaskar (all variations) realigns the nervous system through the six movements of the spine---where a large part of the nervous system is housed. Moving the spine in flexion, extension, laterally, and twisting clears communication channels of the body, making the brain more receptive to receive messages from the body and vice versa. The sun salutation also strengthens all the systems of the body, improving circulation, respiration, elimination, digestion and well-being.

The Pranayama exercises she uses such dirgha and ujjayi breathing bring more oxygen to blood, again, improving optimal functioning of all bodily systems. They also help to bring attention inward, creating a calmer, more relaxed physiological state. The same is true for meditation. This stillness brings the body into what is known as the relaxation response, which is exactly what people in these places need - a sense of safety and comfort. Partner yoga is about re-establishing trust and communication and reconnecting to loving supportive touch, reversing the effects of the flight, fight, and freeze response.

Even though Lenny comes to Africa with the science behind why yoga works, “people were happy to have me, but are mildy - at best - skeptical, at first.” However, usually around day five,  the shift happens. “People start getting hooked because they are beginning to see the changes in their day-to day-lives. Their appetites expand. They sleep better, laugh harder. They begin to recognize themselves in others, that natural curiosity we all shared as children reappears.”

Yoga teaches us to connect more to the source. But how does Lenny, who is always traveling between NYC and in war-torn countries, deal with the contrasts of energy and maintain her calm? “I bring lots of chocolate with me on these trips, a really good bar of soap, and I Skype with friends.  It's so good to hear sweet voices from the distance.  As for the energy, the intensity level in the Congo is not the same as NYC.  That friction.  It's just has a different quality here.  It's not as aggressive -- you don't those impatient folk pushing to get on the subway.  It's more about survival here. I also have a huge sense of curiosity.  I just love people -- somehow that all resonates with this work, a 'beginner's mind' and staying in the moment.”

"Present moment awareness." The essence of Lenny’s Tool-kit, lessons for us all, anywhere, and at any time, on the globe. To learn more about her work, go to the Mandala House.

-- Carly Sachs

If someone had suggested years ago that I would become a raw foodist, I would have laughed them out of town. What could be more wholesome than bread fresh from the oven, or a big bowl of soup? 

Well, chew on this salad. As I’ve gradually developed a taste for all things green and crunchy, I’ve not only reaped many health benefits - but also witnessed dramatic personal transformations and a profound deepening of my yoga practice.
But more of that later.  The first question: why eat raw?

According to many nutritional experts, raw fruits and vegetables have a higher nutrient content than cooked food. They’re also high in antioxidants and some are easier to digest than cooked food. Raw fruits and vegetables are loaded with enzymes, vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, and oxygen. They also have a high water content compared to many cooked and processed foods. A raw food diet, done properly, gives our bodies everything we need to function most efficiently. 
Oddly enough, all these reasons were not what originally propelled me into this new lifestyle. It was a man dancing on a beach (ah, that’s another story!) who turned out to be not only my life partner but also a raw foodist. 

At first I would sneak some pizza or a sugar fix after his thoughtfully prepared dinners. But to my surprise, this strange new way of eating began to grow on me. Now I actually love and crave these life-enhancing foods.

As I became more consistent with eating raw, I felt incredibly good, vibrant and energetic. My muscles became leaner and less bulky but stronger than ever, allowing me to move effortlessly into poses like Malasana (garland) and Mayurasana (peacock) that seemed unattainable before. A lot of the health problems that used to plague me such as headaches, colds, joint pain, and sinus congestion cleared up. 

As my body’s nutritional needs were more satisfied by my diet, my cravings for unhealthy foods diminished. I began to break free from compulsive habits like late-night snacks and mid-afternoon coffee breaks. My mind grew clearer and more calm. Meditation became something I often wanted to do, rather than a chore.

In spite of all these benefits, I was still not chomping at the bit to become a dedicated raw foodist. It’s amazing how many social occasions center around eating, and it was a challenge for me to maintain this lifestyle and still stay connected with friends and family. I wanted to ‘have my cake and eat it too,’  enjoying raw when it suited me, and then dipping back into indulgences like baked goods or a nice greasy plate of French fries when the mood struck.

What finally transformed me from ‘accidental’ to intentional raw foodist was my wise body. Rebelling against the yo-yo-ing from one extreme to another, my digestive system shut down. I will spare you the gory details, but let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. Googling ‘raw foods detox symptoms’ turns up a long list, including constipation, headaches, vomiting – and I had pretty much all of them, all at once! At first I wasn’t sure what was happening to me. I’m not exaggerating when I say I thought I was dying.

I’ve come to learn that eating raw is a powerful lifestyle change, and it allows the body to release toxins it may have been holding for years. Imagine a house that’s organized but has  never been well cleaned. It may not look so bad on the surface, but once you start moving the furniture, gross accumulated gunk is revealed.
Fortunately I fell into the hands of nutritional expert Fred Bisci (who lives right here on Staten Island, of all places!). One thing I’ve learned from him is the importance of consistency. Under his guidance, I realized that raw food was more than a way of eating; it was a doorway into a new way of life – one that I had been simultaneously seeking and resisting. 
The yamas and niyamas always looked good on paper, but living them consistently always seemed like a project for the next life. Changing my diet fired up my discipline and the will power to make healthy choices more a part of my everyday life. 

It’s been a big shift, eating to satisfy my body’s needs rather than my mind’s cravings for stimulation and distraction. This leads me toward the freedom and peace of mind that Patanjali sets out as the culmination of the yoga practice.

If I have tempted you and you want to explore raw foodism there are many great resources. East Tenth Street, between Avenue A and First Avenue, sports three raw food havens: Quintessence, the Juice Press, and Live Live. There are a number of web sites dedicated to raw foods as well, including Fred Bisci’s site and Matt Monarch’s marketplace. 

Beware: dipping your toes into this lifestyle can lead to diving in! Happy swimming…
--Lauren Tepper

I’m ranting because recently Kathryn Budig, of Yoga ToeSox fame,  eloquently defended Brihony Smyth of Equinox on the Huff Po for her R-rated asana exhibition.

By promoting the purchase of Yoga ToeSox  - in the buff - Budig hopes to get women on the mat again so they too can have beautiful bodies. “My desire was to inspire and empower,” she explained. 

 In her Huff Po essay, she reached out to Brihony and interviews her about her life as a child pop-star, her eating disorder, her subsequent healing process and how getting naked fits into that.  

The Equinox ad?  Smyth says she was liberated by the ability to practice yoga in whatever way she wanted. She had complete artistic license. She chose, of her own free will, to practice asana in front of the camera wearing only her lacy black undergarments and have the resulting video spread through YouTube land like wildfire.

There is no doubt after watching Smyth’s video, and seeing Budig’s famed nude arm balances for Yoga ToeSox, that both women have very impressive asana practices – and bodies.
 
It’s great that so many women feel the desire to become strong and healthy. 

But, it’s important to separate Smyth and Budig’s acrobatics from the pursuit of yoga and their desire to share their lovely bodies with an altruistic desire to relieve the suffering of others. Because, in fact, these women are selling product.

I have nothing against nudity. Nudity is GREAT! We all come into this world without clothing and if I have my say I’ll go out of it as naked as a jay bird. Sex is a beautiful, expansive, sharing and natural practice for any and all who choose to engage in it of their own free will.  But we deceive ourselves and continue to perpetuate larger societal problems like the objectification of women when we make believe that using sex to get consumers to buy useless apparel or expensive gym memberships is not a hackneyed marketing ploy.

Sure, women have come a long way. 40 years ago two young twenty-somethings would not have had the command they have of their own fame and reputation. Mad Men would have called all the shots. Brihony would not have had control of her set by any stretch of the imagination, and Budig would not have made profitable residuals from reprints.

What’s undoubtedly stayed the same is that it’s still the external that seems to matter. Still the smooth creamy flawless skin and taut buttocks that promise so much – the perfect life - and deliver so little. Sex and nudity are time-tested manipulations of consumer spending.  We all deserve a better yoga practice than that. 

--Brette Popper

We Run Opinion Pieces from time to time. Let Us Know What You Think or If You Have One You'd Like To Run by emailing: publisher@yogacitynyc.com

I’ve always regarded yoga as spiritual. Stretching your body while extending your soul to God.  Heavy eh?  So, when I finally got around to attending my first yoga class you can only imagine the expectations I had.  I assumed it was going to quiet my raging mind, engulf me in love, bring me peace while simultaneously bringing me face to face with God.  Expectations are always over the top.

Preceding my growing interest in yoga I developed 24/7 subjective tinnitus.  Before that, I had been dealing with a herniated disc in my neck, military neck, degenerative arthritis in my cervical spine as well as scoliosis.  

 In the words of one of my doctors, a not-so subtle Russian, “You’ve got the spine of 50 year old.”   All pain and sudden limits for exercise created depression and a great deal of anxiety.  Cicadas in the brain day and night does that, you see. Yoga, God’s exercise, had to cure that!  

So, my quest to find a studio and most of all muster the effort to go began.  I soon discovered something about yoga… it’s pricey.  After a long search, I settled on a small “community”  studio to take my first hot Vinyasa flow class.  I was surprised when I got there to see it was an office.  No bigger than my living room, carpeted with ugly office carpet and hot, indeed. 

The owner/instructor of the studio was a cute blond with the Yogi body! Oh thank you, thank You, God, for finding me another path to becoming the hottie I so longed to be my entire life! Xoxo.  

Approaching Debbie, as I will call her so I don’t get sued,  I was preparing myself for the divine enlightenment she would exude but all I got was “have you been here before, sign here, that will be $10, the mat is a $2 and water is $1.”

Okie… so not basking in the effervescence of her enlightened being.  She’s also not interested in me trying to tell her about my injuries and my concerns over practicing for the first time.  She just seems to be more concerned about collecting the cash and getting her Hot Vinyasa on.

Well it’s not over just because Gandhi didn’t greet me at the door.  I find a nice spot in the back where I can see her so that I can figure out if I’m doing any of this right yet where no one can see that I might not be so well versed in stretching like a holy rubber band.   The heat feels good really. 

We all sit Indian style and Om for a bit.  This is cool... My eyes are closed, breathing deeply, listening to other breathing people, quieting my mind  ...then  Bono?  Is this conducive to bringing me closer to God?  Whatever, Bono is saving the rain forest it must be right (though it’s not doing much to relax my mind).  Instead I start thinking about how I first discovered U2.  I was 7 years old.  Ahhh… this is my first challenge in yoga, I realize,  quieting my mind.

Next, child’s pose.  Oh, how I love this pose.  I just seem to do this naturally as it comforts me and I didn’t even know it was a yoga pose.  O-M-G I am a natural yogi!  If you’ve taken a class I’m sure you’ve observed a lot of the basic positions are quite “natural.”   It’s as if we instinctively revert to certain poses. i.e. child’s pose helps us to relax or comfort ourselves. For years, even as an adult, I’ve done this on the floor or bed and feel so cozy and comforted. 

So, sun salutation… wait… whaaaaa? Lil Wayne.  You had a lot of crooks tryin a steal your heart, never really had luck, couldn’t never figure out how to love… how ta love.

Oh, hell no.  First of all I don’t need a reminder about my sad love life, secondly could someone tell this chick this is a YOGA class.  I need to hear some Indian music or something.  Bollywood. Sitars! Ideally, some idyllic chanting of verses from the Bhagavad-Gita.  Not that I’d understand a word but I personally believe that music is part of the make-up of our souls, our spirits, therefore it’s a living force that moves us and depending on the music our spirits react instinctively to it.  It can accentuate an experience or it can sweep us away from it.  I was being swept away from mine. 

Oh Lord, I’ll breathe.  I never realized that breathing is not always involuntary.  I can’t tell you how many times I caught myself not breathing during class and for the most part breathing is a very useful tool in life.  A few deep breaths can mean the difference between slapping someone or not going to jail.  It’s im-por-tant. Stop judging me!

Debbie was giving me a complex.  She kept saying that we should relax and not judge ourselves if we can’t do the poses up to our expectations while standing on her head and doing what seemed like upside down shoulder presses. Shut up Deb.  She was also moving a wee bit fast for a beginner’s class. Is anyone as lost as I am? Oh yeah, lady-laying-down-panting.  She kept telling us to smile and laugh.  Sure, lemme just wipe the stinging sweat out of eyes and catch my breath and I’ll give ya a chuckle, Deb. And what is this sitting 5 inches away from that heater madness that she’s doing? Oh.  That’s where that tan comes from.  Multi-tasker! 

30 minutes later I was wondering what the hell I was doing in the gym all these years.  I was toned.  I was strong.  I could leg press 100 hundred pounds. I have triceps! How could I have triceps and not be able to able to lift myself up in crow pose.  Without a doubt my lack of flexibility made me feel very unsexy.  I mean “flexi” is sexy right? Right leg behind me, left leg bent Indian style in front of me… wait. Wait… wait. Ow! Ow! Ow!  Oh my god!  What is this? Martyrdom? Yeah, becoming one with the Universe might take some practice and time.  Not sure I’ll be in Yogi-bodied shape next week this time either.   

75 minutes later we’re in corpse and I’m thanking God and the Universe for letting me survive this holy moley yoga experience. I’m soaked in sweat, feeling that sugar-is-way-too-low buzz, wobbly legged and rather relaxed.  Oh man. I’m gonna pay tomorrow.

So, perhaps yoga is a personal journey.  For Deb, I guess that Bono and Lil Wayne are taking her there.  It certainly forces the practice of patience with ourselves and not judging ourselves.  There is no choice.  You can’t force your body to do it perfectly.  You can only, eventually and lovingly follow your body as it takes you on your journey to that perfect (insert pose(s) you want to master). 

In a class, it forces us to focus; to shut out the distractions around us like the Debs who far excel us or the panting lady that Deb hasn’t noticed but you want to run over and resuscitate .

In learning not to judge ourselves harshly and being compassionate by practicing; understanding that no great thing is achieved overnight, maybe we learn to convey that to the people around us.  Deep eh? 

--Jamie Manie

2012 is shaping up to be an important year for spiritual texts - several new translation of the Bhagavad Gita have appeared, New Yorkers have begun chanting the Sutras formally, and more and more yogis are taking time from asana to study the classical texts of yoga with academics from universities in the area, like Professor Edwin Bryant at Rutgers.

But how does this ancient knowledge make its way into everyday yoga classes? Yogacity’s Lisa Dawn Angerame, sat down with David Life who is not only a yoga scholar but also the co-founder, with Sharon Gannon, of the Jivamukti Yoga School, one of New York’s largest and oldest yoga schools. They talked about the three books Angerame’s been studying recently - the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Shiva Samhita, Gheranda Samhita - and how these three ancient works fit into his practice, and his school’s  methods.    

Lisa Dawn Angerame: Briefly describe these three texts and how, if at all, they have influenced the Jivamukti Yoga method. 

David Life: Svatmarama Svami compiled the Hatha Yoga Pradipika from other texts and oral tradition, in the 15th century CE. It describes 16 asana, along with pranayamas, chakras, kundalini, bandhas, kriyas, shakti, nadis and mudras among other topics. The translation of pradipika means “light on,” or we could say, “the low-down,” the “secret teachings,” the “real thing.” It is the low-down on how to yoke, or join the sun and the moon. The aim of the practices of hatha yoga, according to the Pradipika, is to be able to hear the subtle sound- nadam.

The author of the Shiva Samhita is unknown. Various experts date it from the 16th-18th century CE. It contains 84 different asana (only four of which are described in detail), prana, pranayamas, yogic philosophy, mudras, tantric practices, and meditation. It emphasizes that even a common householder can practice yoga and benefit from it. The term samhita means a full collection of Shiva’s wisdom on this subject in a concise form.

The Gheranda Samhita author is unknown as well, but a teacher named Gheranda in the 17th -18th century CE. taught these 100 practices to his student. This approach is called Ghatastha yoga or yoga approached through the body. It is approached in 7 steps including kriyas, asana (there are 32 here), mudras, pratyaharas, dhyanas, and samadhis.

All of these texts have influenced Jivamukti Yoga directly or indirectly.

LDA: Overall, are they relevant to yoga practitioners today? 

 

DL: Well, they would not be on the top of my reading list.  The top two spots have to be reserved for the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Bhagavad Gita of Vyasa.  For one thing, these texts significantly predate the others, they explore the subject of yoga more thoroughly, and their study alone could involve many years of dedication.  

All of the three above – the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Shiva Samhita, Gheranda Samhita – are more clinical or practical, and focus on techniques. They are totally appropriate for some yoga practitioners and completely inappropriate for others, but relevant to all.

What would make them relevant is how an experienced teacher chose to use them as the focus of attention while you were studying yoga with them. If the technical manual arrives with a teacher it changes everything.

LDA: Can they be taken seriously with admonitions like practice pranayama in a hut made from cow dung or that a yogi should avoid the company of women? 



DL: As far as cow dung goes, don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it. It creates an antiseptic and dust-free zone for sadhana. (Especially important if you live in a hot, dusty, buggy place.) Let’s put this image in context; we are talking about ideas that emerge from the time BCE, and represent common practices at that time. Sure, it sounds strange to us, but how would it sound to BCE’rs to roll out a thin piece of plastic or rubber yoga mat on which to perform your sadhana? Dried cow dung slurry creates a mat-like covering over the earth providing cushion as well as sanitation. I have tried it, and would prefer it to dust, bugs, and stones. However, I do not support the enslavement of cows for their dung, or anything else.

Many of these ancient texts are male-centered. I don’t feel inclined to argue or defend this – it is a fact. Beyond that, modern commentary demands a modern lens. That commentary is in the realm of the teacher. The enlightened mind will help us to discern between the essence of the teaching and the outer garments that may sometimes distract or confuse the unguided student.

LDA: What are the most beneficial practices passed down to us from these three texts? 



DL: Short list: asana, meditation, nada yoga, kriya, and pranayama

LDA: Are the purification practices relevant to yogis practicing today (i.e., some practices may be considered extreme like hrid dhauti and basti)? 



DL: Actually, those two are not the most unusual or extreme. The word hatha is translated as “force” and hatha yoga historically was regarded as a path of force and extremism. The Natha Yogis, of whom Svatmarama was one, were naked mercenaries looking for super powers but finding samadhi instead.

Each of the kriya has a mundane and elevated level of action and meaning. The true value of the micro experience is it’s cosmic revelation – more than the sum of its parts. All of the practices yield fruit according to degree of intensity, so Guru selects your poison (or, should we say, your amrit?) Then it is our choice to act upon it.

LDA: Can you tell us about your daily practice, i.e.,which kriyas you do?

DL: Perhaps, your readers would benefit to know how kriya fit into my daily life. When a dosha is imbalanced the kriya has the power to rebalance it. Simply put, that means that when my nose is running I can use a kriya as remedy, and when I have gas a different kriya can relieve that.

We have found that the gradual constipation and contamination of the physical body through diet and stress is best dealt with by retreating from the world, that is, not working -or even moving around much, unplugging the internet, electric lights, computers and telephones. We create a very simple dietary fast with no stimulants or other drugs and a daily routine of sadhana practice. We perform various kriyas of a colon cleansing nature and spend a lot of time sleeping and meditating as part of that sadhana. We maintain complete silence and this all may last from several days to a month in length each year. You could express that as living in a cow dung hut…without the cows!

What I can say for sure about my practice in general is that it has been neither long enough nor extreme enough…yet.


LDA: Where did all of the "other" yoga asana come from if not from these three texts?

DL: Well, these texts do talk about at least 84 different ones and that is quite a lot of them! Certainly many more than most people practice in a day, a week, or lifetime. How many asana there are is an existential question that deserves the answer that Patanjali gives – “It is One, and it is happy and still.”

Remember that all three texts that we are talking about are both derivative and reductive in their presentation of a vast, mostly unrepresented, oral tradition together with archives of thousands of banana leaf treatises that still sit, rotting on dusty shelves neither read nor translated, perhaps soon lost.  Where is Lara Croft: Tomb Raider when you need her?

LDA: Is it ok that there are translations of these texts out there if these practices were supposed to be kept secret for success? 

DL: Sure, they are good to have, and to keep secret. Translations are merely one person’s idea of what was meant in the original language. They are both blessing and curse. All of these texts are shrouded in ambiguity, code, vernacular, and metaphor. They are riddles that you cannot solve without the secret decoding ring of guru. Even when you read the descriptions of kriya or asana in the original Sanskrit they don’t make a lot of sense without the commentary and presence of the enlightened mind to illustrate the text for you.

But let’s just say that someone does embark on the practices with ill intention or ignorance and “luck.” It is doubtful that they would have the endurance to achieve mastery…and part of the course of mastery would be a rejection of lesser motives and the removal of ignorance. Yoga Vasistha tells us that “luck” only exists to the deluded ones, and that actually we only get exactly what we deserve according to our own actions.
That’s a win-win or a lose-lose, depending on how you look at it.

Earth Yoga has moved to a new beautiful space on a residential block on the Upper East Side.  As you enter the warm, inviting lobby of this studio, there are earthy tones, orange walls, exposed brick and shiny wood floors.  The couch is stacked with colorful pillows where students  gather to chat after class.  The practice space is one large room that can hold 30 students comfortably. 

The schedule is stacked with classes around the clock lead by first-rate teachers like Matt Giordano, Lisa Dawn Angerame and Steven Cheng.  There are beginner, open and advanced classes in the hatha, vinyasa and lead Ashtanga styles.  In the future they will be adding restorative, prenatal and specialty workshops for everything from meditation to inversions.

On the lower level of the studio is a Dojang run by the well-known karate teacher Richard Amos.  The energy is a bit different, down here, with darker wood floors, mirrors, exposed brick and a metal door.  Perfect for the discipline of karate, but also warm enough to house future workshops and teacher trainings for yoga.

The dynamic duo behind this yin-yang studio are husband and wife team Richard and Yanti Amos.  Their story is one of passion and commitment.  Once upon a time Richard owned a karate studio on 63rd and 3rd and Yanti came in to practice (they are both black belts) They had an instant chemistry, which kept their relationship going long distance, even though she lived in Paris, France.  When Yanti moved to New York to be with Richard in 2009, she acquired the space above the karate studio and created Earth Yoga NYC.

After several years on separate floors, they decided to move to a quieter location, 328 East 61st Street, and combine their love for movement and discipline. 

There is nothing like walking into a studio and being welcomed by the owners.  It gives you an instant feeling of community and a relaxed feeling before you begin your practice.  The feeling doesn't stop there, because the space is beautiful and the teaching staff is intelligent and ready to move you.

Drop in class $25 and packages are available. For more information, click here.

-Margie Suvalle

The New York yoga world has seen a spate of controversial articles about yoga recently. The New York Times did a calculatedly incedendiary article about Glenn Black which got a lot of attention. New York magazine, in its classically smarmy way profiled David Regelin as a narcissistic taskmaster and “an incipient rockstar of the yoga world. ”

Neither piece was particularly accurate, or well-fact-checked.  But accuracy wasn’t the point – selling books, magazines and newspapers was.

As yoga becomes more and more popular with the readers of these media outlets, these kinds of pieces will continue to be written. Readers are curious about their teachers and teachers need to get their names, and the names of their studios, out there. Marketing is no a big part of the yoga business. With this in mind, we asked Gina de la Chesnaye to see if she could learn anything from this latest brou ha-ha, by sitting down with David Regelin to find out how this article came about, what he learned and if he has any cautionary advice.


Gina de la Chesnaye: Why did you do the New York Magazine article?
David Regelin:  It was an opportunity to create some publicity for me and Katonah, a new studio in the city. That was it, really. I had no idea it was going to be a 4 page spread. I thought they were doing Fitness listings and I would come up under the Yoga section.

GD: What was the reporter like when she approached you?  Did she have yoga experience?
DR: She was nice, friendly, not at all intimidating. She seemed pretty new to yoga as far as what I saw in her physical practice, the questions she had, and the comments she made about yoga in general. For example, she had never heard of Iyengar or Ashtanga Yoga. I thought that was strange, to me it's like someone writing about a politician and not knowing what democrats or republicans are.

GD: The pictures that were taken of you are beautiful. What is your take regarding why, in the mainstream media, yoga teachers have to promote their bodies as beautiful objects.
DR: I think that the reason that people have asked me to do shirtless poses is because there is an idea that men that do yoga have very soft, sort of feminine bodies -

GD: Right. Look at Mr. Iyengar…
DR: Right. So, in a way I defy that to a degree because I do have muscles but I am also flexible. Basically it’s just the way my body formed from the practice but I was also doing martial arts and of course I have a genetic history for it.

GD: What sports did you do before?
DR: Well, kung fu and Thai kickboxing…

GD: So you didn’t become a serious athlete until yoga?
DR:  I don’t consider myself an athlete.  I had never done a handstand before doing yoga. I had never thought about it. The first time was at Jivamukti and they said, “Okay, we’re going to the wall to do handstands” and I thought you must be joking. And I went up and I was so disoriented that I actually fell over.

GD: Now you are a master at it.
DR: Sort of… I really dedicated myself to learning the handstand. It was something that didn’t come easily to me. When I first started doing yoga there weren’t a lot of places that had people do handstands. So, I pushed the coffee table aside in my house and just did it over and over again.

GD: How long have you been doing yoga and do you have any serious injuries?
DR: I've been practicing for 10 years. I've had serious injuries, but not from yoga.

GD: And what do you think about the NY Times article on Glenn Black and “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body”?
DR:  I think that, the way I read the statistics and I need to review them again, but they didn’t take into account the growth in number of students that are now practicing yoga and the relatively small amount of injuries. I do think that all alignment methods should be reevaluated and updated because there are many chronic injuries that result from people practicing traditional techniques. There are of course people who just don’t like the ideas and culture surrounding yoga.

GD. The mainstream media does like to come down hard on yoga…
DR I think if you are an intellectual person and you just happen to drop into a yoga class and listen to the dialogue, it can seem like a motivational speech and dance like stretching. However, you might come across a intelligent teacher who has a real method to teach with, you might think even though I don’t want to put my leg behind my head there is something to be said for yoga’s potential to heal and reform. I also think there are a lot of people practicing yoga who are arrogant and put down all other kinds of activities, such as martial arts, without firsthand experience.

GD: Do you have any regrets about the NY Mag piece?
DR: I have no regrets, the overall outcome and response from the article was in my favor. I have curious new students in class, and I've received many messages of support from students and teachers from near and far.

GD: What are your thoughts going forward as far about dealing with the media?
DR:  I will be more careful with how I phrase my thoughts, realizing now that my dry sense of humor does not necessarily translate when transcribed, and that my gestures, intonation, unconscious nervous habit of using the word "like", and eyebrow movements are all potentially, like, on the record.

                                              *****

On a recent weekday morning, I walked into the Fort Greene Remsen Senior Center expecting to see a group of straight-faced seniors struggling through warrior one.
 
Instead I find the meeting room of the Deliverance Tabernacle Church graced with the reverence of what felt like a religious service. Thirty chairs are laid out in neat rows across the center of a banquet room, occupied by people aged 60-80 waiting patiently for class to start, hands rested neatly on their legs, palms facing up.
 
The teacher, Julia Haramis, walks in and starts the centering routine;  a detailed breathing exercise that calls for focusing on the breath's  route through alternate nostrils. One excited elderly woman follows along like an eagle soaring through her grounds, while another seems like she is in a restful sleep, while her fingers lightly move.

Seated at the front, Julia mirrors all the movements for her students, and guides them in isolating each body part. The rise and fall of the seniors’ arms and legs, some rickety and slow, some twitchy and some smooth, seem to give off a sea of undulating grace as they move together. Not a glance has strayed from Julia -- a commitment to follow her every move.  Then smiles begin to drench the room. By now all eyes are open and body parts are flowing. The vintage yogis are in their yoga-zone. 
 
According to Julia, an ISHTA trained teacher, this is a valuable community effort. “It’s as important as teaching yoga to at-risk youth, or yoga for the incarcerated.” New York City’s Department for the Aging, and Not-For-Profit agencies like the Akasha Project, which funds the Common Ground Residence Center, a housing center for New York’s aging homeless and low-income individuals, would agree.

Yoga is beneficial for the aging because it relieves symptoms of arthritis, increases blood circulation and warms the extremities.  Balancing poses stabilize muscles and can prevent falling. Breathing exercises facilitate mental clarity and increase lung capacity. That is why seniors yoga has started to show up in publicly funded programs like the Remsen Center.
 
At the Fort Green Center, yoga is fairly new, but onlookers are milling around to sneak at peek at the class while new participants show up weekly.
 
Despite an early reluctance to join in, both Julia and the coordinators have seen a big shift in the way the class has been received. Carol Brown, Remsen’s Senior Center Supervisor says, “There are approximately 120 members that come to the Remsen Center and nearly one-third take yoga. 
 
Class is given in the same public space where Center members eat and socialize.  There are no mats, no props, no special clothes and participants wear their shoes. This is not the kind of serious silent class that you might find around Union Square. “Dominoes were clicking in the background, people were greeting one another in conversational voices in the middle of my classes,” says Julia.
 
“I can’t ask names because the attendance can be so sporadic and I certainly can’t ask for injuries or physical challenges because the list will go on forever.”  Forget Utanasana. “Forward bending can be life-changing for those with high blood pressure, or a heart condition.” 
 So, what does work?  Classes like Julia’s, are similar to Chair yoga, but even then modified.
 
There’s also a lot of repetition.  “It’s not only good for building/working on body parts but it’s also important that the asanas feel somewhat familiar and do-able. This is not a group of adults that need to be challenged with the new and exciting thing each week.”

The most common asanas are eagle arms, a modified seated, pigeon pose, (ankle to knee), padadirsasana (pranayama technique of alternative nostril breathing without holding the nostrils) and meditation.

“We spend a lot of time warming up body parts in isolation with a focus on the extremities where circulation can be challenging and arthritis can be a common - neck, shoulders, hands, feet and legs,” says Julia. 
 
Yoga definitely seems to be working on this group.  Sarita Jean, 73, says that her heart and her mood have lifted in the last 2 years of doing yoga. She spent 49 years working as an accountant. “Yoga remains with me for the rest of the day and I look forward to sitting down and moving away from all the stresses, getting to a different level.” She admits, however, that if yoga had not been introduced to her at the Remsen Center she would never have gone out to seek it, even though she well versed on the benefits. “We are a group. If I had to do it alone, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Seniors yoga reaches out to the heart as well and the topic of community keeps coming up. “This is a finicky population. A little of everything effects their mood. Temperature and the weather, food, noises and the like”, says Julia.
 
As the class draws to an end, dozens more seniors at card tables have begun gaping at their fellow senior yogis. And when “lions breath,” is announced, a roar of exhales chimes in from around the room. 
 
When the guided Yoga Nidra comes about, I notice eyes from every corner of the room closing. Finally, the room sounds off a big chorus of “Namaste.” It’s beautiful. 
 
Afterwards, when their eyes open, the yogis greet one another with big smiles, and go back to their regular tables to remain engaged and in tune with one another.“ says Brown, the Center’s Supervisor. 
 
Olga Love, 74, agrees. “I love this community.” We come here to meet with our friends, share stories. Yoga gives us a sense of joy and appreciation.”  It’s a special kula feeling.
 
 -- Miriam Butterman

In 2007, professional dancer Erica Schweer Whalen saw a fading studio in danger of becoming just another gym and decided – no way if she had anything to say about it! With her family pitching in, she took it over and regenerated it into mang’Oh Yoga, now a thriving 1200-square foot yoga space with a devoted community, of yogis ranging from their twenties to eighties.

YogaCity's Jim Catapano spoke to Erica recently, finding her in an ecstatic mood—glowing about mang’Oh’s first teacher training as well as her own transformation from dancer to yogi, as she steers her new community towards a deeper spiritual understanding that has had a big effect on their NYC lives.

Jim Catapano: Do you remember your very first yoga class?

Erica Schweer Whalen:  I went to college to get a degree in ballet, and we had some "yoga" in our program, but never a full yoga class...so I thought I'd had experience with yoga, but I really hadn't. When I moved to New York, and started being involved in the dance world and experiencing how competitive it is and how difficult it is on your body, I kept hearing about this wonderful other thing. I was living in Williamsburg, so I thought, I'm going to head over to this "Go Yoga" place, that was in a little mall—that was way back in the day—and I took Michael Hewett's class. What an amazing person for your first class! It blew my mind. So I started taking classes there, then at Laughing Lotus, which I'd heard about from a lot of people from the dance world.


JC: What was the training experience at Laughing Lotus like?

ESW:  I'd been waiting tables and trying to make a living while I was dancing, and I just thought, "This is exactly what I want to do!" and I leaped into it. I'm glad I did! I had been considering other ways of making a living...personal training, Pilates...other than waiting tables, to support my dance. But I really did not understand what I was getting myself into when I started taking teacher training. The physical aspect of yoga was really fun and approachable right away, so I thought I could just jump in and go through my teacher training pretty quickly. But it was all the spiritual and philosophical stuff that just blew my mind.

JC: In your spiritual learning have there been any Sutras or mantras that particularly grabbed you?

ESW:  Lokah Samastha Sukino Bhavantu  ("May all beings everywhere be happy and free") always resonated with me. I think it's so simple and so sweet, and immediately elevates you. There's a Sutra, Heyam duhkham anagatam  ("All future pain is avoidable"). That blew me away. I still sit with that one all the time. Then there's Yogas citta-vrtti-nirodhah ("Yoga is to still the patterning of consciousness"), which I teach from most of the time...I could teach from that Sutra every single day! There are so many "Aha!" moments...those are probably the ones that I always come back to.


JC: What was it like starting out as a teacher in NYC?

ESW: Right after graduating, I got to do some really fun summer shows for dancing, so it was maybe 4 or 5 months before I tried to get any work teaching. But I think that it was an important time, because it was so intensive, learning so much, that you need a bit of time to let it settle in. Then I started teaching at Crunch, which was a great opportunity for me, to teach without having the intimidation factor of the studio setting. Having the gym was a way to find my own voice. I subbed at a lot of different studios, I taught at David Barton, and I started getting private clients. I had to be really available for it...to really work hard that first year, to get enough classes to make a living doing it, to feel comfortable doing it...and to not be nervous every day of my life! 


JC: How has your background in dance helped and influenced you as a yoga instructor?

ESW:  I think it helps me speak in front of a class, having performed before. Also the musicality, the idea of choreography. And just understanding anatomy...how the body works, how it feels, the transitions. Even with our teacher training, there's this organic understanding of how things flow. Dance is so similar, it's movement and therapy. I can't separate the two different trainings, they go hand-in-hand. Sometimes I think it gets in the way occasionally—certainly always wanting to achieve perfection physically is the dancer's challenge, so letting go is a beautiful practice. I've always loved that about yoga...that you can move and celebrate movement without a mirror in front of you or someone telling you that you're doing it wrong or right. Such a relief to come into a yoga studio after a dance studio!

JC: What are your favorite asanas to teach and to practice?

ESW: The first 5 years of practicing, I was into the more dynamic poses...handstand, side crow. Still love all of those, but now I'm loving the slower ones...I could stay in Parsvottanasana forever, I've been teaching it in every single class!

JC: How did you come to own mang'Oh Yoga?

ESW:  I had never thought that it was one of things that I wanted to do, to run my own studio. I had been teaching here...this was a space that was previously owned by a man who wanted to turn it into a spinning gym. It was really suffering. It needed to be spruced up physically, the teaching staff needed to be changed. But I always loved the people that came into my classes here. I remember one day teaching, and looking around thinking, "This is a place that I could help." My sister Cynthia was finishing up her MBA at the time, and she wasn't interested in going back into the corporate world. So I said, "Hey, I have this dream if you want to join me, because I don't know anything about business and you don't know anything about yoga."  And we're best friends, so it worked really well.

Our whole family helped. My brother-in-law is a contractor, so he helped us renovate the space. My husband built our web site for me, he's a programmer. My parents flew in, my dad put in the baseboards. We did everything through the family. I think that's why this place has such a nice vibe, it was built on that kind of foundation. And this has been an absolute joy, to have a little family here. It's a beautiful little community, very special. This is my heart and soul...right here.

JC: What's been one of your favorite moments as a teacher?

ESW: Just this past week...I've been working privately with an elderly man. He's been overweight, a smoker his whole life. Very type A, high stress personality. He never thought he'd end up in a yoga studio. We've been meeting for two months now. He couldn't put on his own socks when he walked into this space. So I had to help him put his socks on. I told him, "This is what we're gonna do. We're gonna get you to be able to put your own socks on." And I said "six months." But in six WEEKS, we got him to put on his own socks. And today he met me again, and did it again. The coolest thing was when he said, "You know what, Erica? I'm even kind of scared to say this because I don't want people to get freaked out, but this yoga stuff is changing my life! I'm nicer to my wife, I'm nicer to my children, I'm breathing more, I'm less mad when I'm in traffic. I don't know how to explain it!"  And it's so beautiful, to see someone in his late 70s feel that he's got a whole new lease in life. He's just now going through retirement and he was really scared about letting go of his job, and not sure where he was gonna go next. And now he's excited. He's excited about exploring yoga. He's just been my light these past few months.

For Erica's teaching schedule, please visit mang'Ohstudio.

-Jim Catapano

Did you know that sex trafficking is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world? On January 31st, some of NYC's top yoga instructors are coming together for to put an end to this international injustice. 

Famed yoga teachers Elena Brower, Dana Flynn, Alan Finger, Sri Dharma Mittra, Cyndi Lee, Tricia Donegan, Sierra Bender, Jodie Rufty, and Suzanne Sterling will co-teach a three-hour yoga class from 6:30-9:30 to raise money for this worthy cause.

The class is being organized under the aegis of the Yoga Freedom Project. It's bringing together Off the Mat NY and The Somaly Man Foundation for the event. All the money raised will go to this non-profit organization dedicated to ending the $12 billion a year sex trafficking business. It also empowers survivors with programs for education, job skills and awareness.

You can be part of this effort and participate in a movement to create freedom for all.
 
The Details:
Tuesday, January 31st from 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM
Twelve21 Studio
12 West 21st Street
New York, NY 10010
Tickets - $50

For Tickets, click here.
-Margie Suvalle

New Yorkers are in for a special treat this month as Geshe Michael Roach, the first American to receive the master of Buddhism title after twenty years of study in Tibetan monasteries, will be visiting Pure East to present a seven-night course on his own translation of the Bhagavad Gita. While stomping through the desert terrain near his Rimrock, Arizona, home—pausing to remove cactus needles from his legs—he spoke to Yogacity NYC's Jessica Mahler about the upcoming course, the trouble with translations, and the secret surprise ending of this cherished text.

Jessica Mahler: Why did you decide to translate the Bhagavad Gita? Why do it now, in this moment in time?
Geshe Michael Roach: All the yoga and Tibetan Buddhist traditions used to come from a common source and used to be practiced together. When India was first taken over by the Muslims and then the British, a lot of the traditions were weakened. But they kept the physical traditions, the asanas and krias and things like that. The philosophy part, the spiritual part was kept very strongly in Tibet. I felt like it would be good to retranslate the Gita in the light of the Tibetan traditions of the philosophy. 

Jessica Mahler: So your translation incorporates asana practice?
Geshe Michael Roach: Ah, no. The way you do yoga in Tibet is the opposite of how you do it here. In Tibet, you’re required to finish a geshe, which is 25 years of study, before you’re allowed to do asana. They think that you should get the wisdom part down first and then you’re allowed to do the physical yoga, which is considered sacred in Tibet.

There was a lot of interest in my monastery when I came back one year and told them that all their secret asanas were being done in all the yoga studios in New York [laughs]. It was really cute. I thought they’d be sort of irritated, but they were really excited that so many people had the seeds in them to want to do yoga. They thought that was a sign that the world was about to get enlightened. So that’s exciting. They feel, though, that if the rest of us who do asanas could learn more about the meditation side and the wisdom side, then they would be complete, then their yoga would be really good. So I just felt that if people got the other half of it, it would be really perfect. And that’s why I did it.

Jessica Mahler: Do you think the translator brings their own life experience or relation to the text, and do you think that plays a part in the translation?
Geshe Michael Roach: Twenty-five years ago we started a project with Hewlett Packard to give computers to Tibetan refugees and have them type their ancient books of yoga and Buddhism into them because they were being destroyed in Tibet at the time. We’ve finished about 8 million pages, and it’s all on-line.

What’s cool is that we developed a tool so that you can search it for phrases in books, so when I translate something like the Bhagavad Gita, I will search a phrase in, like, 100,000 other texts, and then you see each author, each generation.

It’s true: Each generation’s translators always put themselves in the translation. There’s a big debate about whether that’s a corruption because if you translate something in a way that people can’t understand, then I think you’ve changed the text, you see? If you update the language but not the meaning, then you preserve the original text. It’s an interesting thing. I think the text needs to be retranslated every few generations to stay relevant.

Jessica Mahler: How does your translation of the Bhagavad Gita tie in with the techniques you'll be sharing in the course?
Geshe Michael Roach: The story of the Bhagavad Gita revolves around a war: Two extended families are going to war with each other. Arjana, who is a great warrior, is facing the other army and he’s about to be asked to kill his own teachers and relatives. He calls on his chariot driver to take him out and take his chariot between the lines of the battle that’s about to take place and he has a breakdown in the chariot, and he says, “I can’t do it. I can’t fight.” His charioteer is Krishna in disguise.

The whole Bhagavad Gita is a discussion between them on the chariot. Toward the end, Krishna reveals himself for who he is as a divine being, and he reveals the source of the battle and the source of the universe.

It’s very beautiful, the end of the story. There’s a traditional literary end to the story and there’s an oral tradition, which is quite different, and we’re going to go through that in the course. It’s about where does the world come from and why did you come to this world, ultimately. If you know where you all come from, if you know how you all got here in the same city or the same room or the same phone line, then you can really love other people.


Jessica Mahler: So there have been two versions of the Bhagavad Gita going around? The written version and the oral? That’s how it’s always been?
Geshe Michael Roach: Yes, they’re completely different.

Jessica Mahler: Is there an unspoken rule to keep the two separate?
Geshe Michael Roach: They don’t write it down.

Jessica Mahler: It’s not allowed to be written down?
Geshe Michael Roach: I don’t think it’s a question of allowed. I’ll tell you a story: Lady Niguma  had a yoga school on the Ganges River on an island. This monk went looking for her and people told him, “First of all, that school is only for women, men aren’t allowed to step foot on that island. Secondly, if your heart’s not pure you won’t see her.” He decides he’s going to swim to the island and try to talk her into teaching him her yoga. When he gets to the island, he can’t see her because his heart’s not pure enough. And then something happens and he becomes pure enough and he sees her.

I think the ending of the Gita is the same. I think if you are lucky and it’s the right time of your life you will hear that ending. Maybe you don’t come that night, you know? It’s unexpected, and it’s all about if you really understand where the world comes from, then you can love each other. I really like it.


Jessica Mahler: Since it’s a seven-night course, how are you breaking up the class?
Geshe Michael Roach: I’m pretty tough. I require people to do homework and quizzes to get the certificate. You can come and sit and just listen and you don’t have to do all that. I just found that assigning homework and giving quizzes makes people better able to teach it afterward.

We really emphasize participants work with each other, so there will probably be 10 coffee shops that you can go to and do your homework with somebody else or a group of people. And I encourage people come and interact with each other, and not just come and sit. We really want them to learn to teach it because I don’t repeat courses.

Jessica Mahler: Do you have a syllabus planned?
Geshe Michael Roach:  What I try to do is design it in such a way that it becomes clearer to each person by the end of the last night of how they can use this in their life, and how they can help other people. As teachers,  you are being held accountable to other people, and you’re getting the equipment to serve and really help other people.

Yoga is everywhere now—it’s a huge force in the world now. People in every walk of life are doing yoga, so if they understand the deeper meaning of it, it’s a way you can make the world a more peaceful place. We recently went to Beijing and we went to a class. We didn’t understand Chinese and they don’t understand English, but we did yoga together. It’s a universal language.

Jessica Mahler: Do you enjoy teaching?
Geshe Michael Roach: It’s really fun! I mean, we go to Beijing, and the first time in Beijing was so difficult and everyone was looking very severe and uptight. And then the last night, everyone was laughing and crying and that’s why I really enjoy it.

New Teachings on the Bhagavad Gita will be held at Pure East from Monday, January 23 through Sunday, January 29. Monday through Friday ; Saturday and Sunday 7–10pm. $300. For more information, click here.

Acupuncturist James Bae who runs Samaya Education, recently had the opportunity to catch up with well-respected meditation teacher Harshada Wagner of Living Meditation, an organization that offers meditation and "awakened living" to everyone from war vets to hospital employees in hospice programs.  They discussed how Harshada discovered his path, sadhana and the complex student/teacher relationship.

James Bae: Can you share a little about your experience as a meditation teacher?

Harshada Wagner: Not sure I would define myself as a meditation teacher. It reminds people more of the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn and mindfulness, or maybe Transcendental Meditation.  I don’t teach mindfulness per say, or any one meditation technique. I teach and focus on sadhana, not just formal meditation.  In sadhana, we focus on the "whole enchilada". It's a holistic process of transformation and awakening. Meditation is a major focus, but not the only focus.

JB: Tell us about your influences and how you got involved it all.
 
HW: I got involved as a teenager. I come from a chemically dependent family and was going down that same path as a kid. I wanted to get clean and sober so I went to AA and went through the whole 12-step path.  In a way, that’s the foundation of my spiritual practices and what I teach. The eleventh-step says that "through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him...” That's really the heart of spirituality.
 
In those early days, around the age of 17, someone gave me Be Here Now. That was like a bomb in my heart and life. It got me into Eastern Spirituality.  I was in a small town but I read whatever I could get my hands on. I read the Hare Krishna’s Gita, the Tao Te Ching, whatever. When I went to college, I met Gabriel Halpern in Chicago and began to study Iyengar Yoga. I studied therapeutics with him and studied “yoga as medicine.”  I also worked with Gorakh Hayashi a psychotherapist who was a great yogi, and had himself studied with Eugene Gendlin. He was the one who turned me onto the work of Swami Muktananda. After that I did many years of training in the lineage of Siddha Yoga.
 
JB: Is there anyone in particular that influenced you deeply as a teacher?
 
HW: In India I have a beloved friend and teacher. He is an older sannyasi with a deep attainment. Now he lives as a hermit, doesn't have any disciples, just lives alone, paints, grows a garden and enjoys the wilderness in the place where he lives. I met him many years ago and wanted to know his state. There are lots of seekers in yoga, but not so many finders. He was clearly a finder. So I asked him "What's the secret??” At that point he only said that the "secret" was only an "apparent secret," but he spent a great deal of time helping me after that. Mostly he blasted my concepts about practice and spoke directly about the state of freedom. I had been a serious yogi for many years by the time I worked seriously with my dear friend. He helped everything come together and helped me let go of all the extra unnecessary crap.
 
JB: How do you see the role of the teacher, in your own life, and in relation to others? How do inspiration and confrontation relate to that role? Anything you’d share on the responsibility of a yoga or meditation “teacher”
 
HW: As I develop, my relationship with the teacher is nirguna, meaning formless. For many years, I surrendered deeply to my guru. I trained with her, served her, and used her as a focal point for my whole sadhana. At some point, I began to experience deep guidance from within. Sometimes I still visit my old sannyasi friend, and I read the books of the masters I have learned from in the past, but I find that the Guru now speaks through many mouths. Earlier, it was important for me to learn from and serve just one master.
 
Now it's different.
 
During the whole first stage of sadhana - that can last for years- a student needs supervision. A sincere student needs a teacher who has attained something themselves to supervise their progress and help them avoid self-deception. Also the teacher provides a lot of love and encouragement and inspiration. Later on in sadhana, the teacher is more of a beloved spiritual friend. Someone that can hold space for your attainment and be there when you "fall off the wagon."
 
That whole relationship depends on the depth of the student's sincerity and the level of the teacher's attainment. In India, they speak about the Guru-disciple relationship. The word "Guru" is a heavily laden term in our culture, but it can just mean teacher. If someone wants to learn meditation, then the guru is just an instructor. If someone comes in with a deeper adhikara (qualification), then within the framework of that relationship, they are going to go deeper and connect more with that guru-tattva (principle of the teacher) -like Eklavya.

In the Mahabharata, there is a story of a poor tribal boy named Eklavya who wants to learn archery, but because of his low caste cannot study directly with the local master. So while the master is off teaching the royal princes, Eklavya makes a statue of the master, worships it and meditates in its presence. In meditation, Eklavya receives all of the teachings, even secret ones that the princes do not learn. It's a story about how our sincere devotion and intensity will draw guidance. In the story Drona- the master- didn't even know this was going on. His greatest archery trick was to shoot an arrow and weave it between the teeth of a running dog without hurting the dog. Only Drona could perform this shot. Drona didn't know about Eklavya until he saw a dog running around with an arrow woven in it's teeth.

You asked also about confrontation. Of course that's there.  When you are supervising someone's deep personal transformation, corrections or adjustments feel really personal and can be taken as confrontation. In the classical system, the Guru is the ego assassin. The guru is always confronting and loving in such a way that melts or burns away our egoic sense of self. I am not into all that, but if people are engaged in sadhana, that process will take place nonetheless. I won't even mean to do it, but their sincerity will do it. I will say something very innocently, but it will go in very deeply- sometimes melting, sometimes burning.
 
I’ll usually ask permission to be confrontational if a student needs to be confronted. I am too worried about people liking me. I am a wimp as classical teachers go.
 
With most students, I follow their lead. I teach them and support them in the ways they want me to. With more serious students, people who are more interested in the deeper sadhana work, then I will be more aggressive, but they have to sign up for that and show me that they are ready. Anyway if you know me you'll know that I try to keep things on the light side. I’m not into "being serious" even if the work is deep.
 
Sadhana is the process of awakening to the pulse of ever-increasing sensitivity. Imagine waking up after sleeping motionless for centuries. It's a deep energy thing, we awaken to our Soul power, our deep Essence, with our mind, our feelings, our body, and in our life. All of these levels are asleep at first. Like when your leg falls asleep. It is alive, sort of, but dumb and floppy. When we begin sadhana our inner and outer worlds are like that- numb and floppy.
 
It is about connecting with and developing sensitivity to our essence, and then experiencing that essence in everything. Permeating all these layers with that same awareness, we contact a deeper sense of purpose and priority. From there we practice yoga. My goal is for people to learn sadhana in a deeply personal way.
 
JB: How do people meet or work with you?
HW: The bulk of what I do is private – one on one – guiding, counseling, training.
Some practice along with videos on Yogaglo. I offer regular retreats at Omega and Kripalu. I do lead pilgrimages, public classes and workshops. There’s also a great deal of support online at livingmeditation.org
 
JB: Quite engaged… Lastly, so what’s the secret? In your own words?
HW: The essence is that people get in touch with their most sincere heart’s longing… getting in touch with that…  bring that longing into contact with loving awakened guidance in some form. When these two elements come together – that is the most potent conversation.

Marisa Miller Wolfson, a vegan filmmaker got an idea while watching Super Size Me. What would happen if the eat-only-junk-food concept was reversed: what if three regular, everyday meat-and-dairy eating New Yorkers went vegan for six weeks?
 
Her award winning film, Vegucated, which is having its Brooklyn premiere at the Cynthia King Dance Studio this Sunday, January 15th, follows Brian, a bachelor who says vegans are from outer space; Ellen, a single mom with two kids who has little time to cook; and Tesla, a college student who really does not like vegetables, through a six-week vegan “experience.” 
 
Wolfson starts with the basics.  She takes her subjects to a health food store to teach them how to shop and read labels.  She even plays a fun guessing game as to what mainstream products are vegan (Double Stuff Oreos!).   She takes them to visit Dr. Joel Fuhrman, author of Eat to Live, to have medical tests done.  The group then goes to OohMahNee Farm Animal Sanctuary where they communed with pigs and chickens.  They met with experts like Dr. T. Colin Campbell, the author of the famous China Study, which is considered the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted and Howard Lyman, a fourth generation former cattle rancher and author of Mad Cowboy who became an advocate after seeing first hand the impact of factory farming on his land.
 
Vegucated covers factory farming, the environment, and the state of our current culture.  For me the, aha moment came when Dr. Milton Mills, M.D., Associate Director of Preventative Medicine, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, explains how and why we evolved to eat meat and how and why today the evolutionary imperative is to stop.  By continuing to factory farm animals, not to mention trawling the oceans for fish, we are depleting  our planet in such a way that, as vegan cowboy Howard Lyman says, we will not be able to continue to exist as a culture.
 
These people were changed by their experience.  And I am even more deeply committed to being vegan.  I switched over after learning where our food comes from.  First I read books like Diet for a New America and Dominion, and then I saw films like Earthlings, The Witness and I am an Animal. 
 
It is one thing to read something and imagine it in your mind, but it is another to see it with your own eyes.  Some of the images are still with me, like how they do research on monkeys or the way Eddie Lama so passionately explains his transformation to an animal rights activist after his first encounter with a kitten in The Witness.  While some of these films are educational and moving, others are incredibly graphic and borderline propaganda.  
 
This film is neither.  Vegucated is a down to earth, real, and believe it or not, funny look at three people’s journey into their education on food, the animals, and our planet. It is educational, at times intense, but by the end, inspirational.  As Wolfson says, “we are more than a movie; we’re a movement.”  Go see this film with an open mind and open heart.  Get vegucated!
 
The Brooklyn, New York premiere is on Sunday, January 15th at 3pm at the Cynthia King Dance Studio at 1256 Prospect Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11218. For more information go to www.getvegucated.com.

--Lisa Dawn Angerame

Lisa Dawn Angerame is an Advanced Certified Jivamukti Yoga Teacher. In 2010 she co-founded NavaNYC, a company dedicated to bringing yoga and meditation into the workplace. Lisa Dawn lives in New York City and Northport with her yogi husband and yogi baby. Together, they own Project:Yoga, Jivamukti Yoga in Northport. Lisa Dawn also publishes a vegan food blog called Lisa’s Project Vegan.  

On Tuesday night at 11:30pm the future of Bread and Yoga, Inwood’s local studio and home away from home, was forever changed. A fire broke out in a vacant restaurant in the building and burned beyond repair.

In addition to the yoga studio and restaurant, other local businesses like Furry Friends pet store and Dichter Pharmacy were also destroyed. The complex was so badly damaged that the city quickly came in and began demolition before the building could collapse causing further harm. 

Local residents and business owners sprang into action. By Friday, they had formed the Inwood Community Group on Facebook and held a meeting with the sole intent of brainstorming ideas to help the businesses affected by the surprising tragedy.

A fundraiser was held for Bread and Yoga on Friday night featuring musicians that had previously played during their classes. 100 people attended and generously donated enough money to cover the cost of new equipment, which is a good start towards helping studio owner Marcela Xavier bring the studio back to the Inwood community, something she is fervently committed to doing.    

Nancy Preston, an Inwood resident and teacher at Bread and Yoga, says she was amazed with how much Marcela was able to do with the studio in the two years that it was open. “The studio was a warm and beautiful space that provided a sense of home to everyone” she explains.  “It was more than just a studio; it was a community center that supported the families of the Inwood neighborhood through pre and postnatal workshops, after school programs for kids, music and art programs and even cooking classes.”

Finding a new home that will have the space and amenities to support all of these amazing programs will be no small order, but Marcela is confident it will all eventually come together.

For the time being, the after school program will run uninterrupted thanks to the local school which has been kind enough to allow Marcela to use the their space temporarily. Many churches have also offered up their space for the adult classes and Marcela hopes to have some classes up and running again within the next week.

Marcela is currently searching for either temporary or permanent space to begin holding classes again as soon as possible and is taking any leads that might help them find their new home. Suggestions can be made on their Facebook page. They are also taking donations through Paypal. From the Bread and Yoga homepage, just click on the donate link to add your contribution.

While the tragedy of the fire has left the community with a feeling of loss and confusion, the staff of Bread and Yoga have been amazed and heartened by the outpouring of support and love from people near and far Marcela says, “I am truly honored to be a part of this community,”

People have shown what they are willing to do to help. As one woman so eloquently posted on the Bread and Yoga Facebook page, “ Lean on us all… Rebuild, yes, your community will wait for you”.   

-- Allison Richard

It has been said that Disneyland is the happiest place on earth for fun-loving youngsters and the young at heart, but I beg to differ…Peace in Studio is giving Disneyland a run for its money by creating an especially happy place for tired teens, exhausted new moms and adults right here in New York City. That is where we need it!

The space is bright and open, with shiny hardwood floors, light blue and green walls and plenty of sunlight streaming in through the windows.  You instantly feel the warm and inviting energy when you walk in the door.  It’s a joyous place for everybody and easy to get to on the corner of 14th and 6th Avenue.

Shari Vilchez-Blatt, the founder and director of Karma Kids, decided to open the  studio when she saw a need to expand her business.  KK’s schedule is sprinkled with a few family, baby & me, and prenatal classes, but many adults were interested in classes too.

There are restorative classes for stressed teenager, prenatal classes at times that working women can attend, (which is rare in NYC) and Abs-olutely Yoga for those new moms wanting to get that core back. 

The studio offers several community classes that are by donation because Shari wanted to make sure that even the baby sitter with a limited budget could take a class. It’s Shari’s passion, creativity and enthusiasm that fuel both studios.  She stacks her schedule with intelligent teachers like Kelly Brennan and Juliana Secches, who are skilled in specialty classes for both adults and children.

In the future, Peace In Studio will offer more classes including beginner yoga and workshops.  The space will also host kids birthday parties and teacher trainings. 

The warm space, the friendly teaching staff and the welcoming attitude got me excited to sign up for one of their new classes!

Drop ins range from  $20-30, Community classes are $10 suggested donation, and the first prenatal class is free!  The studio also offers great packages. Their address is 102 West 14 Street, New York, NY.

-Margie Suvalle

While the holidays inspired gathering and community, they can often leave us feeling depleted, or even lonely and depressed, when it is all over.

So much happens energetically---in a time that is supposed to be about natural rest and quiet, light and rebirth – that it is no surprise our systems may go a bit awry in January and February.  So how do we navigate these contrasts? Carly Sachs sat down with Amy Weintraub, author of Yoga for Depression and the forthcoming Yoga Skills for Therapists to talk about how yoga practice can help us manage our moods at this time of year.

Carly Sachs: Are there poses that are specifically beneficial now?

Amy Weintraub: Backbends are important for opening the heart and for getting more prana flowing.  One of the reasons we can become depressed is that our breathing is shallow and we’re not getting enough oxygen to the brain.  Around this time of year, include at least two backbends in your regular practice—one belly-down backbend like Cobra or sphinx with eight 4:4 count breaths; and one from a supine position like bridge or wheel or fish pose, using eight 4:4 count breaths.  This means that we’re inhaling for the count of four and exhaling for the count of four.  Also include inversions for their calming effects.  Before savasana, take shoulder stand, half shoulder stand, or legs up the wall with twelve 4:4 count breaths.

CS: What about essential pranayama for the dark season?

AW: The most basic yoga breathing exercises are really all that’s needed.  We often forget to breathe consciously, even while practicing postures.  Whether you’re on the mat or simply moving through your day, take the time to practice Yogic 3-Part Breath with a short retention.  Here’s how to do it: Inhale 4; 4-count retention while visualizing a peaceful soothing image (could be from nature, a memory, a face), exhale 6. Practice this 7 times and on the final round, exhale with the mantra "so ham," which means I am that.
 
Here’s another wonderfully calming yet lightly energizing practice that can be done in a supine position on the mat or while sitting in a chair.

Stairstep Breath (Anuloma & Viloma)
1. Inhale with little sips of breath through your nostrils, as though you are climbing a mountain.  Breathe all the way to the top of the mountain and hold the breath. Hold the breath for four counts and imagine you are looking out and seeing something beautiful, something that lights you up inside. Or think the word "peace." Exhale and slide the breath out. (2x)
2. Now take a slow breath in as though you are taking a ski lift to the top of the mountain.  Hold the breath and see something that nourishes your spirit.  Or think the word "joy." Exhale with little puffs of breath through the nostrils. (2x)
3. Combine steps one and two with little steps up and little steps down.  (2x)
4. Repeat step 1, ending by sliding the breath out slowly.


CS: Any other advice?

AW: These are only tools to clear the space.  It's what you breathe into the space you clear with the practice - the way you talk to yourself - that can make a huge difference. 

CS: It sounds like you are talking about how the practice translates off the mat. What does that mean for you?

AW: For example, whatever practices I am doing, after completing them, I want to feel a sense of spaciousness and an expanded sense of who I am.  So having this sense of expansion will help when you are dealing with family conflicts, or feelings of sadness that someone special is no longer with you, or overwhelmed by the intense emotions or even the weather - you’ll be able to see that you are so much more than whatever challenges you are facing.

CS: That really resonates with what you write about in your book Yoga for Depression and how yoga can be a catalyst to move from anxiety and depression to a state of ease and clarity. Why do you think yoga is a tool for managing emotions?

AW: Yoga practices strengthen the container so we are more immune to the little stressors.  The practices help clear the space within so that we remember that we are whole and connected, beneath whatever mood is visiting through the season.
 
CS: Is there a specific time to practice?

AW: I practice at sunrise. If ever I am carrying some burdens from the day before, I feel a sense of renewal and this is why yogis for centuries have practiced at sunrise. I try to do some standing pranayama and maybe some warriors or chanting outside as long as it is over 32 degrees and even if it is only for 10 minutes. There is a way the rising sun is a metaphor for our own sense of renewal. No matter what challenges have visited us from the day before, we are fresh and alive and connected to something larger than these bodies we’ve been given for this lifetime.

CS: So what if you don’t go to bed at a reasonable time to do this?

AW: Go on a retreat once a year, or every six months, to connect with like-minded others and to take good physical care---going to bed on time, waking up, practicing, eating properly. There’s something about taking time for yourself in this way that is different from a vacation.

And when I can’t physically get away when things get bogged down, I’ll take some time for bee breath, or even just taking 4 deep breaths, inhaling for 4, holding 4, and exhaling for 4. For me, taking conscious images of beauty and storing them on the altar of my heart is a practice that connects me back to a sense of wholeness and wellness.

                                               ***

To learn more about Amy Weintraub’s very useful techniques, take her training at Kripalu from February 3–5, 2012

Never intending to be a yoga teacher, Andrew Sugerman got hooked on the principles of yoga when he tagged along to one of Gary Kraftsow's early Viniyoga teacher trainings in Hawaii.

Ten years later, as well as being a yoga therapist in private practice in New York, Andy assists Kraftsow's teaching trainings, a role that includes leading students in chanting the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, something he’s since studied one-on-one with master teacher Sri Ramaswami.

For the new year, he will offer a by-donation chanting class in New York, beginning this Friday, January 6th. (Read below for details) Joelle Hann caught up with him over the holidays.

Joelle Hann: Why chant the Yoga Sutras?
AS:  Yoga is one of India's great philosophies so a traditional practice of yoga includes considerations of the actual philosophies. It's traditional to learn by heart to recite the actual words. I'm interested in the traditional text and the philosophy and its background.

JH: What's the benefit of chanting them? Why not just read the commentary?
AS:  Chanting makes the sutras intimate for you. That's true in every tradition: if you want to have serious membership in the tradition you memorize the ancient texts. The way to have this intimate connection to it is to know the words by heart and to recite them. You're removing the distance between you and the Word.

For example in the book the The Kite Runner the guy is aspiring to be a devout Muslim. He memorizes the Koran and recites it.

There's always an oral tradition around the Word of God—that's the codification. If you read Patanjali's Yoga Sutras directly you wouldn't understand it. That's what the commentaries are for.

JH: Is it necessary to memorize them to get to this intimacy?
AS: Actually, no. They use that word by heart because recitation is already creating the intimate connection, just by articulating enunciating the words themselves. The words and the knowledge are the same. The actual recitation is the main benefit not memorization necessarily.

JH: What sparked your interest? You've said that Gary didn't have it as a part of your yoga teacher training.
AS: Early on when I was Gary's student I sought out Sri Ramaswami because I knew he was the one guy in the world who had a direct and intimate relationship with Krishnamacharya. I didn't want to learn it from just anybody.

I had just come back from India, and I thought I was going to go back there to study with Ramaswami. I wrote to him in India but found out that he was spending more time in New Jersey with his son. He was right here. If I walked from my apartment out to the river I could actually see the apartment building that he was staying in.

JH: Has the practice of chanting changed you?
AS:I wanted to be able to recite by memory, with accurate Sanskrit pronunciation, the traditional text of Yoga Sutra. So I got exactly what I set out for.

JH: Why did you want that?
AS: Despite all of the teaching about how Sanskrit is a magical language, that wasn't my reason for doing it. I was just looking for authenticity of the teaching. That comes much more from my identity as an artist than from a metaphysical practice.

When I would chant it for Ramaswami, he was so happy he would get tears in his eyes: He was proud to pass on what for him was the essence of yoga.

JH: How do yoga students respond to your teachings at Gary Kraftsow’s training?
AS: I am surprised by how many people come to me and say, 'I was convinced that the one thing I was not going to do in the teacher training was the chanting. But after doing this with you it's now my favorite part.'

JH: Why do you think they change their attitude?
AS: I put complete attention into precision. And I think that makes the teaching really powerful. I put out there how to do it correctly and it makes an otherwise daunting subject interesting. And I'm doing it with humor. Within a minute in nervouspeople in the teacher trainings are  roaring with laughter. Because I mastered the subject I could make it light. When people started chanting and it sounded like a disaster they felt comfortable to laugh at it instead of feeling stupid.

JH: You're also a musician, aren't you?
AS: Yes, the other thing  that I most wanted in life was to be a heavy metal drummer. Those were the people that I most admired because heavy metal has a certain kind of power; it's in your face, direct, and there's a certain cool to it. For example, if you went to a Deep Purple concert in the late 70s there was no doubt they were the coolest people on earth (of course, I was a teenager then).

I was born to be one of those guys, a heavy metal performer. Probably no one in my chanting classes would get that, but that's what influenced me. My long-time teacher is an academic but my persona is totally influenced by Deep Purple. What happens is I'm in front people--none of whom share my love of heavy metal-- is infectious; they come away thinking that the chanting is their favorite part. Because on some way I was meant to be on a stage.

JH: What do you hope will come of the chanting group in New York?
AS: I just want to share my interest in the subject. Make this available to those who might catch the enthusiasm.

The Deets:
Yoga Sutra Chanting Group
Jan 6 – February 3 (4 Fridays) 6:30-7:30pm; staring up again in March 2
Suggested donation $10
Chanting the Samadhi Pada, first chapter of Patanjali's Yogasutra
80 E 11th Street at Broadway, St Denis building #435
Space is limited, pls RSVP: andrew@artofbreathing.com, 646 872 2825

Who deserves yoga more: a cancer survivor, a war veteran or someone grieving the loss of a loved one? If you asked Christa Avampato, founder of Compass Yoga, without hesitation she'd say all three, and continue with a list of people with diabetes, Parkinson's, MS, back conditions, hip replacements, depression, dementia and then some.

Christa is an energetic warrior of wellness, and with her newly official nonprofit, Compass Yoga, she is on a mission to bring yoga as a therapy to any and all who wish to make it part of their wellness plan. And she's already moving in the right direction.

"My primary interest in teaching yoga is to help students at every level discover their own confidence, strength, courage, and ability to self-heal," says Christa via the Compass website. To make this a reality, she has begun teaching free open classes under the Compass name around the city, including locations at the New York Public Library, New York Methodist Hospital, Columbia Law School, Columbia University Medical Center and group and private sessions at rented space downtown, for a fee (negotiable based on financial limitations).

With a 200-hr yoga teacher training and a yoga therapist certification now under her belt, Christa, a diligent and persevering spirit, has called upon her MBA, extensive business experience and social savvy to build her network and her idea into a full-fledged non-profit organization in just a few years.

Though she currently works full-time at her day job, Christa is preparing to commit herself full-time to Compass Yoga in 2012. She also has a keen handle on finance so keep an eye out for her yet-to-be-published book on managing your financials with aplomb, aka without digging yourself into a hole of self-doubt and destruction. We can't wait either (honestly).

Christa was first inspired to try yoga by a close friend, an Iyengar teacher. He also happened to incessantly, yet gently, encourage her to give yoga a try until she finally did. Her pal gave her free private sessions, even bought her first mat, and asked simply that she pay it forward some day.  Now 11 years later, Christa still calls upon that time as the seed for what Compass has blossomed into today.

As someone who found yoga to be therapeutic in healing from her own past trauma, Christa points to the practice to have eased her insomnia, high stress and anxiety associated with PTSD episodes, as well as attributing her professional success largely to yoga, "because it reinforced my inner strength and greatly reduced my stress and anxiety levels," she says.

Gathering a small army of Karmi Angels (volunteer yoga teachers) Christa is taking Compass to the heart of the pain - the healthcare system. The Karmi Angels program enlists yoga teachers interested in therapeutic work and matches them to specific volunteer opportunities teaching to various populations in various settings, sometimes libraries, sometimes hospitals. This is especially beneficial to new and budding yogis looking to gain valuable teaching experience and practice their karma yoga.

The Bent on Learning of the medical world, Compass aims to disperse the 'angels' to hospitals and healthcare centers citywide to those welcoming yoga as a supplement to western medicine. Of course, for the facilities still resistant, Christa hopes increased awareness, more positive results and continued research will help convince them. There's reason to believe she'll have some help. For one, therapeutic yoga benefactor, Donna Karan, recently launched the west coast location of the Urban Zen Foundation bringing yoga, reiki and other alternative therapies to UCLA Medical Center.

Without millions of dollars to fund a new wing at Beth Israel, Christa and Compass are starting with the next best thing: the doctors, nurses and healthcare providers who work directly with patients as well as administrators, board members and the higher-ups who have the power to request grant money for this holistic care.

Compass plans to do its own fundraising as well, to support further research, to grow the program beyond the scope of NYC and to eventually become self-funded, including providing compensation for the Karmi Angels. Specialized Compass trainings and workshops could be in the works for the future too, along with open classes for families and more formal work with children.

Christa sees the Compass mission as not only a vital aspect to holistic health for diagnosed diseases, but the dis-eases of our daily lives. She is passionate about helping everyone find meaning out of our experiences and/or trauma. "We have the ability to make meaning out of the good and the bad. It's an empowering thing," she says, adding that this holds a certain special significance when she's teaching veterans and their families.

"Figuring out how to help them make meaning, knowing how hard it was for me to make meaning from a lot of different things in my childhood, makes me very empathic and compassionate towards that cause. Although I haven't been to war the way that they have, I understand those basic emotions that are underlying it, that we have all had." A new Youtube channel with videos specifically designed to help the veteran community is getting ready to launch in early 2012.

As Christa prepares to take Compass Yoga to the next level in 2012 she's aware that the right partnerships and funding are key. Fortunately, she's finding the melding of her skill sets in business, finance and yoga to make sense of her past experience, to build on her future, and to form what she calls a "really great job that is the dream of my life."

"Trauma is not something that happens to a tiny group of people," says Christa. "I don't know anyone who hasn't had some kind of trauma in their lives. And it's OK. It's part of our human existence. There are ways to heal and be whole."

If you'd like to learn more about Compass yoga or volunteer your time, head to compassyoga.com. Read Christa's blog at christainnewyork.com or follow her on Twitter.

--YogaDork

Consider Peter Ferko a Renaissance Yogi.  He is a multi-media artist whose work ranges from photography and graphic design to musical composition.  We caught up with Ferko to find out what his life is like when he’s not reflecting on Satori, running the off to teach, or writing love poems about the subway.

Where did you first live in the city?  

I heard from a DC friend about a New York doctor looking for a roommate. He was a resident working in an E.R. and had a tiny 6th floor walk-up in the West Village. My room felt like a cabin on a ship; pigeons lived in my ceiling (I mastered the cooing mantra for eka pada rajakapotasana).

Tell us about your love affair with yoga.  When did it begin?

When I learned about yoga in the 80s in LA, it was a karmic event. I had been a very spiritual person raised in a traditional Catholic family, but the dogma of that faith was making it hard to sustain as my adult life became more complex. When I found yoga – my introduction included both the physical and spiritual components at the same time -- it was a perfect fit for what I needed in my life.

I became involved with Paramahansa Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship, where I learned about Kriya. At the same time, I found a yoga studio in Santa Monica called Yoga Works that had been started by Alan Finger. My teacher there was Rod Stryker. It was so exciting to find Alan Finger had a studio in New York. I had missed the blend of asana, pranayama, and meditation in the other schools I sampled after leaving LA.

Was it hard to land your first job? 

I was lucky to bring so much prior practice into my teacher training and I got to teach at the ISHTA right away. Even with that, I have greatly helped make ends meet by doing artistic endeavors.

You mention Tantric Yogi Mark Whitwell as an influence to your practice. How do you resonate with Whitwell’s philosophy that we (all humans) are a perfect manifestation of God who do not need to strive to be something more Divine?

Mark's language around tantra, especially as it applies to our state of perfection, is truly inspired. He brings the historical reasons for tantra's evolution into perspective for today.


Speaking about inspiring new perspectives, tell us a bit more about your other art inspires your teaching?

I am an artist in several media. When I began practicing yoga, I found it helped me stay balanced through the challenges of an artistic life. I also found it helped me tap into creativity in a way that made me utterly confident about being able to create when I wanted to. It also made me confident of changing media when I felt I could say more somewhere new.  (I just finished a novel called Wally and Kali, about a man who discovers yoga and how it influences his relationships.) Now that I teach, I draw on that connection to creativity to generate verbal images to inspire students. I can also communicate convincingly with artists, performers, and writers in my classes, because we speak the same language.


What posture/philosophy turns you on these days?

I worked on asana a lot in the first decade or so of my practice. My interest in yoga, though, was always in the power of meditation. Asana serves as a preparation and a balancing tool for meditation practice, so now I do it almost therapeutically as I need it. Like most of my students, I have various limitations in range and strength that make some poses impossible. I occasionally find myself in a class where they come up and I'll try them again and the work becomes letting go of the judgments around my limitations.

Lately, I've been enjoying trying to remain balanced in transition (as practice for living), so I've been stringing together things like garudasana and virabadrasana III and ardha chandrasana without touching down the lifted leg.

Where are you teaching now?

Primarily at ISHTA where I am a lead trainer in the 200 and 300-hr teacher trainings. I also teach at Yoga People in Brooklyn near my home and privately. My work at ISHTA is with my teacher Alan Finger, whom I have found to be unparalleled at synthesizing the wealth of yoga practices and philosophy into a coherent system.  I've never heard Alan criticize any other system's yoga ideas; instead, he analyzes what it does and for whom it would be appropriate. This approach allows them to tailor a yoga practice to the student instead of the other way around.
 
If you could study with any teacher in the world, who would it be?

I feel more a teacher than a student these days, but I often feel that it is unfortunate that I don't know Sanskrit better. I am working with Pierre Couvillion's Sanskrit course, but would love to study in person with someone who was both a Sanskrit expert and a yoga master. I'm still waiting for that teacher to appear.

What is your biggest yoga fantasy?

I'd like to see my novel inspire people to try yoga as a way to bring balance and grace into the challenges of living in relationships with friends, lovers, and family.

--Katie Clancy

Manhattan's newest yoga center, Sangha House, will kick off with a grand opening party from 11:00-4:00pm on New Year’s Day, which will include 20 minute sample yoga sessions taught by Sangha’s instructors, a Capoeira demonstration at 3:30, free 10 minute chair massage sessions, discounts on class packages, plus refreshments and a bubbly toast.  All are welcome!

Located in the Gramercy/Flatiron district at 37 East 28th street, between Park and Madison, Sangha House offers a holistic menu.  In addition to intelligent vinyasa yoga, various forms of massage will be available.  In time, the studio aspires to offer formal certification trainings in both disciplines.  It’s an inviting, high ceiling space, comprised of a large, light filled studio that can accommodate up to 40 people and a smaller room for massage.

The studio’s owner, Robin Zwilling, has been incorporating yoga and massage for years and is a firm believer in the practices’ ability to inform and deepen one another.  As a massage therapist, Robin focuses on deep tissue trigger point and fasciae release.  Her strong and patient method is highly location specific and driven by intuition.  She’s excited to complement her style by featuring massage specialists from a wide array of backgrounds and techniques.

As a teacher, Robin was certified through the former Sankalpah Yoga Center.  It was here that she found her primary teacher, renowned instructor Isaac Peña.  Sankalpah’s 2011 closing, drove Robin to contemplate what would constitute her ideal yoga center.  She envisioned a community-centric place that nurtured the intertwining of various healing modalities.  Hence, Sangha House was founded.  In fact, the Sanskrit word sangha means “community”.

The materialization of her dream wouldn’t have been possible without the invaluable guidance of Isaac and his mother Maria.  Isaac will be teaching regularly at Sangha House.  Other instructors include April Martucci, Olga Palladino, and Caponyasa’s Carlos Rodriguez.  Capoeira will be regularly offered on Saturdays starting Feb 4 by Carioca Capoeira. 

Robin hopes Sangha House will allow both students and teacher to experience and grow from the wide variety of styles and healing modalities offered.  As for that class card sale on New Year’s Day? Monthly unlimited packages will be on sale for $165 (regularly $185) 5 class packages will be $65 (regularly $87)

--Sophie Herbert

For more information, visit SanghaHouseNYC.com.

The second limb of Patanjali's ashtanga yoga is the five niyama or observances.  Where the yama gave us a list of things to avoid, which were discussed last week,  these principles continue the ethical work by providing ways to to deepen our practice and increase our connectedness.

Saucha (cleanliness), santosha (contentment), tapas (discipline), svadhyaya (self-study), and isvara pranidhana (surrender to God) all help lead us away from chaos of the body and mind and towards a deeper understanding of our shared awareness.

Alex Phelan continues her conversation with Swami Sadasivananda, Mark Wolz, Lesley Desaulniers and Nikki Costello, asking the what, why and how of the niyama in their daily lives and practices.


How are the Niyama different from the Yama? Why the distinction?

NC: The yama teach us how to be with ourselves and others. The niyama turn one towards the internal relationship with oneself and the divine.  The yama are external and the niyama are more internal.

MW: The yama are things I'm asking myself to avoid.  And the niyama are observances, things I'm asking myself to remember to do.  By observing the practice of the niyama, we strengthen our spiritual commitment and our connection to other people.

LD: The niyama are really the yogi's behavior towards him or herself.  The more you practice the way you treat yourself, and your attitude towards yourself, this work will be reflected in the way you treat others.

SS: The niyama safeguard and reinforce the yama.  The niyama help you overcome vices and replace them with virtues. 
 
Is there a niyama that you find challenging or practice very intensely?

SS: It is difficult not to accumulate, even spiritual things, so saucha is important.  You start in your physical environment, creating order and purity, and from there the cleansing process becomes more internal.  Holding onto a permanent or historical sense of the self creates a delusion becase we are changing moment by moment.  It's important to practice saucha or purity in the mind so that you can live in the present.

MW: One I resist a lot is surrender, because the ego is so strong.

LD: Santosha is one that I always meditate on.  Really being here and letting this moment be enough; letting every experience have its fullness is santosha.  Feeling that sense of contentment independent of internal or external conditions.

NC: Not anymore.  When I first came across them, it took some time to draw parallels between the niyama and what I already inherently understood.  These were things that had to cross over from a language I already knew into a more practiced, experiential thing.

How does svadhyaya or self-study feature in your practice?

SS: Svadhyaya is a way of studying your own mind from inside, but also of extracting the best of external ideas.  In my life I do two types of svadhyaya, the study of one's own mind through introspection and the study of the scriptures.  These are means for purification of the mind.   

MW: I think of svadhyaya as studying sacred traditions where the wisdom of people who've  seen something beyond is pointing me in that direction.  It's a looking in and looking out at the same time; but ultimately anything I'm going to learn will have to relate to my own experience. 

LD:  In moments when I'm feeling off-center, I will copy out the sutras or some other scripture as a practice to bring it into my body and my consciousness.  Whatever you do that connects you to the Self in that higher way is svadhyaya. 

NC: I continuously study and this is the bedrock of my teaching. Studentship and self-study are essential to teaching.

How do you interpret Isvara and what role does surrender play in your practice?

SS: I think of spirituality as living in greater awareness, which encompasses god.  Practically it means surrendering the fruits of your actions to isvara, the one force that governs, from within, every single being.  Another way to think about this is to serve humanity.

MW: I have a sense that what we could call god is a cosmic consciousness that is way beyond what we can fathom in our human mind.  And that's acceptable.  We don't have to be able to see it, touch it or even understand it.  And that is what I feel I surrender to, that energy that connects me with everyone else. 

LD: Isvara means that there is something higher and deeper than my worldly preoccupations, than my stuff.  That guiding force is within and when we practice we have the opportunity to connect to that source.  It's not only surrender, but dedication so that my life is less selfish. 
   
NC: The teachings of yoga are vast and ungraspable by the intellect alone. I am simultaneously in awe of this wisdom. Even at the moment when I do grasp something, I know that to be grace.

Do you have any suggestions for how to personally cultivate the niyama?

NC: When I first started practicing I soon realized that the breath was the most accessible way to understand the niyama. Through the breath we become humble and reverential.

SS:  It is said that the highest form of tapas is meditation, so is speaking truth.  The best way for most people to maintain these practices is to have a spiritual diary.

MW:  To observe cause and effect - especially when something is not working.  When my heart or mind is unsettled, its a matter of observing and looking to the niyama to try to figure it out.  Not to judge it, say its bad or stop it, but to try to figure out: where did it come from?

LD: Practice, and if it’s difficult, then practice again.  The key is to shift our attention away from the outside and bring our attention to our own minds, our own selves and our own lives.


Bios
Swami Sadasivananda is the head of the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center in New York City.  As a renunciate, he has taken the vows to continue the teachings of Swami Sivananda and Swami Vishnu-devananda.  He teaches hatha yoga classes as well as courses in meditation, philosophy and the practice of keeping a spiritual diary.

Mark Wolz holds a BS in Psychology and an MA in Anthropology.  He is primarily trained through the Integral Yoga Institute, but also finds his influences ranging widely through the NYC yoga community.  Mark is teaching two 5-week courses on the yama and niyama starting in January of 2012 at Integral Yoga, check out our YogaCityNYC events listing for more information!

Lesley Desaulniers has been studying yoga and meditation since 1996.  In her early twenties, Lesley was a resident at Ananda Ashram in upstate New York, where she intensively studied Sanskrit, meditation, philosophy, and Hatha yoga. She was later certified by master teachers Sharon Gannon and David Life and went on to teach at the Jivamukti Yoga Center in downtown Manhattan.  She teaches at Prema Yoga in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

Nikki Costello is a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher. She has been teaching yoga for 18 years and was previously certified in Jivamukti Yoga and Anusara Yoga. She has studied with teachers such as Sharon Gannon, David Life, John Friend and Mary Dunn.  In 1997, she became a student of the Siddha Yoga path.  Nikki can be found teaching at the Kula Yoga Project.

Shortly after I graduated from my first teacher training program, I was interested in honing my own teaching skills and also wanted to use what I had learned to help others.  Because my mother has Multiple Sclerosis and I’d already gained some awareness of how yoga could help people with M.S, I was eager to share this knowledge. I signed up to assist with a Level 2 mat yoga class at the Multiple Sclerosis Society in midtown.

It was challenging to work in a place that didn’t have props, except mats, especially when the students had a varied range of physical needs and issues.  But it was a helpful learning process because I had to be creative and come up with innovative solutions on the spot. It taught me a lot about how to adapt yoga for all levels and that pranayama can be very effective at bringing the room together and creating a sense of stillness. (sitali breathing is especially good for those with M.S. because it’s cooling for the brain).  I also found it helpful to talk to the students after class to get feedback and find out how to better assist them in the future.

It felt great to do this for others.  Unfortunately, it required a high level of commitment and since I have to work to pay the bills,  I only lasted one term. However as I researched different organizations around the city, I realized that there are a wide range of opportunities. Some require only a simple amount of help which can be anything from donating a percentage of your class proceeds to contributing your art skills or even your car.  All of these organizations provide excellent experience and learning opportunities.

Since it is the giving season, here is a list to help you get started. I am sure that I have forgotten some, so please email YogaCity NYC at publisher@yogacitynyc.com for those that need to be added.

—Marie Carter

National Multiple Sclerosis Society, New York City
The Southern New York Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society offers modified recreation and fitness programs to promote health and wellness for people with M.S. You must comitt to one day a week a week from October to January and then again April to June. Expectation is that you will do a minimum of 80% of the classes.

Yoga teachers should have a basic understanding of Multiple Sclerosis and its effect on recreation and fitness as well as knowledge of basic wheelchair mobility assistive techniques (the chapter does offer training). Email ChristinaMcSwain@nmss.org to set up a volunteer intake session and placement interview.

Yoga Bear
Yoga Bear is a national organization devoted to to promoting more opportunities for wellness and healing to the cancer community through the practice of yoga. Volunteers are expected to give five hours a week for a one year commitment.

Yoga Gives Back
Yoga Gives Back is dedicated to raising awareness and funds in order to alleviate poverty in India. There are many ways to get involved and you don't even have to travel to India.  Teachers can teach classes and donate a percentage of the proceeds to Yoga Gives Back. For more information, contact them at info@yogagivesback.org.

Bent on Learning
This organization offers instruction in yoga and meditation to students in grades K through 12 in New York City public schools and youth centers. They also train public school teachers and staff in yogic techniques and exercises so they can assist students in focusing their energies. To qualify to volunteer, you need a minimum 7-year practice, a 200-hour yoga teacher certification, and have individual yoga teachers insurance. Contact Courtney McDowell at courtney@bentonlearning.org. for more information

Yoga for Youth
Y.O.G.A. for Youth brings yoga, meditation, breathing techniques, chanting, deep relaxation and stimulating discussions on the philosophy of yoga to urban youth. Its curriculum is being taught in juvenile detention facilities, prisons and after school programs and to pregnant and parenting teens. Ways to serve this organization include donating the proceeds of at least one class to Y.O.G.A. for Youth, list your committed Yoga class on your website and/or sign your teachers or yourselves up for the Y.O.G.A. for Youth teacher training.

Kula for Karma
Kula for Karma offers therapeutic yoga, meditation instruction and stress management support services—at no charge—to those who have been challenged by difficult circumstances, including illness, addiction and abuse. Many of the people they serve would not otherwise have access to these therapeutic interventions.
To get involved, go to the above link and fill out an application.

Jewish Association for Services for the Aged
JASA's mission is to sustain and enrich the lives of the aging in the New York metropolitan area so that they can remain in the community with dignity and autonomy. JASA’s three senior centers in Co-op city are in desperate need of yoga instructors. To volunteer email volunteer@jasa.org. You will need to fill out an application form and go to an interview.

The Lineage Project
The Lineage Project teaches yoga and meditation to at-risk and incarcerated New York City teenagers to help them consciously manage stress, increase self-awareness, and cultivate compassion and commitment to peaceful community engagement. It strives to address the high rate of youth incarceration and disproportionate confinement of racial minorities from low-income neighborhoods with positive intervention. The organization offers 4 yearly trainings at area yoga studios for those interested in teaching for their program. For more information go to www.lineageproject.org. The next one is being held at Abhaya Yoga in DUMBO on January 29.

Blissful Bedrooms & Yoga Wonderland
This organization, run by Martha and Alex Gold-Dvoryadkin, does bedroom makeovers for children with serious disabilities who are often restricted to their rooms.  The Gold-Dvoryadkins are looking for volunteers of all types with a wide variety of skills – from painting and carpentry to making lunch and driving the supply car.  Each project takes about one weekend and, depending on what tasks a person commits to, they work for the required time need.  Martha Gold-Dvoryadkin asks that volunteers who sign up to help, do their very best to meet their commitments.

In addition to makeover weekends, the organization needs support relating to the business/operational aspects of their projects.  Scroll down their wish list to find out more by clicking here.

The first of Patanjali's 8 limbs of yoga, the yama, are half of yoga's ethical and moral guide on how to live a better life.  But many of us come to the mat without a lot of background in ancient texts and even less of an idea how to implement these seemingly arcane concepts into our practices and lives. 

In the midst of trying to execute a perfect dropback into urdhva dhanurasana, it's easy to forget that asana is not our only tool for living a more connected and happy life.  Ahimsa (non-violence), Satya (truthfulness), Asteya (non-stealing), Brahmacharya (continence or celibacy) and Aparigraha (non-hoarding or non-greed), the five yama or self-restraints, offer us another way to access the connection and peace that yoga offers.

In this first of a two-part series on the ethics of yoga, Alex Phelan asks four NYC yogis, Swami Sadasivananda, Mark Wolz, Lesley Desaulniers and Nikki Costello (bios follow) about their own understanding of the yama in their lives and their classes.

What role do the yama play in your life?

SS:  As the ethics, they are the foundation of spiritual life.  While it can seem difficult to achieve other goals, like meditation, you can practice the yama all the time.

MW: They are a constant reminder that helps to keep me conscious because I need to be very alert to observe them.
LD: They are a foundation for the way that I relate to others, to myself, to the way I think, and to the world around me.
NC: They are always present.  The challenge of yoga is that it is a living philosophy.  The more we are able to see that it is alive, the greater our ability to embrace it and see it in every moment.

How do you bring them into classes?

SS: The yama have to find their expression in everyone's life in the form of self control.  Not as suppression but by identifying the desires you have that curtail your freedom and removing those obstacles.
MW: I try to observe the yama as I teach.  I remind people to be mindful of how they treat their own body and mind and how they treat the people around them.
LD:  What I do matters and radiates outward, not only for me, but also for my students.  The more that I practice the yama in the way that I live my life the more students pick up on it and start to ask questions.     
NC: Organically. There are moments when teaching the yama and niyama become a natural extension of what is happening. By watching students practice and observing them closely, there is an opportunity in every class to draw a connection to the way we conduct ourselves.

Would you agree that ahimsa or non-violence is the primary yama or is there another that you think is central?

MW:  When you look at a lot of statues in Asia, you often see a figure that has a number of arms, the limbs all operating simultaneously.  I see the yama as operating that way and all being equally strong, equally important.  We are meant to use them all at once.
LD: I think non-harming is the essence of the yama and encompasses all of the others.  But it's not only in actions, it's also in a way of thinking and relating to the world.  Ahimsa is in not judging others and respecting everyone's individual dharma. For example, if you are a vegetarian but are judging other people, are you really being non-harming?  The practice of ahimsa is a means to perfect our actions in the world.    
NC: It is possible that through one all the others can be illuminated, but it's not possible to say that one is most central.  I think satya is an essential component because it involves being truthful to oneself.  If we are truthful to ourselves we won't put ourselves into inappropriate or violent situations. 
SS: Ahimsa is the highest expression of the divine laws that sustain creation.  It is both about not hurting someone in thoughts, words and deeds and also promoting positive practices that eliminate suffering.  All other yama and niyama are there to support ahimsa.

Some yama, like brahmacharya or celibacy, can be confusing.  How do you interpret this particular yama in your own life?

SS: It really means the control of all senses and the mind in its totality, not just in regards to the sexual; any form of indulgence is a break in brahmacharya.  You preserve your energy in order to use it for spiritual work.
LD: The second chakra is the center of sexuality, but it is also the center of creativity.  I think we can use our sexuality in a way that increases our creative power, or we can use our sexuality in a way that abuses and manipulates others.  Brahmacharya to me is using sexual energy as empowering and enlightening to connect you with others and yourself. 
MW: Brahmacharya ultimately refers to the energy that all of us have, especially sexual energy.  I think of it as a cosmic force; a very fundamental energy that wants to be expressed. What brahmacharya is guiding us to do, is to be aware when you are feeling that force and choose how you are going to use it. 
NC: It's tricky if you read it as celibacy, but its not tricky if you read it as relationships with integrity, truthfulness and honesty.  It's not saying everyone has to be a monk, it's about how you express moderation in everything that you do.  It can be cultivated with self discipline, moderation and healthy relationships.

Aparigraha, non-hoarding, is another complex one. How do you relate to this concept?

SS: There are many desires and a few needs.  Once you fulfill a need it subsides, whereas desires, once fulfilled, continue to grow.  I have a problem with too many books, for example.  Any kind of excessive accumulation is hoarding, so aparigraha means not being psychologically dependent on something that you have so that you always desire more.
MW: If you learn to appreciate things for their intrinsic qualities, then you develop a greater appreciation for them.  So you're not driven to own it or control it, and you begin to realize that everything exists in its own right.  If you're not trying to own or control something then there is no sense of greed toward it.
LD: It means that your relationship to the stuff you have is peaceful.  It is about noticing if you are getting really caught in the externals of the world and, in so doing, releasing that me-first attitude that causes a lot of sadness. 
NC:  Why covet what we think someone else has, when everything we could every truly want is already in us.

Any suggestions on how we can bring the yama more actively into our social lives?

SS: I think this is a matter of education.  It is our responsibility to teach the idea that yoga is not just asana and pranayama, but that the yama are the foundation of the practice. 
MW: We need to view them as choices and not be judgmental about them.  Every day we make choices and need to observe the consequences.  It's observing the consequences of my choices that teach me the yama. 
LD: To have a daily spiritual practice; it can be meditation, asana, mantra.  Whatever it is, do something everyday that connects you to your Self.  If you really practice everyday, the yama will come naturally. 
NC: Yes, cultivate them within ourselves and lead by example.

Bios
Swami Sadasivananda is the head of the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center in New York City.  As a renunciate or sanyasa, he has taken the vows to continue the teachings of Swami Sivananda and Swami Vishnu-devananda.  He teaches hatha yoga classes as well as courses in meditation, philosophy and the practice of keeping a spiritual diary.

Mark Wolz holds a BS in Psychology and an MA in Anthropology.  He is primarily trained through the Integral Yoga Institute, but also finds his influences ranging widely through the NYC yoga community.  Mark is teaching two 5-week courses on the yama and niyama starting in January of 2012 at Integral Yoga, check out our YogaCityNYC events listing for more information!

Lesley Desaulniers has been studying yoga and meditation since 1996.  In her early twenties, Lesley was a resident at Ananda Ashram in upstate New York, where she intensively studied Sanskrit, meditation, philosophy, and Hatha yoga. She was later certified at the Jivamukti in downtown Manhattan.  She teaches at Prema Yoga in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

Nikki Costello is a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher and has been teaching yoga for 18 years. She has studied with teachers such as Sharon Gannon, David Life, John Friend and Mary Dunn and in 1997 she became a student of the Siddha Yoga path.  Nikki teaches at the Kula Yoga Project.

I basically taught myself to cook. When I was young, I loved spending time with my mom shopping for ingredients at the specialty food stores near our house and being in the kitchen with her.  Although my mom's repertoire was very small, I learned to make all of her dishes, the comfort foods of my childhood.  I have also been watching cooking shows since high school. There was a chef who had a blue kitchen...

When I first became vegan, I ate out a lot.  It took some time to develop my palate and get interested in vegan fare.  When I gave birth to my son, we hired vegan chef, Telah Quemere, to come cook for us.  She prepared great meals for us like baked tempeh with quinoa pilaf and butternut squash croquettes over the course of four months.  Once I saw what she was doing, I realized that if I put my mind to it, I could cook too.
 
Fist, I started to rethink the dishes my mom made like stuffed cabbage and matzo balls and veganized them.  Then I watched the cooking shows with a new eye as a way to get ideas and techniques.  I bought a few cookbooks by great vegan chefs for advice.  There is also a big vegan blogging community and tons of recipes online. What it comes down to is personal taste. The bottom line is that you have to make it work for you!
 
Here are my top 16 tips for cooking vegan:

Getting Ready:
 
1 - Read a recipe in its entirety before you attempt to make it.

2 - Determine what ingredients you like and don't like and then adjust the recipe accordingly. I don’t like ginger, so I leave it out.  I take out any vegetables that I dislike such as fennel and eggplant.  My husband is against mushrooms in principle, so they are off the menu.

3 - Google recipes, read cookbooks.  Have your go-to books and blogs. I love the book Great Chefs Cook Vegan because the photographs are gorgeous and inspirational.  Isa Chandra Moskowitz at the PPK.com is a great resource because of her creativity. Don't be afraid to experiment and throw away, if necessary.  It is part of the learning process.

4 - Get to know your local markets and when they get they get fresh produce deliveries.  Shop accordingly for fresh vegetables and greens.  Try to buy what’s in season, what looks good and interesting, and then when you get home challenge yourself to create a fun meal.

5 - Get out of the kitchen in under a half hour or it will become a chore.  Some recipes require more time and effort, like say a lentil loaf or a challah, but these can be Saturday afternoon projects.

What You Will Need:

6 - The kitchen implements you must have: a great knife, a food processor, a blender, a big skillet with sides, a non-stick skillet, a small pot for rice, a medium pot for soup, a large pot for pasta, cutting boards, tongs, and baking sheets.

7 – Have these staples on hand so you can whip something up at any time: dried beans, rice pasta, rice, quinoa, millet, frozen vegetables, olive oil, sunflower oil, tamari, maple syrup, baking soda, flour, cocoa powder, vanilla, lemons, salt, pepper, and dried herbs and spices.

The Meals:

8 - Many traditional dishes can be veganized.  It is really about flavor and texture. For example, marinade that is used on poultry or fish can be used on tofu.  Serve with a nice side dish like rice or baked potatoes and fresh vegetables and you have the perfect ‘blue plate special.’  You can use tempeh in place of meat in bolognese sauce (same ingredients except for the meat and it is delicious).  Make your own cashew ricotta and use it in stuffed shells and baked ziti.  Make chickpea salad by combining chickpeas, red onions, carrots, lemon juice, relish, veganaise and you have a great alternative to tunafish salad. Use miso in pesto instead of cheese for texture and salty flavor.


9 - Tofu is not as gross as you might think if you press out the water and season it well. It is great marinated in chimichurri sauce, breaded with Italian seasonings and fried, and tossed with noodles in peanut sauce.  Get a TofuXpress, one of the best kitchen inventions ever.  It presses out all of the water very quickly; no more paper towels or trying to weigh the pot down just right.
  
10 - Tempeh tastes great as long as you season it with a little tamari (or soy sauce) in the marinade.  You can make it quickly or marinate it for a few hours.  Add a sweetener like maple syrup or agave, then other flavors such as mustard or lemon juice.  You can bake, braise, or grill tempeh depending on how much time you have. 

11 - Beans are best when you make them yourself.  Soak them overnight and cook them in the morning.  It is so easy and you will never go back to mushy canned beans again.  You can make navy beans, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, black beans and more. 

12 - Nuts are a great form of protein and can be added to many dishes.  Cashews can be made into a ricotta style cheese that is fabulous in lasagana.  Walnuts can be used in pestos. I always put pistachios in salads.  Unless there is an allergy, be creative!
 
13 - Quinoa and millet are just as easy as rice to cook. Use equal amounts water and grain and then make pilafs or stews with vegetables and beans.

14 - Vegan deserts are fantastic and because the vegan lifestyle is so healthy, there is always room.  Try my chocolate chip cookies, baked doughnuts, or frozen chocolate covered bananas – all of the recipes are on my blog.

15 - Onions make everything taste better.  That is just a fact!

The Big Question
 
16 - People always question the vegan’s ability to get protein – especially young children. First we have to understand that we don’t need as much “protein” as we have been led to believe.  Second, protein comes in many forms.  Plant based diets are high in protein in the form of tempeh, tofu, nuts, bean, grains, and greens.  Eat a combination of these in every meal and you will be fine. 
Here is a sample day: (all recipes are on my site)
Breakfast – almond milk smoothie with frozen bananas, almond butter, and almond milk.
Lunch – salad with nuts, spinach pie with hummus and toasted pita
Dinner – chickpea and zucchini curry with raisins, cashews, and rice

Ps. The More You Cook, the better cook you become

Lisa Dawn Angerame.

Lisa Dawn Angerame is an Advanced Certified Jivamukti Yoga Teacher. In 2010 she co-founded NavaNYC, a company dedicated to bringing yoga and meditation into the workplace. Lisa Dawn lives in New York City and Northport with her yogi husband and yogi baby. Together, they own Project:Yoga, Jivamukti Yoga in Northport. Lisa Dawn publishes a vegan food blog called Lisa’s Project Vegan.  

“With one breath, with one flow
You will know
Synchronicity.”

These lyrics were written by yoga devotee Gordon Sumner in 1983, better known as Sting. And the’ve proved prophetic, because on December 23rd, 2011 at 11 am NY time, two teachers will create synchronicity in a way that Mr. Sumner would certainly appreciate.

Tamar Samir will be leading a Yoga class at Jivamukti New York, and over 3500 miles away, Nora Heilmann will be leading an identical class at the Jivamukti studio in Amsterdam. Thus, two sets of students will be united in breath as well as in flow. Will there be an extra-sensory connection among the students? That’s exactly what the two teachers are planning to find out.

Tamar has been working with the notion of synced-up classes for some time. "I'm originally from Israel (which borders Lebanon) and I had this idea to do two simultaneous classes, one on the Israeli side and one on the Lebanese side." That particular event did not come to pass due to permission and safety issues. "But I still had this interest in this simultaneity of action, and what it would feel like to move together, breathe together, do the same chant. Then I met Nora...and she had been doing all these choreography projects that were performed at the same time in different parts of the world. So together we were interested in this idea of simultaneity."

Touted as “An Experiment in Time, Space, and Yoga,” the dual-class welcomes all cosmic surfers who would like to experiment with pranic collisions.  “A pranic collision would be an encounter of subtle energy (prana) rather than solid matter,” Nora explains. “We can imagine the physical body as it is made up of bones and muscles, but we can also imagine the subtle body made up of nadis (subtle energy channels) like a network of electric currents. The yogi is dreaming the unity of all things into existence...by letting go of the concept that we are a separate self, we can tune into the cosmic body of vital energy currents (cosmic flow of prana) and expand our perception beyond the limitation of a physically limited body.”

"Think of the subtle body as being the entire world," adds Tamar.

“When you open your ears and listen deeply you can tune in like a radio,” says Nora. “You can ride on other people's waves of prana. I am sure we can have a pranic rendezvous, if we are open-minded enough.”

No electronic devices will be used in this experiment. “We are hoping to educate and fine-tune our senses and possibly explore the 6th," says Nora.  "Therefore our human technologies seem much more exciting to us than Skype or satellite!”

The concept has already gotten a lot of positive response in the world yoga community. “We have people not in Amsterdam or NYC, who plan to synch with us and practice…in Australia, UK, Germany, France, and Canada, ” says Tamar.

The cosmic surfers suggest that if you can’t attend the class, time-sync with them by doing your own practice and sharing the vibe of inter-being on Dec 23 at 17:00 Amsterdam/ 11am NYC time. Who knows, it might work? To learn more, click here.

--Jim Catapano

Katonah Yoga, which opened upstate in 1991 now has a second studio in Chelsea. Noted teacher Nevine Michaan and her daughter, Danielle Michaan, have created a space for Yoga and Pilates in a light-filled studio painted a cool breath of blue. Their practice?  “It is informed by organic pattern, with the idea of manipulating form with particular attention to function,” explains Nevine.”
 
YogaCity NYC writer Gina de la Chesnaye sat down with the mother/daughter duo behind Katonah to find out what they are offering.
 

Gina de la Chesnaye: Why did you decide to open a New York studio?

Nevine Michaan: The main reason is that I have taught for 35 years and a lot of our students live in Manhattan. They take the train up, come to class and then train back. So, this move is organic. It’s the right time. I first taught in Manhattan on the Upper West Side and when Mary Dunn came to NY - I was having my 3rd child at the time - I gave her my studio and moved to Westchester. 

Danielle Michaan: My mother and I had discussed opening a studio for years,
but the timing was never quite right.  I was at a crossroads between moving to San Francisco where I would pursue a pilates certification or staying in NYC. Abbie Galvin made the move to Manhattan, my mother's material was in high demand, and I had discovered such inspirig teachers in New York. It seemed the perfect time and opportunity to build a community here.  


GC: As new players here, how are you finding your teachers?  

NM:  Since most of our teachers have been coming to Bedford, it was natural to ask if they were interested in teaching at this studio.  They come from different lineages so each one synthesizes and teaches this material in their own style and language.   


GC: What do you think are the benefits or disadvantages to working together?

NM: My mother and I have always made a good team. We are both so different and I feel like that is both our biggest strength as well as obstacle. The studio is a balance between my vision and her teachings. 

NM: I see myself as the mind, the method and the imagination of  Katonah Yoga. Danielle is the heart of it.
 

GC: Is there a word or phrase that you can think of that would characterize how you want people to think about this studio?

NM: Everything we do is about people finding the techniques to participate in their own personal well being. 

DM: We hope to appeal to people beyond yogis.  The studio reflects more of my own practice which includes yoga, pilates, strength training and boxing.

 
GC: What is Katonah Yoga NYC offering that is different from other studios in NYC?

NM: From the start of my own practice, I was interested in the confluence of Yoga, Confucianism and Taoist theory.  My fascination with sacred geometry grew out of that confluence as well as a belief that yoga asana can be set upon a radiant mental compass in order to understand and express the form more deeply. We also do a lot of group therapeutic diagnostic sessions. 

DM: We made a conscious decision to keep a light weekend schedule to make room for workshops and special classes.  We have a partner yoga class with Philip Askew on our weekly schedule as well.


GC: Any special workshops in the offerings?

NM: Yes! Abbie & I are teaching a few this month, including intermediate/ advanced inversions and restorative.
 
Katonah Yoga at 267 West 17th Street  is open now. A full schedule of classes and workshops can be found at katonahyoga.

It can be rough when life throws major curves your way. Most of us know that.  We do our practice on the mat so that we can live more flexible lives in the real world. In a way, we are all carving out our own playlists from what we’re offered. But it’s not always easy to flow from one song to the next, or even the next verse. But Mel Russo, yoga teacher and studio owner of Yoga High, with Liz Walker, has taken some of the rockiest tunes out there and turned them into wonderful melodies.  She explains how she does it to Carly Sachs.


When where was the first time you practiced yoga?
I was living in LA in 1995 and I took a class at a Crunch gym. My sister had been trying to get me to try yoga for a long time but I was ignorant and thought it was “weird”.

First NYC studio? 
When I first got back from LA in 2000, I was living in Stuyvesant Town. The nearest studio was the Movement Salon on 3rd  Avenue. From a friend’s recommendation, I ended up taking Elena’s class (this was way before she was “Elena Brower”).  While in LA, I had been practicing Anusara Yoga about 6 days a week and was also taking a class from Max Strom. I knew I wasn’t going to find another Max Strom here in NYC so I gravitated to the Anusara world. And at the time, Elena was the only Anusara teacher here and she was wonderful.  I went back to LA to do my TT with Max at his old studio Sacred Movement. There was no method or style here in NYC that spoke to me the way that he did.

Was it hard to find your first job?  Did you have to waitress or house clean,
to help pay the rent?
I was extremely lucky that I got my first teaching job teaching at a small studio in the east village called East Yoga.

I also had a part time job at a hospital that I was able to keep while teaching 3 days a week. I am one of the only yoga teachers I know that didn’t have to pound the pavement auditioning to find a teaching job. I stayed put at that small studio (where I eventually became the manager) until leaving to open up Yoga High.

Tell me more about what it was like opening up Yoga High.
It was a dream come true, really. I had been managing for about 2 or 3 years and it was very clear that I was meant to own my own studio. I loved everything about it; from talking with students every day to picking out the smells, to coming up with the schedule. My business partner, Liz Walker, and I have a real love for the business side of owning a studio. It’s extremely challenging to juggle teaching and owning but it’s worth it to see your dream come to life. And the best part is our dream makes so many people feel good and that was our goal.

How do you balance being a teacher as well as a student?
At times that is really tough. I think it’s even tougher when you’re balancing being a teacher, a student, and a business owner. I make sure that I have a meditation practice and that I take classes from teachers I love like Kristin Leal at ISHTA Yoga. I go to LA a lot and so I take classes with Anthony Benenati when I’m there and of course Max Strom. I also practice a lot at my studio because I think it’s important to keep being a student. I also love going to different studios and taking teachers that I’ve only heard or read about. I just took at class at Bija, a new studio that just opened in Union Square and I took a class with Sarah Bell of Yoga Works. I always walk away with something new as a student and as a teacher. Sometimes it is as simple as, I loved a song they played or I loved a sequence they used. Even if I disliked the class and the teacher, I’ve learned something about myself and how I handle being unhappy in a yoga class. That makes me understand my students more and (hopefully) makes me a better teacher.


How has this study and practice of yoga impacted your life?
Being a native New Yorker, I am definitely not mellow, I have that NY pulse and I think that yoga slows me down and taught me how to breathe. It taught me a ton about my body because I have had a ton of surgeries and in some ways it has been incredibly frustrating because I need the movement of yoga because it makes me depressed when I am not physically able to move. So when I am dealing with these surgeries I have to figure out a way to move so it’s taught me to be patient with myself.

Can you tell me more about your surgeries?
I had thyroid cancer in 2006 and I’ve had 3 foot surgeries and I had to relearn how to use my feet and I still have major scar tissue on my feet and so I’ve had to figure out a way to practice that works.

I also have a really bad back and I’ve learned that I can’t go to certain studios because they don’t warm up enough for me and what I need in my body but they don’t do the kind of warm ups that my body needs which is frustrating because I want to take those classes. But because of where my body is now, I can’t take them without walking out in pain.

This past May I had breast cancer and my right arm still isn’t healed yet. I’m told that will eventually go away, but again it creates a new way for me to adapt my practice.

Can you speak more about how you have adapted your practice?
It’s really interesting to not be able to do something that I could do so easily before. The other day, I went to demo side crow and I went to do it as soon as I bent my right arm I couldn’t hold myself up. It’s rare to have a moment like that. In my own practice I forget what comes easily.

How has that translated into your teaching?
It humbles me and I have much more compassion for students because I’m really comfortable with things I can’t do because of all the injuries and restrictions in my body.

We have this joke at my studio that the big back benders go to Liz and people who are not quite as flexible come to my classes and I do a lot of deep warm ups (hamstrings, spine, low back, breathing) because this is what I need in my personal practice. I give people time to really warm up. I do what works for my body. You really do teach how you practice.

I totally fell in love with Max Strom because of everything he has been through, being born with clubbed feet and working with so many injuries and he has so much compassion. His teaching basically boils down to this: you are wonderful and doing the best you can. We all come with our differences. So be who you are.

I’ve heard through the grapevine that you have some rockin’ playlists, can you tell me more about that?
I play what inspires me but I know not everyone is going to like my music and I get it. But every few minutes the song changes and I think that’s a metaphor for how I want to live, patient, deeply listening, and knowing that everything changes.

Almost anyone can find their aum in the quiet that comes at the end of practice.  But what about when a baby is making its way out of the birth canal?
 
If the true stability and fruit of practice is revealed in how one faces events off the mat, I can think of no greater challenge than that of labor, when another human being enters the world through the portal of the body.

How has this profound experience affected the way longtime teachers and practitioners view their practice?  How did their yoga affect their births? Do these lessons inform one another?   Here is what four mama yoginis-- Lauren Hale, Liz Buehler Walker, Leslie Desaulniers and Kristen Leigh -- reported.

How present is the memory of your labor today?  Where does your body store those memories? 

LH: When I get my period, there is a faint, diminished re-experiencing of it, mostly in my pelvis and breasts.  Birth makes you aware of the different bodies that make you up, like the koshas in yoga—especially the hormonal body.

LW: I feel more weighted, more connected to the ground, like I take up more space. I feel it in my legs -- their strength and ability to carry me through.

LD: Almost everyday, in moments of stillness—the focus, steadiness and strength that reminds me of our journey together.

KL: On my son’s birthday.  The C-section scar is barely visible now but my abdominal muscles store the memory. 

Did you find that resources cultivated by your years of yoga practice helped you to cope with-- and stay present--to birth? 

LH: Yes. The connection to the breath and the ability to make myself breathe - even when I felt I couldn't or felt overwhelmed - and to be soft with myself.

LW: Remaining calm and keeping a deep strong breath in the midst of intense physical challenges. The ability to go into a relaxed state quickly and deeply. This helped me rest between contractions.

LD: Prenatal yoga teacher Mia Borgotta was my doula, so the 26 hrs of labor was a yogic journey.  She was so strong and concentrated, and I followed her. She was not afraid of my pain, and wouldn’t let me tremble, telling me to say ‘yes’ to the experience to ‘let go into it’ and ‘soften.’ She held me and breathed with me like she was mother earth wrapping around me, telling me not to be afraid.
I repeated the mantra, 'Ma Ma Ma.'  On my birth altar, my husband placed a picture of a huge, fierce, loving Durga trident we had visited at a Shakti temple in North India.  It represented the aspect of my own feminine divinity that is also so incredibly strong – able to withstand enormous pain, only to come out more joyful and wise.  

KL: My labor lasted from Friday to Monday afternoon, so a lot of the yoga went out the window.  The situation guarantees the mind will stay in the present. I was about to turn 43, but my years of practice helped me be strong, flexible and healthy.

Did giving birth change the way you practiced yoga, or the way you understood it?

LH: It made me much less afraid of the really effortful, hard parts of the practice. In labor and as a mother there is no option to bail.

LW: Dramatically. I loved to teach and practice a very advanced physical asana class, but now I am more interested in deep breathing, "connecting" and gathering in.  Because I developed a diastasis while pregnant I will never have my intense back-bending practice again. The trade was well worth it.

LD: I see myself now as a one who has the ability to go deeply into concentrated states of the mind with great fearlessness and trust.

KL: Pregnant, I found that I truly understood yoga -- the breathing, the calming, and uplifting effects, the connection of all things, potent and sublime. I also let my body slowly return to its shape and to take its time to heal, which isn't usually my style.  It took two years.

Once an ambitious astanga practitioner, giving birth helped me to rearrange my priorities. Finding time to practice and to breath and to move was plenty. It taught lessons of surrender. When you have a child, you surrender.

Some women feel transformed by giving birth.  Yoga can also be considered a process of constant transformation.  How do you define transformation?  Was birth this for you?    

LH: Transformation is moving from one state to another-- physical, emotional, mental, energetic.  Pregnancy ends at the moment you become a mother. So giving birth then is both a beginning and an end (or neither or both). In this sense, it has same non-dual quality of yoga.

LW:  Yes.  Yoga is about empowerment -- feeling your own power to move and transform -- to be challenged and respond gracefully, so you become different. 

Birth was a primal experience where I connected to my deepest most raw power and used it in a focused, positive way.

LD:  Steadiness, deep inner peace and bliss are always within us, they simply become revealed through the yoga practices.    We have potential to shed the layers of fear, ego and resistance that block our ability to perceive this.

KL:  Transformation is when we bring to the surface a part of ourselves that has been hidden. We don't become something new, but uncover or reveal something more authentic.  In giving birth, we tap into the strength, perseverance, and love that we never knew we had.

What happens in labor is so unknown and frightening -- it allows us to locate and reveal our resilience and courage.


Lauren Hale Biniaris is a Prenatal, Postnatal, and Hatha Yoga teacher based in New York City. She is also a modern dancer and choreographer as well as a certified Labor Doula.

Liz Buehler Walker is Co-Director of Yoga High on Manhattan's lower east side. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband Chris and their one-year-old son Justice.

Lesley Desaulniers has been studying yoga, meditation, Sanskrit and, philosophy since 1996.  Certified by Sharon Gannon and David Life at Jivamukti she continues to study, practice, and teach daily.

Kristin Leigh co-owns The Shala, where she co-teaches the teacher-training and mysore programs.  A yoga practitioner since mid 1980s, she currently studies astanga in New York and India.  She has been dancing with Pat Hall for over 15 years and is proud mama to 3 year-old Jules. 

--Sara Nolan is the architect of Outlandish Transit, a hub from which she teaches, writes Twenty Four Hour Yoga, and spreads yoga wherever possible. She is currently learning to make plant medicine.

Where do yoga and art connect in 2011 – the year of OWS, the recession and the ongoing melting of the icecaps?  Kimberly Reinhardt, who has been doing art and yoga most of her life, has been thinking about those questions lately. “I make paintings about my experience. For a while when I worked in offices, I would paint about the underside of it to process my negative feelings.  For the last couple of years, I have been thinking about how you continue to practice when things feel like they are disintegrating around you.”

Not easy . . .but Reinhardt says that doing yoga at the Shala has allowed her to find the mental freedom.  “Kristin and Barbara have created a space that allows you to be autonomous, you have the space to be yourself and feel like you are being taken care of.” 

It is, of course, exactly what an artist needs.  Not surprisingly, the Brooklyn-based artist says that the Shala influenced her new works.   The silkscreens and batiks, which are about creating ambiguous narratives that depict the ascension of hope and beauty in the face of fear, will be on display at The Shala at 815 Broadway, second floor, starting this Saturday, December 10th. The opening is from 6:30-8:30pm.  

--Cynthia Kling

Several days after the now notorious 1am raid to rid Zuccotti Park of tents, tables and home-made generators, I visited it to participate in a class hosted by a movement called Occupy Yoga.

The yogis were easy to spot in their white turbans and white clothing. One was setting up a small altar of rocks and shells and tiny avatars by the Tree of Life on the south side. Apparently the previous larger altar had been confiscated during the raid. A security guard approached to ask what he was doing.  At first I felt a little alarmed after having seen pictures of bloodied protestors clashing with cops in the news, but soon the yogi and the guard were laughing and joking and the guard was taking a genuine interest asking about Sikhism and yoga. “For every one person who knocks you down in New York City,” the guard observed, “there are ten people who come to help you back up.”

That evening thirty people gathered around the tree, some standing, some seated on the benches. “Before the raid there were so many people you couldn’t see the ground lights,” one yogi told me. “Most nights there were easily a hundred people participating in this.”

Sat Jagat Singh of Kundalini Yoga Park Slope tuned everyone in with the Kundalini mantra “Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo” and led a set called “Kriya for Radiance” that mostly used breath and arm work. He called out the movements via “the people’s mic” that is when the teacher calls out something and the crowd repeats it back to him.

One of the founders, Hari Simran, told me that Kundalini is perfect for this location as it can achieve a great deal in very little space with simple exercises and meditations.

Next Sat Kartar led a meditation for prosperity with the mantra “Hari Har” and asked the protestors to visualize bright green light all around them. “This is a mantra for the heart,” she said. “Prosperity belongs to everyone, not just a few.” She sang some other mantras including “Guru Ram Das Raakho Saranaa-ee” and protestor songs like “We Want a Government of the People, By the People, For the People.” Protestors were chanting enthusiastically and by the end were up dancing.

Curious tourists, passersby and news media stopped outside the barricades to ask what we were doing. Excited protestors came up to the organizers to thank them for the class. A woman sitting next to me gave me a hug. “We have to start somewhere,” she said. A group of Kundalini yogis then served hot tea and Prasad.

Later I spoke with Hari Simran Singh to get more information.  He’d visited the sight with his friend Khalsa Kaur of Kundalini Yoga East on October 11th. “I was inspired by the energy,” he said. “Meditation seemed like a good thing to be doing at Occupy Wall Street.”

They sat down, tuned in and began the Har prosperity meditation. “It seemed like the appropriate meditation given the economic situation. We have an innate prosperity within. There’s this wrong idea about prosperity that if a few have prosperity everyone else can’t. That’s not true.” They put up a sign that said, “Ask us what we’re doing.” People started talking to them including a reporter from Time.

After that experience Hari Simran made an event on Facebook and texted friends to meet them for class by the Tree of Life that Tuesday at 7. Twenty friends showed up and another seventy-five from the crowd joined in with that class. He found people were open to the meditation experience and the collective unity that is apparent in Kundalini Yoga.

“We found kriyas with English mantras such as ‘Love Is Love’ and the Meditation for Self-Assessment worked well for that space.”  They continued to have nightly classes with a variety of teachers including Fateh Singh of Golden Bridge, the other primary organizer behind Occupy Yoga.

It was then Hari Simran found out the profound effects that Kundalini Yoga had had on the protesters.  “One of our regulars was arrested and taken to jail the night of the raid. He was on the bus with a guy whose zip ties were tight and cutting off his circulation so he started to chant long Sat Nams for the guy sitting next to him. Later the guy said the whole time he was chanting he couldn’t feel the pain.

“Another occupier who’d been arrested came straight back to the park after he got out of jail and when he saw me he told me he was in a bad state. He told Hari Simran he needed to meditate badly so they did a couple of kriyas together. That protester hadn't seriously practiced yoga or meditation classes before.”

Although there are fewer people in Zuccotti now, people are still coming for yoga. Hari Simran decided to take a rest for the Thanksgiving Weekend and is considering the best way to serve the movement. “We’re looking for indoor space now in a studio nearby. People have been complaining that the barricades are making them feel confined.”

On December 3rd there will be a mass meditation around the country, a silent march then meditation before general assembly. To find out about future events with Occupy Yoga look up their Facebook or e-mail occupyyoga@gmail.com.
 
—Marie Carter

When we entered the linoleum-tiled, fluorescent-lit chapel of H-Unit, the medium-security area of California’s San Quentin State Prison, the yoga class was already in progress. James Fox, who has been teaching yoga there for the past 10 years - and is coming to New York next week to train teachers to start a program - introduced photographer Robert Sturman and me to the group. As my eyes scanned the room, every man  nodded respectfully. Fox continued the class, sometimes cautioning his students not to take note of the visitors or any loud noises, and to go inside themselves.

 Judging by the degree of focus and the resulting stillness that blanketed the room, such a reminder seemed hardly necessary.  Fox repeatedly brought the classes' attention back to the moment-to-moment experience inside the body as it goes through different challenges in the poses - reminding the men that a pose stands as a symbol for any situation outside of the classroom.

I saw men quietly berate themselves for falling out of balance, or making weight-lifters faces trying to maintain lunges, but the prevailing sense was that whatever they did, the experience was deeply internal and personal. During the finishing postures, a peaceful quiet settled over everything, and we were spared the din of alarms, gunshots (from the shooting range in the nearby hills where weekly firing practice is held), and the testosterone-spiked clamor from the adjoining yard.

After class, I asked the men how yoga had influenced their lives, and a mild-mannered, middle-aged student named David Williams, sentenced for DUI charges, volunteered : “There were these men on the yard a couple of days ago getting ready to fight. I said ‘If you guys would hold off on that for just a minute, those emotions will start to cool downSeveral nodding heads and knowing murmurs confirmed that the men in this class had experienced impulse control with the help of their yoga practice.

“I think a lot of us don’t realize that you might be ready to act on something, and if you just hold back for one moment the feeling [dissipates], when otherwise you’d be heading for trouble,” said Williams. “Yoga helps with the self-awareness that brings you to pause in the heat of the moment.”

“You actually intervened in a fight?” I asked. It’s one thing to immerse in warm thoughts of tolerance and compassion towards others in the unchallenged environment of an intermediate level class at an urban yoga studio, and a very different thing to live these ideals inside prison.

“Yeah, “Williams laughed. “And it worked?”  “Yeah, it worked,” said Williams. “I was really surprised, but it did.”

The conversation briefly turned to the inmates who won’t practice yoga, who walk by the open door, giggling and pointing, “like we’re back in high school,” observed Cherokee Indian student LittleBear, who wished everyone could do yoga, including the ‘Condemned Grade B’ prisoners: men sentenced to death, who, as opposed to the ‘Condemned Grade A,’ are continually dangerous and violent and known to ‘gas’ (throwing urine and feces) anyone who gets close. Serial killer/rapist Richard Ramirez is among that group.

“You wouldn’t stay in a yoga class unless you’re interested in raising your consciousness,” said Fox. “The real tradition of yoga is self-awareness. [Prison] is a perfect environment in which you’re able to study all different levels of consciousness, from almost the lowest level of consciousness to actual higher consciousness. You have every bit as much of an opportunity to raise your consciousness as I do; maybe even more so, because the circumstances and conditions are more metal-on-metal - more of a challenge - but that also means you can progress more rapidly.”

We crossed an empty yard under a truly magnificent sunset, following our San Quentin tour guide Sgt. Walters to the mess hall where about 450 inmates from the Protective Custody (PC) Unit were filing out the door to return to their cellblock. While  Walters talked with a officer posted across from the mess hall, I observed the huge throng of men dressed in blue filing out: rival gang members, informers, sex offenders; those in need of special protection from the general prison population, treated as the lowest of the low, living in what I’ve heard described as horrendous conditions.

“Oooooh, the bitch,” called out one of the men while he squared off exactly in front of me, like a hissing, puffed up bearded dragon.

Walters brought us to the second yoga class for life-sentenced men, several of whom are behind bars for first-degree murder. I rolled out my mat and it soon became clear that my neighbor Steve, a blue-eyed man with shaved head, would not raise or lower his hands during sun salutes unless I moved first, and he wouldn’t extend his arms out to the side to avoid accidentally touching me.

The class was vigorous; I was unfamiliar with some of the poses, and during an adjusted vashistasana with one knee on the floor I was flailing about, unable to keep my balance. The strange thing was that in this class, though I wanted to come into the full expression of the pose, I felt absolutely zero pressure to be perfect, or even good, because everyone was working hard, concentrating on the task at hand. I never found enough balance to lift my leg up much, but there were no darting eyes or judging looks; the true purpose of yoga was felt in the sincerity of the teacher and students alike.  The energy in the room was heavy with concentration, heavy with the weight of actions from a faraway past, and heavy with silent cries for the ultimate liberation of the soul. The closing meditation was one of the most beautiful I have ever attended.  I could have been with monks in the Himalayas, surrounded by majestic mountain peaks. A pervading sense of peace expanded into timeless joy. I felt happy.

James Fox not only teaches prisoners; he is coming to New York next weekend to train yoga instructors and practitioners with an established practice interested in working in prisons and rehabilitation centers in this area via his Prison Yoga Project.  Fox gives thorough guidance about working with prisoners and prison staff, helps strategize for establishing yoga programs in detention centers, gives hands-on instruction in asana, pranayama and meditation exercises that have proven effective in working with prisoners, and discusses the benefits of yoga for emotional and psychological issues. The experience of taking the workshop creates a deep bond between all who attend, building a growing community of yogis sharing the secret pleasures of karma yoga.

--Anneke Lucas

Special Training with James Fox
December 3-4, noon to 6PM both days
Ashtanga Yoga New York
430, Broome Street #2
New York, NY

Cost: $195
Registration: http://tiny.cc/ioftt

Benefit for Prison Yoga Project
Sacred Yoga Brooklyn
197, Clifton Place
Brooklyn, NY
All day yoga classes by donation, presentation with James Fox at 7PM, followed by silent auction and dance party with Antibalas lead singer Duke Amayo and DJ Chichi Egbuna Spins.

More info re: workshop or benefit: call 917-855 5433

Almost a dozen years into the 21st century, hearing about an important new archaeological discovery is a rare thing. But a few Chinese monks prove that we are still in for some surprises. On Saturday, December 3, their discovery of a long-forgotten practice will be unveiled for the very first time to modern-day women at The Shala Yoga House in Union Square.

Tucked behind a fake wall in China’s White Cloud Monastery for over 1,000 years sat instructions on the feminine practice of qigong. Lost to the world for a millennia, this practice was found four years ago by one of the elder Taoist monks of the Dragon Gate Sect after the protective wall crumbled, revealing the hidden mural beneath.

Depicted in 24 drawings of the Jade Maiden, detailed inscriptions accompanied each picture, explaining the properties and effects of the poses. Written in ancient classical Chinese lyrical verse, the style is similar to Homer’s Iliad, explains Alexandra Damiani, 34, who, along with her teacher, Master Sat Chuen Hon, labored over the drawings for three years, decoding them to ascertain their special teachings.

Damiani, currently a Ballet Master at New York City’s Cedar Lake Contemporary Dance, and who studied at the Geneva Dance Center and Alvin Ailey turned to yoga in 2000 to keep injuries at bay. It wasn’t long until Damiani began a quest in search of more knowledge. “I embarked on a personal journey of self-healing,” says Damiani. “This drew me to delve into my practice of yoga and naturally led me to qigong.”

And qigong, the ancient Chinese health system led her to Master Sat Chuen Hon, a certified Chinese medical doctor in acupuncture and a recognized pioneer in medical qigong therapy. Damiani soon found herself under the teacher’s tutelage, furthering her studies with him in various forms of the discipline.

Still, a principal ballerina and a master of Chinese medicine seem like an odd pair to take on the task of translating an ancient text. But the two have more in common than it would appear. “My sifu, Sat Hon, was given a photocopy of the mural with the understanding that he can decode its ancient enigmatic language,” says Damiani. Turns out Hon is the 21st lineage holder of the Taoist Dragon Gate sect, a form of Taoism that combines elements of Buddhism and Confucianism.

“I have no doubt that my approach to dance and movements partly inspired him to take me as his student and choose to work with me to decode the form in New York. Fortunately, he had also minored in classical Chinese at Princeton University.”

Together, the two embarked on the long, arduous task of decoding and translating the mural’s pictures, both in language and in form. So just how does this new form of qigong differ from the original?

“A majority of 'regular' qigong originated and dominated from the monastic tradition of monks, as in the Shaolin Temple, which has become the most common form of qigong that people practice,” explains Damiani. “Such male qigong does not take in the female physiology, psychology and endocrine uniqueness into their reality.”

According to Damiani, this newfound feminine practice, which she refers to as the Sacred Dance, is a gentle practice where movements are synchronized with the breath to channel the body’s life force and cultivate a woman’s inner light.

During this special workshop at Shala, students can expect to explore the basic movements of alchemical qigong (the conscious movement and observation of the life force in the body), the building blocks for the Jade Maiden form. “The time is now for this feminine practice to emerge to balance the darkness, the aggression and violence with a strength of the yin--feminine force,” she says.

Appropriate for all levels of experience, this workshop is only open for women. Damiani is planning on leading more workshops on the practice throughout the city in the coming year, eventually opening the class to men. This first inaugural workshop at the Shala will be especially meaningful as Hon will be in attendance to bless the female students as well as the space.

“As Sat Chuen Hon told me: Yoga and qigong are branches of the same tree, books of wisdom written in the language of movement.”

This workshop is being offered from 2pm to 4:15pm on Decemeber 3 at The Shala Yoga House, 815 Broadway, New York, NY for $50 if paid for in advance, or $55 the day of the workshop. To reserve in advance, email awakenthesacred@gmail.com

--By Jessica Mahler

Let’s face it… yoga can be intimidating.  Which style to try? What on earth to wear?  For any newbie, the few moments before class can be awkward.  One enters into a studio full of organized mats with slim spandex-clad yogis a top them meditating, practicing pre-class inversions, or chatting away.  Where to set up in this semi-social environment? Now, imagine walking into this scene, new to yoga, as someone well-over 200 or 300 pounds…

Many larger men and women can have trouble finding the courage to get that far.

It isn’t surprising. America has a complex relationship with food and body image.  Not only do we have an ever-growing obesity epidemic, but markedly high rates of body dysmorphia and eating disorders, including the recently-coined orthorexia nervosa, an unhealthy fixation with what is considered to be healthy eating.  The idea “thin is success” is constantly pounded through all forms of media, so it’s no wonder body insecurity trickles into the yoga environment.  Nor is “in” yogawear helpful.  Form fitting spandex emphasizes every bump and roll.

There are also, however, a number of wonderful specialty yoga classes in New York City for bigger bodies. Though evidently strong, Michael Hayes, founder of Buddha Body Yoga on 11th street, is a big guy. As he told me, he’s always been a big guy regardless of how much he exercises or healthily he eats.  The fact that he doesn’t fit into the yoga “mold” inspired him to devise a wonderful highly Iyengar influenced method of yoga for larger students.

Michael’s yoga introduction was at Jivamukti 15 years back, when he began experimenting with props.  Initially, students awkwardly took note of the larger man in the back of the room.  Overtime, however, he became so adept with using props he’d inspire the teachers to offer new modifications to all.  He went on to be trained in the Sivananda lineage, study Iyengar, and work closely with Alison West, Leslie Kaminoff, and Dan O’Lansky.

Michael’s cozy, prop filled studio accommodates up to 7 students.  The majority are females who, on average, range from a size 16-22. For overweight people, simply getting up and down can be a challenge.  Therefore, he helps students “take back the floor by working with the lowest common denominator and then create a new relationship with gravity.”

In a recent class with four students, Michael broke down every posture and worked from the ground up. Throughout all instruction, Michael brings warmth and humor that lightens the mood and forms a sense of unity amongst the students. 

Breathing was constantly emphasized; particularly 3 part breathing from upper chest, low chest, to belly that encourages an open relationship with the upper thoracic chest.  When the breathing in the room was weak, he remarked, “hmmmm… I don’t hear any breathing. You know what I’m going to do about this?” and switched on a digital metronome.  The students seem to have a humorous love-hate relationship with the little device, as one remarked, “Here we go!”. 

Frequently, Michael has students walk around after holding poses to feel the new space in their body and encourage them to remember it off the mat.  Class ends in supported savasana to help soak up the benefits. 

Though Michael’s classes are warm and inviting, larger people can still feel too intimidated to come. Often times, individuals will sign up, even pay for a course over the phone, and still never show up.  Others hear about it and are thrilled that a place has been made for them.  After seeing an article on his classes, one woman drove all the way up from North Carolina for private sessions.

One of the hopes Michael has for his students is that they’ll build up the physical and mental confidence to attend regular yoga classes, and they’ve done just that for Alexandra.  As she told me, two years of yoga helped her “find her feet”.  Though her weight hasn’t changed dramatically, her body perception has, as she’s cultivated a new sense of appreciation for it and quelled concerns about other’s opinions. 

Alex has become a public advocate of the practice.  “Anytime it feels correct, I’ll encourage a fuller figured person to try yoga.”  Likewise, her practice resonates off the mat.  “I’m much more able to see past the superficial layers and have greater empathy and compassion for everyone around me.” 

Author and beautiful plus-size model Megan Garcia,  who teaches every Tuesday and Thursday at the Yoga Collective, explained  modifications and problems for bigger yogis. “We often do breast binding with a yoga strap for inversions, moving the flesh away from working joints for forward bends or lunges, using the wall or chair to take weight off arms in down dog or balancing poses.

At 5-feet-10 and 210 pounds, Megan’s modified yoga transformed her perception of self and fueled her desire to help others find the same peace.  She is about to release her MegaYoga DVD, featuring 4 plus-size New York students, and heads a teacher training for bigger body yoga at Yoga Collective (participants must have 200 hour certification).

What advice does Megan have for those new to yoga.  “Find a teacher you love and stick to them like glue.  Shop around and don't stop looking if you don't click right away.  My advice is that you should feel better about yourself and your body after class. Period. That's my litmus test.”

Yoga City NYC’s talented and awesomely down to earth illustrator Erin Prince  got hooked on yoga for it’s ability to make her more physically and emotionally open.  As someone who has been just over 300 pounds for as long as she can remember, Erin attends regular yoga classes and modifies as needed.  Some of these variations are given by the instructors, others she’s adapted overtime.  “The only heartbreaking part is at the end of class when everyone goes into headstand.  I’m unable to do that.”  She’s learned to block out the few people who look uncomfortable at having a larger person in class and continues to practice away.  She summed up perfectly, “I’m able to do that because yoga is about you and not anyone else.”

-Sophie Herbert

Leslie Kaminoff  is a devotee of the breath and its dance with human physical form. A cofounder of The Breathing Project, Kaminoff has been teaching for several decades, guiding students to a sublime understanding of the human body’s complexities and the role of anatomy and breath in asana. His book Yoga Anatomy, originally published in 2007 and cowritten with Amy Matthews, has become a revered bible for yoga students, teachers, and teacher training programs. Kaminoff and Matthews revised and updated the book for a second edition, which has just debuted.

The yoga teacher and author shares his thoughts about the revision, looking out for the Bikram crowd, and the true meaning of asana with YogaCity NYC's Jeremy Lehrer

Jeremy Lehrer: Why is it that when I’m looking at this book, I feel overwhelmed?

Leslie Kaminoff: I feel overwhelmed whenever I pick up an anatomy book—and I teach the stuff. I can definitely relate to the feeling of being overwhelmed by the details, which is why in the first chapters of the book, I try to set the context of what we’re doing. We’re interested in the spine, we’re interested in the breath. In the new edition of the book, Amy [Matthews] has a lot to say about bones and muscles in terms of how we analyze the asanas. You need a lens through which you can view a subject like anatomy so you don’t get overwhelmed.

JL: What are some of the challenges you confronted in writing this?

LK: Because there’s such a varied experience that people have when they’re practicing, it’s a very difficult book to write. And this is where Amy was a tremendous addition to the team and is the true co-author of the book. Without her I probably would have gotten lost in the details. From working so closely with her, I deepened my understanding of this subject.

Amy is the detail person. She can zoom in to such an exquisite level of detail, and that’s really how her brain works and it’s not how mine works. I’m more the right hemisphere, which sees the big picture, sees how all the details integrate to a sum. So in that sense, working with Amy is like being half of one hemisphere of this big superbrain. And she has the same experience. We have this experience of being exponentially smarter when we’re working together. I can’t overemphasize enough what a brilliant mind she is and what a pleasure it is to work with her.

JL: One of the things I love is your definitions of aspects of the practice like: “an asana is a container for experience.” Can you explain?

LK: It’s hard to write about something that doesn’t actually exist as a separate distinct “thing.” Because asanas don’t really. Asanas are verbs more than nouns—it’s what a person does with their body. And to extract some kind of existence or property out of that experience and describe it is extremely hard. Strictly speaking, it’s impossible, because asana doesn’t exist outside of the context of an individual, living, breathing human being with a history and a body type—and everything that implies—doing a shape with their body. When we say an “asana is a container for experience,” it’s to allude to that fact, that you can’t just say, “Here’s an asana, here are its properties, and here’s this thing that you should now get your body to replicate.” You can’t abstract the asana away from the experiencer and then describe it as if it were some floating abstraction.

JL: How did the material on the breath change?

LK: We simplified the material on the breath in the second edition. I wrote all the explanations about the breath in the first edition. When Amy was going through the asana chapters, we would have these discussions about how I would say this and this about the breath, but that’s not necessarily a universal truth. So we got a little more open-ended and general with the breath explanations to get away from any suggestion whatsoever that there’s a right thing that you should be feeling in this pose. That’s the one thing that we don’t want students to come away with when we’re teaching or when they’re reading the book. Or teachers for that matter—that there’s a right thing for a student to be feeling. Because everyone’s experience is so different. We don’t want a student to come away with the idea that “I didn’t get it.” Every student’s experience is valid, because it’s their experience.

JL: How many asanas are new in this book?

LK: Not many—we added some variations of some asanas. And they happen to be variations that are popular with the Bikram crowd. They do variations on some forward-bending poses where they’re actually encouraging flexion in the spine, as opposed to really extending and lengthening and lengthening: When you bring your head to your knee, you literally want to put your forehead on your knee, and that encourages spinal flexion. And that’s a very useful variation to show because it has a much different effect than if you’re constantly trying to extend your spine and not letting it come into flexion. We’re big proponents of natural spinal movements.

JL: Did you add chapters that weren’t in the first edition.

LK: We added brand new chapters on skeletal and muscular systems, and those are written by Amy, so that’s the third and the fourth chapter—we used to have just two chapters up front. And then the fifth chapter we co-wrote, which is “Inside the Asanas,” which tells you how to use the book, and that’s new. We have a new joint and muscle index. In the back, there’s a lot more of this nicely indexed cross-referenced material. We tried to make it more user-friendly, more interactive, create more ways to get around and within the book.

JL: What is one very specific thing that changed or shifted in your explanations?

LK: When I talk about breathing when I’m teaching, it involves slaughtering some sacred cows that people tend to have around breathing. Like the three-part yogic breath, and that babies’ breath is something that we should emulate because their bellies move—the idea that belly breathing is diaphragmatic breathing and chest movement is something else. So there’s a lot of confusion that’s set in around breathing and the role of the diaphragm and proper breathing, whatever that is. In these anatomy workshops I do, someone will say, “So where did all this confusion come from? How did it get so wrong for so long that people don’t understand some really fundamental things about the diaphragm?” I’ve thought about this a lot, and my answer to that question is some of the new material in the breathing chapter. 

                                                      *
Yoga Anatomy is both rigorously precise and lyrical, a guide that helps us all delve further into our practice, with a greater attentiveness to the inner workings of flesh, breath, and bone, and a greater sense of ease about our own unique composition and, thus, possibilities of form. - JL

Many NYC yogis find ways to give back to the community, but Martha Gold-Dvoryadkin has gone above and beyond.  She and her team of energetic volunteers reach out to severely disabled kids’ with conditions like spinal bifida and cerebral palsy and makes their bedrooms over into happy dream rooms with themes ranging from Fairy Princess and Hello Kitty to the New York Yankees.  This karma yoga all happens through her not-for-profit Blissful Bedrooms & Yoga Wonderland.  Margie Suvalle sat down with the Kripalu-trained yogi to learn more about her generous work.
 
 
What is Blissful Bedrooms & Yoga Wonderland and what inspired you to start it?

It was inspired by one of my former physical therapy students, Tamisha. She is profoundly disabled and can only move her head.  Despite all of her physical limitations, she is witty, present and has a wonderful sense of humor.  My husband, Alex and I talked about what we could do to bring Tamisha some happiness and we came up with the idea of transforming her bedroom.  We spent weeks painting her room, hanging butterflies and applying rainbows.  When the room was complete, we carried Tamisha into the room and she let out the loudest “WOW!” you ever heard.  When we left that evening we felt an unbelievable feeling of fulfillment and we wanted to feel it again and again.

We talked about the experience and decided that helping children with disabilities was not only great for them, but for other people, who are in search of a meaning and purpose and want to make a tangible difference in the community.  We quickly gathered a bunch of volunteers and started on our next project. We consider Blissful Bedrooms to be a Karma Yoga project and a natural extension of Yoga Wonderland.

How many bedrooms have you set up this way?

Next month, we will be embarking on our 12th Blissful Bedroom makeover.

How much does it cost to set one up?

Each bedroom costs approximately $5000.  All labor is donated.  The $5000 covers the costs of the building materials, furniture, electronics, technology, etc.
 
What are Make-Over Weekends?

The makeover weekend starts on Friday afternoon and goes through Sunday evening.  On Friday, we have a team that does the prep work, priming, painting, flooring, etc.  Saturday and Sunday involves building, furniture assembly, window treatments, lighting fixtures, and so much more.  It culminates in the "Reveal Celebration" on Sunday evening when the bedroom is revealed to the recipient for the very first time.  Everyone gathers to celebrate the recipient and welcome them into our Blissful Bedrooms family. 
 
Do you ever do asana with kids in Blissful Bedrooms?

There is never enough room to do asana during a makeover weekend, but many of these young people have been participants in my yoga classes at some time.  During the weekend, we sing Om Namah Shivaya. All the kids love it.
 
Who are the key players in the organization?

The volunteers!!!

Do you teach?

I teach yoga regularly to students with special needs at a special education, District 75 public school in the Bronx.  This is a class of young individuals who are "differently-abled" and perfection is not insisted on, rather the emphasis is put on the acceptance of where we are as individuals and working from there, celebrating who we are, exactly as we are at this moment. I believe with all my heart that this class reflects the true essence of yoga - individuals of all abilities and backgrounds find the common ground and get lost in the vibration of knowing that we are all the same and we all come from the same source, regardless of our physical costume.  I do not have a Yoga Wonderland studio, yet :-).  

Who Comes?

The participants range from those who are severely disabled/non-verbal and may have only voluntary head movement, to individuals who can walk and stand but have physical limitations, to individuals who appear to be physically healthy but have emotional and learning disabilities, to individuals with autism, to individuals with floppy bodies and poor motor planning, etc.. To the average person, or the celebrity yoga teacher worshiper, the class may not look too pretty or fashionable.  To me, it is the must beautiful class I have ever seen!
 
Do you do teacher training programs for your “Yoga Wonderland” classes?

I do lead a Yoga Wonderland training workshop.  It is usually hosted at various facilities like hospitals, schools, after-school programs, etc.  For the past 5 years I have been invited to teach my Yoga Wonderland workshop to the 3rd year Doctor of Physical Therapy students at Columbia University who are pursuing a pediatric career.  This is a great honor and I have witnessed how students who attend my workshop go on to incorporate what they learned in that workshop with their patients and students as they begin their careers.
 
What are the main areas of outreach?

Right now we serve young individuals with disabilities in the 5 boroughs of NYC. However, we look forward to expanding nationally and even internationally as we evolve and grow.
 
How can neighborhood yogis contribute?

They can volunteer during a makeover weekend, contributing in a way that they will be most fulfilled and be able to use their talents and expertise. They can help pre-makeover with spreading the word and fundraising.

 We have a Wish List on our website and there a several areas where we need assistance. Depending on one's talents and abilities, one area may be a natural fit for the them.

--Margie Suvalle

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For more information visit www.blissfulbedrooms.org or contact Martha directly at Martha@blissfulbedrooms.org

New York City, with its teeming masses, cacacophony of sights, sounds and smells, can make you feel a little crazy. It is an overabundance of stimuli. It also is a great opportunity to practice not feeling crazy. When that stranger's shoulder rubs you on the subway, how do you react? When the street cleaner, garbage truck and wailing ambulance all converge on the street you're walking down with your tantrum-throwing child in tow, where does your mind go?

Dr. Jonathan Kaplan, a clinical psychologist, father of two, and Brooklynite, founded UrbanMindfulness.org which provides free resources on mindfulness practices designed for people who live and work in urban environments. The site, he says was created as an extension of his own practice and the noble considerations of what he wants his life to be about.

Aside from having a thriving clinical practice, writing numerous articles and a book, “Urban Mindfulness: Cultivating Peace, Presence, and Purpose in the Middle of It All!”, Dr. Kaplan leads workshops which range from Mindful Parenting to Mindfulness for Improved Performance and Meditation: What’s OM Got to Do With It?

We New Yorkers, who are soon to be beset with even more claustrophobic subway experiences once the puffy coats are donned, need to check his site out. Writer Gina de la Chesnaye got a taste.

How would you best describe Urban Mindfulness as a practice and as an organization?
As a practice it is about bringing our consciuous awareness to our everyday experiences in the city and recognizing opportunities for the practice no matter where we are or what we are doing. One of the central themes of the site has to do with really helping folks reconnect and open up.

My experience has been that living and working in the city most people, when stressed with sensory stimuli, start shutting down and distracting themselves with internal ruminations.  These ruminations are ultimately unsatisfying - they maintain and promote stress.

By ruminations do you mean the constant “storytelling” that we do in our minds?
Yes. Dr. Dan Gilbert, a professor of Psychology at Harvard, did a study where he examined what people are thinking about when their minds are wandering. Not suprisingly what people were thinking about was stressful or negative. This a quality of a the wandering mind. Some people claim that it’s an evolutionary process, that we survived as a species by thinking about what’s stressful and problematic and formulating a plan for that. Comparison, evaluation and prediction (qualities of the mind) are wonderful assets when building a building but nightmarish when turned towards the self.

Because there’s judgement?
Dr. Kaplan: Yes, but even positive judgement as in “I’m so much better than these people or my yoga pose is much better than hers, etc.” is detrimental.

Well, because once you do that – you separate yourself from everyone else and you are reinforcing a lack of interconnectedness.
Dr. Kaplan: Yes and I was prompted to write about this because even though people come to a center to meditate, they don’t talk to each other, and the moment the sitting session is over, the cell phones are back on, they don’t see the homeless people on the street…Mindfulness is really an opportunity to check in with our senses, to feel what we’re feeling, notice what’s going on in our heads and even notice the judging.

When did you first begin to meditate? What was that experience like?
1999. November. My first exposure was through Dr. Herbert Benson and his book The Relaxation Response which speaks of the dramatic effects of meditation on the body, specifically the cardiovascular system and lowering stress.

Do you have a daily practice.
Yes. Even if its very very short… I have a daily practice.

How has it changed your life?
I have learned what my own stories are, what my issues are and how I can get unstuck. And also that I can get free of that but not trying to make it go away anymore.

On the site you mention a Subway Mindfulness Practice. Tell me about it.
There are a couple of different kinds for the subway. Some I have written about and some can be found on the site. Essentially it is about turning attention to your feet. When we are standing, our feet and legs are going crazy because we are maintaining balance…it’s a nice way to cultivate attention and find the ability to hold attention. It’s better to think about your attention on your feet then think stressful thoughts or evil thoughts about the MTA. (He laughs). Look around at the people and imagine something in common with them, break down the barriers (race, culture and diversity) you perceive with them. Even just acknowledging that we are in this (the subway) together or imagining what would make someone laugh…what kind of jokes they like and allowing yourself to be silly is a lot more hopeful and less oppresive.

The issue is one of flexibility…sometimes it may be appropriate to go to the “dark side” or plan stressful things but that doesn’t have to be our default setting.

--Gina de la Chesnaye

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To learn more about Dr. Kaplan's site, click here.

The West Village recently welcomed a friendly new studio, Sacred Sounds Yoga, to Bleecker Street near Washington Square Park. Embracing a variety of traditions, this studio will offer everything from sweaty Vinyasa and Unnata (Aerial Yoga) to Yoga for Cancer Patients and Survivors.

The owner Stephanie Tang found the space through her parents who own the Suzie’s Restaurant downstairs, one of the most popular and well-known Chinese eateries in the city.  Another business was closing, and Stephanie seized the opportunity to do something she’d dreamed of for some time. A long-distance runner, she began to gravitate towards yoga as a way of alleviating chronic injuries. Her vision for Sacred Sounds Yoga was to offer classes in a close knit community setting, but also to provide all-encompassing support to those who need it.  She continues to use her practice to counterbalance her marathon training, and hopes that her background will attract other people who need yoga to counteract playing sports.

There are two spacious studios inside, one with shimmering blue silks dangling from the ceiling for the Aerial Yoga class taught by aerialist, Michele Dortignac. In this relaxing class, you get to hang upside down and use the silks to help you achieve good alignment and support the weight of the body.

The name of the studio, Sacred Sounds Yoga, refers to the sounds made during pranayama; the melodic instruments that are used during the recitation of sutras, mantras or other Buddhist texts; and any music that has aided practitioners of yoga or Tai Chi, as a whole.

Sacred Sounds Yoga offers be a 5-Week Basics Tai Chi workshop on Mondays at 5:45pm; an Intro to ChiRunning class on Tuesday, November 15th at 7:30pm and Stephanie also hopes to offer a Basics Vinyasa Yoga workshop and Unnata Aerial Yoga teacher training.

If you’re excited to try some of these exciting and varied classes, there will be a grand opening party with complimentary yoga and tai chi demonstrations, henna tattoos, Thai massages, food and drinks on Saturday December 10th at 6:00pm-10:00pm. Cost is free, but Stephanie asks guests to RSVP at info@sacredsoundsyoga.com

You'l find Sacred Sounds Yoga at 163 Bleecker Street on the 2nd Floor.

--Marie Carter

I’ve always been fascinated by mudras, those potent hand gestures that can help us balance our energy centers because they bridge the gap between the material existence and higher dimensions of energy and divinity.
 
But you don’t hear much discussion about them so I was interested when I learned that Diksha was giving a workshop at Integral Yoga on the power of mudras to heal and open the heart chakra.
 
I knew I was in the right place when the first words out of Diksha’s mouth, were, “Let’s take time now to sit and connect with our longing.” She noted that sound resonates most strongly in the heart chakra, and that through sound we can “release what is not us, whatever is preventing our connection to the true self.”
 
The heart represents balance and is closely tied to our hands and our skin – so it follows that mudras are a great way to connect to this chakra.
 
Dishka talked us through some of the principles we’d be focusing on, drawing on sources like the ancient Indian Natya Shastra to outline concepts including the nine rasas (emotions) and the five koshas (sheaths). She then explained the science of mudras: each of our fingers resonates to a different vibration corresponding to each of the five elements.  The pinkie correlates with water; the ring finger with earth; the middle finger with ether, or space; the pointer with air;  and the thumb with fire.
 
Mudras balance the energy among these elements, which aligns us with cosmic forces and restores harmony to our bodies and minds. According to Diksha, a mudra must be held for fifteen minutes to reap the maximum benefits.
 
One of the most powerful mudras for me was the ‘conch,’ or Shankh in Sanskrit. In this powerful asymmetrical mudra, the right fingers gently grasp the left thumb while the tips of the left pointer finger and right thumb join together lightly. (Click here to see it. )
 
This mudra brings balance to the heart center by connecting the energies of manipura or solar plexus chakra and vishuddi or throat chakra, which are located directly below and above it. Holding this mudra, we intoned the seed sounds of these three chakras (ram, yam, ham) while moving our arms slowly up and down in breath rhythm. As we released the mantra, I could feel the rippling effects throughout my body, and my hands were literally buzzing with energy. 
 
We also practiced apan mudra, which is beneficial for cleansing and elimination and therapeutic for the kidneys. Join the tips of the middle and ring fingers with the thumb and there you have it. (Click here to see.)
 
With the energy now flowing in and around our heart centers, we progressed into the heart mudra simply by curling the pointer finger into the base of the thumb while keeping the structure of apan mudra described above (this is also called apan vayu mudra). With these mudras we sat in meditative yoga postures like hero’s pose, experimented with toning to open the chakras, and even danced to the recorded sounds of ecstatic Sufi chanting. I felt an elated sense of flow in my hips and along my spine as my body moved almost of its own accord, as if the mudras were taking me along on their own magical journey.
 
Diksha emphasized the importance of regular practice, noting the tendency of many Western seekers to go ‘workshop-hopping,’ without taking the time in our personal lives to flesh out the practices we study. “The guru is not outside of us, though a guide helps. Most important is to do the practice and let the inner guide move us along,” she sagely remarked. 
 
The workshop ended with a series of call and response affirmations in English, grounding the energy and nicely bookending the chanting from the beginning. One that sticks with me: “I have become healthy and peaceful in body and mind.”

-Lauren Tepper

The McArdle Family Christmas Show, Atlantic City:  Mike McArdle belts out “I Have a Little Dreidel” aside his sister Andrea, the original Annie on Broadway as an entourage of Christian dancers jiggle and mime the words behind them.

After about 25 years pursuing a career in showbusiness, the blond-haired, “all-American” crew-cut Mike uses his charismatic charms to get great results out of students at the Om Factory.  According to OM Factory’s Faramarz, Mike is an “out-of-the-box, innovative teacher with amazing assists and touch.”

Katie Clancy sat down with Mike to talk about Bikram, mastering the art of commuting in NYC, and his new yoga DVD with reality star Bethenny Frankel.    

Katie Clancy:  You are from Philly; how did you first discover NYC?
Mike McArdle:  My sister and I were both child actors, and would come often for commercial auditions, which I got lucky and booked often.  I was that cute, precocious kid on Heinz Potato Chip, Johnson and Johnson, Puffs, Wonderbread and Amtrak commercials. After I went to Temple Univerisity, I moved to NYC to pursue acting.

KC: Any apartment horror stories?
MM: I once got a free place to live from the owner of a yoga studio on the Upper West Side where I taught. She turned out to be one of the really shady yoga teachers I’ve met thus far. I ended up enduring three months during the winter in that apt. with no heating or hot water and a big hole in the ceiling.  

KC: Rough.  Let’s go back. How did you get into Bikram?
MM: My first yoga experience was with Bikram, and I got addicted in 1997. Back then, before I discovered vinyasa, I just I didn’t know any better. I loved the idea of repeating and mastering a fixed set of postures, and I was narcissistic enough to want to stare at my body for hours in the mirror.  It wasn’t the heat, although I think subconsciously I was trying to punish myself.  It’s such a misnomer to think that you are burning more calories in a hot room; you actually burn more calories working out in a meat locker. 

The owner of the studio, BikramYogaNYC  told me I would make a good teacher, and so they offered to pay for my training.

KC: And how did you pursue other yoga jobs?
MM: It’s been a slow build; I’ve been teaching 22 classes for the past 12 years.  It was a side job that turned into a full-time career.  In 2001, I moved to LA briefly, and because I couldn’t find as many Bikram jobs, I found my way to vinyasa, and did a training with Sacred Movement. 

KC:You slowly fizzled out of your acting pursuit, but you just made a new DVD with “Skinny Girl” Diva Frankel. What gives?
MM: I used to train her privately, and even though I think the whole reality TV thing is soooo American and gross, we get along well.  When she proposed the idea, I agreed, because I would have never done anything like this on my own.

KC: Any particular pose that you are working on right now?
MM: I am trying to work with more physics and geometry so I can press up to handstand with less kicking. If I took class more consistently at Kula, I’d probably have it down.


KC: How else do you stay in shape?
MM: I rollerblade to work.  Even in the snow, in the dead of winter, I’ll do it. It’s great, but my hip flexors get hella tight.  Also rollerblade between classes.  Hip flexors are tight as shit. 

KC: I’ve also read that you incorporate Pilates into your classes.
MM: Yes, back when I was doing Bikram, I met this old-school teacher who worked with first-generation teacher Romana.  She took me under her wing and certified me.  I was the only man in the training, and the two-hour conversations about neutral pelvis really killed me.

KC: If you could study with any teacher in the world, who would it be?
MM: I’ll admit I’m kind a yoga outsider.  I don’t need a guru.  I’m the meat and potatoes of yoga.  That being said, I would really like to get to know Alison West.  I’ve also studied a bit with Dharma Mittra and loved him.

--Katie Clancy 

Let’s face it: Every once in a while, New Yorkers need a break from the hustle and bustle.  So when our favorite yoga teachers lead retreats, we dutifully follow, traveling hours to mountain locales, warm Caribbean islands, or even India. But getting there can be stressful and can end up setting you back almost as much as the cost of the retreat.

No longer. Nestled along New Jersey’s Navesink River, a 45-minute ferry ride from lower Manhattan, is Seven Arrows, a picturesque estate on 18 acres. Surrounded by the Hartshorne Woods, the three-story homestead—once a dairy farm—has an oversized back porch with ornate latticework columns looking out onto the river and completely immersed in nature.

With such idyllic circumstances, turning the property into a retreat center might have been the obvious decision, but Seven Arrows’ conception would be born out of the pain and loss felt by one family in order to share the joy and magic now found within its walls.

The considerable colonial fell into disrepair over the years as Lucas Knipscher's grandmother got on in age and, in a very Grey Gardens-esque move, only inhabited a few of the 15 rooms. She died in 2006 followed by her daughter in 2008. Lucas inherited the property, which sat empty for three years until  Lucas, his sister, Katie, and Lucas’s partner, Mae Fatto, all moved in hoping to put the old ghosts to sleep and breath some fresh air into the home.

For a year, the three lived there trying their best to reestablish the energy of the 19th-century estate that played such a central role in the family. With grandmother’s antique treasures from her worldly travels still peppered throughout, the estate felt familiar, but still something was missing.

Recovering from a back injury, Mae dedicated herself to physical and yoga therapies, acupuncture, and homeopathy. She then decided to take her practice further once she was strong enough to get her teaching certificate through Greenhouse Holistic.

As part of the program, her training was to conclude with a retreat outside the NYC area before the final exam. Mae’s class, however, found themselves in quite a predicament as plans for the center they signed up with fell through. “I was telling Lucas how disappointed I was to miss this concentrated time with my teachers,” says Mae, “and he suggested his grandmother's house as a last-minute alternative and we just sort of did it. Obviously the house wasn't set up for 25 people, but there was definitely enough space and made it work.”

“When I walked through the front door after that very first rag-tag yoga retreat, I felt happiness and love radiating in the air,” recalls Katie. “The house was buzzing. It felt the way our house had always felt with our mother in it.”

Riding this buzz, the three began working to renovate the grand old estate into a yoga center. They ripped up the carpet in the living room to find old growth maple floors to convert it into the yoga room and other wonderful details from the period.

“We're grateful to have found that the house has great bones so nothing had to be torn out, just a few things needed to be updated or repaired,” says Lucas. “We didn't have much money so we did most of the work ourselves—except for the ancient wiring, which even confused our master electrician.”

They did, however, get rid of the ancient king-size beds, ordering two dozen twins to sleep visiting yogis. “There are three full baths on the second floor and most rooms have balconies, river views or look out over the orchard or meadow,” says Mae. Plus, there is another full bath on the third floor with quarters for teachers and staff, and even a room for the chef and sous chef on the first floor.

Each room has a unique, slightly antique feel: felt brocade wallpaper, carpets that feel like clouds under your toes, walls that call to mind scenes from The King's Speech, beautiful tiling in the bathrooms and kitchen. But there are new editions, too. Lucas built the dining room table and benches, easily sitting 24 people around its square frame, enabling all retreaters to dine together. “It makes for very lively convivial meals,” says Katie.

With the house finally ready to make the transition from family abode to retreat center, all that was left to do was to find an appropriate name.  “Seven Arrows is a book by Hyemeyohsts Storm that explains Native American thought,” says Lucas. “My father discovered it before I was born. He tried to name me after one of the main characters, Night Bear. Luckily, mom intervened and Night Bear was switched from my first to middle name.” Picking up the book in high school to learn about his namesake, it was the first time Lucas had encountered a spirituality that resonated with him. 

“And I've always had an interest in sacred geometry and I thought there was an interesting link between the mandala and the medicine wheel,” adds Mae. “They both offer a meaningful template for balance and harmony. Hyemeyohsts Storm’s teacher, Estcheemah, says, ‘The universe is a mirror of the people, and each person is a mirror of every other person.’ I like to think of our retreat center as a divine mirror, a place to reflect all that is beautiful and hopeful about ourselves back to ourselves and others.”

“My mother was a dedicated healer and a person who truly accepted people as they are,” says Lucas. “Turning her mother's house into a home for joy and practice made perfect sense once the opportunity presented itself.”

If you’re a teacher looking to organize a retreat, email sevenarrowseast@gmail.com for more information. Transportation is provided to and from the ferry, but teachers must book their own chefs. “We are happy to help if they haven't worked with a yoga chef before or are unfamiliar with the process,” says Mae.

--By Jessica Mahler

Iyengar teacher Aude Cardona has a unique mission: to help singers gain greater mastery of their instrument through yoga.  Not only is Aude an accomplished Mezzo-Soprano in the opera world, specializing in Baroque, she’s featured on Jay-Z and Kanye West’s new hip-hop album, "Watch the Throne."  YogaCity NYC’s Sophie Herbert sat down with Aude to learn more about how she got started and her practical techniques to help us all become better singers!

SH:  What's your musical background?

AC: I started playing violin age 4 ½ and continued until I was 17.  At age 5, I started playing with youth orchestras.  I always sang and kindly people said I had a pretty voice; but it wasn’t until I connected deeply listening to Maria Callas and Monsterrat Caballe that I knew I had to be a part of it.  

SH: When did you start yoga? Did it automatically compliment your singing?

AC:I started practicing with an Iyengar teacher in Rishikesh during the summer of 2001.  Right away, I knew it was what I'd been looking for. The precision and subtlety of the Iyengar directions brought me into my body with more intelligence, and I was suddenly able to fully translate the mind-body-emotion connection singing teachers had been wanting from me.

Singing can be taught in a very esoteric way, with a lot of abstract imagery.  Today, these metaphors, such as singing from the third eye - a tiny place in the brain as small as the hole of a needle, make total sense to me, but at the time I needed more palpable directions to work with.  Iyengar provided just that.  

Yoga is entirely about cultivating presence by accepting and working with the current foundation.  Singing strongly parallels this. In fact, in all subjects progress can really only be made when we work from our current state physically, mentally and emotionally. In that regard, singing and yoga are holistic arts.

SH: Specifically how you were able to fully translate the yoga to your singing? 

AC: Before yoga, I experienced a great deal of tension in my throat and could never figure out how to let go.  As I began practicing, my bodily awareness transformed and this habit, bit by bit, was relieved.

First, I noticed that all yoga poses emphasize a stable base, which centered me in the pelvic region.  Overtime, with this new awareness, I started to distribute my energy in the right places.  It was an organic transition and I was soon able to place my energy in my pelvic diaphragm instead of my throat, which alleviated the tension right away.

Another indispensible quality of Iyengar Yoga is the focus on opposition.  For example, as one presses the foot down and lifts up the muscles of your thighs one finds stability.  Singing also mandates the understanding of opposite actions.  For example, many singing teachers will say that as you reach your high note, think down, which means stay anchored in your legs and pelvic diaphragm as your soft palate lifts way up in order to have the air rise freely into your resonators, or the "mask".  Yoga has helped my body and mind better grasp and internalize this concept.

Learning pranayama has been a salvation.  By deepening my inhalations and focusing on my nose and sinus area, I’ve finally been able to sense where the overtones are produced.  It’s a very high, subtle point high in the front sinuses and the top of the skull.  Pranayama has also taught me how to fill up the lungs 360 degrees, extend the length of exhalations, and take soft deep inhalations, with all informs singing.

Lastly, but most important, with practice, asanas and pranayama become meditation in action. In meditation, we bring awareness to the emotional body and become more conscious of how it translates physically.  Singing, like yoga, has the body as its vehicle. This vehicle holds our mind, emotions, intelligence, memory... Each cell sings with the musical intention, with the yogic intention.

SH: What do you teach yogis about the voice in your workshops?

AC: Posture and breath go hand in hand, they are the 2 wings of the singing bird. There are anchor points the mind should never leave physically or emotionally.

There are also areas in which we need to learn how to let go. These, too, go together.  As Lavoisier, French physicist said, "nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed".  So if one is tense in the throat, I’ll help them learn to displace that energy and put it in their legs, pelvic region, or their music for example.

As Pavarotti said, it's all about concentration, or what’s called dharana in Sanskrit.  As mentioned in the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, mastering the limb of dharana naturally leads to the ability to meditate... How beautiful to translate this in our music making!

I like to play and have students discover for themselves. For example, what happens if you exhale during a movement you would naturally inhale in? How does that change inform and affect you? The center of gravity is crucial with breathing; what happens to it when we invert? What happens to our mind when the center of gravity is changed? How does that inform us on an emotional level? These answers can provide a new, invaluable set of tools for singers.

In my last workshop, we did 1½ hours of pranayama.  I instructed the first 4 phases of ujjayi breathing to help students connect with their head voice.  Rather than having them generate the ocean-like sound from the throat, however, I have them originate the sounds from the sinuses.  This encourages the throat, tongue, and even the eyes to relax.  The breath is the foundation for all sound.  One singer I respect greatly, Montserrat Caballe, was forbidden by her voice teacher to sing for one year.  Instead, she had to focus on the flow of her air, which ultimately transformed her as a singer.

We followed the ujjayi with bhramari pranayama, or bee hum breath.  My biggest emphasis is for students to find an anchored sound that’s also highly placed.  Ideally, in singing, all the overtones are generated above the third eye, and humming can really cultivate this awareness.

Next, we did 1½ hours of postures that support the voice by bringing awareness to the pelvic muscles, diaphragm, and the psoas’s connection with the diaphragm.  I have students makes sounds, primarily humming, in these various postures to explore how sound changes in relation to movement and gravity.  A major focus of mine is to help them get out of their throat in all of these poses.  We’ll do restorative inverted postures, like supported vaparita dandasana (which really forces the sound out of the throat!), and more advanced poses like sirsana, or headstand.  Sirsana really encourages resonance in the sinuses. 

SH:  Anything else you'd like to add!

AC: Be present, be in what is, be well. Sing with your heart!

--Sophie Herbert, an alignment focused yoga teacher (and perpetual student, is  an ambassador for Yoga Gives Back, and a regular blogger for Whole Living Magazine.

Aude is hosting a workshop for singers at Sangha Yoga Shala in Williamsburg on the 4th of Decemer.

She also teaches Iyengar Yoga I at Sangha Yoga Shala, Shambhala Yoga and Dance Center in Prospect Heights, Yogasana , the YMCA in Park Slope, and Eastern Athletic in Tribeca and Brooklyn.

A few years ago I was diagnosed with Systematic Lupus, an autoimmune disease.  My main symptoms of fatigue and low-grade fevers subsided somewhat with medication but other symptoms continued to arise.  I was on a slow decline.

At that time, I met Eric Pettigrew, who runs Temple Yoga and is a trained homeopath from the School of Homeopathy as well as a licensed massage therapist.

I worked with Eric, who prescribed Murex Purpurea, a remedy made from a purple sea mollusk and my health improved. The benefits weren’t remarkable in themselves, but together added up to making quite a difference in my overall health.  When I checked in with Eric after nine or ten months I realized that I was no longer experiencing heart palpitations, anxiety dreams, frequent sinus infections, or the palpable fear of losing people close to me.

Since then, I’ve become increasingly interested in knowing more about how homeopathy works, especially since it still seems somewhat mysterious, so I sat down with Eric to get some answers.

A few basics:

• Homeopathy is an approach that has been around since the early 1800s and is now used throughout Europe even though it is still considered quackery by many American doctors. 
• Developed by Samuel Hahnemann, a German doctor, the idea is based on the Law of Similars – or like cures like. 
• A homeopathic remedy can be made from any source such as animal, plant, mineral or any other substance at all and is diluted to such an extent that the actual ingredients cannot be measured by scientific tools.  What’s left is an energetic imprint of the original substance and this is what a person’s vital force responds to.
• The homeopathic approach is holistic and attempts to treat the psychological, emotional and physical wellbeing of the client. 

Molly White:  Who should seek homeopathic solutions?

Eric Pettigrew:  Homeopathy is good for everybody (healthy or unhealthy), it stimulates the vital force (human energy, qi, prana, chi etc…) and this creates balance or homeostasis.  Because nobody is perfectly in balance, homeopathy helps to bring a person closer to a state of balance, or good health and therefore they are stronger and less susceptible to illness.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

MW: In your experience, have ailments been "cured" through this method?

EP: Yes indeed; “cured” meaning free of symptoms and the susceptibility for those to come back or develop further.

But we have to keep in mind here that a “cure” is often part of a process that involves time, keen observation and patience, which are all pretty rare these days.  Most people want a quick fix and to be back to functioning mode right away.  They usually find relief in the more conventional medicine approach (drugs and surgery). I think it’s wonderful in times of life-threatening situations to have access to a drug or surgery, and I agree with taking pain-killers when you can no longer sleep because of pain.  You need to sleep, heal and recover.  And while this might make you more able to function, you are not necessarily “cured.”  You are still miss-aligned or disharmonized. The core or the source of your dis-ease has not been addressed.  You will sooner or later experience a relapse and possibly in a more serious way.

In NY it’s hard to give yourself the permission to recover or to convalesce after a trauma, illness or surgery.  But if we don’t, we are not allowing our qi to replenish itself and do what it needs to do to keep us well.

I worked in Africa treating AIDS patients with homeopathy and saw a good integration of both medicines (allopathic and homeopathy).  It is a beautiful example of how homeopathy can help to relieve symptoms: the patients were on ARV treatment (anti-retro viral drugs) that kept them more or less alive for a time but they were still suffering from all kinds of symptoms from the virus and from the drugs such as nausea, insomnia, neuropathy (numbness of extremity), skin irritation, and also symptoms from the common cold.  They became stronger as a result of the homeopathy and their remaining symptoms were helped tremendously.

MW:  How many clients come to you from yoga?

EP:  About half learn about what I do after taking a yoga class with me.  But others just hear about me from word of mouth.  They often come with acute problems: tension, pain in muscle or joint, injuries to the body, bruise, sprain, muscle ache, pull, or “yoga butt syndrome” (a pull, where the hamstring attaches to the sits bone).  In these cases both massage and homeopathy will help.  It’s easy to keep reinjuring yourself, and because it doesn’t go away, you need to address the root of the imbalance.

Sometimes the treatment addresses an aspect of your imbalance that you weren’t even aware of. I have a client who had chronic asthma and had been on heavy medication and was also tired and depressed.  He was able to cut back on 80% of his medication after treatment and was feeling better after several follow ups; and then he reported also feeling more freedom in the shoulder.  It wasn’t part of why he came to me, but he improved in movement, so his yoga poses are now easier and his asthma is much improved. 

MW: What kinds of cases are cured quickly? What kinds of cases take long-term treatment?

EP: “Homeo” means “same.”  We are trying to match the pace and state of the disease and symptoms.  Usually acute illnesses (fast and intense in pace and symptoms) take less time such as injuries (sprain, bruise, tearing of a ligament, skin irritations, etc.).  The symptoms come as fast and strong as they go, it’s really amazing to watch.  The cure is fast and permanent because with any acute disease, you either get worse quickly or recover quickly.  

Chronic illnesses take time to develop and are characterized by periods of quietness and flare-ups.  Therefore in chronic cases homeopathic treatments usually reflect the same, long treatments with different variants (ups and downs) until the person is cured.  We see this with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, tendonitis (inflammation), asthma and   also cancer.

MW: How do you choose a remedy?

EP: Each homeopathic remedy relieves the symptoms for many different illnesses so it is important to look at all the aspects of a person’s life, and not just their physical ailment, to decide the best remedy.  If someone comes to me with an acute injury like a bruise or cut, arnica is the first remedy I will choose because arnica is known for increasing the blood flow to an area for healing.  Once that problem has been addressed I might assign another remedy for other ailments that might still persist.

Each remedy addresses many different kinds of ailments, and each ailment can be treated by many different kinds of remedies.  For example, phosphorus is a common treatment for problems with the respiratory system, but I might chose a different remedy for a client with asthma for example, if during the intake I learn that he/she is also depressed and is having a hard time at work. And a remedy isn’t always the same for people with similar illnesses.  People have different temperaments, different body types, different weights, and different attitudes.  All these factor in at the time of the intake to help me determine the best remedy for the client.

MW: How is the intake different from a psychotherapy session?

EP: The intake process itself is part of the remedy in that it stimulates the recovery process.  I am not doing psychotherapy with you. My intention is to understand your own experience, your vibration, your vital force, your tone and determine the appropriate remedy.  Both can be long term, however, homeopathy includes the physiological.

MW: Sometimes we're just in a bad funk and maybe feel that things are not turning around, for example with the economy.  What is the homeopathic approach to working with this kind of emotional frustration?

EP: There are two things: the intake, and the energetic effect of the remedy on the vital force, both of which will influence the person’s perceptions of things and events. I often see a client in follow up sessions telling me that they are aware of what they told me previously but that now they are completely in a different place with a different point of view, and with different ways to look at their situation.  They are no longer stuck because they have been stimulated (by talk and/or remedy) to move in a new direction.

MW:  Have you been treated successfully with homeopathic treatments?

EP:  Yes! I had chronic bronchitis since childhood and was always sick with a cold that would lodge in my chest.  After being treated with homeopathy my health and life quality improved tremendously. Even people around me started to notice changes soon into the homeopathic process.  I call it “process” because it’s like a journey that you embark on, a journey into your own self.  Energetically I am in a better place, and it shows in my body, my face, my attitude and also with this bronchitis that I don’t get anymore.

- Molly White

For more information about Eric Pettigrew and his homeopathic treatment practice, please visit his website   

Tucked away in a commercial office building on 43^rd Street is 360Fit, a boutique fitness studio for everyone. Owner Shanna Farrar, a former soccer player and a personal trainer with The Sports Club LA and Nike, opened 360Fit with the idea that fitness is for everyone. Shanna has been offering bootcamp, boxing and core cardio group classes in Central Park since 2008.  She opened 360Fit in its current location near Grand Central in January 2010 and has recently partnered with Connie Viglietti to add yoga classes as the newest option on their schedule.

Yoga classes are on Mondays and Wednesdays at 12pm and 6pm. Shanna and Connie hope to add weekend classes shortly. All classes are an hour and benefit from Connie's combined experience as a Vinyasa trained teacher through Sonic Yoga and also her close study in Hatha yoga, mantra and chanting with Will Dupree and his wife.

All classes, bootcamp and yoga, are limited to 10 participants per class so there is lots of personal attention (which means yummy yoga adjustments!), plenty of space to breathe and with Shanna and Connie's warm and inviting personalities, you'll soon forget about any newbie jitters.

Single classes are $25 while 10-class packages drop the rate to $22.50 per class and 20 class packages bring it down to $20 per class. Class packages can be used for any class. If you choose to take two classes in a single day (bootcamp at 6pm and yoga at 7pm, anyone?) your second class is only $15. New clients always get their first class for $10 and they are currently offering $35 off your first 10-class pack.

--Allison Richard 

Quick Question: Where is your calcaneus?*

Anatomy is a complicated subject. Many yoga teachers and students are intrigued by the names of the bones yet studying it in detail gets passed over in most yoga classes – if it is discussed at all. YogaCity NYC’s Margie Suvalle sat down with six experts to find out how they learned more about their muscles and joints, why it is necessary, and where to learn more about anatomy.

Why did you get interested in anatomy?

Paula Lynch: My parents’ heart disease.  I had to learn a lot fast, so I studied the heart and cardiovascular system.  From there, I started to study physiology and then the muscular system.

Jonathan FitzGordon: When I started doing yoga I had a lot of flexibility, but no strength.  I got hurt and ended up having knee surgery. If I didn’t know how my body worked, then how could it heal?

Genny Kapuler: I took a class at NYU with Andre Bernard, Anatomy for Dancers and I wanted a greater understanding of the body, so I continued to study for the next ten years with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen.

Jason Brown: I got injured a few times early on in my yoga practice, either because of a teacher’s instruction or my own fault. As a teacher, I felt ill prepared to answer questions.

Amy Matthews: I was a dancer and we had a weekend on anatomy and I realized how much I didn’t know.  I wanted to know how I use my body, the movement, the muscles and the anatomy.

Joe Miller: My interest started with artistic anatomy when I was painting and drawing skeleton positions and continued to expand when I started teaching yoga.  I did several trainings that focused on anatomy and I ended up getting my masters in applied physiology.

Do you think the average yoga teacher knows enough about anatomy and how long does it take to learn the basics?

PL: People are more interested these days. The average training is just a starting point.  But people need to pursue it on their own, really understand it. Are they interested?  What are their students asking of them?  How much do you need to learn? The process of learning is ongoing.

JF: No. You don’t need to know anything about anatomy to lead a class, but you do if you want to teach. How long does it take – everyone is different.

GK: Without knowing too much you can lead students and give them direction and guidance. But Iyengar, where I studied, teaches a certain amount.

JB: Absolutely not! There just isn’t enough time spent on anatomy during teacher training. It takes a year.  I created a nine-month program where students meet for three hours a week and then can apply the knowledge to their teaching.

AM: No, because people come out of a 200 hour training with 20 hours of anatomy, which is only a taste. For each person, learning is individual.  You can be a great teacher and not know a lot about anatomy.  However, if you don’t know something, don’t say anything.

JM: You don’t need an anatomical background to be an effective teacher.  You do need to pay attention and know the basics of human movement, the alignment of asana.  The more you know the more it will enrich your teaching and give you more depth. The Yoga Alliance says a minimum of twenty hours gets you started, but you need continuing education and to study on your own.

Do you think that more anatomy should be taught in teacher trainings?

PL: During the 200 hour training there should be more integration of the information.

JF: It takes a lot of time to learn anatomy, so you need to be taught well.

AM: Yes, there should be more taught.

GK: The teacher trainer decides.  Different people are drawn towards certain knowledge. 

JB: Yes, that is why I started my program Anatomy Studies for Yoga Teachers.


What part of the body fascinates you the most?

PL: The respiratory and cardiovascular systems and the physiology mechanism and muscular housing of it all.  Sensing more clearly, breathing.

JF: I am obsessed with the psoas.

GK: There is not one part that fascinates me because it is always changing.  I guess right now it would be my sense of smell. 

JB:  The knee.  It is my favorite joint to teach.  It is weight bearing and takes a lot of force, it is intricate, delicate and important.

AM: Embriology and the origin of tissue.  It starts one place and ends up elsewhere.  The muscles and the skin are closer than the muscles and the bones, so exploring movement from that place.

JM: The nervous system and relaxation.

What is the most vulnerable part of the body during asana practice?

PL: The lumbar spine is already compromised and vulnerable.  We ask a lot of that area and weaken it and then add the stress of asana. 

JF: The psoas.

GK: It’s individual.

JB: The knee is very delicate.  The bones don’t support it, the muscles and ligaments support the soft tissue.

AM: It dependson the person and the asana. Where there is a lot of movement is the most vulnerable.

JM:  There is not one part.  However, the most common ones are the knee, the shoulders, the wrists, the lumbar and the cervical spine.

People constantly complain about lower back issues.  What should a yoga teacher do when someone comes into class complaining of back pain?

PL: Ask a lot of questions and listen.  The more information you have, the more you are able to help your student.  From the information, figure out which poses to avoid and which ones will stretch and strengthen.

JF: Instruct them to stop tucking their pelvis because it is compromising the ligaments and IT Joint.

GK: If the SI Joint is thrown out, then synch the hips in and keep the lumbar spine vertical.

JB: It is usually caused by tight glutes and hamstrings.  Show modifications.

AM: Back pain can be caused by many things.  Ask question about what kind of pain the student is experiencing.  Knowing the sensations can help them identify what it is and how weight travel in the spine.

JM: Think about long-term health, how are your movements creating the problem.  Is it extension or flexion?  Don’t push through the pain, find modifications and ask for help.

What role does anatomy play in the classes you teach?

PL: Anatomy is integrated into the whole class.  It is the environment, not the back drop.  It is unavoidable because the body is the classroom.

JF: It is everything.  My classes are hard because I pound it to the ground, how it all works and more.

GK: It is the main idea that I use.

JB: Anatomy informs the sequencing and alignment cues in my classes.  It is under the surface.

AM:  Anatomy is the jumping off point.  It is something physical to check in with in all of my classes.

JM: It enriches my teaching and creates an understanding of alignment and instruction.  It is always clear and accurate.

What three books do you most recommend?

PL: The books by Dr. Ray Long, an orthopedic surgeon and long time Hatha Yoga practitioner. “Yogabody: Anatomy, Kinesiology and Asana”, by Judith Hanson Lasater. It is digestible and specific.  Lastly, “Light on Pranayama”, by BKS Iyengar because it is poetic and really explains the respiratory system.

JF: “Taking Root to Fly”, by Irene Dowd, “Human Movement Potential” by Lulu Sweigard and “Rolfing”, by Ida Rolf

GK: “Atlas of Human Anatomy”, by Frank Netter, “The Thinking Body”, by Mabel Elsworth Todd and “Primary Anatomy” by John V. Basmajain.

JB:“Kinesiology: The Skeletal System and Muscle Function", by Joseph Muscolino.

AM:  Netter,“The Body Moveable”, by David Gorman and of course “Yoga Anatomy,” which I co-wrote with Leslie Kaminoff

JM: Netter, Judith Lasater’s “Yogabody”,  “Yoga Anatomy” and “Anatomy Trains”, by Thomas W. Myers

Bios:

Paula Lynch is a YogaWorks Certified Instructor and is affiliated with the YogaWorks Teacher Training programs. Her teaching style is influenced by the meditative flow and heat of Ashtanga yoga and the precision and playfulness of Iyengar yoga.  www.yogapaula.com

Jonathan FitzGordon has been teaching yoga since 2000.  He is a Level II Reiki practitioner and the creator of the FitzGordon Method, a core walking program.

Genny Kapular has been teaching yoga for over 30 years.  She is a Intermediate Junior III Iyengar Teacher. As well as a practitioner of Body-Mind Centering.  Before teaching yoga, she was a modern dancer for many years.

Jason Brown is the creator of Zenyasa Yoga, which synthesizes Zen Buddhism, vinyasa yoga and mindfulness-based conditioning exercises.
He teaches classes at the Zenyasa Yoga Studio on the Upper West Side, as well as Anatomy Studies for Yoga Teachers & Movement Professionals. 

Amy Matthews is a certified Laban Movement Analyst, a Body-Mind Centering Teacher an Infant Development Movement Educator and a yoga therapist and yoga teacher.  She teaches an Embodied Anatomy & Kinesiology course at The Breathing Project.

Joe Miller has been teaching at OM Yoga since 2000.  He is on the OM Yoga Teacher Training faculty and is the Dean of OM Yoga anatomy studies. He has his Masters in Applied Physiology from Columbia University.  Joe recently started an anatomy-related blog: Yoga Physiology. 

*Calcaneus is your heel bone.

-Margie Suvalle

Dou Yoga recently opened at 214 Greene Avenue, a lively corner in Clinton Hill. The studio is located in a brownstone, upstairs from a neighborhood market.  The owners, Hamid Elsevar and Yuuki Hirano painted the walls, sanded and finished the floors and picked out plants to make the former, high-ceilinged rooms welcoming to all. There is a small reception area in the back and huge windows in the front.  Students get to practice in the sun all winter long. 

It’s the sister studio to Hosh Yoga and has all the same great teachers like

Becca Broughton and Robyn Polo. The schedule is diverse and includes several styles of yoga such as ISHTA, Kripalu and yoga in the tradition of Krishnamacharya.

Soon, there will be restorative, mommy & me and master classes offered.  They encourage students to vote online for the best class times, so they can serve the neighborhood in the best way possible.  They have already added a 7am morning express 45-minutes class several days a week, for those rushing off to work.

Dou Yoga is for-profit studio, unlike Hosh, but definitely not a gouging profit. Classes are $10. There will also be a coupon on livingsocial.com in the next few months for $20 for 20 classes – who can beat that! Check it out.

-Margie Suvalle

It’s hard to believe that Marisa Sako loves beef and doing hard-core cardio to Lady Gaga.  Young and already allied with her favorite teachers—Alison West, Schuyler Grant, Alex Auder, and Nikki Vilella—she’s got the experience to back up her bang.  According to Grant (who started Kula), “she’s a smart, creative teacher with an underlying sense of humor.” More important, Marisa is a good student of yoga who never stops her own personal inquiry—and has the teaching diplomas to prove it.”  Her most recent accreditations -- Grant’s advanced course and West’s 500 TT.

I sat down with Marisa after one of her evening flow classes to get to know this well-respected yet unconventional teacher.

Katie Clancy (KC): You are teaching at some of the hippest yoga kulas in town.  When did you begin your yogic journey?

Marisa Sako(MS): I took a class from Anusara bigwig Amy Ippoliti at Crunch in 1996.  She wasn’t famous then; I’m not sure if Anusara even existed. But she certainly had that spark.  After returning from living in Italy for 3 years, yoga was my savior to the point where I fantasized about sleeping in the studios.  Then I realized that if I taught, I could come close.

KC: That was right when you moved to NY, right?

MC: Yes; my first apartment was in the East Village.  The drag queens who had lived there before us had painted a mural in the bathroom of sea creatures wearing wigs and lipstick.  Cleaning one day, I found what might have been a crack vile inside our gas range.

KC:  Wow, you’ve come quite a ways.  Now you live in Park Slope with a built-in rope wall.  Other than your recent certifications, where did you train? 

MC: My very first 200-hr course was at Laughing Lotus in 2006.  I’ve also studied with Susan Hefner who is a brilliant neuromuscular therapist who has worked with Irene Dowd.  

KC:  So you get certified, and boom!  Instant gigs?

MC: No, when I did my first training, I remember thinking that it was going to be hard to get work (and I imagine it’s a lot harder these days—I feel like we’re reaching a saturation point.)  It’s hard to get going in the beginning; my first gig was teaching The Queens of Pain—the best roller derby team ever!  I’d ask at the beginning if anyone had injuries and every hand would go up.  A few years ago, I was teaching 21 classes a week.  I recently gave myself a day off, Saturday, for the first time.  Wacky schedules, lots of commuting—you really have to love it to live it.

KC:  You still make time to take class?

MS:  Yes, I love being told what to do in class. It frees me up to get into the breath so much more.  When I teach, I really love to get people into that meditative groove so that they don’t hold onto what just happened and can’t see what’s coming next.

KC: Is there a particular pose you are working on right now?

MS:  It’s more about how I’m working.  I’m practicing pushing up to handstand versus jumping.  It’s so hard!

KC:  Indeed.  Any poses you believe you will never, ever accomplish?

MS: [Pauses] I can’t see myself ever doing a hands-free lotus while inverting.  I can’t just bend my legs into position; origami maneuvering is necessary for these legs.

KC: Speaking of hard postures, I noticed a grimace when you told me you were from New Jersey.

MS:  [laughs] Yah, ever since I was five, I just knew it wasn’t my style. I grew up in Bergen County, which is so close to NYC, but yet, immersed in its own surreal universe.

KC: What would it take you to go back and teach there?

MS:  The complete obliteration of New York City.

KC:  Well, then you could invite the Desperate Housewives to your classes. And play Britney Spears’s “Till the World Ends”.

MS:  Yes, I secretly love that song.  The 27-year-old Marisa would probably punch the 34-year-old Marisa in the face if she knew I listened to that song. 

KC:  I see a budding career for you in Jersey.  Seriously though, what is your ultimate yoga fantasy?

MS:  Paid health benefits and vacation time. Ha! No, I would really like to lead retreats from December through March in exotic, warm climates.  These winters really keep me dreaming.

You can find Marisa at Kula Yoga, Alison West’s new Yoga Union, and

Bend & Bloom.  Visit www.yogawithmarisa.com for schedule and details. 

According to medical studies, most people are only using 20-40% of their lung capacity and about 90% have restricted breathing patterns.  Yet, for thousands of years, the yogis knew that breath was the way to flow with our nervous system and there was a direct relationship between the physiological, the psychological and energetic. Breath is the soul of yoga practice and yet it is often overlooked in classes.  Yogacity NYC’s Carly Sachs sat down with some of New York's  most experienced teachers to find out more about this critically important practice. (Their bios can be found at the end of the story.)

Define breath for Us.

Julie Wilcox, Co-founder of ISHTA Yoga: Breath is Prana, our life force, which travels through our energetic channels (nadis) and activates every cell of our being. Pranayama is how we can manipulate our breath to influence its movement through our systems.

J. Brown, founder of Abhyasa Yoga Center: The act of existing.

Elizabeth Rossa, founder of Shriyoga: The breath is the process of inspiration and expiration which guides our attention to move towards life.  Breathing balances both the pranic and apanic energies which dynamically uplift and ground the body-mind.

Leslie Kaminoff, founder of The Breathing Project: The simplest and most useful definition is a mechanical one. We have two cavities in the body, the thoracic and the abdominal. Breathing really is nothing more or less than the shape change of those cavities. That definition also includes the spine and spinal movements.

What in your life has shifted through your pranayama practice? Or what are you more aware of because of the breath?

JW: Everything. I am always tapped into my state of being from the knowledge of how my breath is moving. I catch myself for instance, at times of upset, anxiety or stress when I am not breathing at all! Then, I know to engage a technique that pertains to the cause of that breath state and I can dissolve it, thereby changing the way I feel or in other words, my mood. Because pranayama purifies the mind, it brings me clarity about who I am and how I feel at any given moment in time. 

JB: Experiencing and gaining facility with my own breath has translated into a greater sense of poise in my thoughts and behaviors.  Also, the engagement of my breath is a way of actively participating in the fact of my life.  In so doing, I am aware of life in a broader sense and feel my place in the universe is inherent.

ER: The rhythm of my life and how I move through the obstacle courses that life can offer has radically shifted.  Erich Schiffman, another magnificent teacher from my early days of training brought it home for me with his famous "Pause, BREATHE, Feel.... and then DARE to do what the feeling tells you to do...."  It was December of 2002 when I was in his teacher training program, and it came like a bolt of lightening.  Ahhhh..... yes.  Pause, BREATHE.  I had been running around in a rush to get somewhere, not realizing I was already here. Pranayama practice is what keeps me present. Any injuries or accidents I have sustained since Erich's teaching in 2002 have been directly linked to my forgetting to pause and breathe. In addition, I have found that my choices are more "in sync" with a larger vision when I am actively pausing and breathing before I actively make choices. Again, when I forget, or fall unconscious, my habit is to impulsively make decisions without "checking in".... which is the "feeling" or sensing part of the equation. Conscious breathing quiets the mind, calms the nervous system and generally helps in making fearless choices, especially when they may not be popular choices.

LK: I’m more aware of everything because of the breath. The breath forms the basis for everything that I do. Physically, spiritually, emotionally, practically, physiologically…this essentially is tapas (discipline) and ishvara pranidana (devotion)… so you could say my life is a svadyaya (self-study) because the breath allows me to understand the aspects of my life I have some control of and what I need to surrender to.


One of my teachers says asana is powerful but pranayama is twice as powerful. Do you agree or disagree?

JW: It is not really possible to compare the two. They are each very unique practices that move energy in different ways with different results. Though pranayama can be much more powerful at moving energy and affecting the nervous system than asana, I believe that both are equally effective at enhancing mind, body, and spirit on all levels: physical, energetic, emotional, and psychological.

JB: It depends on what pranayama we are talking about and how it is employed.  In my practice, there is no separation between asana and pranayama.  Asana is pranayama.

ER: I agree.  I just completed Richard Freeman's month long teachers’ intensive in Boulder, Colorado this summer (Yes, I love being a student!), and the pranayama sessions with him rocked my world.  It was humbling and mysterious, and somehow, my eyes were more wide open afterwards.  All this being said, Richard teaches the asana from the vantage point of the internal forms of yoga: the breath and bandhas. The brilliance of his teaching creates a seamless connection between pranayama and the asana. Therefore, I no longer view them as separate. The integration is indescribably powerful.

LK: I don’t make a strong distinction between asana and pranayama. I would say that yoga is powerful. And yoga is about bringing the mind, the body and the breath together. I don’t consider the practice of postures to be yoga unless the breath is involved. We bring the breath into the practice of asana and we bring the stillness of the body, the asana, into the practice of breathing.

 
If you could offer one pranayam practice for city dwellers, which would you pick and why?

JW: Most New Yorkers are type A personalities and build up and carry a lot of stress. I would recommend Chandra Bedhana (Chandra is moon and Bedhana means passing through) because it is one of the most mellowing techniques. 

JB: Ujjayi pranayama because it is the most tangible, practical, and useful technique I have ever learned and taught.  I know countless people who have successfully employed ocean-breathing to stave off panic attacks, get through cancer treatments or just center themselves in challenging moments.  Essentially, it is a homeopathic muscle relaxant and antidepressant.

ER: It depends on the day.  In general, Ujjayi is the great one to cultivate.  How wonderful to feel the ocean inside amongst the skyscrapers.  And, then again, when I detect very active minds in the room, I call for a long, purifying round of breath of fire!

LK: Kapalabhati because it is a cleansing breath. It is a very strong way of coordinating the action of the abdominals and the diaphram and is a great starting point to developing the coordination for doing more advanced practices.

                                              ****


Julie Wilcox co-founded ISHTA Yoga in 2008 with Alan Finger. She is Executive Director of the studio as well as a senior teacher and teacher trainer. Julie is a dedicated yogini and fitness and food junkie whose mission is to help her clients evolve outwardly and inwardly, slowly and with discipline. 

J. Brown is a yoga teacher, writer and founder of Abhyasa Yoga Center in Brooklyn, NY.  His writing has been featured in Yoga Therapy in Practice, Yoga Therapy Today and the International Journal of Yoga Therapy.  Visit his website at yogijbrown.com

Elizabeth Rossa is the founder/director of SHRIYOGA, which was voted “Best Next Generation of Yoga” by New York Magazine in 2005, and since, has continued to evolve as a yoga community intent on cultivating curiosity in how the ancient practices of yoga, pranayama and meditation are relevant right here, right now.

Leslie Kaminoff is a yoga educator inspired by the tradition of T.K.V. Desikachar. He is the founder of The Breathing Project, a New York City yoga institute dedicated to the teaching of individualized, breath-centered yoga and is the co-author of the bestselling book, "Yoga Anatomy."

Sanctuary Pilates and Wellness, a boutique studio on the Upper East Side, expanded last week and now offers group classes in yoga for adults and kids as well as mat Pilates and the Alexander Technique – great cross-training for subtle movement!

Studio owner Kate Artibee, who's certified in Pilates, Prenatal Yoga and is also a DONA trained Doula, offers a clean and kid friendly space where it's all about your health and wellness. In addition to the classes, Arthur Tobias offers Cranial Sacral massages and Zero balancing treatments (think acupuncture for bone energy).

Whether it’s a kid’s yoga class or a private pilates session, Kate and her staff pride themselves on their commitment to work together and create a sense of community and caring to offer their clients the best experience possible.

Prenatal Yoga/Pilates classes are offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7pm. Saturday is all about the kids with Yoga, Pilates and Play class for 3-5 year olds at 11:30am and Pilates and Yoga Play for 8-10 year olds at 1pm. Sunday is a combo Pilates and Yoga Flow for adults at 11:30am. Kate hopes to add more adult yoga classes to the schedule in the near future. All classes are limited to 15 students, which allows for tons of personal attention and a close-knit community. 

Drop in classes are $25 or 10 classes for $220. A monthly-unlimited membership option is also available for $149. Packages and the membership are good for any class on the schedule, including kids classes. If you are a new client you can take any first class for FREE! Sanctuary is at 316 E. 84th Street between 1st and 2nd Aves.

--Allison Richard

The gong is used as a relaxation tool in Kundalini classes.  It brings the mind to that “Shunya” zero point which is a sense of clarity, neutrality and relaxation. Last New Year’s Eve for example, a gong master came from Massachusetts to play ten gongs at Hari Kaur’s New Year’s Eve yoga celebration and afterwards I was so spaced out I wished Hari Kaur a Happy Birthday instead of a Happy New Year.

Another time I left class so spaced out when a couple asked me for directions to the subway I could barely string a sentence together. Frequently, people fall asleep and snore. My kundalini teacher would often recommend we eat food or drink tea or talk afterwards to ground ourselves after her gong playing.

Because the gong had had such a profound effect on my own relaxation and healing I had wanted to learn to play it for a long time. That opportunity came when I was about to graduate from teacher training with Hari Kaur. The graduates were to host a party and class for guests and everyone was requesting the gong so I asked Hari Kaur if she would teach me the basics.

After class she spent an hour with me.  The most essential piece of information she gave me was it’s vital to tune in before playing it. It is said that if you’re in the meditative mind while playing the gong the gong will simply tell you where to go.

There are three mantras I had to say silently. “Aad Gurey Nameh. Jugad Gurey Nameh, Sad Gurey Nameh, Siri Guru Dev A Nameh (I bow to the primal wisdom, I bow to the wisdom of all ages, I bow to the true wisdom, I bow to the great subtle wisdom). This mantra is followed by “Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo,” (I bow to the great subtle creative wisdom). And finally “Aad Such, Jugad Such, Habee Such, Nanak Hosee Bee Such” (True in the beginning, True through all ages, True even now, Nanak says truth is ever true). These mantras allow the gong player to be present and unconcerned with their own ego.

She also told me to think of the gong as a spine and that in striking the gong you were essentially stimulating certain chakras so the lower region of the gong is considered the lower chakras and the upper part the upper chakras. The outer part of the gong or the frame is considered the aura. You can also consider the outer part is Purusha and the inner part Prakriti.

Hari advised that hitting the middle of the gong is often considered an “insult” to the gong. So instead, it’s advised to play around the center and to strike the gong at an angle, using a downward stroke with the mallet on the lower part of the gong and an upward stroke on the upper part.

On the day of graduation, a pregnant woman was in class so Hari advised me to play softly and slowly. I found after five minutes of gong playing my forearms sore from holding the mallet which interestingly is the same place I get sore when I’m training on the trapeze.

A couple of months later I visited Gurusurya of Kundalini Yoga in Park Slope who was holding a workshop on gong playing. In addition to what Hari had told me I picked up some other tips.

Gurusurya encouraged us to warn students before you’re about to play the gong and let them know that the gong is a relaxation and healing tool. Some yogis liken playing the gong to god walking into your bedroom so it’s important that students are aware of what’s coming and the intention behind it.

Every gong has a sweet spot. That’s the area of the gong about the lower third mid-area which produces the fullest, richest, most resonant sound. It takes a bit of practice getting to know your gong to find that area.

Depending on the class, most people spend five to ten minutes playing the gong. When you strike the last note let the note resonate and then after a short wait of about thirty seconds muffle the gong by holding the mallet snugly against the surface of the gong.

The most appropriate way to wake your students after intense playing is with the sound of your voice.

Several months after I started my own lessons, Maggie Law ordered a gong for her own studio, Maggie Studio, and invited me to teach there. I was game and from this decision, we both learned that when ordering a gong one has to be patient.

Paiste gongs are manufactured in Germany where they are cut from tempered roll sheet metal into circular discs then heated and shaped by individual hammers. The gong goes through a heating and hammering process that can last three to four months until they are tuned and polished. Every gong is unique. These gongs are made of nickel silver, a metal alloy of copper, nickel and sometimes zinc. A finished gong is around 24 – 40” diameter and is distinguished by the number of sound waves it makes when struck. A high quality gong will produce twelve or more distinctive sound waves when individually struck. Gongs can cost a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars depending on the quality.

The gong was worth the wait though. It played beautifully and many students who come to the studio always begin by eagerly inquiring, “You are going to be playing the gong tonight, right?”

—Marie Carter

Gong Yoga by Mehtab Benton, gives excellent tips on playing techniques and the care of a gong.

German businessman and yogi Peter Oppermann is committed to creating a model for socially and ecologically responsible business based on the idea of second chances for people and materials alike. His new organization, Karma Builders, will employ ex-offenders in green jobs and provide them with yoga and mindfulness training at a facility in the South Bronx. Oppermann, 46, spoke with YogaCity NYC's Sara Neufeld: 

SN: Tell me what the organization does.

PO: The mission of Karma Builders is to train and employ formerly incarcerated people…. The Osborne Association has a very successful program called the Green Career Center where they screen and train people coming out of prison in a six-week program… to help them find jobs in the green industry in New York City. From this audience, we will take about 20 participants to join our six-month program, where they will get trained in woodworking and be employed at the same time and make a decent living. There will be assembly and low-skilled work they can do immediately, hard skills training and soft skills training. Hard skills is the shop work, the actual woodworking. The soft skills are mindfulness training based on work by Jon Kabat-Zinn, yoga, meditation and movement, a powerful complement for people to become more aware of their actions and make healthier choices in life. 

The clients of Karma Builders are themselves local sustainable companies that need assembly services or other services that can be delivered by our participants. (The first client is Oppermann’s business, Shoji Living, which makes Japanese sliding doors from sustainably sourced wood.) We are going to seek out more clients that share our vision…. The more clients we have, the more participants we can employ to offer a second chance.

SN: Explain the societal issues you are working to address.

PO: Karma Builders’ mission is to break the vicious cycle of incarceration, unemployment and recidivism. People with a criminal record have a very hard time, especially in these economic times, to find a job… whether for lack of work skills or prejudice. Chances are high that they will fall back into their bad habits and then back into prison. Two-thirds of incarcerated people (being released) will land back in prison in a three-year period. About 90 percent of parole violators are unemployed at the time of violation in the state of New York. It is very costly, obviously, on a personal scale but also from a taxpayer perspective. It costs about $60,000 to keep an adult in prison per year. Our mission is one step at a time, one person at a time, to offer some best practices to help individuals who are ready to come back into society and also inspire other business leaders to adopt our philosophy of giving second chances.

SN: How does your business model work? 

PO: We charge our clients a certain hourly rate, and we pay our participants a lower rate … generating the income to run the program. We are projecting wages of $13.50 hourly and charging our clients $20 per hour (per worker). It’s a 35- to 40-hour work week consisting of work stills training, mindfulness training and shop work. Participants are paid through the whole time, including the training time. The program is only successful if people get a living wage from day one. 

SN: How many people are running the organization?

PO: Currently it’s myself and one assistant (plus three interns and volunteers). Soon we’ll be hiring a contractor to renovate the space. 

SN: Tell me about your background, what inspired you to start this.

PO: I’m in woodworking myself. I’m originally an engineer from Berlin, but I always loved woodworking. I started Shoji Living in East Berlin and was doing a lot of mindfulness meditation myself. I studied with Jack Kornfield and became a yoga teacher at Kripalu. It was very rewarding to build furniture in a mindful way…. I always had the dream to incorporate unemployed young adults or some population that would benefit from this simple, beautiful activity of working with wood. You see a product growing in front of you, and it teaches you patience, perseverance, attention. It’s very grounding to see something physically built that has one’s own thumbprint. 

I expanded my company to the U.S. in 2006, and then right when the recession hit and Lehman Brothers fell, that was a real wake-up call for me to see that currently the way our economy is run is not sustainable. It’s based on greed and living beyond our means and polluting the planet, alienating human beings from their essence. My vision was to think of an economy that is actually sustainable, that only uses as much energy as is being regenerated, that only uses materials that can be re-grown, where the economy becomes a force to clean up the planet. That same principle also applies on a human level where people (who have been) alienated … would actually feel empowered and can contribute to further self development and ultimately awakening, if you want to go that far. The same idea of repurposing things we consider waste includes a population that’s very much on the dark side of our society. (The goal is) to consciously bring them in, to give people a second chance, address their talents and let them become a part of creating something beautiful. 

-- Sara Neufeld is a Brooklyn-based writer and certified Anusara teacher.

Explaining asana isn’t always easy.  Much of yoga is so subtle to our Western sensibility that teachers often get their instructions across through metaphor.  This figurative language, inherently creative, can allow for greater understanding, pattern-changes, and deepening of svadhyaya. 
 
But where do teachers come up with them? Do they have favorites?  And are they of significant use in their own personal investigations as well as their yogic teachings?

I posed these questions to Jennifer Brilliant, Catherine Kappahn and Ruthie Streiter, three teachers who are particularly thoughtful with their instructions.
 
Can you offer us a key metaphor that has been central to your practice? 
 
JB: A key metaphor for me is from choreographer Jennifer Muller: “Instant coffee as instant forgiveness.  You get your instant coffee, put it in a cup, add hot water and BOOM!” It means that whenever you make a mistake there is instant forgiveness available for you.   This understanding of how to relate to your mistake(s)-- which is so challenging if you’re a perfectionist-- has been great for my life, my career and my practice.
 
CK: I don’t have one key one, but a recent one I like came from Ryushin Sensei: “Reality is like riding a bicycle.” When you ride a bicycle, you are always adjusting your balance to changes on the road.  We respond when we ride, but we don’t necessarily think too much. In yoga practice, each time you return to the mat, your body, your brain, your emotional landscape, you feel differently, yet you continue to return to this particular spiritual practice.  I try to build stability for myself within the movement of life.
 
RS: “Lengthen up through the central channel of the body like a river flowing up the spine,” is mine. The river is a "sense" of creating a lift and lengthening deep inside the cave of my trunk—so important, internal and personal in yoga.  This action became ever-changing, ever-interesting. It tapped me into a flowing, impermanent, always shifting movement inside myself-- that I could create and imagine but paradoxically that is always simply there.
 
It taught me the powers of visualization, exploration and observation of the effects.  Learning in yoga is all about this.
 
Have the metaphors remained equally as potent over time?  Do you find you need to seek continually newer ways of relating to your experience?
 
JB: I think of metaphors as fleeting things.   Just yesterday a lot of “rain” releasing down my shoulders and down my back-- maybe because of the hurricane and a leak in my roof; but my student remembers it as “waterfall”!
 
If you sift down all my teaching, the gold at the bottom of the sieve is the metaphor, the most inner precious stuff closest to my heart. 
 
How did your most important (or game-changing) metaphor come to you?
 
CK: Sometimes when I hear the expression “letting go” in a yoga class, I recall this image from Where the Red Fern Grows.  A coon would become transfixed with this thing [in the trap] and stick his paw through and grab it.  Once he grabbed it, he was stuck.  He only had to let go to be free. 
 
After the loss of my mother when I was twenty-two, I was left devastated in a long frozen grief.  I couldn’t loosen my grip on what was left of her.  Letting go of my grief meant losing her completely.  So this image would appear in my head.  Over time, I learned that in letting go, I would find my mother even more. 
 
Sometimes it’s letting go that is the most difficult part but through letting go of attachment we find a whole unexpected world. 
 
RS: “The river” came when I was a beginner.
 
How do you decide what metaphors are most useful for your students?  Can you give an example of a consistently useful metaphor?
 
JB: The ones my students remember, like “marshmallows in the armpits”, fingers as “talons of a crow”, “suction cups” in the hands.  Eyes soft in head, as “two poached eggs”, or having “cotton balls” between your vertebrae for correct spinal alignment.
 
A picture is worth a thousand words.  Sometimes, in giving an instruction, it is hard for a student to coordinate all these action.  If you use an image, it incorporates all the things you want without the minutiae of the muscles. 
 
CK: The metaphor/image world helps people go more into the instinctual part of their brain, so they aren’t worrying, “Am I doing this right?”  Instead they are just experiencing the moment.
 
Metaphors help my students feel the energetic lines or forces of a pose.  Creating a pose is connecting the energetic dots of the pose. With sphinx, I might say, “Imagine your tailbone going down the stairs like a Slinky.”  It seems as if images instantly translate on the body and naturally bring anatomical alignment.
 
RS: Metaphors that I choose facilitate the goal of creating structural balance in the body.  I look for ways to encourage students to find a sense of lengthening in the different layers of the body- the external layers and the internal layers of muscle and connective tissue.
 
In urdhva hastasana, I might prompt them to imagine their body like two adjacent, alive cylinders- right and left (leg through pelvis, abdomen, lung area and arm).  Then, to feel into their right and left side cylinder and visualize its outer layer and inner layers.
 
By making a metaphor about the body being composed of cylinders, I help them visualize and activate and also create a sense of cohesion, while helping them learn about their individual places of stuckness and challenge.
 
 
Bios & Links:
 
Jennifer Brilliant has been teaching for 26 years.  She currently teaches Yoga classes in her own Brooklyn studio, corporate locations and private settings.
 
Catherine Kapphahn began her yoga adventure ten years ago on a visit home to Colorado. Now she teaches at the Zenyasa Yoga Studio in Manhattan and The Giving Tree Yoga Studio in Astoria, Queens. Catherine has also teaches Narrative Medicine writing workshops that explore the patient and caregiver perspectives.
 
Ruthie Streiter is a practitioner of Structural Integration and teaches alignment-based yoga out of her home studio in Brooklyn, NY. 

--Sara Nolan. Read Sara's blog:www.twentyfourhouryoga.wordpress.com

A New Studio Blooms In Union Square.

New York City is becoming a yogi's paradise and Union Square is the sweet spot in the middle of the hustle and bustle. Although there are plenty of yoga studios there, a new establishment has taken root. Its name: Bija Yoga.

This was the dream of Veronica Perretti, a teacher and devoted student of the practice for almost a decade who decided to take the leap and plant the seed on 17th street, literally. Bija means the "seed" of awareness or potential; and the studio is built on a foundation of community, consciousness and the connection we all have to each other.

Nestled between Union Square West and 5th Avenue, the location is convenient and cozy. The warm purple walls of the studio's interior invoke an earthy and inspired space to learn and grow. Emerging from the lineage of Krishnamacharya (and his masterful students BKS Iyengar, Sri K Pattabhi Jois and TKV Deskichar), the instructors focus on alignment while allowing for freedom to flourish in Vinyasa flow.

Come for the yoga and stay for the monthly kirtan, philosophy and meditation study, and special events. A major highlight is the weekly Saturday Sadhana sessions, offering an opportunity to practice with local and visiting senior teachers for two hours, at an affordable $25. Well-known yogis such as Nixa De Bellis, Sarah Bell and Marco Rojas are already slated to make regular, rotating appearances.

Bija's daily schedule has Vinyasa classes ranging from beginning level 1 to students continuing in their level 2/3 practice. Other highlights include led Ashtanga, pre-natal, available private sessions, and sweet balance of Vinyasa/Yin. Also, something you don't see on the schedule at many other yoga studios: 30 minute Pranayama and Meditation from 6:15-6:45pm Mondays and Wednesdays, perfectly snug between the evening Vinyasa classes, and just $5!

Veronica believes strongly that a yoga studio should not only be a place for students to grow, but to also create an atmosphere where our teachers can grow their practice and evolve their teaching, so stay tuned for developing continuing ed classes.

Following the Puja celebration led by Manorama, who will also be leading the Satsang program and philosophy studies, Bija Yoga is now open and operating with a full schedule.

Single drop-in class is $20, new student deal $30 (1 week unlimited yoga).

 
Bija Yoga is located at 20 East 17th St, 2nd Floor. 

-YogaDork

Join Melissa McKay from Kusala Yoga and Susan Sarandon (yes, that Susan Sarandon) this Sunday from 7-10, for an evening of music to benefit Burma and Burmese refugees at Spin, an upscale ping-pong club.

The funds raised go to the Mettadana Project, a volunteer organization run by meditation teachers Michele McDonald and Stephen Smith, that helps the villagers of Watchet, Burma. In addition, the money will support work supplying safe houses for Burmese refugees on the Thai border. 

Spin owner Susan Sarandon will be the Honorary Host for performances like TV on the Radio's singer Kyp Malone, the Hugh Pool Band and other special guests.  

There will be a silent auction, with items like a print from photographer Kate Orne, a 2-night stay at the Surf Lodge in Montauk, dinner at 5 Leaves in Brooklyn, as well as jewelry, yoga classes, massage services and more. In addition to the musical performances and silent auction, the ping-pong tables will be available for guests to use and enjoy throughout the evening.

The event is located at 48 East 23rd St. Cost is $20 at the door with all proceeds going to Burma.

--Allison Richard

On Sunday, October 16th Sharon Salzberg, one of America’s leading spiritual teachers and Susan Kaiser Greenland, author of The Mindful Child, who had brought mindfulness to children in their homes and schools as well as rough inner city neighborhoods, will team up for “Developing Mindfulness with Children – A Workshop for Adults” at the NY Insight Meditation Society.

This is the first time their concentrated efforts will be put together. It is bound to be a deeply enlightening workshop and as the mother of two often-at-war daughters, I look forward to it because Salzberg and Kaiser Greenland will be offering all caregivers the tools to be more present with our children and to teach them how best to navigate the world with grace, compassion and wisdom.

Gina de la Chesnaye: What was your motivation for working together on this and how will it be different from what you each have done in the past? 

Susan Kaiser Greenland: Over the years, the field of Mindfulness and children has really taken off but I am a little concerned about how far some of these practices are moving from the classical practice. I have nothing against adapting and making things interesting and workable for the kids; but, the fact that everything is still being called Mindfulness is a little bit of a concern to me because it’s becoming kind of like all things to all people.

So this workshop is important because Sharon will teach the Three Pillars of Mindfulness in the morning and I will teach the adaptation of them in the afternoon while also giving people very specific games and activities that they can take home and play or do with their kids. I just call them the ABCS – Attention, Balance and Compassion because it’s very secular but basically they are adaptations of the Three Pillars of Mindfulness, which are Concentration, Wisdom and Ethics


Gina de la Chesnaye: What do you think are the most important tools parents can use in being mindful with their children?

Sharon Salzberg: Well, simple reminders for how to stabilize attention like taking a breath before responding, listening to both themselves and their children - a very deep listening, and compassion. It’s two fold because they can learn the skills of meditation and see how they apply in real life so its not just some isolated event for twenty minutes a day where they are alone in a room but its what you bring forth when you realize you are multi-tasking and you're are not listening to your kid at all and you can actually take a breath and arrive and listen very fully because that is what you have practiced and its also about letting go of things. And seeing one’s own mind.

Gina de la Chesnaye: For children, how can mindfulness as a skill set, be helpful?

Sharon Salzberg: It can help in dealing with stress, difficult emotions, new situations…I find that younger kids resonate with loving-kindness meditation because they think about what the other child is going through with just a few prompts.

Gina de la Chesnaye: What are the most prevalent issues facing our children today and do you see a difference between urban and suburban children?

Susan Kaiser Greenland: I think one of the biggest problems that everyone is facing now is that people are so revved up, having to work so hard – at home, around the clock, so that the time that you have to just sit quietly with your child, reading a book, or just noodling around, is getting shorter and shorter.   Then the discipline it takes when you do find that time, and the strength of attention it takes to be able to put all those things that you need to do out of your mind so that you can really be fully present with your child, is the biggest challenge for everybody.

With the kids, it’s interesting because we look at their lives and think, “Oh, they’re so hectic and oh, with all these computers things are moving so fast for them and oh, oh, oh…” What I am finding with the kids that are 7 years old and up, is that their perception is not the same as ours because this is all they have ever known. It’s kind of normal for them and their perception isn’t that they are moving so fast but they are missing something. Unless their parents put what they are missing deliberately in front of them - like spaces of time where they are really going where their minds will go, whether its make-believe play or being out in the yard or some kind of play that allows for the imagination to flow.

Gina de la Chesnaye: Do you find that instances of OCD, ADHD and similar diagnoses are increasing because of this lack of unstructured time?

Susan Kaiser Greenland: I’m not a trained mental health care worker and I don’t make diagnoses. But what I can tell you is that the people that are referred to me with these diagnoses are increasing. And the children that I have seen, who from a very young age were diagnosed with OCD and/or learning disabilities who were given enough space and time - and I have seen them all the way through high school- they are the ones that were really given some attention for this in the way that supported their differences as opposed to just labeling them.

They turned out to be great kids, interesting kids and doing well in some areas of school because they learned to be able to manage differences from a very young age.

Gina de la Chesnaye: Which also speaks of the basic Buddhist tenet that we do not need to be the same and yet we are no different from one another.

Susan Kaiser Greenland: Yes and about impermanence. That single teaching - when a child is upset and we tell them it’s okay to be upset but just hold on because everything is going to change, is probably one of the single most profound parenting lessons we can teach kids. And that is also where the awareness perspective really helps because we can be aware of our feelings but we don’t have to believe them to be true and we understand them to be changing. 

                                          **********

Don't Miss This Great Workshop on October 16th, from 10am-5pm, at the Insight Meditation Society

Hosh Yoga is a hidden gem on the corner of Nassau Avenue and Guernsey Street in Greenpoint. The name means welcome in Azerbaijani, the language of co-founder Hamid Elsevar and it is perfect for this donation-based studio where everyone is welcome.
 
Hosh would not exist if it wasn’t for the passion of the co-founders, Hamid Elsevar, Yuuki Hirano and Becca Broughton who taught donation classes in McCarren Park, then rented a space in a local gym while looking for a place to open their own studio. And they lucked out at their new location. Greenpoint, the great crossroads for people coming from other areas of Brooklyn, as well as Manhattan.
 
What is incredible about the studio is not just the creative passion and the thoughtful business plan, but also the strong sense of community.  The owners and their staff finished the floors, painted the walls and created a loft office.  When you enter the industrial building with high ceilings and lavender and butter yellow walls you are immediately greeted by your teacher or one of the owners. There is a warmth and a true feeling of kula here.
 
There is also serious practice going on here because the three teachers wanted to offer a wide variety of styles ranging from ISHTA, Kripalu and yoga in the tradition of Krishnamachariya to vinyasa, restorative and prenatal.
 
There are between five and seven classes on the schedule every day.  For a small donation, you can enjoy hours of yoga in a fun and welcoming space. Check it out. Classes there are only $10 for a limited time!

--Margie Suvalle