What’s newAccording to Cyndi Lee, director of OM Yoga, the perfect date includes a restorative yoga class, deep tissue massage and a movie. You may not want to do that on a first date, but you certainly could at OM’s new Wellness Sanctuary—all but the movie. “People come here to feel good about themselves; bodywork is an extension of that,” Lee says of her decision to expand services. Mix and match your treatments on a ten-visit card ($850): get a Swedish massage, relax with reflexology, be stretched Thai-yoga–style and consult with a nutritionist. Or try sample of them all for free at Om’s Wellness Week, Mon 18 through Sept 22 . There’s no push to sign up for yoga classes or buy OM products—the only pressure will come from the bodyworkers’ talented hands. 826 Broadway at 12th St, sixth floor (212 254-YOGA, omyoga.com).Time Out New York / Issue 572 : September 14, 2006 – September 20, 2006
Archive for September, 2006
Calibrate yourself with the universe at the Path of Yoga conference.In India, millions gather at kumbha melas, or spiritual festivals, to cleanse body and spirit in sacred rivers like the Ganges. The Omega Institute, the upstate center for holistic studies, will host its own form of kumbha mela in Manhattan September 15–18 with the seventh annual Path of Yoga conference. This year’s pose-a-thon, which alternates each year between New York and Miami, welcomes 28 established instructors—some of them full-blown yogic celebrities—who’ll lead more than 85 workshops. We checked in with a few standouts, each of whom has several sessions; here’s what to expect.Sheraton New York, 811 Seventh Ave at 53rd St (800-944-1001, eomega.org). $445, individual workshop price TBD. Pre- and postconference intensives $125, non–conference attendees $175.
“We’ll be using techniques to create self-acceptance and compassion. Every time you roll out your mat you’re creating sacred space—accepting where you are first, then moving towards where you want to be.”Author of Yoga for Depression, Amy Weintraub has learned to use the yogic techniques, including pranayama, or breath control, to balance moods and emotions.
“The most important thing is to practice in a way that you enjoy so that you’ll want to do it again the next day. It’s just a matter of practice. That’s all [my guru] Pattabi Jois has ever said.”Master teacher David Swenson has practiced ashtanga since 1969. His workshops will expand students’ understanding of vinyasa and hands-on adjustments in this physically demanding practice.
“My classes are about awakening the sahaja or spontaneous flow of yoga. The way Americans interpret yoga can be quite rigid; I help people connect to the inherent freedom of their fluid body.”California yogini Shiva Rea wants her students to experience yoga not just as physical practice but also as an embodiment of the life force flowing within us.
“Yoga promises the experience of the very essence of life. It inspires you to be a full citizen and to add to the artistry and goodness of the world.”John Friend’s internationally popular style, anusara, emphasizes alignment, joy, and community in practice. Friend is a busy bee at this conference: He’s giving six workshops, including Rock with Shakti, and Align with the Divine, in addition to the keynote address.Time Out New York / Issue 572 : September 14, 2006 – September 20, 2006
Fall Preview 2006The world of yoga will stretch in several new ways this season.Yoga day spas: Area Yoga and Namaste Yoga were among the first to offer extras such as bodywork, nutrition counseling and even psychotherapy. Before you know it, you could be using your class card for a facial.The slipping of savasana: When centers cram the content of a 90-minute session into 60 minutes of “express” yoga, savasana—the meditative relaxation that concludes each practice—is sometimes shortchanged, and is in danger of disappearing altogether.Downward-facing daddy: First there was mommy yoga, then kids’ yoga, even dog yoga. A few family-unit classes have already popped up and we expect many more.Small time: Big studios stay big by offering scads of basic classes to attract beginners. Veteran practitioners will flee to smaller studios (such as Kula Yoga Project, the Shala and Yoga Center of Brooklyn) in search of reliable, advanced classes taught by homegrown studio owners.Alternative deities: Classes such as Jill Satterfield’s are fusing Buddhist principles with yoga practice. The 92nd Street Y and the JCC hope to launch Jewish yoga classes within the next year. It can’t be long before Christian yoga, popular in the Midwest, makes its way here.Yogi passports: Based on the popularity of retreats in Costa Rica and Mexico, NYC studios are sponsoring studies farther afield; trips are planned to Brazil, Japan and Patagonia this year and next.“Power” power yoga: Since sports-tailored classes—yoga for golfing, surfing and biking—will soon flourish, it can’t be long before career-performance classes sprout up. How about yoga for public speaking?Time Out New York / Issue 571 : September 7, 2006 – September 13, 2006
Ken Wilber thinks we could all benefit from adopting each other’s philosophies.By Joelle HannKen Wilber, founder of the Integral Institute, has written more than two dozen books. In his latest, the forthcoming Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World (Integral Books, $23), the scholar draws on science, psychology, philosophy and world religions to argue that an integral understanding of them all will benefit our lives more than a my-way-or-the-highway attitude. On Friday 8 and Saturday 9, he brings his complex theories to the masses, joining Tibetan Buddhist monk Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche at the New York Society for Ethical Culture for a program titled “Spirituality and the Modern World.”
What is the “integral approach”?It’s a map of human capacities and tools developed by comparing theories spanning the last 2,000 years—psychoanalysis, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, science, philosophy, etc. Common themes tend to emerge.You say that modernist and postmodernist theories have trashed ancient thought, such as the world’s major religions. How?The great metaphysical traditions contain extremely important truths about body, mind, soul and spirit, but express them in ways that made science—in this case, science is modernism—very suspicious. Science came in and said, “I need objective evidence.” And in part that was right: Those traditions couldn’t understand, for example, what’s going on with the brain’s chemistry during meditation. So half of what science did is really important. But the other half was a disaster; it reduced everything.So science and religion became locked into a domestic dispute?Yes [laughs]—of colossal proportions!And it’s important to reconcile these ideas because otherwise we only profit from one body of knowledge instead of both?Exactly. The integral approach finds common ground. Why should these things be fighting? It makes no sense whatsoever.But now you’re coming to talk along with someone who is a master in one particular spirituality. Isn’t that counter to the integral approach?You can use any tradition you want, including, in this case, Tibetan Buddhism, as a basis for the integral approach. People get excited because we don’t tell them what to think. They fill in the blanks themselves.What do you hope will ultimately come of your theories of spirituality?I hope we could all have a bigger view of things. There’s a lot of war in the world today—and virtually every answer to it is “Get rid of the other views.” It’s crazy—not once did somebody say, “Hey, wait a minute: Everybody’s right.”“Spirituality and the Modern World” includes an opening dialogue on Friday 8 from 7 to 9pm ($25) and presentations on Saturday 9 from 10am to 5pm ($100). New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 W 64th St at Central Park West (518-392-6900, evam.org).Time Out New York / Issue 571 : September 7, 2006 – September 13, 2006