AS PUBLISHED IN TIMEOUT NEW YORK
Fall Preview 2006
The 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?