Yoga 2009: 10 Highlights

What happened last year?

Did it pass like a kidney stone or like savasana? Lots of subtle changes for me personally, and a big leap into the blogosphere for Yoga Nation. Part of me wishes I had a time machine to go back ten years (if I knew then, what I know now...) and another part looks forward to the madness and the mystery of a new year.But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's see what happened in 2009....

1. Fierce Club opened in Nolita. Sadie Nardini, of Bon Jovi yogi fame, not only opened her own kick-ass studio in Nolita last March, but later in the summer she also joined up with YAMA, an agenting enterprise for enterprising yoga teachers. Yes, folks, the future is here...

2. The movie, Enlighten Up!: A Skeptic's Journey into the World of Yoga, launched to mostly positive reviews (and some grumbling from yoga teachers) proving that yoga can entertain Americans for at least an hour and a half on the big screen. Director/yogini, Kate Churchill, and skeptic/subject, Nick Rosen, tussle and tumble around the world looking for the truth about yoga

.3. Inappropriate Yoga Guy "Edited" Yoga Journal. Yoga Journal spoofed itself in this 5-part online mini-series in which the unforgettable, and wildly inappropriate, Ogden, took over the inimitable magazine offices as a hazardous (and sometimes naked) "guest editor." Went live April Fool's Day.

4. Sri K. Pattabhi Jois passed. One of three Indian grandaddies of modern, Western yoga, 93-year-old Pattabhi Jois, passed away in May, and was fetted through the early summer. The memorial held at Donna Karan's Urban Zen headquarters on June 14 in the West Village created even bigger buzz than the first ever NYC Yoga Journal Conference in May.

5. Licensing Issue ravaged New York---and is not over. Should yoga studios pay large sums of money to New York state to be "licensed" to train yoga teachers? Widely seen as a pitiless money-grab, this proposed legislation threatens to shut down many tiny yoga studios that rely on teacher-training programs for basic income. (For this issue, yoganation was also a momentary guest-blogger on the illustrious YogaDork.)

6. On the other hand, Brent Kessel made clear that yoga and money can live happily together. Financial advisor and long-time ashtanga-yoga practitioner, Kessel wrote a practical, inspiring and possibly profitable book called It's Not About the Money (which it never is: it's always about the junk in your head). Read my interview with him on Frugaltopia.

7. The inaugural Wanderlust Yoga and Music Festival rocked Lake Tahoe in July. This ingenious festival blasted open indie minds and took over taste-making in the yoga world. Who said yoga can't be radically cool? Driven by yoga and music-exec power couple from Brooklyn, Wanderlust will happen in three locales in 2010. Thank you, Yoga Journal (San Francisco), you may now hand over the reigns. The young uns' (uh, Brooklyn) got it from here.

8. Celebrity Yoga Teachers---Problem? In late August, YogaCityNYC sent me to report on the Being Yoga conference upstate. The question: Is a media-friendly yoga teacher the natural outcome of yoga’s presence in America’s consumer culture? The peaceful yoga crowd at Omega had a lot to say. READ my final article. .....(One source said: “I've never had a PR agent or invited myself somewhere. Everything has happened because of the shakti manifesting in me.” The next day I got a message on Twitter inviting me to review her latest DVD.)

9. BKS Iyengar turned 91. Really, you need to see Enlighten Up! the movie just for the scenes of Iyengar talking about the meaning of yoga---not empty New Age spirituality, but real internal work, with a few beads of sweat and social service thrown in. For his 91st birthday, this tremendous force of a man requested that students hold a fundraiser to benefit his ancentral village of Bellur. If everyone gave $3, more people could eat.

10. The Yoga Clothing Wars continued with lots of news about LuluLemon throughout 2009. Their stock was up, their stock was down. We loved them, we were peeved. Mostly we were conflicted about the giant success of a giant "women's activewear" company. Good news: they have excellent yoga clothes for men. More good news: they are inspiring small yoga clothing companies, too. More good (-ish?) news: they are EVERYWHERE. Planet Lulu!!

HAPPY 2010, yogis and yoginis! Here's to a happy, healthy, inspired, productive, restful, and OM-ing new year.

Brent Kessel, Money Guru, Interviewed on Frugaltopia

It’s Not About the Money

In May, I was excited to bring you news of Brent Kessel, a financial planner and yogi I encountered at the Yoga Journal conference in New York.His book, "It's Not About the Money," has opened my eyes to the ways we bring our "issues" to money--- in a similar way to how we bring our "issues" to the yoga mat. Only in yoga, there's a way to work them out. With money, secrecy and shame makes it hard to bring hidden habits to light.Brent was kind enough to agree to an interview for another blog I work on, Frugaltopia, (which, as you'd guess, is all about frugal living).I asked him a few pressing questions---about the 8 archetypes that profile the major habits/obsessions/hang ups people have around money, about what one thing we could all do to improve our relationship with money, and how we can avoid or work with our hang ups.Here's one question I asked him: Frugaltopia:Is there one archetype that seems to do better financially than others? Why is that, in your opinion?To see his answer, and read the rest of the fascinating interview, go here, to Frugaltopia. (And then buy his book. Seriously, I'm willing to proselytise: finding Brent and his book is like finding a great teacher.)Read the interview here. Previous posts:"It's Not About the Money," May 2009

"It's Not About the Money"

Lakshmi

One of the things I enjoyed at the Yoga Journal conference in New York, May 14 - 18, was coming across new, brilliant manifesters of yoga. One was Brent Kessel. After his presentation, I bought his book. I took it on vacation. I read it on the beach. I love him.True, possibly only I could read a book called It's Not About the Money while supposedly relaxing. But I did find his ideas exciting (and he's a good writer). I loved the notion that we live out unconscious stories about money---and we don't need to. As in yoga, we just need to wake up!As an experienced financial planner and a long time ashtanga yogi, Kessel is in a rare position to speak to yogis about money---and be heard. We yogis don't really seem to want to talk about brass tacks. Unless we're forced to, by, say, opening a studio, or trying to make a living as a yoga teacher. But the aversion to seeing---with eyes wide open---that our yoga exists in a money-driven world, is just a form of avoidance. In fact, in some images of Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of abundance, she is surrounded by gold coins.Our (Westerners) discomfort putting money and yoga in the same thought seems to work us up into a knot. Do we understand why? Not really. So, I'm looking forward to Kessel's workshop tonight at East/West books in Manhattan, from 5:30-9:30. Now that I understand his system, I'm ready for the experience. What money type am I? What are my strengths and weaknesses? What stories do I tell myself about what I can and cannot have? How are they holding me back? To me, this seems as yogic a workshop as meditation or pranayama.I wish everyone abundance and prosperity---and freedom from whatever stories are driving you. Even if we don't care about being rich, we do want to get free, right?

East/West Books:212-243-5995, 78 Fifth Avenue @ 14th Street

Heavy Hitters of Yoga Biz at First YJ Conference

I walked around my Brooklyn neighborhood tonight trying to come back to earth. Breathe! I just got done with the 2-day "Business of Yoga" workshop at Yoga Journal's first conference in New York. I am way overstimulated.Judging from my texts and tweets from Thursday and Friday, I am super glad that I do not run a yoga studio. What a headache! I'm a writer not a marketer!

And yet, I do run yoga retreats, and I do want to write more about yoga and business (and the business of yoga).What I learned: the (global) recession doesn't stop people from opening yoga studios. When Bob Murphy of MindBodyOnline (the next inline to be a big stats provider to the yoga world) asked who was planning to open a studio, about half the people in a room of, oh, 50 -70, shot up their hands. Jeez.

Average annual profit at a yoga studio: 17%. Yes, ladies and gents, it's still a labor of love. And as Connie Chan, founder of Levitate Yoga (which, at 7 months pregnant, she just sold) outlined, owning a studio means dealing with: lawyers, accountants, landlords, NY State, and the Feds, and that's even before you've auditioned teachers, painted your walls, and installed check-in software. Oy! And then there are the licence centers that offer teacher training programs. (See Yoga Dork's astute rundown of the complex---and exceedingly compromising (perhaps crippling)---issue.)

People have come from Russia, Poland, Germany, Canada, Brazil and other parts of South America to learn how to either run their existing business better or how to start on the right foot. Charlie Barnett who left finance in America to open Yoga Flow in Sao Paulo said he couldn't imagine doing some of the (very practical) things that the (very experienced) presenters were suggesting---such as drawing up a budget for his studio. In Brazil, he said, things are about 15 years behind. (Not to mention that you have to monitor the banks down there (money disappears from your accounts) and internet service (including networked servers) cut out at least once a day, leaving you, jack-of-all-trades to get systems up again). As has been the case til recently in the US, in Brazil mingling money and yoga is very much frowned upon. But still a studio's gotta survive.

Ganesh Das, managing director of Jivamukti Yoga School, suggests thinking of money as necessary energy, "At Jiva, money is a form of energy that the center needs so we can use the school as a platform for change in this world. Therefore, you have energy coming into our school through purchases that keep operations going, and it goes to teachers as energy that then goes through their teachings and then comes back to us in a circle."

In fact in the US, says Brent Kessel, financial analyst, ashtangi and YJ columnist on money, says we're moving away from an Innocent/Idealist/Caregiver dominated way of running studios. As more people make career changes midlife, they're bringing more level-headed (Guardian), entrepreneurial skills (Empire Builder) attitudes to running yoga studios. (For example, see Yoga High and Mala Yoga in New York.)Ana Forrest's marketing manager Lynann Politte showed us how to brand: color! image! message! consistency! and Beverley Murphy (Bob's wife) demoed guerilla marketing techniques---yes, those postcards *do* have an effect; yes your most dedicated students are worth your love and attention; yes, you do need to have specials if you want revenue.

All in all it was a pretty interesting couple of days, but as I drift towards bed I've got dollar signs in my eyes where there used to be meditating yogis. Guess that's the bottom line talking, huh?