Wanderlust Could Be Yoga's Burning Man, says Ashley Turner

Yoga ticket sales at Wanderlust are closed as of Saturday afternoon, though tickets for music are still available. The yoga is hot, hot, hot!In fact, Wanderlust is smoking hot, says Ashley Turner, LA native and bi-coastal yoga teacher who spent Friday and Saturday hanging with yogi friends at the festival's yoga village.I spoke to Ashley this morning. Because of a scheduling snafu (she had to teach down in SF on Sat), Ashley didn't end up teaching at Wanderlust this year. But she did attend the Friday night VIP party for teachers, artists, and sponsors, as well as the launch part for YAMA (yoga artists management agency. Yes, I know!!!! Weird!)

"Wanderlust is just a very cool idea. I don't know why we haven't had yoga conferences like it before," says Ashley who includes live music in her Friday night classes at the legendary Exhale Center for Sacred Movement, in Santa Monica. She sees the blend of yoga and music as the way of the future. "I just had time for one class, and I practiced with John Friend under a big tent in the yoga village right before sunset. The breeze was going with that hot summer air. It was amazing to practice in the elements like that."

LEFT: John Friend sees a woman crying during his session. She's joyously moved. From Ossumnis on TwitPic. RIGHT: Yoga Tree tent, Janet Stone class. From Phyzzyoga on TwitPic. Turner didn't have time for any of the big-ticket music events, so I asked her what the scene was like in the yoga village.

"The yoga village was amazing. Most of the teachers and a lot of the participants are staying in the village. You literally walk out the door and there are tons of restaurants and shops. Then at night with bands playing it had a Burning Man edge to it."

"There were people in costume, on stilts, it's a whole other artistic edge happening. That vibe adds another dimension to yoga, too. It's like the mystics and wanderers wandering around us. It was so magical. My favorite thing was being with all of my peers from throughout the country converging at one point. All my best friends were there." Schuyler and Jeff [Wanderlust organizers] really nailed it. “This is the next generation of yoga."

Emergeny Appendix! Michael Franti Cancels on Wanderlust

Appendix

News! Michael Franti, one of the big sells of the inaugural Wanderlust music and yoga festival in Squaw Valley, Nevada, this weekend, had to cancel due to appendicitis! Instead of playing the big stage at the big Saturday night concert, he was hospitalized and in surgery.Best wishes for a speedy recovery, and a headline act at Wanderlust 2010.But back to our regularly scheduled programming.Note on Sunday: read Michael Franti's letter to disappointed fans, explaining the pain that predicted the rupture.

Adi Carter Reports from Wanderlust

Wanderlust poster

I caught up with Adi Carter, of Acro Yoga and Mindfulness Challenge fame, as she was waiting to board a "gondola" to the top of Squaw Valley Mountain to see Commons---Michael Franti's replacement act---perform some Saturday night magic.Carter's favorite moment so far at the jam-packed festival was doing yoga on the VIP deck at the top of the Squaw Valley mountain.

"It's a pretty cool place to do yoga," she says, "different from being in a little room" as she has been down in the yoga village. (VIP ticket-holders only get to experience sweeping views of the Valley, its terrain and forests, as they practice on the deck at the top of the mountain.) Adi practiced back to back Saturday morning with Duncan Wong of Yogic Arts and then John Friend, founder of Anusara Yoga.

"Yeah, Duncan Wong was pretty cool," Carter reports. "He blasted Justin Timberlake. Then, in Warrior 1 pose, he turned on the hip hop super loud and told everyone to dance. We just broke out." "Wong is super knowledgable and a little crazy. That's a great combo."

Aside from rockin' it out with yoga celebrities on the VIP deck, Carter has been teaching Acro yoga in the Yoga Village, where most of the yoga classes have been held. "I've been teaching slack line down in the jungle gym, romper room. It's pretty cool." On Sunday, says Carter, the Acro Yogis might string a slack line across the swimming pool in the VIP area. I guess that might turn out to be slack line aqua yoga.

Stay tuned for more from Adi and others at Wanderlust this weekend.

LuluLemon Opens In Brooklyn

LuluLemon Soho

LuluLemon Union Square

LuluLemon Times Square

No doubt you already know quite a bit about LuluLemon, the unstoppable yoga and athletics clothing brand from Vancouver, Canada. They went public in summer 2007, did well out of the gate, survived a manufactoring scandal (no seaweed in those stress-reducing, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, hydrating and detoxifying seaweed-containing clothes), and---in June this year---took a hit when their stock dropped. They publicly vowed to scale back their expansion. Yet, they are still opening stores. Amazing.

Yesterday, July 16, they opened their first store in Park Slope, Brooklyn, (otherwise known as dyke and stroller land) 472 Bergen Street, between 5th and Flatbush. No deets or photos yet, (other than you can get a free class tomorrow, Saturday, July 18 from 10 -11). But, you know, New Yorkers have to shop. Even Brooklynites. So expanding in New York is probably a safe bet. A couple of months ago, they opened in Soho. Here's picture of a spring Soho:Before that, it was Union Square. They closed down their Flatiron storefront and opened officially in a more central-to-yoga location. In January, staff moved store bits over to USWest. Chilly, chilly, chilly weather to carry maniquin busts around.

Here's LuLuLemon on a TimesSquare billboard, fall 2008!! These guys are serious!!photos from lululemon's Flikr stream Just one question:What the hell is next?!!? (No, scratch that: when's the sample sale?) (And how long should I save up before I go?)

Previous posts:Yoga Clothes Go Starbucks

Yoga Licensing Issue: My *July* Update on Yoga Dork

My update, now up on Yoga Dork! My update on the hot issue of whether New York State will continue to target yoga teacher training programs to make them license-able under the State Education Department.Find out what's been happening---the good news (YANY is born!), the interesting news (Leslie Kaminoff writes a Declaration of Independence for Yoga), and the weird news (NYState returns pounds of paperwork to a studio---unopened!).Go to Yoga Dork, a blog I follow and admire, to see my guest post on this issue.Previous posts:New York Times Reports on Licensing Issue June update on Yoga DorkNamaste, y'all!

Do Yoga.... Naked!

Naked Yoga NYC

Hot Nude Yoga has been a thing for the gay community for some time already. But efforts to cross-over into the hetero side haven't seen much result. Today I learned that Naked Yoga NYC: Asana Exposed has been offering a full schedule of classes since January 2008 at a secret location in midtown Manhattan. "Sensual shaman"

Isis Phoenix leads the way. "This liberating practice began in May 2007 and due to increased popularity has opened its own sacred sanctuary Phoenix Temple in midtown Manhattan, an urban celebration for the holy body and sensual spirit founded January 2008. "

Yes, these naked classes are co-ed. "We are reclaiming and celebrating our bodies," said Phoenix, who starts each class with a disrobing ceremony," as reported in the New York Post last summer.

"The first 10 minutes of class for anyone who is new, there's always a sense of trepidation," said Phoenix. "It dissolves very quickly."

You can take group classes or privates with any of the luscious ladies who staff Naked Yoga NYC. In group classes, choose from a menu of erotically-named sessions: "Sensual Candlelit Nude Yoga," "Bare Energy Yoga," "Naked Yoga Basics," "Basin of Power: Goddess Pelvis Ritual for Women" or "Chakra Intensive: Lovers' Workout.

"Not being a nudist myself, I have a hard time understanding how yoga gets better sans clothes.  Isn't it just....messier and more distracting? As the center acknowledges on their FAQ page, things do "come up."

"Erections come up and go down and are part of being a fully functional being and living in a body. No part of the body is ever shamed or discouraged. Part of this practice is about healing and removing shame and guilt from all areas of our body and accepting the beauty of the body in the totality of expression. Bodies are honored in all shapes, sizes and energetic flows." No touching, no late entry, no early departure. And no giggling.

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

New York Times Reports on Licensing Issue

Alison West

Today, none other than Arthur Sulzberger's 28-yr old son, A.G., reported on the still hot-ticket issue of licensing New York yoga studios. Thank you, A.G.! Your press helps the cause.

Yoga Association of New York (YANY) was officially ratified on Wednesday, at OM Yoga, at its second official meeting. For more news on what's been happening since I last wrote, see my upcoming post on YogaDork. (I'll remind you!) Alison West, president of the newly ratified YANY, teaching at her studio, Yoga Union. Photo for NYTimes by Ruby Washington.For now, Sulzberger, who attended YANY's first meeting, traces the origin of the conflict to the very creation of the Yoga Alliance in 1999. This attempt at self-regulation, according to Leslie Kaminoff of the Breathing Project, made yoga studios a sitting duck for cash-flow challenged government looking for new sources of income. (A government that thinks yoga's popularity means that studios are raking in the big bucks.)

“We made it very, very easy for them to do what they’re doing right now,” said Leslie Kaminoff, founder of the Breathing Project, a nonprofit yoga center in New York City, who had opposed the formation of the Yoga Alliance. “The industry of yoga is a big, juicy target.”

Sulzberger continues, "In New York State, though, teachers fought back, complaining that the new rules could erode thin bottom lines, contradict religious underpinnings and, most important, shut down every school in the state during an eight-month licensing period."

“It basically destroys the essence of yoga, to control and manipulate the whole situation,” said Jhon Tamayo of Atmananda Yoga Sequence in Manhattan, shortly after receiving one of the warning letters from the state. “No one can regulate yoga.”

The dispute is far from over. But there's a sense that YANY, at least, is in it for the long haul. And, in the immediate, there is some light at the end of the tunnel---stay tuned for my report via YogaDork! (With pics and docs)

(On another note, A.G. Sulzberger's piece marks a nice departure from the usual isn't-that-weird tone that a lot of articles on yoga take. Thanks again, A.G., for taking the cause seriously.)

Since It's An Official No-No....

Date your student

Since it's an official no-no to date your student (or, perhaps to date your teacher), this SF Chronicle story from the end of June is especially naughty, and a little bit delicious.Though yoga instructor Laura Camp began on cue---saying no, no, no to that fluttery feeling she had when her future-hubby first came to class---it eventually got the better of her---and him.

"I had rules about not dating students," she adds. "It was the first time in 15 years of teaching that I felt an 'uh-oh.' "

Read the cute article here.

It has all the fixin's of a true-romance, including hedging, misunderstandings, dinner, making out, and a performance-art wedding. On their first quasi-date: "... within minutes of his arrival at her home, the two were intertwined (and not in a yoga sort of way). Minutes later, Laura abruptly announced that Aaron had to leave. The suddenness of their intimacy was too much. Two days later, however, they were back together and have been so ever since."

"Aaron: "We should have met years ago."

Laura: "That's my only regret."

(For the other perspective (what can and does go wrong when romance flares) check out Ogden, the Inappropriate Yoga Guy. Yikes!)

Coming Back to Mainstream--It's All Good

Last week, The New York Times' Social Q's column by Phillip Galaines ran a Q from a yoga student pissed off about a loud OM-er in her class. Here's the letter, and Galaines' reply:

"Spare Us the Om

A new person joined my yoga class and has a habit of yelling her “Om!” She ignores the soft beginning and jumps in with a deafening wail, which she continues long after the rest of us are finished. Any suggestions? Leslie Dumont, Manhattan Smells like a hit: “Downward Dog” starring Ethel Merman! A Zen yogi would find a way to accept the deafening chant as a lesson in tolerance — which is probably why you came to me instead. So, if the Human Foghorn is really bothering you, ask your yoga teacher to intervene. Or take a deep breath as you sit cross-legged on your mat and repeat after me:

“May this be the worst problem I have today.”

"What's so remarkable about this complaint and reply is not the content---who hasn't been in a yoga class where someone chanted too loudly, off key, with bad breath etc? (or did something else that got under your skin)---but that a social ettiquette columnist for the New York Times knew how to answer the question. Maybe he's a yogi? Or, maybe our culture is getting a lot more savvy about yoga.

Culturally, this is light years away from general consciousness about yoga 40 years ago. Not in a good or bad way---just different. Compare this to the "feel" of this review of Paul McCartney's benefit concert for the David Lynch Foundation from April-- read it here--populated by people who really lived the '60s. It's got that groovy, pre-hippie, peace, love, and dope-smoking feel to it. By contrast, the Social Q is very status quo. (Cool thing is, the April benefit was to raise money to teach meditation to children. That's right---says it right here:

"The concert was a benefit for the David Lynch Foundation, which seeks to teach Transcendental Meditation to a million students worldwide. “Every child should have one class period a day to dive within himself,” reads the manifesto at davidlynchfoundation.org. “This is the way to save the coming generation.”

"McCartney, joined by Ringo Starr, sang some songs " that Mr. McCartney wrote during a 1968 trip that the Beatles (and Donovan) took to learn Transcendental Meditation at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in Rishikesh, India." ")

In the end, it's all good. Even the loud OM-er.

Punk Rock Yoga? from Seattle, My Friend

I started this post thinking that Sadie Nardini's Bon Jovi Yogi was in direct competition with Seattle's (new-to-me) Punk Rock Yoga. But, as so often happens when posting, the more I dug around the more the story changed. In fact, it seems that Nardini's New York Fierce Club (yoga studio) offers a version of Seattle-based Kimberlee Jensen Stedl's punk stuff. (Offered by Brian Williams  though his bio isn't explicit about it.)

Created in 2003 (yikes! how did we miss it?) Punk Rock Yoga is offered once a week for the rest of the summer at 20/20 Cycles in Seattle (as well as locations in Boston, Las Vegas, Missoula, Toronto, and ---wait for it---Weisbaden, Germany). PRY is designed to liberate yoga from the rigid, elitist, body-slimming aerobics-wannabe exercise routine it has become---says creator Kimberlee Jensen Stedl (see her earnest, but somewhat rambling mission statement). She covers a lot of territory without giving much idea of what happens in a Punk Rock Yoga class (we're *dying* to know!). It has live music (sometimes), a community vibe, and---almost totally against the spirit of punk---a rock'n'roll sensibility. (By the way, anyone read Iggy Pop's brilliant put-down of rock'n'roll this week in NYMagazine? So good.

NYM: Have you grown weary of rock and roll? Not necessarily, but I’m really irritated.

NYM: How come?I think it’s now officially the world’s worst form of music. Even a mid-level cumbia band in Venezuela sounds better than the biggest-selling rock bands.) Even more sadly, there are no pictures.

So, plucking again from the mission statement: Stedl explains, "For several months while taking both yoga and belly dance classes,I noticed that I would leave the belly dance classes feeling joyful and connected with the other participants, while I would leave the yoga classes feeling cold and isolated. I sensed this was due to the complete detachment from everyone else in the room that occurs in most yoga classes. What I needed was a more balanced approach, whereby at least a portion of the class was dedicated to connecting with others." (That's why everyone has dyed blue hair that stands, glued-up straight in perfect Mohawks?)

"These observations drove me to incorporate community-building aspects into Punk Rock Yoga classes, such as adding partner poses into each class and incorporating more group activities into our classes."

"The more I taught and the more I immersed myself in the professional yoga community, the more I carved out a mission for Punk Rock Yoga: I want to scrub the elitism and rigidity out of modern yoga."

Okay---but it's hard to imagine true punks being inclusive, flexible socialists. Unless I'm really, totally getting it wrong. (What does punk mean these days to Seattle-ites?)Whatever it means, I would really like to see gloved hands (YogaToes--"yoga grip hand gloves"?), blue Mohawks, old Doc Martins, and safety pin earrings and nose rings moving through sun salutations. That surely would be a yoga democracy. Or, would it be anarchy?

Related Posts:Bon Jovi Yogi, January 2009Fierce Club Opens in Nolita, March 2009

Recession Blues Quite Real for Yoga Teachers

Angel Franco for NYTimes

A few weeks ago, the NYTimes Magazine did a piece on freelance professionals who are suffering under the recession. (Dristi Yoga blog tipped me off---thanks Dristi!) The opening anecdote gives a nice, succint picture of what it's like to be a yoga teacher, recession or no recession. You freelance, you shuttle yourself around the city. At some places all your regulars show up, at others no one comes. You wonder if you might make more money doing something else.

Emily Bazeldon, the reporter, writes: "From Greene Hill, [yoga teacher Lisa] Feuer went to teach a prenatal class elsewhere in Brooklyn; she teaches in Manhattan too, and sometimes she crosses back and forth between the boroughs two or three times a day to get to her web of workplaces.

“I spend a lot of time on the train,” she said on the subway to Greene Hill, “and it makes you wonder: If you had a regular job and you didn’t have all that travel time, would you make better money in the end?” She gave a small laugh. “But I love what I do. So I try not to think about that.”

So yes, love is the answer. And the desire to be free of the 9 - 5 shackles. But the article's outlook is pretty dire.

"Even in her best years, Feuer was never affluent, but with child support she was able to live what she considered a middle-class life. This year, however, because of the classes and students she has lost, Feuer is on track to make as little as $15,000, a 30 percent drop from the past. But because she is underemployed rather than out of work, she is not eligible for unemployment insurance. She also doesn’t show up in the unemployment statistics."

Yikes! That's pretty bad. Times are hard for all freelancers, writes Bazeldon, but when the economy turns (whenever that is), things should pick up again. It's just hard for the middle-class, used to its i-Phones and coffee shops, to slip into poverty. In the meantime, be extra nice to your yoga teachers---they might be on a steady diet of rice and beans with a side of water. And yoga teachers, creativity might be the answer....Angel Franco for the NYTimes. Karl Allen in Manhattan performance (as in performance art) space....As in, those with a creative streak seem to be doing better than most  with this best of this batch of lemons. They're pursuing projects they never had the time for when they were running hither and thither across the city for work. "Defiantly upbeat inspite of grim circumstances" says this inspiring May 19 Times article. An inspiring perspective.

Anyone had a recent experience of losing work then gaining something unexpected and super?

Don't Stop Til You Get Enough

I don't often practice ashtanga anymore, but last Friday I needed to move. I needed something familiar and not to heady. I decided to take a led class just up the street from me where the teacher was good.About 2/3 of the way through the zillion jump-backs and chaturangas, a car stereo outside the street-level studio started pumping out Michael Jackson. And we had him--crackly, staticky and super loud--for the rest of the class.I've been hearing yoga teachers around the city talk about playing MJ in their asana classes. If you've ever had a yen to play Thriller in yoga, this is your week.We could all probably do with a dose of  Don't Stop til You Get Enough (a possible theme to any great yoga class) or The Way You Make Me Feel as we absorb the loss and celebrate MJ's genius.R.I.P.Swaha!

Pattabhi Jois Memorial NYC, June 14, 2009

Entering Urban Zen for P. Jois Memorial

Jois the father

Jois teaching

Videos of Jois

Memorial

Sunday, June 14, ashtangis and the greater yoga community of New York City gathered in Donna Karan's gorgeous Urban Zen space in Manhattan's West Village for an evening of remembrances celebrating the life and legacy of Shri K. Pattabhi Jois. The white space was hung with long yellow scrims that caught the late afternoon light and brightened the windowless space. The black cushions on the floor were strewn with the petals of red roses, and garlands large and small framed sepia-toned pictures of Guruji at the front of the space. Food was served the back--delicious spicy popped rice with chutney, and samosas and chai. Four hundred people had RSVPd. Those who came were a good-looking bunch, with a lean, clean, healthy glow. Many had young children with them.  It was a grown-up yoga community, one that has weathered their initial zeal for yoga and matured into seasoned practitioners. Representing the yoga world were Alison West (Yoga Union), Leslie Kaminoff (Breathing Project), Michelle Demus (Pure Yoga), Hari Kaur (Golden Bridge), Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman (Urban Zen), James Murphy (Iyengar Yoga NY), Carlos Menjiva (Jivamukti), and someone from Bikram yoga. On the walls around the space, photos of Guruji, his family, his students, and his travels over the years played in a continuous loop. After Eddie Stern, Jois' long-time student, director of Ashtanga Yoga New York, introduced the evening, three Hindu priests changed a part of the Upanishads, 18 minutes of piercing, passionate sound meant to disperse the elements back into the world, to help Guruji on his journey. In the background of this austere music, was the sound of children chirping and playing.

"When a great person is born into the world, he affects everyone," said Stern. "Regardless of whether they follow his teachings or not."

Other speakers mentioned Pattabhi Jois' generosity as a teacher, the inclusiveness of his sangha, and his "sympathetic joy"---his availability to all who had even just a flicker of interest in trying yoga.

"He took complete delight that someone was growing through their yoga practice," said John Campbell, long-time student.Ruth Lauer-Manenti, a senior Jivamukti teacher, relayed the story of how she first went to Mysore to practice with Pattabhi Jois. "Sharon Gannon [director and co-founder of Jivamukti] had just come back from Mysore. She was thin, thin, thin. She looked kind of green and she had a dislocated shoulder. She said, Ruth, you gotta go. So I went the next day."

" 'Yes you can' was his message---it's what so many of us took from him," said Lauer-Manenti whose practice helped her to heal from a near-fatal car accident." He always wanted you to do your best, including making it to his birthday every year."

Jois believed---in fact, he lived the idea---that yoga is the science of transformation: 1% theory, 99% practice. Yoga is mind control: controlling your helter-skelter thoughts and practicing love (plus a 2hr, 6-days-a-week, demanding asana practice) instead. As he famously said, "Do your practice and all is coming."

Yoga Licensing Issue: My Update on Yoga Dork

I'm excited to have a guest blog post on YogaDork today! Yoga Dork is one of my very favorite yoga blogs out there, covering yogic issues with sincerity, humor, pizzaz. (Others think kudos are due, too: YD got a great mention in Yoga Journal this month!) Thanks, YogaDork!The issue at hand: as you know, in early May, New York State launched a smack-down on yoga teacher training programs, suddenly requiring them to apply for costly licenses, and to cease and desist services until all paperwork was done. Needless to say, there was a big freak out.Lots has happened since then. To get the latest on the licensing issue, the changing case of characters, and the power of unity in yoga, go to yogadork.com and read my post!Hasta la vista (and watch for more guest posts on YogaDork about the licensing issue).

How Cool: Yoga for the Deaf Foundation

Last week NY1.com reported a very cool story in their "NYer of the Week" column.Yoga teacher Lila Lolling, inspired by the works of Hellen Keller, got herself trained in American Sign Language, and now is one of only 20--that's right, TWENTY--people in the world who teach yoga to the deaf.(Another one is the inimitable Susan "Lippy" Oren. Amazing teacher and salty dog besides.)Lolling is shown in the NY1.com video (that I couldn't   figure out how to import) pounding on the floor to signal poses, waving a fan to wake students up, and even chanting OM with her deaf students. In class at East/West Yoga, the mesmerizing Alex Grey paintings on the walls provide a trippy backdrop.Lolling says that one of her goals is to create a dictionary of yoga poses for the signing community. Her foundation will also provide scholarships for teacher training for the deaf.

One student, Kat Burland, quoted in the article, says, "It's just totally visual, it's wonderful. And because of that I have relaxed and my total health has improved tremendously."

The video is really worth watching. Check it out here. Go NY1!

Sri K. Pattabhi Jois--The Big Memorial

On May 18th, one of the three biggest influences on yoga in the West, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois (1915 - 2009), passed away in his home of Mysore in South India just short of his 94th birthday. This is no longer news. However, the outpouring of memorials and testimonials from every corner of the yoga world continues to be news. (Update, June 8: Pattabhi Jois remembered in New York Mag's Intelligencer section this week, too.)

From BKS Iyengar and his most senior teachers in the US, to yoga bloggers and more Americanized yogis (like Madonna? that link was to a blog called, "Absolute Madonna"), many have been paying homage to this larger-than-life man who not only exerted enormous influence on what has become Western yoga, but liked to shop on Canal Street and wear Calvin Kline breifs.As New Yorker writer, Rebecca Mead, said in her 2000 article, The Yoga Bums, Jois "is perhaps the last person you would expect to own a framed photograph of Gwyneth Paltrow." Jivamukti Yoga School in New York held a fire ceremony the day after his passing, led by the inimitable Manorma, followed by 12 days of continual chanting.

Tidbits from Guruji's biography:

The first Westerner (not an American) studied with Pattabhi Jois in 1964; the first American in 1972. In 1975, Jois and his son Manju made their first trip to America. His web site says that, "Guruji has, for 63 years, been teaching uninterruptedly this same method that he learned from Krishnamacharya in 1927." Tias Little, founder of Prajna Yoga, writes, from a workshop in Antwerp, Belgium: "His passing is indeed a considerable loss to the yoga world, for not only did he have mastery of the yoga asanas and have the shakti to transmit this extremely formidable and rigorous practice to all those who walked into his shala, but he was a master of the language underlying the yogic teachings. ... With Pattabhi Jois' passing not only do we lose a great hatha yoga master, we lose a solid link in the chain of direct transmission of scripture learned by heart."

Eddie Stern, founder of Ashtanga Yoga New York, who invites us all to join next weekend to remember his teacher, writes: "Among the great joys of the last years of his life was that he became reacquainted with his contemporaries, including Mr. Iyengar, Mr. Desikachar, A.G. Mohan, and Swami Dayananda.  In the spirit of the renewed friendships of these great yoga masters, we would like to extend and invitation to you, and to every yoga school in the NYC area, to come join us on June 14th, at 6 p.m., in remembering and celebrating the very great flash of lightening that was Pattabhi Jois.  In doing so, we honor the spirit of yoga which, in the scriptures, is compared to a great tree that provides shelter and shade to all who stand under it."

So here it is. Deets for the Big Memorial in New York: June 14, 6pm at 711 Greenwich Street in the West Village. Please contact Alexandra Seidenshaw (201-259-9933, seidenshaw@mac.com) to RSVP. Everyone will be there. Be there, too! Witness a piece of yoga passing into history. Tasmai Shri Gurave Namah Salutations to that GuruPranamah

"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

YJ Conference a Whole Lot of Fun

Kraftsow teaching

Kraftsow’s Cakra chart

Gary Kraftsow w/ student

When I signed up for the Yoga Journal conference, I was sad knowing that I could only attend one workshop at a time. How to choose? Ana Forrest? Shiva Rea? Rodney Yee? David Swenson? But each one has been so good that I've forgotten any regrets. How could I think of anything else when Gary Kraftsow ---a man with sweet gravitas---is explaining the cakras? Gary Kraftsow Or, when Roger Cole shows us the four ways to stretch a muscle. It's more than interesting, it's riveting. (We did mostly hamstrings, which I've overstretched on this body.) Dive deep, bring up pearls.

I've also really appreciated the humor here---Judith Hanson Lasater is a firecracker sending hilarious (and too true) comments fizzing and popping around the room faster than a Catherine Wheel. ("I gave up the idea that you could make anyone do anything when I had kids.") She seems to instantly read bodies. Then she instantly---with permission---tells (or shows) the owner what's going on and how to work with it. Trust the body, she says, it's trying to tell you something. (She was able to tell me something about my stuck left pelvis---a puzzle that's eluded me for years.) Also a laugh a minute---who'd have guessed---eminent professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Robert Thurman. Buddha's First Noble truth? Life sucks! How to detach yoga students from their obsession with the body? Tell them to watch The Matrix or Star Trek.

Reasons to meditate on happiness for all beings? "If your enemy was happy, do you think he'd be running around enemying on you? You want him to be happy!" This humor would not resonate as well without presenter's deep knowledge and abiding passion for their subjects. And, I have to think, their fearlessness in the face of dark or ugly news: we're all going to die. They seem to get that, as much as anyone can. We humans are infintessimally insignificant.And their self-driven, but not (seemingly) self-ish desire to know more, be more, grow more, enter more fully into some nourishing mystery seems to help as well. Thurman: yoga's true meaning: to yoke yourself to ultimate reality (nirvana, bliss) and unyoke yourself from limited reality (suffering). The original purpose of asana: to get the body settled for meditation. This is not news. But it was fun to hear it from him. And in case you are wondering, Patanjali agrees with Buddha---life does suck!

MC Yogi at YJ Conference

MC Yogi

MC Yogi 2

MC Yogi Crowd Pleaser

Arrived skeptical, came away kinda impressed. MC Yogi rapped the story of Ganesh to the swaying, clapping, wooping of tired yogis at the YJ Conference in NYC.