Last Sunday, in a fit of paranoia, it seemed as if the Yoga Journal blog, Yoga Buzz, had scooped my post on the AskMen.com issue (whether meathead dudes should do yoga).But a friendly note from Yoga Buzz online editor Erica Rodefer clarified that it was just a coincidence. Great blogging minds thinking alike etc etc. Okay, that's cool.However, it quickly became clear that I had sensed the future (putting my yogic skills to work!).On Wednesday, April 15, Time Magazine's article on Yoga and Psychotherpay cited many of my sources and clearly drew from the story structure of the piece I wrote for GAIA Magazine in November 2008!!! ACK!Read and compare: Mine and Theirs Too close for comfort? I thought so.I'm flattered to be imitated but this goes too far.For now, my complaint has reached the Time Mag health editor and I hope to hear her update on the situation this week. If journalists don't take pains to avoid stepping on each other's toes, what are we doing exactly?[UPDATE: Moving on from the toxicity of the situation, I edited the original post. After the sting faded, there were some interesting meta questions embedded here: journalistically speaking, must mainstream trendspotting rely so heavily on the legwork of others? As a friend pointed out, at what point does one venue's coverage become a stolen idea for another venue? Also implicit here is the question of what happens when yoga bounces into the mainstream? No longer rarified, what are the parameters of representation? To be continued...]
Doga... Done.
I'm suprised that the NYTimes ran the Yoga for Dogs piece: this topic has been done, done, done. That's all I have to say. Doga in Seattle. Photo by Stuart Isett for the NYTimes
Men & Yoga: Lovers, Hater, Boobs
On AskMen.com, the relationship columnist and the fitness columnist duke it out on why men should---or should not---do yoga . It's a real-men-don't-eat-quiche kind of discussion with dumb-ass humour, dude stereotyping, and the assumption that men are compulsively two-dimensional. Both pro- and con- columnists seem to be protecting some faked-up fragile male ego that could be emasculated by words like "teacup" and phrases like, "how do you feel?" All pretty ridiculous considering that yoga was originally conceived by men for men. It just seems like these writers don't actually do yoga. Here's a quote from the pro-yoga, fitness writer Kevin Neeld: "Before we're tarred and feathered by women in leotards and men that own all of Yanni’s CDs, hear us out. We love yoga, but it’s a tool to be used for very specific purposes." Yeah, we know who's the tool here, Kevin. Also: "A well-designed yoga routine provides a great dynamic stretch and muscular activation series to use before other forms of training or just to mix into your day to get you out of a chair for a few minutes." Please don't call that yoga.
The anti-yoga writer, Chris Illuminati, relies on jokes that revolve around 1. getting some and 2. not getting laughed at by the guys. But he does manage to list four reasons why men shouldn't and don't do yoga (Yoga Journal, are you listening?). They are dumb, but they might be a little bit true:1. Real men don't carry mats. Okay, point taken-- I don't like to carry a yoga mat either.2. No man should bend that way. Illuminati writes, "A workout should involve the release of aggression through the movement of weights or the scoring of points." Should is a strong word, Chris.3. There are too many phrases to remember. "Men don't like to think."4. Yoga makes you look like a stalker. "Even if you are 100% interested in actually taking yoga, you will just look like the creepy guy in the back of class who might just be staring at every woman’s backside." Dude, see Ogden (last post).We've got all these issues covered, over here in the yoga world, boys. Which makes me wonder: what are you doing over there at AskMen?Oh, I know. Thinking about boobs."It might be a little more guy-friendly if the instructor said “bend over like you are picking up a quarter” or “react like you just threw your back out and can’t stand straight.” If an instructor is telling me to get in the downward dog after a tittibhasana, I’m just going to lie down on my stomach, because those words conjure up naughty thoughts, creating what is frequently referred to as the “living wood.”
Inappropriate Yoga Guy "Edits" Yoga Journal
To mark April Fool's Day, Yoga Journal sent out a fake press release announcing that Inappropriate Yoga Guy, the crotch-grabbing, breast-oggling liability called Ogden, would be installed for a 6-month editorship at Yoga Journal, the giant of yoga magazines. Of course, it's a traffic-driving spoof to get a younger demographic on to the magazine's site. It's also an ad for the 5-part web series on Odgen at the helm at YJ. View the laugh-out-loud trailer here:Beginning last Wednesday, the first episode of the series is available on the YJ Web site. See episode 1 here. ( See episode 2 here!) Notable excerpts from the YJ press release: "Tough times demand creative solutions. In a surprise move that is already rocking the magazine industry, Yoga Journal Magazine announces it has hired Ogden, also known as "The Inappropriate Yoga Guy," as its new editor.Ogden, the YouTube sensation, already has millions of fans who have watched him bumble his way though yoga classes, offending his female classmates and annoying those around him."Anyone who can dream up the cover line 'Yoga and Knives: What Took Us So Long?' is truly a publishing genius," says Patricia Fox, Yoga Journal's General Manager."It's no secret that in this economy, magazines have taken a hit. We are certain that Ogden's unique character and consistent record of thinking outside the box will not only increase revenue, but also bring tens of thousands of new users and readers to our website and magazine."With Ogden's high-jinx now front and center on the ultra-yoga corp's site, maybe we'll see a jump in the number of dudes doing yoga. Or, ahem, checking it out.(FYI about 700,000 more men were practicing yoga in 2008 compared to 2004, according to---you guessed it---Yoga Journal's own demographic studies.)
Enlighten Up! The Quest for a Story
“At teacher preview screenings so far there’s always someone who gets angry,” says Kate Churchill, writer, director, and producer of Enlighten Up! A Skeptic's Journey into the World of Yoga, a yoga documentary that premieres in New York on April 1, 2009.
By teachers, she means yoga teachers.
In 2004, Churchill, a die-hard yogini, chose yoga-skeptic Nick Rosen to go in search of answers to the questions many people ask about yoga: what is yoga? and what can yoga do for me? Kate directs Nick's quest, selecting places to visit, books to read. The journey becomes an accelerated initiation that progresses from first yoga classes in Manhattan to the homes and ashrams of sages worldwide. Both Kate and Nick wonder: will Nick shed his skepticism?
While there is also a lot of laughter at the teacher screenings, Churchill says, some yoga teachers think the film is superficial. “They think the movie is belittles yoga.”
You just want to say, lighten up folks.
Personally, I found the device (skeptic against believer) effective—and probably the best way to make yoga appealing to non-enthusiasts. Still, I wondered why Churchill didn’t make a documentary of herself searching for these gurus?
Churchill, who began making documentaries for TV in 1995, is a long-time yoga practitioner (4x a week under normal conditions, every day under stress). However naively (she says herself), some time before 2004 she wanted to find a truly enlightened being. This yogi would be the last word in yoga and would put her on a direct path to samadhi, or as the Buddhists call it, nirvana: enlightenment.
When the opportunity to make a film arose, she considered it a chance to find that being. The only tiny little teensy-weensy obstacle would be shaping her own quest into a compelling story, while using something -- or someone -- else as a subject that everyone could relate to.
When Nick Rosen, a 29-year old journalist, agreed to be her guinea pig, and executive producers (who she had met while practicing yoga in Boston) already on board, Churchill began what became a 5-year odyssey. It wasn’t what she’d bargained for.
I spoke to Churchill on a Friday afternoon, a few days before the April 1, 2009, premiere (see interview following).
For full disclosure, I will say that Nick’s interview with Iyengar, the Indian sage, basically sums up my feeling about yoga (you can get the spiritual benefits from the physical practice; benefits come slowly for some, quickly for others, there is no rush, keep practicing) which gave me a warm fuzzy, feeling inside.
But I also had a few problems with the film. First, why was Kate being such a bitch to Nick? He seemed willing enough and, for a skeptic, pretty reflective. "We've been throwing around the word 'transformation' a lot," he says. A reasonable comment. (The yoga world often does toss out big concepts without defining them or even understanding them.) Still, Kate's not pleased.
I also wondered how any newbie would deal with such a fast-track to the yoga stars. In my first six months of practice, I was just happy I could do chaturanga with a herd of other sweating yogis. Flying around the world to meet the most influential men in yoga today could set the stakes freakishly high for anyone.
Lastly, I wanted to know more details from Nick himself about how his journey might have affected him—or not—in the long term. The film ended on a weak note. (post script, April 15 Nick writes his commentary on Huffington Post.)
Within the world of yoga documentaries and commentary, Enlighten Up! isn’t as acerbically insightful as Yoga, Inc, John Philps’ 2006 documentary on the entertaining contradictions of the yoga business. It isn’t as earnest as Gita Desai’s 2006 documentary Yoga Unveiled nor as funny as gentle mockeries from The Onion (see below), or McSweeney’s, nor as freakish as some of the stuff on YouTube such as Kung Fu vs. Yoga.
But I enjoyed it. It was a humanizing look at a couple of impossible questions: What is yoga? We can’t really tell you. How can it work for me? You’ll have to find out for yourself.
© Copyright 2009, Onion, Inc.
Interview with Kate Churchill, writer, director, producer, Enlighten Up!
Yoga Nation: What benefit did you think you would get from Nick’s journey?
Kate Churchill: I believed I was going to be exposed to encounters with these enlightened masters. In yoga, there’s a lot of talk of coming to a sense of peace and transformation—jivan mukti, liberation of the soul—I was caught up in the promise of yoga: if I could find the right practice I could get all these great benefits. At the same time I wasn’t on the line—the camera was pointed at someone else.
YN: At some point, it seemed you felt you had to push Nick to get him to say meaningful things. For example, later in the film, in India. What happened?
KC: In the beginning, I really thought this is going to be amazing to have this guy who is a challenge to yoga—he’s a really good writer and researcher—who would press hard and investigate. He’d bring his investigative skills to it—dig into and find great stuff. It began as a journey of mutual inquiry.
But through the journey, my expectations made me more and more antagonistic to Nick. I became more wound up and agitated about what was happening. Nick became more determined to cling to his own identity.
The relationship became more conflicted. I was not getting what I wanted.
At the time, we were learning really great lessons from yogis about letting go, about how no one else can tell you what to do, you go on your own trip. Yet there we were muddling along ignoring them.
YN: How does Nick think yoga affected his life? He doesn’t say much about it at the end.
KC: What we tried to do with documenting this story is to ask, well, how do you think he changed? It’s open to debate. We like to let the audience decide.
YN: But the possibility of change runs throughout the film. I was wondering what Nick himself thinks of how he changed.
KC: Nick has said at other screenings that it’s inevitable when you step out of life and take a journey that it impacts you in many different ways, even in ways you can’t even recognize. I think the biggest was in starting to accept his mom….
He had a knee-jerk rejection of any spirituality. He associated it with his mom— she’s a healer. He moved more towards accepting his mom’s work instead of automatically dismissing it. He became more accepting of various practices that others are doing.
YN: How did making this film affect your yoga practice?
KC: When I started this film, I was bound and determined to find the one yoga practice that would work for me. What I realized is that no one practice that would work for me. No one had the ability to tell me what to practice, and I couldn’t tell anyone else what to practice either.
I had to go with whatever practice or teacher worked for me—and I couldn’t tell anyone else what would work for them either.
Are you a "Whole Foods Woman"?
Do you do yoga?
Do you have "eco-guilt" (it drives you to buy expensive products because they are green and good for you)?
Must you have a reusable water bottle?
Is buying conventionally-grown produce a betrayal of your core values (even when organic is twice as much)?
If yes, then you might be a WFW--a Whole Foods Woman.
The "Whole Foods" woman (in New York, at least) has existed since the supermarket/lifestyle chain opened its NYC location on 14th street in Union Square a few years ago. Once we got over the shock of having a centrally-located grocery store that was clean, offered edible produce, and wasn't overrun with rats, we started to develop preferences and tendencies never before possible. (Goji berries? Organic flax seed oil? Say wa?)
WFW's counterpart, according to this article on Sigg water bottles, is the "Geek Chic" guy, who is still proudly into Radiohead and Converse sneakers (so over already). (Although, I think the write might be off about this pairing. The WFW seems like a single professional, whereas the GCG seems like he just graduated from high school. Or am I really in denial about the differences between men and women?!?!)
One thing the writer is definitely *not* off about is the crazy profits on Sigg water bottles. This Forbes article is worth a read. Since 2005, Sigg has enjoyed 130% increase in sales each year. The article says, "At $70 million, the U.S. market represents over 70% of Sigg Switzerland's overall sales." Yikes, guys! We forget that doing good, going green, still makes someone a lot of money: We are all just consumers after all. Bummer.
And get this: they jacked the price by 25% to make us buy the damned bottles. Yes, we're all a little bit gross.
True confession: I own a Sigg bottle. It is cute, but also heavy, and I don't love the narrow mouth. Maybe if I had the best-selling, Bollywood-influenced design called "Maha," though, I'd feel differently. For now, I prefer to sip from the wide-mouthed Nalgene when I'm at my desk.
(I'm just racking up bills pursuing my consumer rights to sample them all, aren't I?)
Fatwah on Yoga continues
This latest installment is from the NYTimes. (See my earlier blog posts.)
Bali, the Hindu island in Muslim Indonesia, defies the fatwa banning the practice of yoga with a week-long yoga festival. Different Indonesian cultural sects now fear crackdowns on their traditions because of recent edicts from the fatwa-loving religious council. Yoga is one of them, and especially yoga in Bali ('cause, you know, see Eat, Pray, Love).
A refresher on the issue, "The Muslim Council’s yoga ruling came in a package of fatwas issued in January. The council deemed the ancient Indian poses and exercises incorporating Hindu chanting or rituals a sin for Muslims. Similar fatwas have been issued in Egypt and Malaysia. In all three countries, the religious leaders said they were concerned that practicing yoga could cause Muslims to deviate from Islamic teachings."
The head of the council promises not to enforce the laws, but it's scary that they now exist.
Fierce Club Opens in Nolita...
On March 4, I attended a free first class at Sadie Nardini & co's new Fierce Club (a yoga studio) in Nolita, and on March 5 I dropped by the opening party. Wow, there were a lot of fancy people there. Yoga connections, artsy connections, just an all around "I-know-people" kind of vibe.
I got the sense that the Fierce Club intends to bring rock-n-roll back to downtown yoga. Both the class and the party reminded me of Jivamukti in the old days of butt-kicking classes, tiny changing rooms, and a fight to be seen.
Faramarz bartends opening of Fierce Club
In the photo above, FaraMarz, founder of Om Factory, serves up drinks with Dana (who I think I'm supposed to know, but don't) at the opening party bar. A band played, the awesome mural was admired, and we shouted at each other over our coconut water.
Culture of Kirtan
A NYTimes piece on the appeal of quasi-spiritual, sing-along kirtans.
Here seen in Montreal....
The Times says, "And an increasing number of Americans seem to be connecting with kirtan. At the Omega Center in Rhinebeck, N.Y., attendance to its Ecstatic Chant festival has doubled over the last five years. The numbers are also up at Integral. Jo Sgammato, 57, the center’s general manager, said the Friday-night kirtan would have about 25 participants 10 years ago; now the center will sometimes host 400 in a single weekend when kirtan stars like Krishna Das, Jai Uttal and Wah! perform. At the Jivamukti Yoga School in Manhattan, 700 people came last September to see Krishna Das, setting a record for kirtan at the center."
... here in NYC.
Several new studios find recession not a big deterrent to opening, strangely
Players big and small, fearless of lean times, falling revenue.
In Williamsburg, Sangha Yoga Shala by Alanna Kessler and Cory Washburn. This studio will mix Iyengar and Astanga traditions. 107 N 3rd, between Berry and Wythe. Classes start April 13.
Fierce Club "yoga to kick your asana," from "Core Strength" Sadie Nardini and partner Shannon Connell. Opens for classes first week of March.
In Soho, Exhale Spa. "Located within a light filled temporary space at 68-70 Spring Street between Crosby + Lafayette, enjoy our signature Core Fusion®, Core Fusion® Sport and Core Energy Flow® classes while our permanent Downtown New York City flagship spa is being constructed. Exhale is pleased to be partnering in a condo conversion in a historic building that will be green (LEED gold standard) that is underway at 200 Lafayette Street in Downtown Manhattan."
Soon on the Upper West Side, Pure Yoga numero deux.
And also in Soho, Yoga Works, Soho. "Our Soho location will be the latest addition to the YogaWorks family. It’s innovative, cutting edge, environmentally friendly and the best thing to happen to yoga since the yoga mat. This is the perfect opportunity to find out how yoga can work for you."
Ready, set, eat your heart out, folks.
The Woeful Tale of Yoga Shanti
As talented a yoga teacher as Rodney Yee is, he seems to attract crisis. Now, it's not him directly involved in the confrontation, but his ex-Ford model-wife, Colleen Saidman, co-ower of Sag Harbor yoga studio, Yoga Shanti.
The situation, as recalled in this amazingly detailed New York Post article (who had access to this level of detail about a complex, fractious situation?), has Saidman filing a lawsuit against her business partner and fellow yoga teacher, Jessica Bellofatto.
According to the Post: "Colleen, 49, is planning to file suit against Jessica, charging she misappropriated nearly a quarter of a million dollars from the business—and spent $12,000 of the embezzled funds on plastic surgery. Jessica, 35, is threatening a suit of her own, claiming libel and slander, and maintaining that her relationship with her former friend and business partner was destroyed by Colleen's famous husband."
It gives me shivers--of a bad kind. We readers will likely never know what tensions existed before this blow up, what personality clashes and tensions permeated the relationship, nor what agendas existed in the background. But the crisis is bringing out the crazies, the moralizers, and the vengeful (just read the comments after the article, oy vey).
The situation doesn't really offer an opportunity for a larger discussion since there's no clarity on the situation. When yogis go wrong....
Read the article to get the low-down. Three pages of it.
Deepak Chopra In Flight
Qatar Airways must have a lot of money. They commissioned a 4-page, in-flight, how-to yoga brochure this month for passengers on long-haul flights from the king of high-end spiritual wellbeing, Deepak Chopra.
Chopra's Center for Wellbeing, in Carlsbad, CA, charges almost $4,000 for 5 days of spiritual instruction, ayurvedic cleansing, yoga, and gentle vegetarian means. It's designed for those who can afford it. Chopra, once a practicing MD, is a fantastic entrepreneur.
The Qatar Airways brochure, "Fly Healthy, Fly Fit" is not the first of its kind; other airlines in have also offered yoga instruction in the past. However, this is the first one I can remember that retained a megastar.
The brochure offers simple yoga poses, self-massage techniques, as well as tips for meditation and anxiety-conquering breathing.
"In an attempt to make the in-flight experience more enriching and less a means to pass time, the guide contains meditation practices to reduce stress, so travellers reach their destination relaxed and rejuvenated. In particular, being aware of one’s breathing – the conscious in- and exhale process – is a powerful tool to fight anxiety and jet lag."
I applaud Qatar Airways for their concern and their investment. But in my experience, the only being who can make a long flight more "enriching" is God (or some equivalent).
(I know, I know, yoga helps. But flying is just awful.)
Metropolitan (yoga) Diary
From the NYTimes, Metropolitan Diary entry, Jan 11.
Only in New York, folks. Only in New York:
"Dear Diary:
In my yoga studio on West 72nd Street recently, the instructor reassured a newcomer, “Don’t worry, there are no Rockettes here.”
A woman in the front row piped up, a bit embarrassed but also trying to reassure in her own way, “Actually, I’m a Rockette.”
And then another called out, “So am I.”
Would any other city have forced that yoga teacher’s foot into his mouth?
--Kay Harel"
Bon Jovi Yogi
It might seem incredibly unlikely that rockers and yogis could mix. Turns out, they're two great tastes that taste great together.
A recent trendlet in Bon Jovi yoga shows this beautifully. Below, a JBJ yoga chant option thanks to Sadie Nardini, a Brooklyn rocker yogini who teaches in Manhattan and podcasts regularly about yoga. Love the East-Village-of-yore spirit in this video:
What does Bon Jovi think about this? According to Contact Music, Bon Jovi's all for yoga. In November 2007 he said, "I'm going to do yoga. I went for my first time, and I enjoyed it. I'm a 21st century man."
What do other yogis think? According to Rodale's (magazine chain) yoga site iYogaLife, Bon Jovi is a natural.
"We don’t usually take life lessons from Jon Bon Jovi," says the writer of "Yoga Cures: The Blues," "but he was onto some yogic philosophy with his song “It’s My Life”[NICE 80s bods'n'hair in the video, by the way]—where he sings that the key to happiness is a heart “like an open highway.”
"Studies show that sudden emotional stress can release hormones that prevent the heart from pumping normally. Even watching a sad movie can reduce arterial blood flow, according to a study reported recently in the journal Heart."
There you have it, folks: chanting along (or singing, yelling, yodeling or screeching) to JBJ can help increase arterial blood flow. Like, livin' on a prayer or what.
For more on humor and yoga classes see the NYTimes' article from New Year's Eve 2008, "The Enlightened Path, With a Rubber Duck."
Yoga for Food
A recent article in the Christian Science Monitor lead me to Yoga for Food, a non-profit yogic effort spearheaded by Kimberly Smith, founder of Riverdog Yoga in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.
Smith started Yoga for Food in 2001 after 9/11. According to the CSM article, Smith got 30 students to bring a bag of groceries to a special sunrise class (according to the Yoga for Food website the number was 20, but who's counting). They collected more than 200 pounds of food.
Now more than 30 yoga centers in 13 states run their own version of Yoga for Food, raising hundreds of thousands of pounds of food.
"It was a natural fit: Yoga is food for the spirit," says Ms. Smith [in the CSM article]. "It's become a win, win, win: The students who get involved feel good, so do the studios that participate. And then, of course, the food banks are grateful."
Smith hopes that in 2009 yoga centers in 50 states will host a Yoga for Food event. No time like the present! A lot of people in our new crash-n-burn world order need seva, the selfless service of others.
While Riverdog Yoga organizes their food-drive event around the winter solstice, anytime this year will be a good time for donations like this.
Register a Yoga for Food event on yogaforfood.org or click HERE.
Cutthroat Spirituality
IN THE NEWS lately--a bunch of articles the over-seriousness of yogis and their teachers. Yay! I was hoping someone would bring that up.
It started with a post in Rick Cohen's ethics column, The Ethicist, in the New York Times Magazine, December 5th.
A San Francisco yoga teacher, up for promotion, wanted to shoot down a competing colleague's chances of promotion by outing his relationship with a yoga student (a relationship forbidden by studio policy). But she seemed to care more about getting the promotion than helping to promote the ethics of the yoga studio. Sadly, this striving to be holier-than-thou (literally) is all too common in the yoga world. Years ago, when I didn't know what puja meant, an astangi explained it to me with barely contained distain.
The letter-writer's question to Cohen--"if the owner knew about this, my colleague would not get the promotion and might be fired. Should I tell?"--reveals her thinly veiled competitiveness. I loved Cohen's answer because it was so direct. The yoga world seems unable to be so frankly self-scrutinizing even though self-study is an important aspect of the practice.
Cohen writes, "If, as your actions — or inactions — suggest, you believed silence was appropriate during the past year, then it is still appropriate today. All that has changed is your self-interest. You now have a chance to trip up a rival for a promotion, a poor motive for reversing course." Yes. Who knows, maybe the letter writer couldn't admit her competitiveness even to herself. This is, I would say, an obstacle to good teaching and good practice.
NEXT, we have an MNBC feature Dec 7, 2008 --an outtake from Self magazine--about a woman who overcomes her skepticism about yoga and starts a regular practice, only to become an instant yoga-snob. The writer, Marjorie Ingall, who also writes for the Jewish Forward, catches herself judging fellow students and wonders what happened to the spiritual component of the practice.
She writes, "too many yoga students in this country have taken a tiny piece of a wider Indian worldview, one that isn’t just about exercise, and turned it into a new kind of self-absorption. Exercise is not sacred, much as we want to pretend it is. Worse, some yogis have internalized only the most negative aspect of religion — the tendency to think that outsiders are bad and wrong. The dark side of faith is when it turns on others."
She goes on to say that what we all want deep down inside is a yoga butt and the right to feel superior to people doing other kinds of exercise. Well, that doesn't describe everyone's practice, but I'm sure that's true for lots of people. It's the downside of projecting our needs for authenticity, prowess, and purity onto yoga, yoga teachers, and fellow students (not sure what the upside is). Really, it's an ongoing psych experiment that no one is taking notes on (yet).
MEANWHILE Adele R. McDowell writes on American Chronicle about falling off her mat and out of her pose in her very serious gym yoga class. No one noticed her dramatic kathunk onto the floor mid-class (not even the teacher) and the class continued without missing a beat.
She writes, "The class is filled to capacity with bright-eyed, Gumby-like students in form-fitting togs. They are awe-struck and reverential to the instructor, a lean, sleek and uber-serious young woman. The room bows before the altar of her yogic wisdom as she leads us in pose after pose. The teacher´s style is stern. One could well imagine this woman striding about in riding boots complete with crop in hand, rhythmically tapping her palm."
Is that militaristic image familiar or what? And what's it for, I wonder? Do those striding boots inspire people to have better practices and more authentic experiences with themselves and the world?
I know that sounds hokey, but we can be beaten up any time we like. Just walk outside and try to catch a bus. Life's basics are not easy, but that's why we go to yoga (I think). Yoga should not make things harder, in my humble opinion. And let's check our egos --check them thoroughly-- at the door.
Artist-Made Yoga Mats
Artist Katie Merz of Brooklyn has created her own yoga mats for sale at Merz Mats.
She writes, "After years of looking down at a blank yoga mat and feeling somewhat grim, I decided to pick up a sharpie and sketch out some characters onto my own mat. I needed to laugh. The result is here. The mat is a classic navy blue 1/8″ sticky mat with my characters screened in white. They are latex free, extremely durable and washable and measure 68″ x 24″ x 18″."
Cute Christmas present anyone? Learn more here.
Custom-made Yoga Mats
Also check out the more expensive (and slightly ridiculous) YogaMatic for custom made yoga mats. Featured yoga mat designer this week: Calvin Klein! No kidding.
Says Kevin Carrigan, Creative Director of Calvin Klein Performance, “My design for the Calvin Klein Performance yoga mat is inspired by Warrior 1, one of the most fundamental and beautiful yoga poses. We purposefully wanted the design to incorporate bold, graphic lines which create a fearless silhouette that embodies strength, balance, and courage.” I'm sure you did. Ah, the courage to purchase designer yoga mats.
Non-designer images present the possibility of practicing on the face of the Dali Lama (who is not a yogi, by the way) or on an image of oversized granola or on a field of donuts or on an anime still or on the word "yoga" imitating the Keith Haring sculpture "love."
Not like Cod Liver Oil of yore
The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine recently released a report that shows a significant number of children doing yoga, practicing meditation, and doing deep-breathing exercises. Children under 18 are also taking more supplements such as probiotics, echinacea and fish oil.
The NYTimes reports, "The single most influential factor driving children’s adoption of alternative therapies appears to be whether their parents also use them. Children whose parents or relatives use alternative therapies are five times more likely to use them than children whose parents do not.
I like the idea of kids learning yoga and meditation tools early in life (though I'm less sure about parents applying their own alternative remedies to their kids). We're not talking a spoon full of cod liver oil and a run around a frozen track in shorts anymore.
Read the article here.