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

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).

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!

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?

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.)

Pure Yoga opens June 25

Equinox Gym's foray into yoga only, customer-service oriented 20,000 sq ft yoga palace complete with mat wipe downs between classes will open next week in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

If this location goes well, there will be many more locations of Pure Yoga, a business that originated in Hong Kong where it has done extraordinarily well.

You can bet that this is the beginning of something big. Their tag line is, "Many Practices, One Intention." Twenty-one different styles under one roof.

Remember when Yoga Works chain opened in 2005? You don't, right, because it seems that the Yoga Works franchise has always been around. That's how powerful they are. Changing the face of yoga.

For background on the how financing entered the yoga free market, read the story of Yoga Works in the NYTimes small business section, and in Yoga Journal, 2005.

Yoga Journal now in Mandarin

Yoga Journal, which publishes 7 international editions, has launched a new edition in China, in Mandarin.According to Earthtimes.org, "This is Yoga Journal's eighth international edition. The magazine is also published in Italy, Russia, Spain, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Brazil."

Slate Doesn't Like What it Sees

Ron Rosenbaum, Slate.com columnist, doesn't like the current mainstreaming of yoga.

"No, it's the commodification and rhetorical dumbing-down of yoga culture that gets to me. The way something that once was—and still can be—pure and purifying has been larded with mystical schlock. Once a counterweight to our sweaty striving for ego gratification, yoga has become an unctuous adjunct to it."

Yup.

But while the column begins with interesting insight and valid critique, it devolves into summarizing a recent article in Yoga Journal, chastizing the magazine's editors, and lambasting the phantom yogini-subscriber who would actually take the magazine's advice to heart.

"The final step in the great journey of self-understanding the Yoga Journal editors have force-marched [the writer] on is realizing it's all about her "relationship with herself." Whitney Houston yoga: I found the greatest love of all—Me! It's the return of New Age Me-generation narcissism. And there's nothing worse than narcissism posing as humility."

Okay, he's got a point here. Yoga Journal has been market-shaped into a women's lifestyle magazine. It's getting fluffier and fluffier.

But that YJ story was a particularly strange one. I remember it.

Still, Rosenbaum's column would have been so much more interesting as a think piece about the weird contradictions in the current yoga environment--the mass-marketification among them.

http://www.slate.com/id/2162283/

Yoga Masters and.... Yoga Pants!

Gary Kraftsow (American Viniyoga) and Shelly Craigo (Himalayan Institute)

Someone gets unhinged

HardTail

HardTail booth

The Yoga Journal Conference NYC 2014

Again from the sublime to the ridiculous...

Workshops with Sarah Powers (Insight Yoga), Bo Forbes (Yoga for Empaths), Richard Freeman (the Art of Vinyasa), and Gary Kraftsow (Tantra Yoga: Meditation, Mantra, Visualization) at this weekend's Yoga Journal Conference NYC definitely left me with a lot to think about.

I was struck by how their teachings--and their mastery-- seemed to come from a place of commitment rather than from a place that was searching for recognition or fame.  (And I wondered: where are the up-and-coming Sarah Powers', Bo Forbes', Richard Freemans, and  Gary Kraftsows? Are they off incubating somewhere?)

At Bo Forbes, I ran into both the first editor of Yoga Journal, Linda Sparrowe, and one of my editors at the current Yoga Journal, Carmel Wroth.

So we now confirm that editors are long-suffering empaths. Thank you.

Carmel whisked me off to the "townhall meeting" that included LuluLemon folks, yoga activists, and yoga scholars. I have to say, it was pretty tough being an empath in that room: TENSE is the word, as Seane Corn and crew sought to wring out a statement of contrition from LuluLemon. In fact, the "debate" dramatically unbalanced at least one person in the audience who began pacing in front of the panelists as though looking for a fight.

But as Yoga for Empaths had just showed me, just because I was worried, didn't mean I had to take it on...  So I got grounded and refocused. And so, next stop?

Well, sometimes a yogini just wants to .... shop.The dazzling array of pants from HardTail at the Yoga Marketplace was worth a photo. A horizon of beautiful pants. I did buy a pair.