Trouble in Malaysia

Normally, I don't report on yogic news outside of the US, but the idea that yoga has been banned in Malaysia by a body called The National Fatwa Council is definitely news.

This story has been circulating in smaller international papers recently but last week NPR picked it up.

The objection is similar to that of some US Christians and parents: that yoga's spiritual roots in Hinduism could interfere with the dissemination of the 'true truth.' The NPR story, reported from Kuala Lumpur, says, "News of the yoga ban prompted activist Marina Mahathir to wonder what the council will ban next: "What next? Gyms? Most gyms have men and women together. Will that not be allowed any more?"

Well, the council also outlawed tomboys. That's right, it's illegal to be a girl who looks or acts too much like a boy.

Move aside Salman Rushdie. It's fatwa yoga time. 

Nov 29, Epilogue: Apparently, the Malaysian Sultans who each take turn as king, were not amused by the fatwa council's recommendation, and issued a rebuke to the decree, which might still be overturned.

Alignment Off the Mat, Too

Walking is something Johnathan FitzGordon got interested in years ago--I remember him chatting about this after one of his fun and exploratory classes at the old Brooklyn Yoga space. Now the NYTimes caught up with him--as, it seems, have some others concerned with pain management, health, and basic skills of life.

FitzGordon, who just can't follow a line of teaching if it doesn't interest him, is a deeply curious guy. And usually he is spot on about anatomy. I like how, in the quoted passage below, we see him looking at his students not just on the mat, but off, too. Ideally yogis bring awareness to everything, not just to class. 

"Few of us think we need a course in walking any more than we’d need a course in breathing, but Mr. FitzGordon insists that most Americans don’t have a clue how to step, a problem he first noticed among his yoga students. “People would enter with terrible posture,” he said. “Then they’d do beautiful yoga, and listen to everything I said about alignment. As soon as class ended, they went straight into the bad posture.” "

Read it in the NYTimes.    

Urban Zen gets some Luv

The NYTimes, my hometown paper, which appears perhaps a little too much on this blog, reported last week on the much-deserving organization, Urban Zen.

The initiative is forward looking (read article here). As the Times says, "the Karan-Beth Israel project will have a celebrated donor turn a hospital into a testing ground for a trendy, medically controversial notion: that yoga, meditation and aromatherapy can enhance regimens of chemotherapy and radiation."

"Karan" is of course Donna Karan the fashion designer, whose husband passed away of cancer in 2001, and whose colleague and friend passed away this past September.

Her organization, Urban Zen, wants to bring otherworldly kinds of healing to very sick people. Rodney Yee and his wife Colleen Saidman will oversee the 15 teachers who will bring yoga to cancer patients. Karan pays their salaries.

We've all heard a story or two of yoga miracles and cancer miracles. Mind over matter, positive thinking over negative diagnosis, the power of practice,  can all be powerfully healing impulses. As well, a deep resolve to be in tune with change, rather than resist it---as the late Iyengar yoga teacher, Mary Dunn, wrote in her online cancer-journal--- can make one's situation easier to accept, and sometimes even, sweeter.

There will be skeptics to this Urban Zen project, but with any luck there will also be many beneficiaries.

Off the Couch and Onto the Mat

This feature of mine, "Off the Couch and Onto the Mat," was just published by Conscious Enlightenment Media.

The piece looks at the influences of yoga on psychology and vice versa--how psychotherapists are using yoga techniques in their practices, as well as how more yoga teachers are getting degrees in Western psychology in order to better help their students. It's a new trend!

The piece s running in CE's 5 magazines: GAIA (NY), Conscious Choice, (Chicago & Seattle), Whole Life Times (Los Angeles), and Common Ground (San Francisco). It's the same article, but with a different sidebar for each city. (NY: there is no link yet but you can pick up the print copy at a yoga studio.)

Yoga in SF Juvenile Hall

Youth Radio sends a reporter to Juvenile Hall in San Francisco and finds teenagers, including one named "the Baddest," benefiting from yoga classes.

"The Baddest: "Most likely when you go to rec, someone is going to come at you, someone said this, someone said this."

Unlike rec, where brawls can erupt, the Baddest says yoga class provides an oasis of calm within chaotic juvenile hall."

"Rachel Getting Married" to a Yoga Beat

One of the most remarkable things about Jonathan Demme's film, "Rachel Getting Married," is the deliberate, multi-ethnic array of people who comprise the wedding party and family friends. The soundtrack not only reflects this UN-style gathering, but co-mingles and cross-pollinates world sounds as many types of musicians group for spontaneous jams over the wedding weekend.

(image: Sony Pictures Classics)

We're left to guess that Sidney, the groom, a musician, experiments with world sounds, and so his like-minded friends can't help but jam and experiment during their Connecticut weekend with the happy couple. But it wasn't completely clear why the bride and her maids decided to dress in saris.

One song on the soundtrack is titled "New York Style Yoga" (it's actually a track from Black Bombay, and---guilty as charged---I've used it in my own yoga classes) and it fits right into this scene.

It's as if we'll all know what this joyful mix means, and need no further explanation. We'll know that every marrying couple wants world musicians to make our party pump; that every bride wants yards of gold-bordered silk to frame her quasi-Indian lifestyle (a Hindi-Connecticutian?), that yoga is so known, so done, and so much a part of our lives that we don't even have to explain that most of the women at the wedding, and some of the men, (probably; we assume) practice yoga. (That might explain the saris.)

Don't you do yoga? Doesn't everyone we know? Here comes the bride, and Om Namah Shivaya.

Warrior/Maverick Pose

Yoga teacher and model, Tara Stiles, designs a Palin-specific routine for facing off terrorists, viewing Russia, hunting wolves, and handling the stressful campaigning weeks ahead.

"Be the best maverick you can be with the warrior poses."

As published in the Huffington Post. 

Ways to Bend It

The New York Times reports on some semi-recent trends in yoga classes---Acro Yoga, Aerial Yoga, and something called Core Fusion Sport. A little behind the times, but if it's in the Times, you know the trend is now at last truly visible.

Why *Not* to Call Yourself a Yoga Therapist

Leslie Kaminoff, New York-based yoga teacher, e-Sutra blog author, and director of The Breathing Project in Manhattan, explains why he has decided to stop calling himself a yoga therapist. His article in October's International Journal of Yoga Therapy meditates on the same topic. Instead, he will call himself a "yoga educator."

"This does not in any way mean that I intend to stop doing my job," says Kaminoff.

"In retrospect, I realize that from the moment I taught my first group âsana class until the present day, I’ve always had the same job. I’ve just been doing it more effectively by learning how to better tailor the teachings to individual needs. I used to unquestioningly assume that my education in anatomy, biomechanics, bodywork, physical rehabilitation, and philosophy granted me the right to call myself a therapist. But, in fact, it just turned me into a highly-educated Yoga teacher."

Read more here.

The 311 on Yoga in LA

The LA Times reports that yoga is necessary in order to stay sane in LA. Er, I thought that applied everywhere...

But since we're on the topic, check out Joni's super cool map of where she's practiced yoga in LA. She's a trooper yogini with a cool blog, The Accidental Yogist. Check it out.

Paean to Beach Yoga

Every time I've practiced yoga outdoors, the elements have gotten in the way: the sand shifts and hurts my wrists, the bugs prickle my skin, the sound of the ocean drowns out the instructor's voice. But on Long Island, a small and growing gathering of yogis is making it work. Read about it:

On the Beach, Yoga Poses Really Flow, NYTimes (Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut, New Jersey edition)    

And speaking of yoga for causes...

How about a yoga Blissfest to support a kids with HIV/AIDS summer camp?

Vancouver instructor Eoinn Finn, who enjoys legendary status locally, started Blissfest 6 years ago. In 2008, over 1,300 people signed up for the event and raised $150,000.

The event which originally started at a small venue at Kits Beach now takes place at the Thunderbird Stadium, includes live music, an eco-fashion show, yoga, and kids activities."Kids come from all over Canada because there is no other camp for kids who are affected in this way, especially one that is focused on recreation, says Hiebert, adding the kids have all their expenses paid.

"The mandate is to give kids a great fun summer camp experience," he says. "It's like, 'hey, you've got all these health issues ... you get a week off. Take a vacation from your worries.' "

Strike a Pose for a Worthy Cause, Vancouver Sun 

Off the Mat... with The Huffington Post

Off the Mat - Into the World is a program run by Sean Corne, Hala Khouri, and Suzane Sterling,  that "aims to inspire and guide you to find and define your purpose and become active in your local or global community in an effective, sustainable and joyful way."

Recently, Huffington Post columnist Verena Von Pfetten was dispatched to participate in one of OTM's 2-day workshops, this one held at the Omega Institute. Von Pfetten writes, "And so, while I began the trip thinking I was entirely out of my element and cringing at the thought of sharing my "wounds" to 30 other beautiful people, I ended it feeling like, at the very least, I was a part of something. So, when a fellow retreat-er crawled up to my mat after the three-hour ass kicking and quietly said to me, "You did really well there," I did almost (almost!) cry, but I thanked her."

Hardened journalists beware! Yoga is more than ready for you. 

Pure Yoga Hits Town and Everyone Says, "Wow!"

Here's a round-up of comments so far about Pure Yoga in NYC:

July 30, Fashion Week Daily on "the scene" at Pure YogaJuly 30, Yoga Journal blog, Valerie Reiss

July 7, New York Sun 

June 15, New York Magazine (in the shopping section, ahem)

Dec 30, 2007, New York Magazine

From blogs:A range of responses like the not so critical Om La La on June 18th, "I dont think you can do drop in classes, its membership only, but something to check out when it finally opens!  Plus if the yoga is good, $140 for unlimited yoga is pretty good!"... to Om Yoga trained teacher, Lauren Cahn,'s worry on June 13, "On another note, Pure Yoga hired two non ashtanga people to run their ashtanga program. I think this decision was made before Christopher was available. Pure made a very bad decision. I have been in touch with the people at Pure. They claim their selection of teachers is temporary and if ashtanga does not do well at Pure, they may change teachers..."...to the refreshingly blunt, Valerie Reiss writing on the Yoga Journal blog Samadhi & The City, back in January. Titled, "Pure Yoga? or Pure Insanity?" her entry reads, "The quote Equinox gave New York is incredibly telling: "we will continue to expand and pursue an aggressive yoga strategy." I will be curious to see more responses as this giant moves in.   

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.

Solstice Yoga in Times Square, 2008

This year, hundreds of people may join in asana practice in the overstimulating junction of Broadway and 7th Avenue in NYC: Times Square.It's unclear how yoga and the solstice go together: pagan holiday meets sometimes-spiritualized exercise? The Times Square Alliance website doesn't help to clarify the connection:"…we are, on the longest day of the year, drawing on the full force and energy of the sun and are ideally at the height of our creative powers. We have more potential to draw strength from nature than on any other day and, perhaps, like the ancients thought, we are even more fertile (Times Square has always been about sex, right?) "Okaaaayyyyy.... Nature? Times Square? What you say ‘bout my fertile parts? Instructor Douglass Stewart puts it better, "...why not explore [yoga] in the most challenging of environments? In the midst of Times Square, find PEACE..."Visit the Times Square Alliance website for a list of classes and teachers on June 21. All classes are free and there will be goodies—mats, T-shirts and the like. (Followed by the Times Square Kiss-In later in the summer (these people really have sex on the brain).)

"Yogi, Take Me to a Higher Place"

I'm thrilled to have another piece published in the New York Times' Thursday Styles section. "Yogi, Take Me to a Higher Place" appeared on May 29, 2008.Read the full piece here.It was a pleasure to research and write this piece. I spoke to many, many inspired teachers and students who were eloquent and insightful. Would that there had been room to publish even half of their words. I love how people give so much in interviews. A 1200 word piece is a tiny space for the kinds of things one wants to say about advanced practices.Here are some of great quotes that didn't make it in:Linda DiCarlo, President of the Iyengar Yoga National Association of the US defines “advanced” as having facility with the physical poses, a nuanced understanding of the body, and importantly, a deep and sustained meditative focus during practice.“Beginners are counting the seconds until it’s time to come out—more advanced students will come into that same pose and take 30 seconds or so to refine it. Then they stay. During that experience their nervous system doesn’t jolt them to come out.” In fact, DiCarlo describes the subsequent effects on the intellect as meditative, soothing and delicious.“Advanced is a little asana a lot of pranayama and then you sit—that’s the ultimate yoga practice,” says Annie Carpenter referring to meditation. “That’s when you get connected and changes happen in ourselves and we bring that into the world.”“As you get more advanced that narrows the field. And it’s hard if there’s no guru in your town. ” Kino MacGregor’s teacher is in India.“We have working people rearranging their schedule to come at 9:30am on Friday,” says Anne Phyfe Palmer, director of 8 Limbs Yoga Centers in Seattle. Richard Simone, 45, managing partner of the Global Capital Partners hedge fund in Manhattan, arrives early every day so he can make the advanced classes at Kula Yoga Center nearby. The classes start at 4:15.Read blog comments about it: MahaMondo: "I've been thinking about being a senior practitioner and its connotation as my teacher mentioned in passing last Saturday that it was MAHA I had brought my SENIOR energy to a studio full of newbies ( & their inseparable water bottles , chug-a-lug) . And on my way out of class this evening, I was asked, "How long have you been doing this ? " My response being " going on 7 years, but I'm still learning ." Peter Alejandro is based in LA.Darren Main: Darren, a senior teacher based in SF, posted the piece in its entirety on his resourceful site.Sophieherbert.com: Sophie Herbert says, "My teachers in New York and India, who I respect so deeply for selflessly and devotedly pursuing the path of yoga over a course many years, would never label themselves as accomplished or “advanced”."A Dissertation on Disillusionment: Blake Cooper grasps the issue of spiritual materialism implicit in the piece: "The duality below: the practicing of and passion for health and yoga vs. the perceived need to spend and accumulate in order to achieve its progress..."

Yoga Business in Vancouver: Can They Keep to Roots?

Nettwerk Music is big if you're small--it represents indie musicians who get good play in Canada--Sarah McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne. But now CEO Terry McBride is catching the yoga biz bug. According to the May 29 article in The Vancouver Sun. McBride says that, "yoga hasn't received the marketing it deserves."

Even with gyms jumping on mainstreamed yoga's promise of luxurious and exotic well-being, it still surprises me that a music CEO wants a slice of the pie.

"He wants to fill the need with YYoga, a business that incorporates restful tea lounges, infrared saunas, in-house yoga classes and other niceties he hopes will draw potential practitioners who might otherwise be frightened away by the prospect of trying to twist themselves up like pretzels."

As a long-time practitioner, it's hard to relate to this idea of the pretzel. But I know, I know, it's marketing...

"You should walk in and feel like you are in a spa," he said. "It should have people who work at the front desk, after class the teacher should sit and have tea for half an hour and the teacher should get paid for that. "You have to make it easy to practise yoga - have different classes for different studios."

He plans to expand to add more studios in Canada-and one in Seattle-- after another round of financing.

As reported in The Vancouver Sun.

Meditation and you: "Lotus Therapy"

The Science Times talks about the benefits of meditation in therapy. Some doctors--many who got turned on to meditation in the 70s--are now being taken more seriously in their fields. Yoga gets a mention: "Enhanced awareness through breathing techniques and specific postures. Schools vary widely, aiming to achieve total absorption in the present and a release from ordinary thoughts. Studies are mixed, but evidence shows it can reduce stress." Uh, yeah. 

As #1 most emailed article for Tuesday, it's worth a look. Read it here.  

Suburban Yoga commentary

A meandering "no drama" reflection on how yoga builds community and meaning for a middle aged physician from Westwood, MA. It's so hard to communicate the grit in yoga that keeps people coming back. 

Published in the Suburban Diary section of the Boston Globe.