Trends

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Face Yoga? In NYTimes so gotta be true...

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Face Yoga book published; class offered at gym; media media media--eternal beauty and youth!

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0716F938540C7A8EDDAA0894DF404482

OR, to actually read the article

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:u5p9Ox8qIi0J:www.midtownyoga.com/journal/got-crows-feet-call-the-downward-dog+SKIN+DEEP%3B+Got+Crow%27s-Feet%3F+Call+the+Downward+Dog&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

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Yoga Popular in Prisons

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In Saskatchewan, and elsewhere:

"U.S. prisons are also offering meditation and yoga for their general populations.
The Prison Dharma Network in Boulder, Colo., leads yoga and meditation and also sends books and correspondence to inmates U.S.-wide and around the world."

http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/arts_life/story.html?id=5480a7f0-8c7b-4e45-b19e-be73333c14ef

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Being a Yoga Teacher is Better than Being a Lawyer

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According to CNNMoney.com. Number one in their survey of satisfying job switches is from lawyer to yoga teacher/studio owner.

Witness Susan Rubin at Seasonal Yoga, Armonk, NY.

http://www.seasonalyoga.com/

As covered at http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/moneymag/0703/gallery.bestjobs_profiles.moneymag/

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Yoga in Ghana--Association of Black Yoga Teachers

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Fascinating! Who knew?

"The International Association of Black Yoga Teachers, Ghana (IABYT-Ghana) is organizing a day's Yoga Clinic for the general public as part of preparations for its upcoming first Africa International Summit in Accra slated for August this year."

http://www.myjoyonline.com/archives/health/200703/2754.asp

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Slate Doesn't Like What it Sees

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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/

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Gold's Gym Offers Yoga

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"Apparently the Mr. Universe days are over. Gold's Gym, one of his last strongholds, has finally decided to divorce the oil-slicked rock-hard prototype patron of their long heritage to draw yoga mamas and mellow boomers into the building."

Because that's where the money is...

http://www.adrants.com/2007/03/golds-gym-drops-barbell-picks-up-yoga-bri.php

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Young, Young, Young, Yoga Teachers

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The New York Times comments on the issue of young, unseasoned yoga teachers. Who wants to be taught by someone with no life experience? Some people do. The article essentially says:

"Those who drop in once a week for a class don’t necessarily want a seasoned teacher, or an evolving connection with an instructor. But discerning students who are committed to their practice feel a teacher should be a wellspring of inspiration about how best to live."

And Shiva Rea, perenially wise adds a cautionary note that I wish more instructors would heed:
"Shiva Rea, 40, a renowned vinyasa flow teacher, who trains other teachers, is more blunt. A 50-year-old student doesn’t want to hear a 20-year old teacher “ramble on about the profundities of life,” she said. “I tell people you’re learning to be a river guide, but it’s all about the river. When you’re really connected to your breath then you’re in the river, and leading people through it. When in doubt, don’t talk.”

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:BgE312eLMA0J:www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/mar/09/unconventional_twist_yoga_younger_teachers/+%22Unconventional+Twist+in+Yoga:+Younger+Teachers%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us

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California Lumber Yard Offers Yoga

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This is cool. Check out the pics of workers doing yoga on stacks of plywood.

From the article: "Here, contractors and clerks limber up, before they lumber up. It's a program called Yoga for the Construction Industry.....

"Am I standing squarely while I'm drilling a hole, rather than drilling it over to the side?", he asks, as he mimics the motion of drilling. "Can I actually drill it straight ahead where I have the most energy and the most power."

It's California!

Beauty!

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Yoga Teacher Walks from West Coast to New York

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This just for the novelty of it: Dunja Lingwood, 56, of Anacortes, WA, is walking from the far, far west coast to New York on a cause for peace.

According to the article on GoAnacortes.com, "She said “Retirement should mean, not a cessation of activity, but a change of activity with a more complete giving of your life to service.”

"dunja plans to walk 12 miles a day, making her way down Whidbey Island first and eventually getting to the Pacific Coast and Highway 101.

By word of mouth, she has lined up people to stay with in Oak Harbor, Port Townsend, Seattle and other cities in the Northwest."

Visit her blog about her journey at peaceishealthy.blogspot.com

Go Dunja!

http://www.goanacortes.com/articles/2007/03/07/news/news04.txt

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What is Yoga?

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A few--just a very few--thoughts on what yoga is from the Web site and blog, yoga-abode.com. As the editor, London writer Lucia Crockcroft notes, no one can agree on a snug definition.

She says, "Perhaps it's sensible to follow the lead of yoga teacher Jo Stewart, and give up the pigeon-hole approach. "Yoga defies a rigid definition and is not practiced dogmatically", she says."

http://www.yoga-abode.com/node/399

Here's another think piece on myyogahealth blog: http://myyogahealth.blogspot.com/2007/03/yoga-explained.html

What is yoga to you? I'm curious.

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L.A. Lawyer Does Yoga like a Human

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A good profile in the Wall Street Journal of an LA lawyer's yoga practice. I say "good" because it shows a real person with a real practice. He has a non-yogi job, a family, a good diet, a routine. He has stress and ambition and he sticks by yoga without getting crazy about it.

To me this is both an interesting story and an ideal example of yoga working in a life.

Read about it: John Shaeffer, 43

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Thai Yoga to be Protected

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http://nationmultimedia.com/2007/02/26/headlines/headlines_30027942.php

According to The Nation magazine, "Thailand will propose that 200 year-old inscriptions and statues that teach traditional Thai yoga at Wat Pra Chetupon Wimolmangalaram be included in the Unesco Memory of the World (MOW) Programme in 2009."

Thailand is trying to do what India tried to do, too late--save its cultural heritage from profitable pirating from other cultures. Still, it didn't work in India because it was extremely difficult to patent the poses. Who owns the poses?

Even yogis who like to sue can only patent sequences, not poses themselves. At least in America.