OM yoga was the studio of the month at NYC’s Union Square Lululemon and it was fun!  

Here is Sarah, me and Margi.  They were so nice to come to the class I taught to support me and OM.  I had just returned to NYC from Costa Rica and I was in a daze of coldness but somehow there I was.  They asked me if I would teach a class for them on the Presidents Day holiday at 8am!  Of course, I said yes — if it could be at 11.  We settled on 10am and they even opened the store late to accommodate the class.   So that was super nice and I tried my best to do a good job.

 

 

 

I was so delighted to have some surprise visitors this week in my classes!

 

 

 

2 exciting things

1) The OM300 advanced teacher training course is finally happening in New York city.  Check out www.omyoga.com for details.  It isn’t much advance notice but it is going to be awesome so sign up asap!

2) OM yoga will be 12 years old on January 19 so we are having our birthday sale $120 for 12 classes!

Dave and I are back at Kripalu for our annual November Yoga Body Buddha Mind weekend.  Wouldn’t you think that we would get sick of teaching this material?  Well, we don’t!  It is different every time because the group is different every time and we are different every time.  There are so many open hearted, curious, smart people with us this weekend and a large percentage of them are experienced yogis and experienced meditators.  Ten years ago it would have been the opposite percentage.  Pretty cool to see how much yoga and meditation has infiltrated our culture.

 

 

 

 

 

It was delicious to hang out with our hosts, getting to know them better and eating North Carolinian Mexican food.  Yum!

Here is the OM yoga teacher training class of 2010 at Blue Point Yoga.  

Flat back, flat back, flat back….There is confusion floating around regarding this asana.  We stopped calling it flat back for a while and called it the pose formerly known as flat back but, for obvious reasons in the category of cumbersome, we reverted back to FB.  It is great that so many people have learned to use props and to place their hands on blocks for this pose, but these days I’m feeling like people are using props too much, often as a crutch or a comfort zone, rather than a needed support.  It’s a fine line, for sure.  But it is okay to feel in yoga, to feel an opening, lengthening, movement of energy.  And FB does not mean spine parallel to the floor. THIS IS A KEY POINT!  It means spine lengthened in two diretions — out through the crown of the head and back through the tailbone — so that there is space between the ribs and hips.  That is one of the reasons it is a set up for Chadarunga but that’s another lesson.  

 

Any questions?  Let me know.

Last weekend at Blue Point Yoga in Durham, NC — what fun!  It is third annual OM yoga teacher training program and each year the students get better and better.  I have to think it has something to do with the fact that many of the Blue Point teachers are now OM yoga trained and are teaching OM yoga classes right there at Blue Point.  Anyway, the southerners really know how to host people and we had a lovely time.

 

Hey folks, Dave and I are teaching a Yoga Body Buddha mind workshop this weekend at the wonderful Blue Point Yoga Studio in Durham, North Carolina. You are all welcome to come to all or part of the weekend. Four sessions: Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. For more details check out www.bluepointyoga.com.

Monday night we took Chama to his first Broadway show which was Fela! It’s so brilliant — go see it if you have a chance. Bill T.works his magic, as always, and it is just very fun and inspiring. And guess what? One of the dancers is an OM yoga tt grad — Gelan Lambert.

Tuesday was Chama’s last night in New York and his mind was turning back toward Tokyo. So he said, “Let’s have ramen for dinner!” We were so happy. The whole time we were in Japan we said, Take us to eat ramen, but it never happened. So here we are in New York City and it was a little bit of Tokyo heaven for us all.

We miss you, Chama! Yogis everywhere — make sure you go to Tokyoyoga in Shibuya or Aoyama or Osaka when you visit Japan.

After the workshop, Detlev and I came out to the OM yoga living room and there was Chama! Remember him — he is the Director of Tokyo Yoga. So it was my great pleasure to introduce Detlev and Chama to each other since they are both OM yoga teachers — one in Germany and one in Japan. Of course, they were delighted to meet and had a big hug.

Then we went outside and Chama did a sumo dance in front of this beautiful car parked right on Broadway.