Last night I went to Flavorpill‘s monthly decompression, Get Your Dance On. It’s kind of my ideal situation: great DJs, friendly people, lots of gorgeous space, and healthy snacky treats. All before 11pm. They serve free kombucha, wine and chocolate all night, plus coconut water and granola bars. (Well, I guess it’s not free — it’s $20, but that gets you a week at Yogaworks, too.) Totally hippie but WAY fewer men with ponytails than the old Body Temple parties. Maybe zero. And like 90% of the crowd is dancing.

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We are looking for experienced, vibrant, and inspiring Asana teachers to make an impact in a growing yoga community.

Please send resume, a photo (optional), and your availability Monday through Friday to Brooklynyogi@gmail.com. Please attach resume and install in the body of the email as well.

We will be conducting interviews and auditions next week. Namaste.

Here’s a great excuse to reconnect with nature: NYC Wildflower Week. Over 45 activities in all five boroughs, May 1–9. Most are free, but some require registration so check the calendar.

We’re excited for the free wildflower giveaways in Union Square :)

Sometimes we forget that NYC does actually have some nature right within its borders!

Two great articles on ergonomics in today’s Times: a review of a standing desk and a panel discussion of the article. (For a third, read the Wall Street Journal’s January 2010 piece on the dangers of sedentary life.) Standing up while working is starting to trickle into various offices and schools.

As I noted in the comments, I love ideas for work habit adaptation. I fidget all day long and finally figured out that a break every 90 minutes (as long as it’s not to the fridge!) is a really good thing. In college I propped a desk on top of another, to read standing. And I definitely miss the ease of an easel (with a stool to perch on). Maybe that setup will make its way into our computer tech some day.

Book 1, Sutra 4: At other times [the Self appears to] assume the forms of the mental modifications.

Book 1, Sutra 30: Disease, dullness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, sensuality, false perception, failure to reach firm ground and slipping from the ground gained – these distractions of the mind-stuff are the obstacles.

I’ve been thinking about obstacles. New York is full of them. About a month ago I went to the kirtan at Sonic and one of the song we did was a chant to Ganesha. One of the cantors talked about Ganesha as the remover of obstacles, or the one who carefully places obstacles in our way when we need them. I didn’t understand this later explanation and it’s been nagging at the back of my mind.

In Book 1, Sutra 30, Patanjali talks about the nature of obstacles, and their residence in the mind. Despite that I consider my biggest obstacles to live outside of my own body, Patanjali reminds me that the true obstacles are within, in the mind. Linking this to Book 1, Sutra 4, I realized that the most effective way to remove obstacles, internal or external, is to change my mind about them.

I thought some more about the cantor’s description of Ganesha. The Prana has a sense of humor and a sense of deep compassion. There are obstacles within me that I have been turning away from for too long. I deal with them by avoiding them. So Ganesha, in his wisdom, forces me to deal with my obstacles by placing other obstacles in my way that I must respond to, ones that I cannot turn away from. And in dealing with those obstacles, I am being forced to deal with the bigger obstacles within.

I need to slow down, to learn how to make and stick to boundaries, to find my edge and live there – mentally and physically – so he handed me a yoga practice so intense that I have a sore bum and the need for far more sleep than usual. I have no choice but to slow down and consider what it is that I’m really trying to do with this life. For too long, I’ve been so worried that if I slow down, I’ll miss out. I’ll lose an opportunity or a lucky break.

Since I was a child, I have struggled with insomnia. My mind and my body literally couldn’t calm down and go to sleep. Now almost 2/3 of the way through this yoga teacher training, I am sleeping better than I ever have in my life. For 18 minutes a day, I think about these two Sutras. I think about changing my mind, and I wait. And the opportunities, better than ever, are showing up. I don’t need to keep looking around for a better life. The one I have is amazing; now’s the time to slow down and appreciate every moment.

Stay Grounded

Yoga teachers often use the word grounded. It’s a verb (to ground through the feet) and an adjective (a grounded feeling). But what does that really mean? It’s a yoga cliche, a phrase that’s used so often it’s lost some of its punch. And most of us didn’t know the definition to begin with.

Read the whole thing on The Huffington Post

“As a man adorns worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by the Self, who lives within.” ~ 2:22

On Labor Day weekend in 2009, my apartment building caught fire. I was almost trapped inside and only by following my intuition was I able to get out in time. Almost all of my belongings were lost to extensive smoke damage. September 5, 2009 was a kind of death date for me; a date when stripped of almost all my material possessions, I realized that none of it mattered at all. I stood outside in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, holding nothing but my keys, watching my apartment building burn. Looking back, I think of that day as a day when I stepped out of my old, worn-out Self, and into a new frame. I still don’t know what the art inside this new frame will look like just yet. I’m a work-in-progress.

Verse 2:22 in the Bhagavad Gita, one of the texts I had to read for my yoga teacher training, resonated with me, as does that image of Shiva, the Destroyer, dancing in a ring of fire. Sometimes we get in the way of our own personal development. We get bogged down with belongings, material and emotional. We need not stand on a burning platform, literally nor figuratively, to recognize that change is needed. Yoga can be the practice that helps us recognize our truth, our purpose, our dharma.

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April Martucci

I love lunchtime classes, even though I never make it to them. Short and sweet/sweaty, they remind me that it’s possible to fit a great practice into sixty minutes. (It’s the leaving work part that I can’t seem to manage.)

April Martucci, director of the Mind Body Studio at the swanky Reebok Sports Club, finally got me to a lunch class yesterday. I really liked her website, and her yoga style is called “The Fire Dragon Method” — how could I resist?

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Yoga teacher training is opening up my eyes to a whole new world.

As part of my yoga teacher training, we attend Kirtans, a lovely, free-form mash-up of music, call and response, and chanting. I’d never been to one before, and to be honest had never even heard of them. Now I wish I had known about them years ago!

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“If you make a rule [or tell yourself a story], be prepared to stand by it with conviction. Also be prepared to change it at any moment.” ~ Will Duprey

My brain is growing exponentially. I’ve been practicing yoga, mostly at home, for 11 years. I read about it, write about it, talk about it, practice it almost daily, and yet this teacher training is growing my practice and consciousness by leaps and bounds, and we’re only two weeks in to a 12 week program. Today Will Duprey, one of my teachers, taught us to fly by grounding us. Read more