Yoga & Travel Services

Amsterdam Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:57:00.000-08:00

liberal values and tolerance that mark Dutch culture make this city hospitable to the pursuit of yoga.

By Susan Nicolas

Considering the Amsterdam sky is grey most of the year, it's amazing how vibrant its denizens seem. Maybe it's because most Amsterdam residents regularly bike and walk, because they enjoy cheese and chocolate in their diet without a high rate of obesity, because organic food and homeopathic remedies are available and widely used before more conventional methods, or because every Dutch person has health care. In Amsterdam unconventional lifestyles are accepted without judgment, so the transcendent practice of yoga is actually considered the norm, not "alternative."

If you dropped into a random yoga class in Amsterdam, it would probably be Iyengar-based. There's a popular Iyengar Yoga Center in the center of town which offers more than 35 classes a week and an internationally-renowned teacher training course. Many of the classes are taught by IYC manager Cl้ Souren, whose gruff yet wise and fatherly manner eases you deeper into postures than you previously thought possible. The two large asana rooms here are modern and bright, with skylights through which you can often hear the steady patter of rain.

Around the corner from the Iyengar Center sits another major force on the Amsterdam yoga scene, Bharata Yoga. Gert van Leeuwen, the founder of the Bharata Yoga Institute, dances Bharata Natyamัone of India's oldest dance formsัin addition to practicing yoga. He brings elements of dance into his yoga, focusing on the movement from one asana to another, not just on static postures. Van Leeuwen has developed a unique theory of alignment that emphasizes extending and freeing the upper back. In his classes, each posture is held for a long time in order to experience this profoundly opening and deepening process.

Bharata Yoga offers a teacher training course, and its graduates often open yoga studios of their own. One such example is the School voor Yogasana's, situated in Amsterdam's most colorful and international section, the Pijp. The warm, friendly atmosphere at the School voor Yogasana's is created not only by owner and teacher Paul Braaksma's gentle presence but also by the soft, apricot-colored lighting and well-placed Hindu statues. Despite the serious discipline that Braaksma instills in his classes, there's a lot of laughing as well.

Merely walking into the Aurora Center for Natural Medicine and Personal Growth seems to set a healing process in motion. Lynne de Jong-Decker, an American expat, started Aurora seven years ago to create a place where people from all cultures could feel comfortable. Aurora offers an eclectic menu of hatha yoga styles, including Kundalini, Bharata, Kripalu, and Sivananda, as well as a range of healing and personal-growth workshops. The classes are taught in a big room overlooking a tree-lined canal, and it's nice to hear the gentle swish of water as you practice.

As you sit on the white carpet of the 3HO Kundalini Yoga Centrum, it's hard to believe that you're only a block away from Amsterdam's busiest traffic circle, called the Weteringschans, and not deep in a magical forest. The asana room is spotless, without dcor or distractions; a glass door looks out on trees in which it seems the happiest birds in the world sing. For almost 30 years, the teachers at the 3HO Kundalini Yoga Centrum have carved out an oasis of peace and quiet in this busy city.

Teresa Caldas opened Studio Asana in 1995 to share the knowledge she'd gained from her studies with Dona Holleman and B.K.S. Iyengar. Since then a loyal following of students have flocked to this sunny studio in the heart of Amsterdam to experience Caldas's uplifting and rigorous classes. Caldas says, "We must let go of prejudices, concepts, and dusty old habits and open the windows and doors of our bodies and minds."It seems utterly appropriate that she has chosen to open these windows and doors in Amsterdam, the watery land of ancient ways and new horizons.

Note: Some classes are in Dutch, but almost everyone in Amsterdam speaks English. Let teachers know that you don't understand Dutch, and they will translate for you or even teach the entire class in English.

Vancouver, B.C. Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:56:00.000-08:00

Residents of this haven for outdoor enthusiasts are committed to a well-balanced quality of life.

By Robin Kalmek

Nestled against spectacular snow-capped mountains, lush forests, and the Pacific Ocean, Vancouver consistently gets rated as one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Despite its rainy mild climate, locals partake of outdoor activities such as biking, kayaking, skiing, hiking, and climbing with gusto. Not surprisingly, yoga has emerged as the ideal indoor activity to complement these seasonal obsessions and as a vital addition to a city that thrives on healthy lifestyles.

Kitsilano, a trendy tree-lined suburb where young professionals live and play, is home to Bikram's Yoga College of India on West Broadway. Established in December 1999, it is the oldest Bikram studio in the city. Owners Lisa Pelzer and Danny Dworkis proved so popular that the pair opened a downtown studio last August. A few blocks up on West 16th, The Yoga Studio offers a variety of styles, including flow, energy-based, power, and Iyengar classes.

Mike Dennison founded City Yoga on 4th Avenue in 1999. Originally situated inside a clothing store, City Yoga features classical Ashtanga as taught by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, offering First and Second Series as well as six Mysore classes a week. They offer annual workshops with David Swenson, who does his single biggest Ashtanga training in Vancouver.

Driving west in Kitsilano toward the beautiful University of British Columbia (UBC) campus is Yoga West, the city's only Kundalini studio. The studio's founder, Dharm Kaur, has been teaching Kundalini for more than 18 years. Each class is unique, depending on the instructor, and the studio offers a variety of specialized classes, such as a women's class. Yoga West is well known for its internationally recognized and certified eight-month instructor program.

Heading east across the city
Is The Yoga Space, a large, well-equipped studio near the south side of Cambie Street Bridge. Opened four years ago by three teachers, Mary Balomenos, Louie Ettling, and Donna Rao, the Iyengar studio offers nearly 30 classes a week, with special focus classes including restorative, over 50, and private lessons.
Farther east, funky shops and restaurants make up the eclectic Commercial Drive. San Francisco's Larry Schultz, founder of It's Yoga, has opened his second studio here, with a variety of Ashtanga classes, including the advanced "Rocket" series that incorporates poses from the First, Second, and Third Series of the Ashtanga system.

Bikram Yoga Yaletown owners Felisa Fullerton and Ted Grand have gone out of their way to create a beautiful studio with reclaimed maple wood, full-spectrum lighting, and filtered water. Grand, Fullerton, and the rest of the teachers were trained by Bikram Choudhury in Los Angeles. Prana Yoga Center, also in upmarket Yaletown, has three studios that offer more than 65 classes in qi gong, Ashtanga, prenatal, hatha, gentle, and power yoga. The studio also offers meditation, chanting, and a relaxing weekly "yoga by candlelight." Prana has three cozy studios, but parking in the area can be a little trying, so arrive early.

Driving through Stanley Park, we're treated to gorgeous views of downtown. Located on Esplanade Street close to the popular Lonsdale Quay, Yogapod is a Bikram studio created by former graphic and industrial designers Todd Inouye and Laurie Thibeault. Artwork, pottery, and plants enhance the tranquility of the space, with a tiled water sculpture, drinking fountain, and waiting area."We wanted to add the touches we found lacking in other studios, while being sensitive to the environment and nature of Bikram Yoga,"says Inouye, who found yoga beneficial for climbing the local mountains. Opened in July 2001, Yogapod features two heating systems; non-absorbent, anti-bacterial carpeting; and an artist's touch.

Yoga classes in Vancouver usually range from $10 to $17 a class, with most studios offering free or discounted introductions. Vancouver's yoga community is friendly and accessible, much like the city itself. Traveling yogis will be pleased with the range of studios, quality of teachers, and the breathtaking views that have put Vancouver on the map.

Hawaiian Islands Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:55:00.000-08:00

The raw beauty of the Aloha State inspires yoga practitioners to reconnect to the divine within.

By Tara Bray Smith

Instead of greeting each other with a kiss, the traditional Hawaiian welcoming and parting gesture consists of pressing one's nose close against another's to exchange sacred breath. In fact, the Hawaiian sound "ha"--the root of aloha--literally means "full of breath." This idea of filling yourself with breath, or as yogis call it prana, is just one of the many similarities that make practicing yoga in the Aloha State a natural fit. Founded in 1977, the Iyengar-based Silent Dance Center has grown over the last quarter century to three spacious studios around Oahu. A mainstay in the island's yoga scene, they offer Iyengar Yoga, classes for seniors and children, a pranayama and restorative class, teacher-training programs, and trilingual (Japanese-English-Korean) commentary in classes taught by the SDC's most senior-level instructor, Ae Ja Mobley.

It's this same kind of mix of cultures and traditions that provides the energizing spirit for one of Oahu's newest yoga studios, Yoga Hawaii, located in the heart of Kaimuki and founded by Kripalu-trained former triathlete Tania Jo Ingrahm and partner Rupali (Cheryl Figueira). The center features classes from several styles, including Kripalu, Ashtanga, Sivananda, Integral, Iyengar, hatha, and vinyasa flow.

If it's a high-energy, hot, sweaty practice you're seeking, you might head over the Pali (the ridge of mountains that divides the east and west sides of Oahu) to Bikram Yoga College of India in balmy Kailua. Founder Brent Purdue and studio manager-teacher Ted Grand find their core of devoted practitioners among windward Oahu's many athletes. A marathoner, surfer, and rock-climber himself, Grand finds the set of static postures in the Bikram series "very healing, very complementary" to his active lifestyle.

While Oahu might have the biggest and most diverse selection of schools and studios, the outer islands can't be beat in terms of setting. As Nadia Toraman of Maui Yoga Shala puts it, "These islands are alive, and it's something you can feel every day." Her studios--one in the busy, westside port town of Lahaina and the other in sleepier, plantation-style Paia--offer Iyengar, Viniyoga, flow, and hatha in addition to a full complement of Ashtanga classes.

Husband and wife team Nicki Doane and Eddie Modestini teach Ashtanga Yoga at their studio, Maya Yoga, in Huelo on Maui's north shore. Their studio, crafted of Alaskan yellow cedar wood, is warm and light, with one wall composed entirely of windows displaying a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean. The building uses no electricity and relies only on natural light and heat. Modestini has traveled to India several times to study with both B. K. S. Iyengar and Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.

Gary Kraftsow, founder of the American Viniyoga Institute, teaches a holistic approach to yoga philosophy and practice. Gary and his wife, Mirka Kraftsow, codirect Maui Yoga Therapy and direct the teacher development program at the American Viniyoga Institute. They also hold monthly retreats called the Art of Personal Practice in Maui and offer six and eight-week courses on everything from back pain to the yoga sutras. "We are trying to integrate the total human being," Kraftsow says.

In the old fishing village turned modern town of Kailua-Kona, Barbara Uechi founded Kona Yoga, an eight-year-old Iyengar center that offers workshops and retreats for senior-level Iyengar instructors.

If you are looking for restorative yoga, there's probably no better place than on the island of Kauai. "Kauai is where the healers come to be healed," says Bhavani Maki, one of Yoga Hanalei's founders along with Bikram instructor Lynn Moffitt. The studio, which offers a variety of Ashtanga, Bikram, and hatha classes, enjoys a steady stream of practitioners both from Hawaii and abroad who come for Hanalei's unparalleled scenery.

Practicing yoga against the tropical backdrop is a dream for most people. In Hawaii, it's a daily reality, an example of the profound connection between human breath and elemental energy that seems to be inherent in the islands themselves--the "ha" that defines both yoga and Hawaii.

Portland Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:52:00.000-08:00

The heart of the Pacific Northwest draws yogis searching for a taste of the great outdoors.

By Mariniah Prendergast

The natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest makes Portland an obvious destination for outdoor fitness enthusiasts, but yoga is thriving indoors and changing people from the inside out. "Portland is a place where people can throw themselves into their yoga practice because of our access to nature," says Julie Lawrence, a certified Iyengar Yoga instructor with 25 years teaching experience. "Yoga teaches us to let go of extraneous activity and stress and allows us to be who we are; the simplicity of nature supports us in that."

Large windows let in light and a good view of downtown Portland at the Julie Lawrence Yoga Studio, across from the city's central library. Lawrence's experienced staff offer 30 classes per week, including Iyengar Yoga, pranayama, and prenatal courses. Lawrence teaches a popular Iyengar teacher-training program, and the other instructors are available for private and corporate classes.

Holiday Johnson opened Holiday's Health and Fitness Yoga Center nine years ago. Her journey began 25 years ago when she started bringing yoga to the masses at local community colleges, universities, the YMCA, and athletic clubs. Later she introduced yoga to several local businesses, including Nike. "I welcome people of all ages, shapes, and walks of life," Johnson says. Her diverse student population includes teenage girls, who are part of a program called "Standing on Your Own Two Feet." Teens receive discounted rates and classes are free to all students one Sunday each month.

Julie Gudmestad, a certified Iyengar instructor since 1970, physical therapist, and YJ contributor, is the proprietor of Gudmestad Yoga Studio. She offers an anatomy series in which each session incorporates principles of human anatomy into the yoga practice. Most of the teachers at her studio are trained physical therapists incorporating physical therapy techniques into their classes. "We start out more gently than most teachers do," Gudmestad says of her unique program, which offers five levels, from first-timers to advanced. "Safety comes first."

Barbara Fergusson, an established local teacher who helped form the Portland Teacher's Yoga Association 25 years ago, runs the Northeast Yoga Center in northeast Portland. She and her two associates teach Iyengar-based hatha yoga with an emphasis on therapeutic healing and personal attention. The studio offers more than 30 classes per week, and classes usually fill up; however, drop-in students who call ahead are welcome to fill available space. Free parking is available on the street.

Albert Trople is a popular yoga teacher who combines techniques from Iyengar, White Lotus, Ashtanga, Bikram, and Anusara Yoga. Trople uses his massage therapy training in classes, and his assistant, Lynn Brown, specializes in working with beginners. Students can attend one of seven weekly classes at Rejuvenation Day Spa, where they can have a massage, facial, or steam bath after class.

Sarahjoy Marsh runs The Sanctuary: A Center for Yoga, Dharma, and Healing Arts. The Sanctuary offers more than 35 classes each week in the Anusara style. The center also offers massage therapy and acupuncture. Sanctuary Sundays provide a change of pace for students by giving them the opportunity to explore in-depth a specific practice, such as pranayama or acupuncture techniques. Marsh says her studio serves a dedicated community of students and teachers. "This is a place where people find a home," she says.

The Yoga Space in southeast Portland offers more than 30 classes taught by nearly 20 different teachers in a range of styles. "We practice being firmly rooted so we can bend when the winds of our lives blow," says teacher Amanda Yampolsky. Amy Stange recently started teaching the moving meditative practice of qi gong at The Yoga Space. She says that with all the unrest in the world, qi gong helps people retain an inner peace. "The world may not be peaceful, but we can create peace within."

From hatha in the Hawthorne District to pranayama in the Pearl District, the range of styles and studios in Portland vary as much as the eclectic inhabitants of this friendly city. As the city grows, so do the opportunities for yoga students. With so many options, it appears that the City of Roses—named for its Rose Garden, where more than 500 varieties of roses bloom—has made room for the lotus flower as well.

Santa Fe Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:51:00.000-08:00

In this high desert town, the spirit of the land and its ancient landscapes accentuate the sacred power of yoga.

By Debra Bakur

Santa Fe's sun-drenched landscape lies a full 7,000 feet above sea level, making yoga practice in this high desert town—not to mention breathing—a true challenge. Cultivated first by the area's original Pueblo residents, the town still retains much of the architectural influence of the Spanish who arrived in 1610. Even today, the aura of power is unmistakable. Whether it's the incredible Southwest light or the ancient mesa faces, there simply is no bad time of day or wrong season in Santa Fe—and for the dedicated yoga community in this pink adobe town, that's just part of the blessing.

"The spirit of the land is strong here," says Santa Fe Community Yoga Center's Michael Hopp. "This can actually be a very difficult place to live. People who move here often get more than what they asked for. Thankfully, yoga is supportive of spiritual growth." Gail Ackerman, who has taught Iyengar Yoga for 17 years at her studio, White Iris Yoga, agrees. "I think Santa Fe is the kind of place energetically that teaches one to develop faith and trust," she says. "It's definitely a challenging place to live. Often people who come here from urban environments arrive with a sort of got-to-get-it-done agenda," Ackerman says, laughing. "You have to get into the rhythm of letting things unfold. Santa Fe teaches patience and persistence."

Downtown on Early Street, known as the Rail Yard Cultural Arts District, Rima Mitchell offers a wide variety of classes, workshops, and spiritual adventures at Yoga Moves Studio. Besides Tantra, Kundalini, and Ashtanga classes, Mitchell's studio specializes in partner and prenatal yoga. Drop-ins are welcome, and the menu at Yoga Moves includes classes in trapeze, innovative art, movement, and acting, with regular performances offered as well.

If you're in search of a Buddhist-inspired practice, you can visit Yoga Source, where owners Tias and Surya Little incorporate meditation into all their classes. Yoga Source offers 30 classes a week, primarily in the Ashtanga and Iyengar styles, and the peaceful studio features a soothing waterfall and plentiful leafy green plants. Besides a lovely place to practice, Yoga Source also has a well-stocked boutique, offering numerous books, videos, props, and natural foods.

Just north of the city on the way to Taos is Espa๑ola, where the Hacienda de Guru Ram Das Ashram Community is located. The international headquarters for the study of Kundalini Yoga through 3HO (the Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization), Espa๑ola is a restful, rural town with breathtaking views of the nearby mountains. According to community member Ek Ong Kaar Kaur, morning sadhana begins daily at 3:45 a.m., with visitors always welcome. Monday and Tuesday evening meditation classes are personally led by Kundalini Master Yogi Bhajan when he is in residence.

To practice Bikram Yoga, you can visit Bikram Yoga Santa Fe, the only studio in the town offering Bikram classes. Two to three classes are taught per day in this newly remodeled space, which is decorated with original artwork.

If you drive all the way to Taos, less than an hour from Santa Fe, you can drop in at the Taos Kundalini Yoga and Health Center, owned and operated by husband and wife team Rajinder and Harbhajan Khalsa. Located on Paseo del Pueblo Norte at the north end of Taos, close to the Kachina Lodge, the center has a yoga room and two additional healing rooms. Besides classes in Kundalini, Ashtanga, and hatha, the center provides professional massage, aromatherapy, hot stone, Swedish, craniosacral and myofascial treatments. They offer monthly weekend retreats year-round, along with Pilates, prenatal, yogic communication, and special chakra courses.

A few miles south of Santa Fe along Hwy 285 lies the tiny community of Galisteo, once the setting for westerns featuring screen legend cowboys Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne. Spread across this dramatic backdrop is the Vista Clara Ranch, where yoga teacher Ramona Mitchell offers classes in the ranch's enormous and inspiring underground kiva. Day visits to the ranch include transportation to and from Santa Fe, with packages that feature classes, massage, and hikes or horseback rides to the nearby petroglyphs.

If you stay longer, you can relax in the ozone pool, treat yourself to a leisurely art or cooking class, get a massage, or participate in a Native American sweat lodge. Whatever type of yoga you choose, just remember to take it easy—you've definitely achieved altitude here.

Los Angeles Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:49:00.000-08:00

L.A. was the home of Walt Disney but also of Paramahansa Yogananda, who lived and wrote near downtown Los Angeles for 30 years.

By Samantha Dunn

"Do I contradict myself?/Very well then I contradict myself,/ I am large, I contain multitudes," wrote Walt Whitman—an apropos motto for Los Angeles if ever there was one. Yes, L.A. was the home of Walt Disney but also of Paramahansa Yogananda, who lived and wrote near downtown Los Angeles for 30 years. Although L.A. is synonymous with Hollywood, this vast collection of individual neighborhoods, cultures, and lifestyles rubbing against one another is so much more. Thanks in part to the temperate climate, miles of beaches, and parks galore, getting into shape in this town seems almost mandatory.

Yoga has hit the City of Angels with the same fervor of the modern fitness movement that began here. On any given day, Santa Monica Boulevard is flooded with Tapas-mat-carrying yogis, and classes are more often jam-packed than not. While some argue that the spiritual aspects of the yogic tradition are given short shrift in favor of a good workout, the truth is that teachers were finding receptive, serious students here when other parts of the country were still confusing the word "yoga" with a milk product from France.

As a consequence, there are a number of well-established studios here, making the city fertile ground for people who want to investigate yoga in a wide range of teachings. Along with the fact that instruction can be found inside mini-malls, a major benefit to doing yoga in L.A. is that as you grow in your practice, what was once a huge megalopolis becomes a very small town indeed.

Although phenomenal studios and teachers can be found throughout the area, certain pockets have attracted loyal communities of yogis. Outstanding opportunities to practice can be found in roughly a 10-mile radius from Sunset Boulevard going south to the 10 Freeway. The Center for Yoga on Larchmont is the city's oldest school and most vibrant, with a studio the size of a high school gymnasium. Youํll find Iyengar, Ashtanga, and flow classes—and 80-year-old instructor Frank White. On 3rd Street is the Iyengar Institute of Los Angeles, a mecca for Iyengar teacher training and instruction.

Also on 3rd Street is Golden Bridge, where Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa has become the pied piper of Kundalini Yoga and meditation, thanks in part to her book and popular videos. Less than 10 minutes away on Robertson Boulevard is the older Kundalini Yoga center, Yoga West, where paintings of the Sikh gurus line the white walls. The Bikram Yoga College of India is the hot spot on La Cienega, a warehouse-sized area with a number of morning and evening classes available. A half hour away over the Santa Monica Mountain pass, residents rave about the good vibes of Encino's Bikram Yoga College of India.

Going west toward the ocean in the tiny areas of Brentwood and the "NoMo" (north of Montana Avenue) part of Santa Monica is another pocket of great yoga instruction. Yoga Works is like ancient Rome—the place where all roads eventually lead, especially if you want to catch an Ashtanga-based class at any hour of the day. It has two locations, a light-toned second-level studio on Montana Avenue and another on Main Street, and it seems they are both always full of yogis, novice and otherwise. Just down the block, you'll find the Forrest Yoga Circle, where Ana Forrest and her teachers offer rigorous asana classes that incorporate a focus on spiritual and emotional healing.

On the tree-lined boulevard of San Vicente, look for Maha Yoga, owned by Steve Ross, almost as well known as his celeb students Meg Ryan and Woody Harrelson. Also on San Vicente, longtime teacher Bea Ammedowns runs The YogAbility Institute, with programs geared for children with special needs, seniors, and people rehabilitating from injury. In the neighborhood is Brentwood Yoga, a lovely space with small classes, where Hypno-Yoga and Yoga for Musicians are two of their many unique classes. Just blocks from the beach in downtown Santa Monica, you know a Brian Krest class at Power Yoga has just ended by the number of sweat-soaked, blissed-out people wandering Santa Monica Boulevard.

Other places in the area that don't have quite the name recognition include the Santa Monica Zen Center, where Buddhist priest Yoan instructs beginners in the science of Iyengar. In the bohemian outpost of Silverlake, soulful Matt Pesendian leads a challenging hatha class at Silverlake Yoga. At the hatha-based Malibu Yoga, James Hanrahan's evening Mysore-styled hip-opener classes are worth a trip up the Pacific Coast Highway. The class is guaranteed to change your walk—but of course, this is L.A. If you do much of that "walking" thing, we'll know you're just visiting.

To find a studio in Los Angeles, search our Google

Paris Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:47:00.000-08:00

In Paris the concept of "well-being"is usually associated with a good bottle of wine. But that doesn't stop its inhabitants from flocking to yoga classes.

By Margie Rynn

In Paris the concept of "well-being"is usually associated with a good bottle of wine. But that doesn't stop its inhabitants from flocking to yoga classes. The Parisian Yellow Pages lists some 80 teachers and centers offering classes in all manner of styles and approaches, so the traveling yogi need not worry about finding a place to unwind after a long day at the Louvre. Some studios even offer classes in English. "In the United States, many people take yoga to become strong and get in shape,"says Claire Bornstain Petit, secretary general of the F้d้ration Inter-Enseignements de Hatha Yoga, an association of yoga teachers.

"Here in France, it is mostly for stress reduction and relaxation." That said, Power Yoga practitioners need not throw in the sticky mat when visiting the City of Lights. Ashtanga Yoga has arrived in Paris in the person of Caroline Boulinguez, who teaches in a studio within shouting distance of the Place de la Bastille. Boulinguez agrees that French people do not share the American passion for physical exertion. "It takes a lot of courage for a French person to take Ashtanga,"she admits. "Their bodies are not prepared. I am sure that it will catch on, but it will take longer here than in the U.S."

Boulinguez has been teaching in Paris for eight years, and breaking ground is hard work. But there are signs that the Ashtanga message is being heard. Boulinguez has recently been interviewed by magazines such as Elle, Marie Claire, and Madame Figaro, who are clamoring over the yoga of Sting, Madonna, and other famous "bouddhistomaniaques"—Parisian slang for a lover of all things Buddhist.

For those still in the throws of jet lag, a kinder, gentler yoga workout is available at the Association Viniyoga Ile de France. Tucked into a lofty building around the corner from the Palais Royal, the organization offers a range of classes in this traditional, low-key style. "The idea is to adapt yoga to each person's abilities,"says Bernadette Pajot, president of the association.

"You cannot ask a Western person who spends all day in a chair to have hips as flexible as someone from India."The small, four-person classes are particularly well-suited to people with injuries or specific needs. Each teacher organizes classes independently, and since classes are small, it's essential to call ahead. There are a few English-speaking teachers at the Viniyoga center. One of them, Evelyn Figueroa, will schedule a special class for you and your yoga troupe if you're traveling in a group.

If the grandeur of the Arc de Triomphe has left you saturated with a feeling of Napoleonic excess, a good dose of Iyengar might be just the thing to straighten yourself out. The Centre de Yoga Iyengar de Paris is located just a few blocks away from the monument in a beautiful Belle Epoque building on the swanky Avenue Victor Hugo. Founded in 1980 by Faeq Biria, the center was the first Iyengar school in the nation. "It was a desert,"says his wife Corine, who codirects and teaches at the center. "There has been a lot of development since then. There are now 100 certified Iyengar teachers in France."

The Birias have studied extensively with B.K.S. Iyengar, making trips to India every year. The center offers a full schedule of classes, including special courses for injuries and stress reduction. Be sure to check out the cherubs dancing around the ceiling moldings when you are stretched out in Corpse Pose.

Located in a far more meat-and-potatoes neighborhood, the Centre Sivananda de Yoga Vedanta looks out over the humble Boulevard Sebastopol, not far from the Pompidou Center. As the only government-recognized Hindu congregation in the country, the center's saffron-clad staff offers hatha classes based on the teachings of Swami Sivananda. The abundant schedule includes two classes in English, which have been quite a hit, according to Swami Kailasananda, the director of the center. "Now even the French students want to take the English classes,"she says. For a study in karmic contrasts, walk one block west after class to Rue St. Denis to peek at one of Paris's more flamboyant red light districts.

For a more secular approach, head over to the Rue de Rome and Institut Eva Ruchpaul—the haute couture of Parisian yoga. A few blocks from Gare St. Lazare, the train station immortalized by Monet, this elegantly serene yoga studio offers classes in small, plush-carpeted rooms with vestiges of marble mantle pieces. New students are required to take a private lesson so the teacher can become familiar with each person's individual needs. The technique is hatha yoga as interpreted by Eva Ruchpaul, one of France's yoga pioneers. "We try to achieve a balance between dynamic energy and letting go, on the level of postures and respiration,"explains Francoise Blanc, manager of the institute. "Each person's evolution comes from within,"says Blanc, who notes that yoga gives you everything you need to become conscious. "Yoga gives you gout a vivre—a taste for life."

To find a studio in Paris, search our Google

Boston Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:45:00.000-08:00

Active, health-conscious professionals have spurred a yoga renaissance in this Colonial city.

By Carol Connare

Settled in 1630, Boston may be old in spirit but it's young at heart. Active, health-conscious professionals have spurred a yoga renaissance in the second half of the 1990s. Travelers to Boston have never had so many options for continuing their practice while on the road.

Somerville, a northwest burb, is home to the renowned B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Center, cofounded by Patricia Walden (well known for her acclaimed videos) and Karin Stephan, founder of Yoga Macrobiotic Vacations and owner of the nearby Macrobiotic B&B, (617) 497-0218.

Opened in 1985, the Center is located on the second floor of an office building in lively Davis Square, conveniently right off the Red Line of Boston's subway system, the "T." The space is immediately soothing, decorated in earth tones and accented with fresh-cut flowers. Of all Boston's studios, the Center offers the most classes for drop-ins and the most Iyengar-certified teachers—many of whom regularly travel to India to study with Mr. Iyengar.

Walden's annual study with Mr. Iyengar's daughter Geeta has given her teaching a special focus on women. All-level classes are offered seven days a week in asana and pranayama. Special weekend workshops tackle specific health and exercise issues such as depression, menopause, and spinal alignment.

Located in the heart of downtown, Barbara Benagh's Yoga Studio of Boston was the first yoga center in the city. Benagh founded the studio after her introduction to yoga in England 25 years ago and is known for her distinctive teaching style that employs vivid imagery and breathwork. Introductory, intermediate, and advanced hatha yoga classes are offered seven days a week, with a special class for breast cancer survivors.

Just outside the city in Medford, Mystic River Yoga is the work of Arthur and Kate Kilmurray. Arthur, a former Yoga Journal columnist and 20-year yoga veteran, opened the studio in 1993 just off a main interstate highway, around the corner from Tufts University. The Kilmurrays teach Iyengar-style yoga with a concentration on breathwork. "We try to teach about ecology and how yoga is interconnected with the Earth," says Kilmurray.

Beacon Light Yoga Center is a bright, sunlit studio in Allston, a funky neighborhood west of Boston. The studio is close to the "T" but there is also a free parking lot beside the center—a real bonus in Boston. "Beginners hatha yoga is our specialty," says Director Angelena Craig, "but we also offer open-level classes in Kripalu, Iyengar, Bikram, and Ashtanga styles. We've found that the more types of yoga we offer, the better, but we concentrate on meditative styles with lots of stretching." Offerings include "Hot Yoga," a combination of Ashtanga and Bikram that's quite vigorous (be prepared to sweat) and Power Yoga. Drop-ins are always welcome as long as there's room.

If you're due to visit anywhere in the compact, six-state region of New England, check in with the New England Yoga Alliance, a region-wide association of yoga teachers. The group's Web site features a directory of yoga instructors and a calendar of events.

To find a studio in Boston, search our Google

Atlanta Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:43:00.000-08:00

In this international city, the Deep South is deep into yoga.

By Sherry Baker

If you believe the image of Atlanta from movies and television, you may still think of this city as a bastion of conservatism, languid southern belles, and drawls as thick as grits. But the truth is, Atlanta has become a booming international city with a vibrant urban center.

The city's only certified Iyengar Yoga center, Stillwater, is located on the second level of an eclectic mall near Piedmont Park. It's a few blocks from the part of Atlanta known as Midtown, where skyscrapers share Peachtree Street with galleries, theaters, and the High Museum of Art. The studio has a decidedly urban feel—white walls, hardwood floors, and high, loftlike ceilings. Director Kathleen Pringle, who studies regularly with B.K.S. Iyengar and his daughter, Geeta, in India, offers 30 yoga classes a week, and periodic special classes on specific groups of asanas, like inversions or twists.

A few blocks away, The Yoga Institute of Atlanta is tucked away behind a large, white-columned Baptist church, in a brick fellowship/office building. The carpeted studio has a quiet, intimate feeling. That's appropriate, says founder and director Normal Chirolla. The small class size—only three to seven students—allows her to give each student personal attention. Classes at the Institute always end with 10 minutes of meditation. Chirolla's parents studied with Paramahansa Yogananda and, since 1984, she has studied with Roy Eugene Davis, a direct disciple of Yogananda. Chirolla teaches seven classes a week at the Yoga Institute, and a class specifically devoted to meditation. She also holds workshops throughout the year in the beautiful Georgia mountains.

In August of 2000, the yoga community in Atlanta suffered a great loss when Martin Pierce, founder (with his wife Margaret) of the Pierce Program, died of a heart attack. Nearly 30 years ago, Martin and Margaret Pierce began teaching yoga in a rented garage-sized carriage house. The Pierce Program has grown enormously over the decades and is now located in a two-building complex the Pierces bought and renovated in Atlanta's trendy in-town Virginia Highland neighborhood.

Authors of the best-selling book Yoga for Your Life (Sterling, 1996), the Pierces teach in the Viniyoga tradition, tailoring pranayama, asanas, sound, and the study of yoga philosophy to each individual student. Margaret Pierce and 10 Desikachar-trained teachers will carry on the legacy at the Pierce studios, offering over 40 classes each week, and holding workshops on meditation, chanting, partner yoga and more throughout the year, as well as yoga retreats in scenic north Georgia.

In the Inman Park community, where once-shabby Victorian mansions and cottages have been renovated and industrial buildings have found new life as art galleries, shops, and restaurants, a brick warehouse was transformed two years ago into the Jaya Devi Yoga Studio and ashram. Jaya Devi, a devotee of Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, and seven other teachers hold hatha, Kundalini, and Kali Yoga classes six days a week in a large studio. A weekly "Immune Yoga" class is offered for people living with AIDS/HIV or cancer. There are ongoing classes in belly dancing, tai chi, and qi gong, and workshops on chakras, fasting, and Oriental medicine.

Near Atlanta's downtown business area and within blocks of the Georgia Tech campus, another former warehouse has found new life as Atlanta Yoga, a dedicated Ashtanga Yoga studio. Director Tommy Moss and three other teachers hold 11 weekly classes and workshops several times a year. Students should come to class "with a towel and a sense of humor," Moss quips. "While we encourage everyone to follow his or her own path, in the words of one of my favorite teachers, 'the focus is less on enlightenment here and more on learning to touch our toes.' "

Metamorphosis Yoga Studio, located near Emory University in a sprawling shopping mall, overlooks a courtyard with large cherry trees originally brought from China. In addition to nine yoga classes each week, grounded in the Kripalu Yoga style, Metamorphosis offers workshops, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy, energy and chakra balancing, Feldenkrais, massage therapy, and Rolfing.

A few minutes north of Atlanta's frenetic Buckhead section, packed with office buildings, restaurants, and nightclubs, is an oasis of calm—Peachtree Yoga Center. Visitors are greeted in the sunshine-yellow lobby with tropical plants and a gurgling fountain. Nearly 30 classes a week (including prenatal, hatha, Kripalu, Kundalini, and "Power Flow") are offered in two sky-hued studios, as well as Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy and craniosacral and Ayurvedic massage. Peachtree even has a space dedicated to meditation. Teachers here often incorporate a verse or two from the Yoga Sutra into class, helping students carry the philosophy of yoga out of the studio.

To find a studio in Atlanta, search our Google

Boulder Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:41:00.000-08:00

Whatever brings you to Boulder, immerse yourself in its rich natural beauty and vibrant yoga classes, workshops, and retreats.

By Elaine Lipson

Residents call it 40 square miles surrounded by reality. Others know it as a New Age mecca, an outdoor paradise, an affluent tourist destination, a college town, or a progressive alternative to nearby Denver. Boulder, Colorado, is all of these things and more; whatever brings you to Boulder, immerse yourself in its rich natural beauty and vibrant yoga classes, workshops, and retreats.

Boulder's best-known teacher is Richard Freeman, a student of K. Pattabhi Jois and director of The Yoga Workshop in the heart of the city, where he and others teach classical Ashtanga Yoga. Freeman has been teaching yoga in Boulder for 18 years and has noticed that "interest in Ashtanga Yoga is growing here, as it is throughout the world. It combines meditation, internal alignment, movement, and traditional yoga postures, so it gives you a profound experience of self-realization and freedom." The studio offers four levels of classes, but Level I classes explore Sun Salutation postures with a depth and focus that can benefit even advanced students.

A drive up Boulder Canyon leads to the mountain town of Nederland, gateway to hiking trails, alpine lakes, and Shoshoni Yoga Retreat in nearby Rollinsville. Shoshoni offers daily hatha yoga classes and meditation sessions; overnight guests enjoy log-cabin lodgings and vegetarian meals. Director Faith Stone says the ashram's teaching style is "gentle, classical, and more traditional—not super aerobic." The most unique thing about Shoshoni, Stone adds, "is the breath and spiritual aspect. Hatha yoga was and is a way to experience the inner Self, a spiritual path. In a lot of places that's been diluted, but it's very much alive here." Weekend Rejuvenation Retreats begin on Friday evenings; a full schedule and on-line reservations are available on the Web.

Back in downtown Boulder, the Iyengar Center of Boulder offers beginning, mixed-level, and custom-designed therapeutic classes in the Iyengar style. "Every class combines rest and activity, as you should in daily life too," says the Center's director, Laura Allard, who established the studio in 1991 with her husband Norman, a chiropractor and certified Feldenkrais teacher as well as a certified Iyengar instructor.

Though most yogis passing through Boulder won't have time for a formal certification program in the practice and teaching of yoga, yoga therapy, or Ayurveda offered at the Rocky Mountain Institute of Yoga and Ayurveda, the Institute's weekend intensives (on subjects like pranayama, the art of teaching asana, and Ayurvedic medicine) are open to the public on a space-available basis. Classes are also open on a drop-in basis. A list of core and guest faculty—including Vasant Lad, M.A.Sc., and Robert Svoboda, M.D.—is available on the Institute's Web site.

Between classes, you can stroll down Boulder Creek or people-watch on Pearl Street, Boulder's social center. But take note: If you feel lightheaded or fatigued after arriving in Boulder, it may be because the city's elevation is about 6,000 feet. Sensitivity or overexertion can lead to severe altitude sickness, so take a day or two to acclimate, stay hydrated, and rest if nauseous, fatigued, or short of breath.

To find a studio in Boulder, search our Google

New Orleans Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:40:00.000-08:00

In New Orleans, you can get your yoga spicy or mild, and it's all good.

By Colleen Morton

Maybe because the average temperature and humidity from May until sometime in late September hovers around 90 degrees, few yoga classes in New Orleans deliberately turn up the heat. A unique, small-town city that doesn't like to push itself, it expertly models the mantra Relax. Cool off. Watch the world go by, and is consequently a perfect place for yoga. New Orleans isn't fussy about names either—unless you're distinguishing between, say, crawfish etouffee and a crawfish boil—and the range of styles and approaches to yoga in New Orleans reflects that laid-back manner, with few teachers defining themselves by one style or school.

Yoga classes are available in most neighborhoods, in a range of places—fitness centers, hotels, churches, universities, parks, private homes—but the three main New Orleans studios are all located within a few blocks of Carrollton Avenue, a main artery that runs from the Mississippi on the southern border of the city to the centrally located City Park.

The streetcar, which runs along St. Charles Avenue, passing elaborate estates, Tulane University, and Audubon Park before turning up Carrollton, will take you a short walk away from one of the city's longtime teachers: Alvina. Alvina has been a figure on the New Orleans yoga scene for 27 years, and teaches out of a studio she built above a chiropractor's office on Oak Street. Alvina's background as a ballet dancer is evident in the bar and mirrors on the walls (which help her and her students keep an eye on their alignment, "checking but not making judgments"). Her background as a painter and folk art collector show too in her appreciation of teaching yoga as "painting with people. My yoga has always come from the same place my art does: looking, seeing things freshly." Diagnosed with systemic lupus 30 years ago, Alvina is particularly sensitive to the therapeutic possibilities of yoga, and to the view of yoga postures as part of a dynamic flow. "I used to think I was digging for the perfect image," she says, "but everything is always shifting." Alvina teaches Monday through Saturday at her studio, and most classes are open to drop-ins. She also leads a popular retreat annually to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. Late in the evening, you can return to Oak Street to witness local blues guitar phenomenon John Mooney at the Maple Leaf.

Laura Ates, founder of the New Orleans Yoga Center, has been around about as long as Alvina, and the two both tell entertaining stories about their attempts to introduce yoga in New Orleans when yoga still needed an introduction—to the board members of hospitals, universities, hotels, police, naval stations, the YMCA—and before they had studios of their own. Ates has been practicing yoga since her grandfather taught her to meditate at age 13, and teaching for 29 years. She runs both the mid-city and uptown branches of her center, where she and her small staff of four teachers offer a variety of classes—from Power to "Rhythm" Yoga, and an ongoing series in the "Yoga of Visual Art." Ates's explicit goal is to "celebrate the intuitive arts," and the vibe at this down-to-earth center is indeed creativity and warmth. The center offers workshops, a Spirit in Music concert series, a weekly Monday night chanting class (at the uptown Crown Center), and a well-attended once-a-month Sunday Chant & Tea at the mid-city Heart Center, led by Seทn Johnson. After class, stop at PJ's Coffee and Tea on Carrollton to sample one of their delicious daily brews over ice.

Sharon Conroy is the teacher behind the B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga Center, as well as the woman behind the well-known Fish Crane yoga props business she started nearly a decade ago. Conroy, who has been teaching for 10 years, and her staff of four teachers are committed to offering an Iyengar practice that is safe, nurturing, and challenging. Conroy's background in education shows through in her style of instruction; she often encourages questions from students and invites dialogue about the actions of a pose.

Conroy's creative aesthetic sense is evident not only in the attractive earth tones of the blankets and mats Fish Crane sells, but also in her mid-city studio's design: The exposed pipes and beams in the ceiling have been painted a rich, charcoal grey, the floor is smooth hardwood, and Conroy has mounted prints of Mr. Iyengar and Gita Iyengar in artsy chipped-paint frames. The studio is fully loaded with all the props an Iyengar yogi might need to approach and clarify poses. Over the years, Conroy has brought a lot of top Iyengar teachers to New Orleans, and has recently begun offering weekend and week-long workshops at the tranquil St. Joseph's Abbey, an hour's drive across Lake Ponchartrain.

Few visitors to New Orleans can escape the honest charms of this city: the canopies of live oaks, the old-world architecture, the sweet scent of blooming jasmine, the dozens of pleasurable and memorable places to wine and dine, and the music the city makes day and night. If you're not in a hurry—and studious yogis shouldn't be—New Orleans will treat you to long-lingering, feel-good hospitality. And if you really know what's good for you, you'll plan your trip to coincide with those last few relatively cool weekends when Jazz Festival makes the city the best place on Earth to be.

To find a studio in New Orleans, search our Google

San Francisco Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:37:00.000-08:00

The City by the Bay is a hot-spot for yoga.

By Colleen Morton

The next time you're planning a yoga vacation, consider just packing your mat and coming to San Francisco. The City by the Bay has enough studios to keep you exploring for weeks.

According to Sister Kamala Chaitanya, director of the Integral Yoga Institute and a resident of San Francisco since childhood, the city wasn't always the namesake of diversity: "The '60s broke this city wide open." Indeed, though Walt and Magana Baptiste opened the city's first yoga studio in 1955, most of San Francisco's oldest yoga institutions—like Integral, Sivananda, the Iyengar Yoga Institute, the Yoga College of India, the Kundalini Yoga Center, and the Yoga Society of San Francisco—were started in the early '70s.These early centers were often run by the American students of Indian gurus, and were essentially communities of yogis. At Integral and Sivananda, where images of Swamis Satchidananda, Sivananda, and Vishnu-devananda deck the altars, not much has changed. "We've been pretty steady in what we're about," says Sister Kamala. Both Integral and Sivananda offer a full schedule of hatha classes and workshops, but students can also attend evening meditations (at no charge) or join fellow students after class for a warming vegetarian meal.

The Iyengar Institute, best known for its two-year in-depth teacher training program, also offers a full schedule of public classes and workshops with veteran teachers like Judith Hanson Lasater and Ramanand Patel. Pat Layton, the Institute's director, says that when she first came to San Francisco in 1978, she had to adjust to the "individual spirit" of the city's yoga practitioners. "I came from a tradition where the teaching was more important than the teacher," she says, "but here, it's teacher-centered."

Indeed, there are thriving yoga studios in San Francisco that for years have served as teaching spaces for reputable teachers who have a loyal following of students—spaces which are only discovered by word of mouth. Like the James Howell Studio, or Studio Valencia, "one of the first studios to introduce Ashtanga Yoga to the Bay Area at a time when Iyengar Yoga was the style studied by most," according to teacher Leigh Evans. In 1987, Pattabhi Jois led a workshop there. Studio Valencia is a live-work space, and the artists that live there host a salon the first Saturday of the month where you can catch live music or a poetry reading.

Bikram Yoga has been in the city since 1973—the Yoga College on Columbus is the original Bikram Yoga center here—but the current craze for "Hot Yoga" has given rise to lots of new Bikram studios—Yoga Haven, Eureka, Funky Door, and Global Yoga, to name a few. Mary Jarvis, a Bikram yogi for 14 years, packs in 250 students a day at Global Yoga in the Marina District.

A few blocks away from Global Yoga, you'll find Tony Sanchez's San Francisco Yoga Studio, open since 1985, where you can take the Yoga Challenge I: 42 "yoga exercises" designed by Sanchez himself. Sanchez studied with Bikram Choudhury and was certified by Ghosh's College of Physical Education in Calcutta in 1979; the influence is apparent in the carpeted and mirrored room heated to body temperature.

Pretzel, founder of Pretzel's Yoga in Potrero Hill, offers a unique blend of Bikram, Iyengar, and Ashtanga Yoga. Once a gymnast and dancer, Pretzel inspires her students with challenging poses and friendly hugs.

It's Yoga, Castro Yoga, and Soma Yoga are all popular newcomers on the San Francisco yoga scene. Although these studios offer a range of styles and classes, the clear tendency towards an athletic, heat-generating practice reflects the larger, nationwide trend.

Larry Schultz, the founder of It's Yoga, offers an Ashtanga practice tailored to the lay yogi, intended to relieve the "tedium of the nine-to-five, the repetition of long commutes, and the consistency of the office which renders some of us tired at the end of our days." Castro Yoga regularly hosts gatherings—kirtan, satsang, art openings, even a wedding reception—to foster a sense of community.

A few well-attended studios in the city double as spas. Yoga Tree in the Haight offers Pilates, tai chi, massage, hot stone therapy, and three detoxifying treatments. The Mindful Body complements an array of yoga classes with massage, dance classes, acupuncture, facials, and a soak in the relaxation pool—even if you're not on vacation.

To find a studio in San Francisco, search our Google

Chicago Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:36:00.000-08:00

Ever since Indian priest and mystic Swami Vivekananda introduced yoga to America here in 1893, Chicago has become home to an enormous range of approaches to yoga.

By Victoria Jackson

Since 1893, when Swami Vivekananda, Indian priest and mystic, chose to introduce yoga to the United States in Chicago during the Columbian Exposition World's Fair, Chicago has become home to an enormous range of approaches to yoga. Centers that were established in the 1960s are enjoying a flourishing resurgence and new centers are springing up all over the city and suburbs. The bimonthly YogaChicago (312/644-9642), an imaginative and informative magazine that reports on the local yoga scene, has comprehensive listings of centers, teachers, and events—a must for any visiting yogi.

For those yogis who seek traditional hatha yoga, visits to the Temple of Kriya Yoga and the Sivananda Vedanta Yoga Center are imperative. Goswami Kriyananda of Paramahansa Yogananda lineage established the Temple—housed in a beautiful Victorian residence—in 1968. Visiting on a Sunday morning, you can practice hatha yoga, join the Temple musicians in mantra, contemplate powerful Noon Meditations, or browse in the Temple bookstore.

Northeast of the Temple, the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center offers hatha yoga in the Sivananda style, based on the five principles of proper relaxation, exercise, breathing, diet, and thinking brought to the West by Swami Vishnu-devananda, a disciple of Sri Swami Sivananda. The Center, established in 1965, attracts students for meditation, mantra, and the study of karma, bhakti, and jnana yoga.

If you're looking for Iyengar and Ashtanga style classes, there are many Chicago studios to choose from. Suddha Weixler, director of the NU Yoga Center, brings more than 16 years of experience to classes in his bright, spacious studio close to Lincoln Park Zoo—the last free-admission zoo in the country. At Yoga Circle, located within walking distance of the Art Institute, Gabriel Halpern teaches classical Iyengar Yoga. Daren Friesen, of the Moksha Yoga Center in the city's North Loop area, teaches Ashtanga and Power Yoga, and has been instrumental in bringing leading yoga instructors to Chicago for workshops, hoping to help make Chicago a major hub of yoga in America.

This spirit of expansion is flourishing at Global Yoga and Wellness Center. Located in the city's trendy Bucktown neighborhood, close to shopping, nightclubs, gourmet restaurants, bookstores, and caf้s, Global Yoga's classes include Kripalu, Iyengar, Ashtanga, Bikram, and Kundalini Yoga, as well as special classes like prenatal and postpartum yoga, women's meditation, yoga for special needs, and couples yoga.

If the many offerings of the city center make you long for the simplicity of nature, this too can be found just north of Chicago at the Himalayan Institute, located on three wooded acres in Glenview. The Institute is housed in a 100-year-old refurbished antique barn, where a large, comfortable main room allows for the teaching of traditional hatha yoga and the sense that you are miles from civilization.

To find a studio in Chicago, search our Google

London Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:34:00.000-08:00

Move over, Spice Girls. Yoga is now one of London's top attractions.

By Jenifer Otwell

Yoga was hip in Britain in the mid-'60s, along with Flower Power; B.K.S. Iyengar's regular summer visits to students' homes were a highlight for the more dedicated. Yoga then went underground for a while, tentatively re-emerged in the early '90s, and has been exploding into the mainstream during the last five years. Studios are opening all over London, and the British Wheel of Yoga, the governing body of yoga in Britain, has even become concerned about the need to provide enough qualified teachers for the influx of students. (Most British teacher-training programs take at least three years.)

The opening in February of Triyoga, the largest dedicated yoga center in Europe, heralded the beginning of a change in the face of yoga in London. All of the details of the building were minutely planned to enhance the practice of yoga. The modern stained glass windows (representing colors of the chakras) in the two spectacular yoga rooms infuse the classes with a warm, enveloping energy.

But it's not just the appearance of Triyoga that sets it apart. The center hosts 76 yoga classes a week, including Okido yoga—a Japanese form of yoga which contains elements of Zen and the martial arts—and a popular Yoga Club class on Saturday afternoon, for those who dig sounds with their Sun Salutations. Classes are complemented by a large team of therapists and a full Pilates schedule. The teachers, whose styles vary, are some of the best in the country.

Simon Low, one of the founders and the director of yoga and health practices at Triyoga, studied in California with Dr. Larry Payne, and began teaching yoga in America before returning to his native England. When Low returned to London 10 years ago, he found class sizes smaller than in the United States, and teachers harder to find. Since then, the yoga community has flourished, and classes are filling up. "Until now students haven't had the opportunity to enjoy big classes in London. In New York and California studios, it's not uncommon to practice with 60 to 70 others—and this can be a very empowering experience," says Low.

During the '60s and '70s, most yoga was taught under the auspices of local education authorities, focusing on the Iyengar style. So Iyengar Yoga has been a substantial part of the London scene for years. The Iyengar Yoga Institute in peaceful, leafy Maida Vale has more than 40 weekly classes. The schedule includes a remedial class for students with health problems and a Friday night pranayama class.

Sivananda students will find a wide range of daily yoga and meditation classes, workshops, and weekends at the Sivananda Vedanta Centre, which also offers weekend satsang sessions and a Kids Sunday Yoga School. It's located just a couple of minutes from the Thames—perfect for a restful post-yoga walk along the river.

The first studio to combine yoga and alternative therapies, and the one that has received the most publicity over the years, is The Life Centre, opened in 1993 in fashionable Notting Hill. Most teachers here have an Ashtanga slant, but they have varied backgrounds and so, different styles. The studio offers more than 60 hours of yoga classes per week. The yoga is fairly dynamic, but the staff has responded to requests and added a Zen Buddhist meditation class. It has been popular from the beginning, indicating that students are ready for further exploration of the spiritual elements of yoga.

Ruth White, a teacher who spent many of those '60s summer months with Iyengar, finds that Londoners are now more mature spiritually. At one of her recent retreats, of 40 students, only two were not meditating regularly, she says. Most of White's classes are outside of London (reachable by car or train), but students who would like to work with someone who has been active in the yoga scene for years might want to try her once-a-week class in London.

Faustomaria, an Italian who has been teaching yoga for 15 years, offers Sivananda-based hatha yoga at Innergy. An optional vegetarian dinner and a chance to socialize follow his popular Sunday evening class.

Students looking for a different approach to yoga might try the Tripsichore Yoga Theatre. Artistic Director Edward Clark approaches yoga as a choreograpic discipline, and his class draws students with theatre backgrounds. "Dancers and actors have solved many of the concentration problems that yogis spend a lot of time trying to deal with," he says. He teaches a graceful, flowing Sun Salutation at the beginning, and the class progresses into more intricate, challenging transitions from one asana to the next.

Students with chronic physical conditions, such as back pain, high blood pressure, asthma, or arthritis, should check out the Yoga Therapy Centre, which also runs a two-year program to train existing teachers to become yoga therapists. According to director Robin Munro, the center is pioneering the placing of yoga therapists within the offices of general practitioners, Britain's equivalent to the primary physician.

Bikram Yoga has been in London for about six years, taught in various rooms around the city, and now there is a permanent studio, with one room large enough for about 50 students, and "proper heating."

Yogis visiting London will find an abundance of styles of yoga and teaching to choose from, at prices similar to that in large American cities. The standard of teaching is equally high on both sides of the Atlantic, though intermediate level classes tend to be more advanced physically in the United States. In any case, students will find here a yoga firmly rooted in the past, but blossoming in the twenty-first century.

To find a studio in London, search our Google

Dallas Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:32:00.000-08:00

They say that everything is bigger and better in Dallas, and though the yoga community here hasn't always been big, it's growing fast.

By Elaine Lipson

They say that everything is bigger and better in Dallas, and though the yoga community hasn't always been big, it's growing fast. While there are plenty of newfangled "fitness yoga" classes at health clubs throughout the Metroplex, serious students will find a few teachers with a more traditional spiritual orientation who have quietly practiced for many years. It's taken a lot of faith and persistence for these teachers to survive long enough to enjoy today's yoga boom.

When Ranjana Pallana began teaching yoga in the Dallas/Fort Worth area 30 years ago, the newspaper refused to print her ads for classes. "Nobody knew what yoga was," she remembers. She built a following over time, and in 1992 Pallana opened the North Dallas studio where she teaches today with four other instructors. In the past three or four years, business has taken off. In fact, Pallana plans to start teacher training classes this year. Over the years, she has incorporated many influences, including Sivananda's teachings. "My style is eclectic," Pallana says, "and I teach all levels of classes but do not separate them. People come in and work at their own pace."

At the centrally located Dallas Yoga Center, Director Fred Dowd echoes some of Pallana's sentiments about the region's change in attitude toward yoga. "We have a core group that's evolved together," says Dowd, who has been teaching full-time for 10 years. Though yoga was once perceived in the South as something strange or occult, today the Dallas Yoga Center has become a touchstone for many. "I started with props in my car, going from place to place to teach yoga," Dowd says. "It's wonderful now to have a home, and the community is responding to that."

Iyengar-style classes for beginners or mixed levels are only the beginning of the DYC's offerings; there is gentle yoga for seniors, Pilates and yoga, qi gong, creative dance and movement, and, for the experienced and "not for the faint of heart," Pune-style (continuous action) backbend classes. Private consultation in Vedic astrology is available. The DYC also sponsors weekend workshops with well-known yoga professionals, and hosts a Yoga Sutras study group. Because Dallas is a typically sprawling Southwestern city, many of the DYC's instructors also schedule classes at other locations.

Other studios offering classes include the Ananda Meditation and Yoga Center in Addison, just west of the Tollway, with drop-in yoga classes suitable for all levels and meditation, including a 9 a.m. Sunday morning group meditation. In Fort Worth, The Wellness Center offers 19 ongoing yoga classes per week, pranayama, and tai chi. New yoga and meditation studios are opening rapidly in the Dallas area, but local newspapers and weeklies can help keep you informed.

To find a studio in Dallas, search our Google

Kansas City Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:31:00.000-08:00

Dance and yoga mix in this artsy city.

By Victoria Moran

Kansas City surprises people. First, most of it isn't in Kansas. A relatively low cost of living means Kansas Citians can work at what they love and have time for an inner life. Because the Unity movement was founded here in 1889, the open-minded spirituality many cities this size regard as New Age is old hat here.

Kansas City loves yoga, and its thriving art, theater, and dance communities funnel students and teachers into myriad classes kept track of by www.yogakc.com. If you stay downtown, you're near The Yoga Gallery, where Patricia Gray and Kathleen Kastner teach 23 Bikram and Ashtanga classes weekly. Yoga Gallery's ample, art-laden, and deliciously urban loft space is in the Crossroads Art District adjacent to newly restored Union Station, with restaurants, live theater, and a science-based theme park for children.

A few minutes south is historic Westport, where plentiful yoga classes coexist with coffee houses, nightlife, and distinctive shops. The Westport Ballet School hosts Yoga for EveryBody, dancer Arielle Thomas Newman's eclectic hatha blend. Nearby at the Acupuncture Society of America, Sujata Stephens, another former dancer, offers the area's only Anusara Yoga classes, blending biomechanics and inner-body awareness.

Westport's Holistic Therapy and Training Center provides comforts from reflexology to Reiki, and houses Bikram Yoga Works, where Kate Papineau Reece and Joe Reece offer daily classes. A few blocks west is 39th Street "Restaurant Row," featuring eateries of every ethnicity: Asian, Ethiopian, Indian—and those are just the vowels.

In a residential area beyond the Plaza, you'll find Body and Soul, where Barbara Anderson offers classes from prenatal to Power Yoga, along with Feldenkrais instruction. Not far away at Heartland Yoga and Acupuncture, Kathleen Coleton sees patients for Chinese medicine and students for Iyengar-based yoga.

Yoga has also made its mark in the suburbs across the Kansas line. The Yoga Studio of Johnson County is a 2,100-square-foot haven where Suzette Scholtes, author of the audiotape Yoga Balance, heads a four-instructor staff emphasizing the healing and transformational potential of yoga.

And based in Overland Park, Kansas, is Wyatt Townley, an erstwhile dancer who devised a system she calls Yoganetics to "extend yoga into motion." Yoganetics includes powerful visualization and the kind of stretching that makes you leave class feeling taller, looser, and downright radiant.

To find a studio in Kansas City, search our Google

Tucson Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:29:00.000-08:00

It's not a mirage: Tucson is a yoga oasis.

By Amy Weintraub

Yoga practitioners are drawn to Tucson partly to experience the steep and rocky terrain surrounding the city, the dry heat, the wide-open skies, the 360 days of sunshine a year, and the presence of nature, so fast disappearing from our lives. "The desert," says Tucson yoga teacher Eveli Sabatie, who came to Arizona from her native Morocco (first to the Hopi Reservation in northern Arizona, then, following the old Hopi trade route south toward Mexico, to Tucson), "puts you on the edge all the time and wakes you up at the spiritual level."

Two of the country's premiere health spas, Canyon Ranch and Miraval, are located here in the Santa Catalina Mountains, close to ancient native ceremonial sites. In fact, 800 years ago, the Hohokam people lived along the creek that runs through Sabino Canyon and the Canyon Ranch property. Both resorts offer a total immersion vacation, a destination for body, mind, and spirit. Since 1979, guests have found their way to Canyon Ranch where there are two meditation and six yoga classes every day, including a restorative yoga class in the late afternoon—perfect after one of the mountain hikes the Ranch offers. The weeklong Life Enhancement Program is a good way to visit the spa for the first time.

Miraval, which opened its doors five years ago, is a luxury resort dedicated to bringing life into balance. "Mindfulness is the guiding principle in all that we offer," says Yoga and Meditation Program Manager, ordained minister Natasha Korshak, and she doesn't mean just the yoga classes.

During your stay, you can take "Centered Horsemanship," in which rider and horse bond, forming a trusting relationship, or the three-hour "Equine Experience," which offers insight into your relationship patterns before you even mount your horse. Or you can breathe through your fears in one of the challenging "Self-Discovery" rope courses. Miraval welcomes beginners into the stream of yoga and offers three-hour Saturday intensives for longtime practitioners.

If a destination resort isn't what you had in mind, there are plenty of places to practice yoga in central Tucson. Just east of the intersection of Country Club and Speedway is a two-block area locals refer to as Yoga Corner, because of the three studios located there. The granddaddy of yoga centers is The Yoga Room, founded in 1978 by Katherine Maltz, offering 12 classes a week. It's in the Rancho Center between two cafes—Cuppacino's and the cafe at Wild Oats natural foods market.

Just down the block and across from the Loft Cinema is the beautiful new studio, Yoga Vida. When certified Bikram Yoga teacher Bonnie Kuykendall decided to open her own studio, she created her dream environment for practice. The carpeted and mirrored, 3,100-square-foot studio has soft lights, dark, soothing, desert colors, and tiled showers. Yoga Vida offers 25 Bikram classes a week.

Across the street, behind Coffee Times, is the newly opened Providence Institute, where Jenny and Noah Providence have created a holistic center that offers four yoga classes a day in various traditions (student discounts available) and body treatments that include Thai Yoga Massage, shiatsu, chi nei tsang, and craniosacral.

Closer to the University of Arizona campus, Yoga Oasis has its central Tucson home on Campbell Avenue, just north of Grant. (At that busy intersection, you'll find Bookman's, one of the biggest and best used bookstores you'll ever run across.)

Darren Rhodes, owner of Yoga Oasis, has been a yogi since birth (his mother practiced and taught Bikram Yoga while he was in the womb), and his studio offers a wide variety of hatha classes, including Anusara, Ashtanga, Bikram, and Kundalini.

Can you imagine a fitness center with its own yoga studio, separate from the hubbub of aerobics and weights and cardio machines? The Tucson Racquet Club's Fitness Director, Renee Sitter, hired her first certified yoga instructor in 1991. Since then, the yoga offerings have expanded to 23 classes a week, taught by 14 yoga teachers from most of the primary yoga traditions. When you come to class, you might want to bring along a bathing suit, workout clothes, or a racquet to enjoy a total workout.

Most of the yoga studios are in central Tucson, but Yoga Connection founder Priscilla Potter is committed to bringing yoga to the underserved suburbs on the east and northwest sides of the city. The Yoga Connection offers three levels of kriya-style hatha yoga instruction, as well as special prenatal and back-care classes at three locations. The central location at the International Arts Center, close to the university, offers two classes a day and a teacher training program certified by the Yoga Alliance.

Located on the east side of town, near the glorious Sabino Canyon—hiker's heaven—and several of Tucson's high-end resorts, Zen of Movement offers 20 classes a week, including a class for children. Owner Ellen Sax offers Kitaido Yoga, developed by Jean Pierre Marques, which combines gentle martial arts and yoga poses. And Sax's students rave about the "Health Ladder" class, in which postures are done on stationary oak ladders that facilitate balance and incorporate a cardiovascular workout with yoga.

Before you arrive in Tuscon, check out www.azyoga.com—the Arizona Yoga Association's Web site—for listings of classes, teachers, and upcoming events.

To find a studio in Tucson, search our Google.

Seattle Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:27:00.000-08:00

Enjoy a half-caf no-foam skinny after class.

By Kathleen Schultz

High tech, rain, lattes, and evergreens aren't the only things abundant in Seattle these days. The city is literally saturated with yoga studios.

First stop is the centrally located neighborhood of Capitol Hill and 8 Limbs Yoga Center. Look for a window display of Mardi Gras costumes, goblins, or Santa suits—8 Limbs is directly above a costume and formal wear rental shop. Director Ann Phyfe Snedeker offers a variety of styles at her spacious studio, where many of the teachers regularly incorporate chanting, Sanskrit readings, and meditation. Another Capitol Hill studio is Samadhi Yoga. Perhaps because director Kathleen Hunt has a background in dance, as do many of her students in this neighborhood of dance and theater schools, she teaches a vigorous vinyasa. The serenity of the studio complements the intensity of the practice.

Before leaving Capitol Hill, stop at Seattle Yoga Arts, one of the oldest yoga studios in the city and home of former YJ "For Beginners" columnist Denise Benitez. The emphasis here is on vinyasa and Iyengar style. Make sure to pick up one of the newsletters with articles on yoga, anatomy, and philosophy.

As the economy, population, and traffic continue to boom in Seattle, neighborhood studios within walking distance of home have become even more popular. One such establishment is Studio Ganesh in Madrona—"A Place in Madrona for Yoga and Other Spiritual Things"—sandwiched between Latin, Ethiopian, and Asian restaurants.

South of Madrona is Kaya Yoga, perched above Lake Washington in Seward Park, where you can top off your yoga practice with a walk around the 2.5 mile shoreline loop trail.

Head north to Wallingford, home of the Seattle Holistic Center, in a turn-of-the-century building surrounded by verdant gardens and grounds. Here you'll find classes that focus on pre- and postnatal yoga. Iyengar and Viniyoga courses are also available.

Travel east across Lake Washington where the strip malls are plentiful but the parking is easy. Look for Baskin-Robbins to find Yoga Centers and the challenging classes of Aadil Palkhivala, a longtime student of B.K.S. Iyengar and one of the few senior Iyengar Yoga teachers.

Finally, drive a few miles farther east, toward Snoqualmie Falls. You'll have to search a bit to find the secluded Yoga Barn in Fall City. The studio is a remodeled barn loft nestled in the woods, and students are apt to see deer crossing. Says director Robin Rothenberg, "What better place to practice than in nature?"

To find a studio in Seattle, search our Google

Washington, D.C. Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:25:00.000-08:00

From the Supreme Court to the White House, people in high places are doing yoga.

By Susan Laine

In the nation's capital, where on a daily basis people are making critical decisions on behalf of entire nations, it's no wonder so many are doing yoga. Yoga provides a way to clearheadedness and focus that undoubtedly helps people like Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who requested that yoga be taught at the Supreme Court.

Kamakshi Hart, who began her studies with Sharon Gannon and David Life and was a resident teacher at Kripalu Center, teaches a weekly morning class to Justice O'Connor and 15 of her colleagues. Hart, who also founded the Dancing Heart Center for Yoga on Capitol Hill, injects laughter and lightness into her teaching because she believes there is nothing more relaxing and opening than laughter in this all-too-serious city.

When her schedule permits, former E.P.A. Director Carol M. Browner attends class at Willow Street Yoga Center in Takoma Park, Maryland. Browner says that besides the strength and flexibility yoga gives her, it's the inner strength she really appreciates day to day. Formerly a runner, she likes Willow Street Director Suzie Hurley's encouraging style, which integrates principles of alignment with equal emphasis on strength, flexibility, and inner body awareness. Willow Street has two large carpeted studios on the ground floor and second floor of an office building in Takoma Park, an easy subway ride from downtown D.C.

Only about 10 to 15 percent of yoga instructors in the metro area have their own studios. Many work through health clubs and government agencies such as the departments of Defense and Education and the State Department. Some of these classes are open to visitors.

Bobbi Ponce-Barger, who is president of the Mid-Atlantic Yoga Association, teaches hatha yoga in her beautifully woodworked studio in the heart of Adams Morgan. Her classes are small (six to eight) and she enjoys tailoring her teaching to the needs of the class on any given day. And there is a special feel to Ponce-Barger's space: Located on the fourth floor of an apartment building, the studio has a woodsy smell and feel. Tall, leafy trees fill the view looking out of the many windows around the studio.

One of the original 1970s leaders in the yoga movement in Washington continues to be a major force today. John Schumacher is founder and director of Unity Woods Yoga Center, the largest Iyengar center in the United States and the area's most prominent yoga studio, with four locations in D.C., Virginia, and Maryland. The strictly Iyengar center has 2,100 students and offers 75 to 80 classes weekly. Schumacher has trained all but one of the 15 Unity Woods teachers, who embrace his philosophy of encouraging students to explore to their fullest capabilities the path of self-discovery through yoga. Schumacher is known for his creative sequencing which guides students to deeper self-awareness.

Unity Woods has two "in-town" locations—one is in a basement studio in Woodley Park and the other is in Tenleytown, where classes meet in the great hall of a church. The Arlington, Virginia, location has wall-to-wall windows on two sides. Bethesda's large penthouse studio has beautiful views of the city, and in January 2001, a second, smaller studio will open adjacent to it, where specialty classes, such as classes for teens and breast cancer survivors, will be held.

Two other studios besides Unity Woods and Willow Street teach the lion's share of yoga in the metro D.C. area. J.J. Gormley is the director at Sun and Moon, which has two Virginia locations, in Arlington and Springfield. Major renovations have recently been made to the Arlington location—including new flooring, larger changing rooms, and additional bathrooms. Gormley has a gentle urging, yet nonjudgmental way of challenging students to extend beyond their limits.

Business yogis traveling to the corridor might not make it to D.C. during their stay. But luckily there's Health Advantage Yoga Center located in Herndon, Virginia, situated about 25 miles west of D.C., in the heart of the area's high tech corridor. Health Advantage has a lot of studio space—three large rooms with carpeted floors—as well as dressing rooms, a reading section, and ample props. Health Advantage offers massage therapy on site, by appointment, as does Willow Street. Because of its location, the center gets a wide range of students, from college-age and 20-something techies to baby boomers and seniors.

White House sources confirmed that yoga was practiced at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue during the Clinton administration, but refused to say by whom.

To find a studio in Washington D.C., search our Directories

New York Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:23:00.000-08:00

By Lorie Parch

Beyond California's borders, yoga's tremendous rise in popularity is surging in New York City, making the yoga scene an especially vibrant one, with diverse classes, passionate teachers (and students), and workshops to deepen a practice at every level.

Though you'll have no trouble finding studios affiliated with most major styles, as well as centers that teach a number of techniques, New York is about nothing so much as expanding one's horizons.The city may be the place to partake of classes and schools that may not be readily available in your own backyard, like the celebrity-anointed Jivamukti Yoga Center, arguably the best-known yoga spot in New York—and at 9,000 square feet, certainly the largest.This vast space holds not only Jivamukti yoga classes, but also Mysore-style and Ashtanga classes, satsang, and Sanskrit teachings.

Almost all New York yoga centers incorporate some of the spiritual elements of yogic teaching, but some more than others. Jivamukti is definitely in the "more" category. Adrienne Burke, director of teaching programs, calls Jivamukti "an integrated method," meaning one that combines a vigorous physical practice with a strong foundation in ancient yogic texts. "This is a lot more than a good stretch," she says. Indeed, students tend to embrace the yogic lifestyle in a holistic way, using the center as a resource for information and support beyond their physical practice.

Responding to the immense popularity of Bikram Yoga, two New York studios offer classes in this hot, purifying style—Yoga Connection in TriBeCa, and in the theater district, a newcomer on the scene, the Bikram Yoga College of India.

Less hip but just as community-oriented are veterans Integral Yoga Institute (IYI) and the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center, both established in New York more than 30 years ago. The two have in common a style that focuses on asanas, as well as pranayama and deep relaxation. Anyone who comes can take yoga's spiritual elements—or leave them. "The spiritual foundation is obvious—every asana room has an altar," says Ramananda, president of IYI of New York. "But we're not trying to push the spiritual on anyone." The feeling at both centers is down-to-earth, welcoming, even homey.

Many centers strive for a friendly feel and a somewhat subtler approach to things philosophical. Says Cyndi Lee, director of Om Yoga, "We have a reputation for being really warm." Beryl Bender Birch, codirector of The Hard & the Soft Astanga Institute, echoes that sentiment: "We really go out of our way to make people feel comfortable and welcome." Who knows? With so many Manhattanites becoming devoted yogis, the clich้ of the rude, harried New Yorker may soon be a thing of the past.

To find a studio in New York, search our Directories

Portland Yoga Tour

2007-12-21T09:21:00.000-08:00

The heart of the Pacific Northwest draws yogis searching for a taste of the great outdoors.

By Mariniah Prendergast

The natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest makes Portland an obvious destination for outdoor fitness enthusiasts, but yoga is thriving indoors and changing people from the inside out. "Portland is a place where people can throw themselves into their yoga practice because of our access to nature," says Julie Lawrence, a certified Iyengar Yoga instructor with 25 years teaching experience. "Yoga teaches us to let go of extraneous activity and stress and allows us to be who we are; the simplicity of nature supports us in that."

Large windows let in light and a good view of downtown Portland at the Julie Lawrence Yoga Studio, across from the city's central library. Lawrence's experienced staff offer 30 classes per week, including Iyengar Yoga, pranayama, and prenatal courses. Lawrence teaches a popular Iyengar teacher-training program, and the other instructors are available for private and corporate classes.

Holiday Johnson opened Holiday's Health and Fitness Yoga Center nine years ago. Her journey began 25 years ago when she started bringing yoga to the masses at local community colleges, universities, the YMCA, and athletic clubs. Later she introduced yoga to several local businesses, including Nike. "I welcome people of all ages, shapes, and walks of life," Johnson says. Her diverse student population includes teenage girls, who are part of a program called "Standing on Your Own Two Feet." Teens receive discounted rates and classes are free to all students one Sunday each month.

Julie Gudmestad, a certified Iyengar instructor since 1970, physical therapist, and YJ contributor, is the proprietor of Gudmestad Yoga Studio. She offers an anatomy series in which each session incorporates principles of human anatomy into the yoga practice. Most of the teachers at her studio are trained physical therapists incorporating physical therapy techniques into their classes. "We start out more gently than most teachers do," Gudmestad says of her unique program, which offers five levels, from first-timers to advanced. "Safety comes first."

Barbara Fergusson, an established local teacher who helped form the Portland Teacher's Yoga Association 25 years ago, runs the Northeast Yoga Center in northeast Portland. She and her two associates teach Iyengar-based hatha yoga with an emphasis on therapeutic healing and personal attention. The studio offers more than 30 classes per week, and classes usually fill up; however, drop-in students who call ahead are welcome to fill available space. Free parking is available on the street.

Albert Trople is a popular yoga teacher who combines techniques from Iyengar, White Lotus, Ashtanga, Bikram, and Anusara Yoga. Trople uses his massage therapy training in classes, and his assistant, Lynn Brown, specializes in working with beginners. Students can attend one of seven weekly classes at Rejuvenation Day Spa, where they can have a massage, facial, or steam bath after class.

Sarahjoy Marsh runs The Sanctuary: A Center for Yoga, Dharma, and Healing Arts. The Sanctuary offers more than 35 classes each week in the Anusara style. The center also offers massage therapy and acupuncture. Sanctuary Sundays provide a change of pace for students by giving them the opportunity to explore in-depth a specific practice, such as pranayama or acupuncture techniques. Marsh says her studio serves a dedicated community of students and teachers. "This is a place where people find a home," she says.

The Yoga Space in southeast Portland offers more than 30 classes taught by nearly 20 different teachers in a range of styles. "We practice being firmly rooted so we can bend when the winds of our lives blow," says teacher Amanda Yampolsky. Amy Stange recently started teaching the moving meditative practice of qi gong at The Yoga Space. She says that with all the unrest in the world, qi gong helps people retain an inner peace. "The world may not be peaceful, but we can create peace within."

From hatha in the Hawthorne District to pranayama in the Pearl District, the range of styles and studios in Portland vary as much as the eclectic inhabitants of this friendly city. As the city grows, so do the opportunities for yoga students. With so many options, it appears that the City of Roses—named for its Rose Garden, where more than 500 varieties of roses bloom—has made room for the lotus flower as well.

Partner Yoga

2007-12-21T09:17:00.000-08:00

Partner Yoga isn't really "couples' yoga," although many couples come to the class. It's really more like yoga for two bodies. And maybe I'd add, bodies that don't mind getting to know each other. Because sometimes partner yoga gets personal.

We do lifts in partner yoga, where you take turns lifting each other up using your feet to lift your partner up. Sometimes this doesn't make for a great date night - like if your boyfriend can't lift you up or your back gets hurt trying to lift up your partner. Lifts are definitely not the only thing we do in partner yoga but it's one of the funnest parts.

I've thought about not offering the lifts during the class so as to protect people from this potentially awkward experience and the last time couple of times I led the class I have actually asked people if they wanted to do it and gave them the option not to, and they all wanted to do it. So I figure we'll keep offering the lifting part.

The funnest lift for me is like an airplane you did when you're a kid. I like it when my sister lifts me. She's good at it - she's really strong, has had lots of practice, and makes it seem fun. I've seen her lift the trickiest cases. For lots of people, to get up into a lift is scary and makes them feel vulnerable. Karina doesn't waste any time, she just gets your hands, puts her feet in your hips at the right spot, and up you go. It's neat to watch the expressions on people's faces when they get lifted like that for the first time. It's freeing.

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So Partner Yoga happened on Friday night and it was fun! We did the lifts and I warned people ahead about it and they still chose to do it. Karina joined me and it was a great night.

by Jamine

Still Teaching Yoga

2007-12-21T09:15:00.000-08:00

Well, I've lost the blogging spirit for a number of reasons but I don't want to give up. I'm still teaching yoga. Every day just about.

Last week while I was writing my blog it turns out I was supposed to be someplace else. I was supposed to be teaching a class at the Police College for the RCMP but I had plain forgotten. I got lucky and they rescheduled me for today, which is kind.

I just forgot. I had it scheduled correctly but I wasn't paying attention to my schedule. I'm in resistance to my schedule to be honest. I want a vacation so badly and I haven't scheduled that in, so instead, I don't look at where I am, which is scheduled to teach lots of yoga.

So now I have that queasy feeling of wondering if I'm supposed to be someplace else. Every day this week I've had that uneasy, "oh! Am I where I'm supposed to be?" and then, "ah, yes. I'm where I'm supposed to be."

At the time that they called to ask where I was I didn't have a big reaction. I knew there wasn't anything I could do about it and I emailed my main contact and apologized and offered to teach later on. He called me back and he said he just went to Plan B and it was fine. And it was. But the reaction I had came later, and sort of just sunk in slowly. To the point that I shut down a bit more and continued to avoid things. Like invoicing people who haven't paid, for setting up future workshops, for fulfilling requests for products.

What I did do is schedule myself to teach at Omega this summer for two weeks. I'll teach yoga for two weeks for free basically. Hmm. But it will be fun and will almost be like a vacation. So if you want to come to Omega this summer, come while I'm there, which will be July 29 until August 12.

There's some shame in what happened for me. My grandpa-guru would call it "healthy shame," or hrim, I think. It's okay to feel bad about not fulfilling my responsibilities. But I don't need to let it go on and on. So I won't.

So now I go and teach to the Senior Police Administrators. I'll lead them in a class they won't forget!

by Jamine