Healing Yoga NY

If you live in the NYC area and you suffer from asthma, this coming Friday Leslie Kaminoff is offering a 2-hour clinic with techniques to improve your breathing this Friday. The clinic will be taped by ABC-TV News to be broadcast in a segment with Dr. Jay Aldersberg. If you’d like more information and/or are interested in participating, click here.

Yogi Susi Hately Aldous has just released a new DVD for anyone who’s post cancer treatment (you don’t have to have any yoga experience). The DVD offers 7 routines a little over an hour in length that progressively build up a person’s strength and stability. Based on studies at the University of Calgary, this program has been shown to improve quality of life, promote well-being, and reduce fatigue. Five dollars of every DVD purchase goes to support the Yoga for Cancer Survivors’ Research Program. Click here to learn more and to purchase the DVD.

North Carolina is abuzz with research on the benefits of yoga on illnesses such as IBS and breast cancer. You can read more about this wonderful research here.

I attended an Urban Zen event about 2 years ago and that is where I first heard about Urban Zen founder and fashion designer Donna Karan’s plans to train yoga therapists who would practice in hospitals. I’ve always kept this in the back of my mind and about  a month ago, I rechecked the Urban Zen Web site for an update. Viola — both the Teacher Training and the Integrative Therapist programs are launching next month.

My main interest lies in the Integrative Therapist program. I like that it’s 500-hours, yet I’m a bit surprised by what’s turned up in the curriculum — Reiki, aromatherapy, nutrition. Interesting. Not your typical yoga therapy program, that’s for sure. What I find extremely interesting about this program is that it requires clinical rotations and community service. I just love that. The question is — will these clinical settings love Integrative Therapist trainees back?

Karan just recently donated a large sum of money to a cancer treatment experiment at Beth Israel Medical Center in NYC. Hmmm…first a large donation and now a plan to have Karan’s Urban Zen trainees rotate through Beth Israel. Coincidence? Frankly, who cares how this work is getting started — as long as it’s getting started.

I look forward to seeing how this program is received in clinical settings and what this means for the future of yoga therapy (which seems a bit cloudy and confused at the moment).

Up until now, yoga teacher certification requirements have eluded the long arm of the law. Now it seems as if New Jersey wants to tread where only Yoga Alliance has gone before — it is requiring that yoga teachers be certified at the 300-hour level. Hmmmm…that’s tricky because the Yoga Alliance only requires a yoga teacher to certify at 200 hours.

This reminds me of what happens with Massage Therapists — in addition to the state-by-state hour requirements for certification, many MTs have to pay the town(s) in which they work. I don’t like the idea of yoga going down this same road.

If you’d like to learn more about this proposed bill as well as information about fighting it, click here.

Illustrator David Macaulay, who is know for for his books Castle and Cathedral and The Way Things Work, just came out with a book that teaches us about the human body in a whole new way. The book, entitled The Way We Work: Getting to Know the Amazing Human Body, gives us an anatomy and physiology lesson like we’ve never had before, complete with simple and fun illustrations that depict the complex workings of the body. Finally, an anatomy book that doesn’t induce sleep.

I was immediately drawn in by the metaphoric drawings and the way Macaulay distills complex functions into easy to understand concepts. If you’re looking for an insider’s view into the workings of the body but are tired of the standard anatomy and physiology textbooks, then I highly recommend this book. You can learn more about it, see a sample illustration, and listen to an author sound bite here.

Happy exploring!

If you’d like to meet Leslie Kaminoff and Amy Matthews — of Yoga Anatomy fame — you can join them for a free book signing, talk, slide show and Yoga demonstration in the exhibit hall’s lobby from 1:00 to 4:00PM on Saturday, October 4th. Afterwards, join Leslie and Amy for a special guided tour of the amazing Bodies Exhibition from 5:00 to 8:00PM. The cost of the tour is $40.00, and all proceeds go to the Breathing Project’s Advanced Studies Program scholarship fund.

For more information and to register, click here.

Registration for the third annual SYTAR symposium is open. Click here for more information and to take advantage of early bird registration rates.

Ironically, this announcement coincides with author and well-respected yoga educator Leslie Kaminoff releasing this soon-to-be published article in the IAYT’s Journal in which he states he no longer wants the title Yoga Therapist. Click here to read Kaminoff’s brilliant commentary on yoga and yoga therapy. He raises a number of excellent points and I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with him.

I’ve always leaned towards using the term yoga therapy because I felt that a distinction needed to be made between the Americanized version of yoga taught in studios across the country (which can often be considered exercise rather than yoga) and yoga in the true tradition of the art, which is fully described in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Kaminoff offers a persuasive argument and I’m now reconsidering my former stance.

What do you think?

There are a lot of incorrect perceptions of yoga out there. Some think that you have to have the perfect body to practice. Others think that yoga is about how you look in a pose. While others think that you have to be flexible and the more yoga “tricks” you know, the better. For those of us who’ve found a deeper meaning to our practice, yoga is something else entirely.

It’s not surprising that yoga is perceived as a sport or as something that physically fit and flexible people partake in — that message is prevalent in the media. Look at the cover of many of the yoga magazines and what do you see? If only we could see yoga in a different way, from a different perspective. Just this past weekend I was flipping through a book at a yoga studio where I was participating in a training and I saw this delightful picture of what society would deem an obese woman in a yoga pose. But she wasn’t just “in” the pose — she was the pose. She was the picture (no pun intended) of pure joy. It was beautiful to see. If I ever saw that wonderful image on the cover of a yoga magazine, I would be very happy (and I would sign up for a subscription!).

Matthew Sanford is one of those amazing people who shifts your perspective just by hearing his story. Matthew is an Iyengar teacher who is paralyzed by the chest down due to a car accident when he was 13. If you’d like to see another side of yoga, check out the links below…

See an interview with Matthew Sanford on YogaMates.

Listen and/or read the transcript of a public radio interview with Matthew Sanford.

For anyone out there who thinks that they “can’t” practice yoga — think again.

You may know her as the anatomy and asana yogini — Susi Hately Aldous — and she’s coming to NYC this fall to teach a workshop entitled Advancing Your Yoga Practice: The Art of Slowing Down, which is based on her soon-to-be released book sharing the same title. If you’re a yogi in search of more ease in your postures (as well as a lesson in anatomy), then this workshop is for you. Here are the details:

Workshop Title: Advancing Your Yoga Practice: The Art of Slowing Down
Date: Wednesday October 1, 2008
Time: 6:30 pm-9:30 pm
Location: OmFactory: 265 West 37th Street @ 8th Avenue, 17th Floor (in midtown Manhattan’s garment district)
Price: $90

To register, please email Shala at iloveanatomy@anatomyandasana.com or call toll free 866-229-2617.

I’ve been getting Susi’s ezine for years, and I enjoy every issue. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to to receive a wealth of anatomy insights in their inbox each month.

If you’re a teacher, Susi also offers a great PDF on her Web site entitled One Piece of Advice. This PDF offers exactly what it promises — helpful tidbits and advice from teachers to help bring out your best inner teacher.

I’m so glad that Susi is coming to NY! And you will be too.