Category Archives: DC yoga

The yoga scene in the Washington, DC metropolitan area

Major exhibit of yoga-​​related art to come to the Mall

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Get ready, Wash­ing­ton, we are about to dive deep into yoga’s his­tory over the ages.

YOGA: THE ART OF TRANSFORMATION | Freer and Sack­ler Gal­leries
Through mas­ter­pieces of Indian sculp­ture and paint­ing, Yoga: The Art of Trans­for­ma­tion explores yoga’s goals; its Hindu as well as Bud­dhist, Jain, and Sufi man­i­fes­ta­tions; its means of trans­form­ing body and con­scious­ness; and its pro­found philo­soph­i­cal foun­da­tions. The first exhi­bi­tion to present this leit­mo­tif of Indian visual cul­ture, it also exam­ines the roles that yogis and yogi­nis played in Indian soci­ety over two thou­sand years.

The DCist also has more details on the exhibit, includ­ing crowd­fund­ing, which will start on May 29. Under the aus­picies of the Smith­son­ian Insti­tute, Yoga: The Art of Trans­for­ma­tion will be opened from Octo­ber 19 to Jan­u­ary 2014.

The appeal of an Ashtanga practice

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Ash­tanga prac­ti­tion­ers have more options than you might think:

Wash­ing­ton Post Express Never Out Of Prac­tice: Mysore yoga classes help stu­dents advance at just the right pace - ”First-​​timers get per­sonal train­ing in a few pos­tures, start­ing with five rounds of sun salu­ta­tions, and that may be all they do. As they return to class and mas­ter that sec­tion, the instruc­tor adds on. Advanced stu­dents can com­plete the begin­ning of the series, but at some point, even peo­ple who can hook their legs around their necks need an assist, a mod­i­fi­ca­tion or a pep talk.”

A few months ago, I pointed to another arti­cle about Ash­tanga and Mysore prac­tice in the DC area.

Thanks to Don­a­van Wil­son for tip­ping me off about this arti­cle since I am “out of pocket” (mean­ing “away,” it’s jour­nal­ism jar­gon, if I remem­ber correctly.)

DC Yoga Week – starting today!

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It’s here again! Thirty seven DC yoga stu­dios are join­ing forces to encour­age peo­ple to take to the mat.

DC Yoga Week 2013 – dc com­mu­nity yoga
The DC Com­mu­nity of Yoga (DCCY) is host­ing the 8th Annual DC Yoga Week and Yoga on the Mall Mon­day, April 29 thru Sun­day, May 5.  This means par­tic­i­pat­ing stu­dios will be offer­ing FREE and $5 classes daily – all week long!

If you’ve been look­ing for an oppor­tu­nity to explore other yoga stu­dios and styles, now’s your chance because of free or low-​​cost classes. The weather should be good for Sun­day when you can catch Yoga on the Mall.

Bad Tim­ing

This week, I am at an undis­closed loca­tion on the Del­marva penin­sula, with wife, yoga mat, lap­top, note­books, and read­ing mat­ter, and will be unable to take advan­tage of dis­counted rates and open doors. I may get to DC in time for the week­end activities.

Congressional record spotlights Ashtanga practice — What?

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In a real media mile­stone in Wash­ing­ton, DC, yoga has made it onto the pages of one of the main­stays of con­gres­sional pol­i­tics, Roll Call, (I can’t say that this is the first time that Roll Call has done a yoga story; see the list­ing below):

Roll Call Around the Hill: The Yoga of Rules: Mysore Yoga Expands in D.C. ”Mysore yoga is an indi­vid­ual prac­tice within a group set­ting. Stu­dents do a set of poses in a pre­scribed order with a spec­i­fied stop­ping point, as deter­mined by the instruc­tor. The poses, called ‘asanas,’ are divided into six series; most stu­dents stay within the first two series, called pri­mary and inter­me­di­ate. Stu­dents new to Mysore (even those with an estab­lished yoga prac­tice) are given a short set of poses to do before they are sent home with instruc­tions to come back the next day. And the fol­low­ing day. And the day after that.”

This was a feature-​​length arti­cle requir­ing three web pages. It did not cover Ash­tanga yoga just as the lat­est fad on the Hill (Mysore prac­tice is any­thing but fad­dish, as my friend Don­a­van Wil­son can tes­tify to.). It went to the trou­ble of explain­ing why Mysore prac­tice is dif­fer­ent from the garden-​​variety vinyasa or hatha class. The story men­tioned five stu­dios offer­ing the Mysore prac­tice so it’s not just a favor for a friend. I did not even know there were six places offer­ing Mysore. Rebecca Gale, the reporter, quotes lead­ing Ash­tanga teach­ers in DC (Peg Mulqueen, Keith Moore, Jen Rene, Tova Steiner and David Ingalls).

Of course, when I did a search for “yoga” in the Roll Call archive, I found 61 arti­cles, some of which prob­a­bly only use the term in pass­ing or as a metaphor. But I did find some sub­stan­tial sto­ries that showed that Roll Call has not ignored the topic. Just another sign that yoga is seap­ing into the US main­stream cul­ture. I should also clar­ify that the online ver­sion of a pub­li­ca­tion may dif­fer­ent sub­stan­tially from the print edition:

I should also note the Wash­ing­ton yoga did make a major splash with the Obama II Inau­gu­ra­tion, as sam­pled by Yoga Dork and prob­a­bly a lot of other places.

I saw this story by chance. It shook me out of my lunch time lan­gor and made me blog about it. When the stars align, I have to cel­e­brate it.

New yoga shop in Georgetown

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A new yoga stu­dio has started up in Georgetown.

Appro­pri­ately, it’s called George­town Yoga. They are offer­ing about 20 classes a week, between two and four a day, that blend vinyasa, Ash­tanga and Iyen­gar styles into a flow that should suit most down­town yogis wo like to work up a sweat. There is no infor­ma­tion on the own­er­ship or the ros­ter of teach­ers on the site, but that may come later.

BuddhaFest – June 14-​​17

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Since I am mak­ing up for a pro­longed silence and not blog­ging, there is another DC event that should be mentioned:

Bud­dhaFest – Films Talks Med­i­ta­tion Music

Brought to you by the Insight Med­i­ta­tion Com­mu­nity of Wash­ing­ton (IMCW) and Tri­cy­cle magazine.

Oh, wait. I am too late to make much of a dif­fer­ence. Prac­ti­cally all the all day passes have sold out. You may be able to get indi­vid­ual tick­ets for films or dharma talks. On Sun­day night, Krishna Das will be chant­ing a trib­ute to Ram Das, but you’d want to tick­ets in advance.

Northern Viriginia Yoga Week

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I am already late off the gun.

June 10-​​17 is the fifth annual offer­ing of the Vir­ginia Yoga Week 2012 and there are 12 yoga cen­ters sup­port­ing the effort. Check out the web site for addi­tional details on activ­i­ties, dis­counted classes and work­shops. It’s a great oppor­tu­nity to sam­ple yoga styles and teachers.

More infor­ma­tion is avail­able at the Wash­ing­ton Post.

Catching up on the DC yoga scene

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I’ve been so absorbed in my day-​​time-​​turned-​​evening job over the past few weeks that I did not have a chance to point to an arti­cle that appeared May 8:

The strug­gles of D.C. area yoga stu­dios – The Wash­ing­ton Post
Yogis don’t like to talk about com­pe­ti­tion, and most own­ers will deny there’s any ten­sion among local stu­dios. But Schu­macher acknowl­edges that the busi­nesses are vying for stu­dents’ attention.

A few weeks ago, I noted the clos­ing of Ash­tanga Yoga Cen­ter at the end of this month. Yoga has to be com­mer­cially viable in order to have an impact on main­stream cul­ture in the United States. The mar­ket is the medium for sus­tain­abil­ity. The Post scratches the sur­face about the costs of oper­at­ing a yoga stu­dio, and “ameni­ties” like cook­ies are the least of own­ers’ con­cerns. To sur­vive, own­ers need to have a cre­ative, flex­i­ble busi­ness mind with­out los­ing touch with the spirit of yoga. That’s a dif­fi­cult bal­anc­ing act. That can include finindg new ways of offer­ing yoga, like com­bin­ing spin­ning and yoga, although tech­ni­cally it’s a fit­ness cen­ter offer­ing the class.

Closer to home, my home stu­dio, Thrive Yoga, offers classes for climbers at Earth Treks. But the new twist at Thrive has been the incor­po­ra­tion of Aer­ial Yoga with Silk Ham­mocks - prac­ti­tion­ers are sus­pended from cords hang­ing from the ceil­ing and play a dif­fer­ent kind of lever­age game with grav­ity. The classes seem to be booked up well in advance. I have not had a chance to try it because I’ve been away from the stu­dio for the last two months.

Oh yeah, May 13-​​20 is DC Yoga Week, as the Post announces, but you can actu­ally read the full details on the DC Yoga Com­mu­nity site, and the tra­di­tional high­light of the cel­e­bra­tion, Yoga on the Mall, will take place on Sat­ur­day, May 19, weather permitting.

Another DC yoga studio bites the dust

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My friend and ded­i­cated Ash­tangi Don­a­van Wil­son sent me a mes­sage today:

David Ingalls is shut­ting down AYC (Ash­tanga Yoga Cen­ter, for those not in the know). The doors close on May 31. The stu­dio space near Amer­i­can Uni­ver­sity is too expen­sive. Keith Moore (long-​​time AYC teacher) found another loca­tion. The new loca­tion is unof­fi­cially in the MacArthur Boule­vard area (DC). The ten­ta­tive new name is the Ash­tanga Yoga Stu­dio. Moore has not signed a lease. How­ever, the odds pretty good to solid­ify this new loca­tion. All of this (new space and loca­tion) is up in the air. AYC clos­ing is not.

What a bum­mer! And to think, I have not had a chance to take a class there — though I do have until the end of May. What did in AYC was what made it a con­ve­nient place to prac­tice yoga — it was right next to the Amer­i­can University/​Tenlyetown Metro sta­tion, right across from Whole­Food. You could fit in a Mysore class before pick­ing up a bagel and head­ing to work. But eco­nom­i­cally, the rent got too high at that prime loca­tion. Let’s hope that all the instruc­tors and stu­dents find an appro­pri­ate space for their practice.

I should also under­score that the AYC web­site dis­tin­guished itself for exquis­ite pho­tog­ra­phy of yogis and yogi­nis absorbed in their prac­tice. As some­one who has dab­bled in that dark art, I know how dif­fi­cult it is to cap­ture the instance, but when you do, it’s magic.

Post­script: I should also note that DC is not the only place where yoga stu­dios can become unvi­able com­mer­cially: In New York City, Om Yoga will shut down at the end of June because the lease was not renewed. Om Yoga was founded and run by Cyndi Lee, a high-​​profile yoga instruc­tor and pio­neer in fus­ing yoga with Bud­dhism. The owner of the build­ing did not want a ygoa stu­dio on the premises.

Smith Center expanded facilities to have open house

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I was approached by the Smith Cen­ter for Heal­ing and the Arts to share with my read­ers an invi­ta­tion to attend their open house on Sep­tem­ber 24. I am not going to make it that day because I have a prior com­mit­ment, but I encour­age any one will­ing to test their hearts in the face of com­pas­sion to stop by the Smith Cen­ter at 1632 U Street, NW, Wash­ing­ton, DC 20009 (3 blocks from the U Street Metro):

From 11 am to 4 pm on Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 24, Smith Cen­ter for Heal­ing and the Arts will open the doors of our newly expanded and ren­o­vated U Street com­mu­nity cen­ter for an open house event – giv­ing the com­mu­nity the oppor­tu­nity to tour the new state-​​of-​​the-​​art teach­ing kitchen, pro­gram space, and tran­quil rooftop ter­race, and expanded Joan Hisaoka Art Gallery. Atten­dees will also be invited to take part in sam­ple work­shops and classes, view an art exhibit, and enjoy music and enter­tain­ment, refresh­ments, cook­ing demon­stra­tions, and give­aways through­out the day.

The open­ing event will high­light Smith Center’s legacy of offer­ing time-​​tested inte­gra­tive care pro­grams and resources for peo­ple with can­cer, and intro­duce a vari­ety of excit­ing new health and well­ness pro­grams and classes for the local com­mu­nity at large. Atten­dees will get a sneak peak into some of our newest pro­grams, includ­ing nutri­tion and cook­ing classes, cre­ativ­ity work­shops, health and whole­ness lec­tures, yoga and stress reduc­tion classes, and more.

I lost my brother to lung can­cer three years ago and my mother to the sequela of breast can­cer in April so I need no prod­ding to back the Center’s work of can­cer sup­port, cre­ativ­ity and com­mu­nity building.