Archives for January 2010

Hilary and David Gershman bought a three-bedroom, two-bath home at 6124 S.W. 104th St. in Pinecrest from Richard and Caroline Lee for $965,000 on Jan. 20. The Lees bought the property for $765,000 in March 2002. The 4,359-square-foot house was built in 1955 in the East Pinecrest neighborhood.

Mrs. Gershman is a yoga teacher with Prana Yoga Miami. She began practicing Yoga in 1999 at the Jivamukti Yoga Center in New York. She attended Columbia University, where she graduated with a degree in psychology. According to BlockShopper.com, there have been 212 home sales in Pinecrest during the past 12 months, with a median sales price of $608,000.

How(ing) himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty.

Yunus' concept of the micro-loan and how he envisioned it to change the world inspired Joel Bender and Kayoko Mitsumatsu to found Yoga Gives Back, a non-profit organization that coordinates fundraisers throughout the world. Yogis Anonymous (YA) will hold its Yoga Gives Back fundraiser Saturday, January 30 beginning at 7:30 pm. Ally Hamilton said in a recent interview, "We've been doing a lot of giving back recently, especially with Haiti." YA held 3 fundraisers for Haiti relief efforts.

The latest Times trend piece looks at a new combination of exercise and indulgence that is taking the city by storm: foodie yoga. Yes, combining the ancient and often holy practice of yoga with bacon and wine has become extremely popular. One yoga teacher, Sadie Nardini, claims it is a backlash against the "yogier than thou" mentality that purists hold, but is eating while doing yoga pushing the "anything goes" idea a little too far?

While people have indulged in both yoga and food trends for decades, many studios are bringing the food into the classroom. Exhale Spa offers a "Yoga for Foodies" class, started by David Romanelli, that starts with an hour of yoga, and ends with encouragements to “ssssmell the squassshhhh waaaafting through the air,” as yogis dine on butternut squash soup, pasta and wine. Of course, these courses have opened up an even bigger debate about omnivores v. vegans in yogic culture. Ahimsa, the first rule of yoga, is not to harm others. "Others" has been interpreted to include humans, animals and even diets where "each vegetable must be grown in an atmosphere of positive energy." The Yoga for Foodies classes are definitely not for the purists.

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The irony wasn’t lost on Graydon Moffat: She was making her living helping others relax, but she was a stress case herself, unable to enjoy a good night’s sleep. Ms. Moffat, a Toronto yoga instructor, was roused from her slumber almost every day between 2:30 and 4 a.m. She eventually threw a washcloth over her alarm clock – the bright green digits were a painful reminder of how little sleep she was getting.

“Sometimes I would be so desperate that I would go get something to drink – like alcohol,” she recalls. “I would try things like banana and warm milk. ... If I would get really desperate I would take a sleeping pill.”It was years before she realized a remedy was staring her in the face.

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The words of Ziggy Marley’s “Love Is My Religion” floated over 30 people lying on yoga mats in a steamy, dim loft above Madison Avenue on Friday. All had signed up for a strange new hybrid of physical activity: first an hour of vigorous, sweaty yoga, then a multicourse dinner of pasta, red wine and chocolate. As soon as the lights went up, dinner was served on the floor: an (almost) seamless transition designed to allow the yogis to taste, smell and digest in a heightened state of awareness.

'“It’s a little weird to sit on a sweaty yoga mat and eat soup,” said one woman, not pausing as she spooned up a smooth, cinnamon-spiked butternut squash purée from a bamboo bowl. “But people are used to doing some weird things in yoga class.”Joy Pierson, the chef at the nearby Candle Café, a vegan restaurant that supplied the meal, sat cross-legged at the front of the room, encouraging everyone to breathe in slowly. “Ssssmell the squassshhhh waaaafting through the air,” she intoned.

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IL-6 is part of your body’s inflammatory response and it used to measure levels of inflammation in your body. High levels of IL-6 have been linked to heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, arthritis and other age-related illnesses. Reducing inflammation can lengthen lifespan so researchers decided to see if a simple life change such as doing yoga might impact inflammation. They compared a group who had done yoga once or twice week for two years to a group who had done yoga for no more than six to twelve weeks. The regular yoga practitioners had IL-6 levels that were 41 per cent lower than the yoga “novices”. The “yoga experts” also showed smaller increases in IL-6 after stressful experiences than the novices. Exactly how yoga yields this benefit is hard to say but it is not stretching it to say that regular yoga practice could lengthen your life.

Yoga is used for exercise, reduction of stress and improvement of mental functions and spirituality. But in India, this practice can get you out of jail. According to the BBC, prison officials in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh have launched a new program which will grant inmates reductions on their sentences if they complete courses in yoga.

For every three months spent doing balance posture, breathing exercises and chanting the inmates can cut their jail time by 15 days.

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National Yoga Day is this Saturday, January 23rd and to celebrate, yoga studios across the country are offering free classes. Spearheaded by the Yoga Alliance, Yoga Day aims to introduce newbies to the practice and encourages seasoned yogis to share their love of the various forms.

If you haven’t tried it, why should you try yoga? Yoga is more than just breathing and stretching — though these tentpoles of the practice are extremely beneficial for our health. There are various forms of yoga from gentle, meditative forms like Kripalu to calorie-burning, sweat fests like Power Yoga or Bikram Yoga. So, research the various types and sign up for a free class this weekend!

I recently received an email from a reader in Semarang. This reader is a practitioner of Reiki, the healing technique of energy channeling originated in Japan, and says he has had some positive results from the practice.

He expresses his appreciation for my yoga column, but asks me to enlighten him on an issue that had been nagging him for some time. Apparently he finds there are contradictions between Yoga and Reiki. While Reiki is a practice of managing the mind, yoga deals more with the management of the physical body, he writes. He asks me how to synchronize the two so that they complement each other.

I am glad he brought up this issue, because, while I will not use this forum to compare yoga to other spiritual disciplines, I admit that his observation is a common misperception about yoga.

A Japanese word, reiki means “universal life energy”. The spiritual practice of Reiki is a healing technique that aims to channel this energy through a practitioner’s hands and transmit it to the client.

This activates the natural healing process of the body and restores physical and emotional well-being.

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Movement, massage, and breath exercises restore emotional balance, easing the stress of everyday life. The workshop includes a private Kum Nye massage session to promote relaxation. Instructor: Jack van der Meulen + Kum Nye staff.