Archives for September 2009

The owner of a Westport shopping center is hoping that a focus on health and wellness will continue to grow as the Post Road facility adds yoga and fitness to its offerings. Westport Yoga will lease 9,276 square feet at 1200 Post Road E., and The Fitness Factory is taking 4,230 square feet, starting in November. They will join Dream Spa Beauty and Hair Salon and Crate & Barrel at the 58,000-square-foot complex.

Cushman & Wakefield, working with its client, complex owner 1200 Post Road East LLC, developed the idea of attracting health and wellness businesses to the center. "We formulated the wellness concept after considerable research into the future of retailing," said a spokesman for 1200 Post Road East LLC, who asked not to be identified. "We discovered that, although consumers were far more hesitant to spend on luxury items, they were quite willing to spend on items to improve their health, make themselves feel good and to relieve stress. Westport Yoga, The Fitness Factory and Dream Spa offered the perfect synergy to enhance our wellness concept.

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It is just a rocky little island off the Scottish west coast, with nothing to distinguish it except for the remains of a 13th century keep. But yesterday Little Cumbrae became a centre for pilgrimage, its status elevated to that of the Himalayas and the banks of the Ganges. It even acquired a new name — in honour of the occasion, it will now be known as Peace Island Hundreds of followers of the celebrated, if controversial, Indian yoga guru, Swami Ramdev, gathered on the island to witness an unorthodox union of East and West. The swami, wearing his trademark orange robes and a serene smile, was accompanied by a bagpiper as he began the ceremony that gave Little Cumbrae its new identity.

Swami Ramdev, who has 80 million followers around the globe, is the Indian equivalent of a rock star, with crowds of up to 10,000 at his outdoor events. He is also no stranger to controversy. He has suggested that his techniques can help to treat cancer and Aids, arguing that his teachings are based on science. He has also described homosexuality as a disease. “It can be treated like any other congenital defect,” he told the Indian Supreme Court recently. “Such tendencies can be treated by yoga, pranayama [breathing exercises] and other meditation techniques.

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BodyNetix, one of the Comox Valley's hottest new businesses, is about to get even hotter. The Valley's 2008 New Business of the Year is renovating its Courtenay fitness studio to make room for, among other things, a brand new 93-square metre hot yoga studio.

The new addition will be only the second hot yoga studio in the Comox Valley and will be home to a unique new style of hot yoga classes starting in November.

"Our classes are really going to be tailored to men and women who don't have a lot of time but who still want to get the fat-burning benefits of hot yoga," says Chris Ketch, founder and co-owner of BodyNetix.

"Every athlete knows that peak performance occurs only once the body is completely warmed up," he explains. "The temperature in a hot yoga studio is similar to our own body temperature, which accelerates many of the benefits of regular yoga, like fat loss and increased flexibility. With hot yoga, it's not uncommon to lose centimeters of fat in a very short time.

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From Los Angeles to London, so-called yin yoga is increasingly being taught at studio classes and yoga retreats, not to mention via books and DVDs.

The power or "yang-styled" yoga forms so popular in the West -- with their fast shifts between poses and emphasis on sweat -- have left a gap for more meditative, longer-held stretches, says Paul Grilley, a martial arts and yoga practitioner who helped develop the yin yoga style along with fellow proponent Sarah Powers.

He says yin yoga is not a new form, but rather a return to more meditative, traditional yoga. Slower forms -- such as restorative yoga -- already exist, he acknowledges, relying on props to aid with poses and encouraging students to stop when they start to feel discomfort.

But with yin yoga, he says, the emphasis is not on a lack of pain, but rather on how to feel discomfort, stay with it and move through it.

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Ghantali Mitra Mandal organised a talk show on the unique technique of Nano Bio Psycho Technology and Yoga. The partiticipant speakers included the best names from the field - Dr Shriram Agashe, Yogacharya Shrikrishna Vyavahare, Dr Shriram Bhatkhande, Dr Ulka Natu and Professor Kirti Agashe.

Explaining the concept, Vyavahare said, "In recent years, the world has become technically advanced and people believe in scientifically proven things. The research is being done at nano (micro) level where the equation is one billion of a meter is nanometre. The technical progress has brought comforts but at the same time the modern fast and stressful lifestyle is causing number of psychosomatic disorders (illness or disorders that are caused by mental processes; syndromes are classified even as stress-related) that cannot be cured only with medicines. Such disorders can be controlled by the practising yoga regularly and this also provides good results.

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A yoga-related question came down the Facebook transom the other day. “Dear Neal,” it read. “I’ve been practicing yoga several days a week and enjoying it, but I’m starting to get annoyed by my baggy T-shirts flopping around in my face. Do you have any suggestions?”

I do.

The topic of women’s yoga fashion is a minefield from which, if I stepped into it, I wouldn’t emerge alive, so I’ll avoid. But when it comes to men and yoga clothes, the standards are much lower and the needs are simpler. If you look at old photos of Krishnamacharya, pretty much universally recognized as the founder of modern, physical yoga, he appears to be wearing not much more than a tastefully folded cloth diaper. As the years progressed and he grew slightly trendier, Krishnamacharya progressed to some tight-fitting striped boxers, and also rocked a nifty white goatee. However, you never see photographs of him practicing asana while wearing a shirt. In general, I find that it’s a lot easier to do yoga shirtless. You move more freely and don’t constantly have to deal with itchy cloth bunching up at unforgiving and complex moments.

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As our consciousness expands, modern man is more open to exploring ancient ways of living. Through increased awareness, we're realizing that new is not necessarily better and that if something has persisted through thousands of years, then perhaps there's some benefit in it. This is the natural shift of man, an endless pendulum that swings between light and darkness, between both progress and regressions in enlightenment.

Adorno and Horkheimer hit the nail on the head when they noted society fluctuating between two extremes. Here we begin to see the point. The point is a swelling "manipulative nature of culture" that creates and fosters a pseudo sense of self.

In no area is this manipulation greater than with what lies within us. The modern man is a master manipulator of himself. Through the ego, rarely ostracized but rather accepted as one's own conscious self, we have tricked ourselves into believing that we are always in control.

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The following is a notice from Joy Fay of Melrose Boot Camp. Yoga instructor, Melissa Claeys of B Yoga Center and Joy Fay of Melrose Boot Camp recently teamed up to offer a free yoga class to six girls and their moms who are all running the ARC 5k.

The girls have been training with Joy Fay through the summer months, meeting two nights a week to prepare for race day. Pictured from left to right are Gillian Russell, Kaia Carioli, Melissa Claeys, Eadeen Farrell and Julianne D'Ambrosio.

If your gym’s yoga classes are packed, or if you hope to cultivate a daily practice at home, Yoga for Wii might be your best ticket to Nirvana this coming winter.

No doubt, some yoga purists will be driven mad by Yoga for Wii’s distinctly Western a la carte approach to an ancient spiritual tradition. That’s because Yoga for Wii (www.yoga-game.com/) touches on multiple disciplines at the same time. It also includes tidbits of advice about eating right, the care and feeding of one’s chakras, and postures crafted to relieve back pain, arthritis, and headaches.

A supermodel whom I’ve never heard of, Anja Rubik, serves as your guide and guru in Yoga for Wii. (In case you did not know, life on the catwalk is extremely stressful.)

Animated characters demonstrate each posture, bending and stretching in cool-looking studio scenes and beneath giant statues and paintings depicting Buddha and others.

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On a weekday evening in a sunlit yoga studio in Glendora, Charlotte Koch is urging students to breathe deeply and embrace the positive energy surrounding them.

The certified yoga therapist is well versed in what she teaches, having trained in the yoga therapy program at Loyola Marymount University.

She also relates to the stress her students carry and in many cases the medical conditions they are wrestling with.

In her 40s, Koch, then suffering from a host of medical problems, was told by doctors she would never walk again.

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