ZEN is expensive. The flattering Groove pants, Lululemon’s answer to Spanx, may set Luluheads, the devoted followers of the yoga-apparel brand, back $108. Manduka yoga mats, favored for their slip resistance and thickness, can reach $100 for a limited-edition version. Drop-in classes at yoga studios in New York are edging beyond $20 a session, which quickly adds up, and the high-end Pure Yoga, a chain with two outposts in Manhattan, requires a $40 initiation fee, and costs $125 to $185 a month.
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You can even combine yoga with a vacation in the Caribbean, but it will cost you: in August, the luxurious Parrot Cay resort in Turks and Caicos has a six-night retreat with classes taught by the “yoga rock stars” (in the words of the press release) Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman. The cost? A cool $6,077. (In August!)
And is it surprising that yoga, like so much else in this age of celebrity, now has something of a star system, with yoga teachers now almost as recognizable as Oscar winners? The flowing locks of Rodney Yee. The do-rag bandanna worn by Baron Baptiste. The hyper perpetual calm exhibited by David Life and Sharon Gannon, who taught Sting, Madonna and Russell Simmons. The contortions (and Rolls-Royces) of Bikram Choudhury.
Today. Mr. Gumucio has three studios in New York (including two hot-yoga studios that charge $8 a class), one in San Francisco, one in Berkeley, Calif., and one to open later this year in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He has just signed a lease in Chelsea and is considering expanding to Austin, Chicago and Los Angeles.
Sat, April 24
8:00 am - 10:00 am Mysore Style $50 ($60 after Apr 14)
10:30 am - 12:30 pm Primary Series $50 ($60 after Apr 14)
1:00 pm - 4:00 pm Adjustments & Techniques $65 ($75 after Apr 14)
Sun, April 25
10:30 am - 12:30 pm Full Vinyasa $50 ($60 after Apr 14)
CLASS DESCRIPTIONS
PRIMARY SERIES: The Primary Series, referred to as Yoga Chikitsa (which literally means Yoga Therapy), detoxifies and aligns the body. The led class is an introduction to the entire primary series in a group pacing. The vinyasa or breathing system is emphasized.
MYSORE STYLE: A set series of asanas practiced by the student at their own individual pace and assisted by the teacher, the way it is taught in Mysore, India by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. Previous Astanga experience required. Primary through Fourth series students accepted.
FULL VINYASA PRACTICE: In this led class, the traditional primary series is taught including a full vinyasa (to Samasthihii between each pose) and half vinyasa (between each side). This class is a challenging and vigorous practice guaranteed to turn up the heat (tapas). Open to all skill levels.
ADJUSTMENTS AND TECHNIQUES: This class is geared toward teachers and dedicated students who wish to deepen their understanding of the art of adjusting. This workshop class will include theory, discussion, and hands-on adjustments.
Sharon Dorram, an influential New York colorist, said that among her downtown New York patrons, it is mostly younger women, renegade types, who request gray. Not lost on Ms. Dorram is the irony that their older, more conventional counterparts spent $1.3 billion to cover their grays last year, according to Nielsen....
“These women are showing that they have the money and the inclination to make gray a fashion statement,” said Rose Weitz, a professor of women and gender studies at Arizona State University. Professor Weitz, the author of “Rapunzel’s Daughters: What Women’s Hair Tells us about Women’s Lives,” suggested that to dye one’s hair gray is to flout one of fashion’s last taboos.
For a 16-year-old, it is something akin to having multiple piercings or tattoos, she said. “It takes confidence to pull off the look,” Professor Weitz said. “It’s going to be the head cheerleader who does this, not the nerdy science student.”
"Our main problem is ourselves. Our bondage lies within us, not outside. Others are not our problem. We are more our problem than all others put together. The ultimate freedom is freedom from oneself. This little human personality is the one great bondage that denies you the freedom that is your birthright."
"With the help of the subconscious mind you can change your vicious nature by cultivating healthy, virtuous qualities that are opposed to the undesirable ones. If you want to overcome fear mentally, deny that you have fear and concentrate your attention upon the opposite quality, the ideal of courage.
When this is developed fear vanishes away by itself. The positive always overpowers the negative. This is an infallible law of nature. This is the Pratipaksha Bhavana of the Raja Yogins. You can acquire a liking for distasteful tasks and duties by cultivating a desire and taste for them. You can establish new habits, new ideals, new ideas and new tastes."
Once at Varanasi, as Swamiji was coming out of the temple of Mother Durga, he was surrounded by a large number of chattering monkeys. They seemed to be threatening him. Swamiji did not want them to catch hold of him, so he started to run away. But the monkeys chased him. An old sannyasin was there, watching those monkeys. He called out to Swamiji, 'Stop! Face the brutes!' Swamiji stopped. He turned round and faced the monkeys. At once, they ran away.
Many years later, Swamiji said:
'If you ever feel afraid of anything, always turn round and face it. Never think of running away.'
“At one point I looked at my dog, who was my best friend, and I thought, If I’m not going to eat you, then how can I eat these other creatures who have the same capacity for love and joy?” she recalled. “The karma of turning vegan is amazing. And then to get this sudden weight loss, and my skin is glowing and my nails are strong and my eyes are white — it was wonderful.”
Ms. Silverstone stays up late cooking or working on her “Kind Diet” Web site. She is also returning to movies as a 200-year-old vampire in a comedy by Amy Heckerling, the director of “Clueless.”
“I have so much energy these days, so much more than I did when I was 19 and had bags under my eyes,” she said. “Once the sludge was removed from me, I felt my body soften and open, and I felt awake and alert and inspired and turned on. The way I live and eat now, it’s changed me as an actress — totally.”
Osnos invokes the old Wall Street Journal line about Chicago being "Beirut on the lake" in the 1980s, as Washington and his white City Council battled for control of city government. "Daley took office at a moment when Chicago was paralyzed by infighting and mismanagement," Osnos writes. "In 1987 William Bennett, the Secretary of Education, said that Chicago had the worst school system in the country—'an education meltdown.' The center of the city was a desiccating museum of masterpieces by Mies van der Rohe and Louis Sullivan. Infant mortality in remote neighborhoods was comparable to levels in the Third World."
But then in 1989 Richie took charge, and "in the years that followed, Detroit, Cleveland, and other former industrial powers continued to wither, but Chicago did not. It has grown in population, income, and diversity; it has added more jobs since 1993 than Los Angeles and Boston combined. Downtown luxury condos and lofts have replaced old warehouses and office blocks. New trees and flower beds line the sidewalks and sprout from the roofs of high-rises. (Chicago has significantly more green roofs than any other city in America.) Diners and pizza joints have given way to daring restaurants like Alinea and L2O, where the chefs Grant Achatz and Laurent Gras are among America's highest priests of the chemically complex food known as molecular gastronomy. Chicago is a post-industrial capital of innovation from house music to fashion—the Milan of the Midwest, as the Washington Post put it last year."
OK, stop. I can't take it anymore. Who wrote this stuff, Billy Dec? I like a good meal as much as the next guy, but what the hell does any of this have to do with Mayor Daley?
The downtown real estate boom was part of a larger demographic shift that started in the 1980s. It's true that it was fortified with the hundreds of millions of property tax dollars Daley has handed over to well-connected developers and corporations, but it's also true that thousands of the swank new condos are empty because there's nobody in the market to fill them.
Osnos also repeats City Hall's boast about leading the country in buildings with green roofs. But as the Reader has reported, his administration has also failed to offer residents a real recycling program, stood by as two coal-fired power plants on the southwest side produce dangerous air pollution, and done little to implement its own plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
And while I'm at it—house music? House music originated in the late 1970s, when Frankie Knuckles started spinning at the Warehouse on South Jefferson. If any mayor should get credit for house music, it's Michael Bilandic....
