THERE GOES THE MAT SPACE





The new Business Week article about the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute is up.

It's part of a regular feature called "Executive Life."

I can see it now: corner-office hotshots across America ordering their minions to book their flights to Bangalore posthaste.

Because Mysore is the new Tuscany.

Among others, they interviewed Russell-the-lawyer.

But they forgot to ask him how he convinced his firm to outsource work to Mysore.

Some highlights from the article (or lowlights, depending on your perspective):

...At 5 p.m. on a breezy Saturday, the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in the southern Indian city of Mysore is buzzing. Students from around the globe are thronging the steps of the three-story, light-gray concrete building. Clad in light- colored cotton pants and T-shirts, their backs ramrod straight, their eyes and skin aglow, they are queuing up to greet Sharath
Ranga-swamy, 35, a master of Ashtanga yoga, and his grandfather, Guruji K. Pattabhi Jois, the institute's founder....

I've been there at 4:50 AM and "glowing" is most definitely not how people looked.

Glowering would be more like it.

And when did Sharath start hyphenating?

...When the school is closed, Sharath travels abroad. His workshops in New York, London, Sydney, and elsewhere have been attended by a host of celebrities, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, Willem Dafoe, Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, and Mike D., drummer for the Beastie Boys. Sonya Jones, wife of hedge-fund magnate Paul Tudor Jones and a close friend of Guruji and Sharath, has made a few low-profile visits to Mysore, too....

Since when does "low-profile" include cameras, an entourage and more adjustments than most students receive during their entire stay?

And Mike D. is no halfhearted celebrity slacker -- he dragged his skinny white ass all the way to Mysore to study with Guruji in the old shala.

Eh, whatever.

I'm just miffed because I didn't write it.

(If you want to see how it's done, click here).