Posts Tagged ‘yoga and business’

Borderstan article

kim on 11:25 am February 1st, 2012 / 55 Comments »

Hey, so our friends at Borderstan wrote this article about me, and about small business in DC. Thank you!

The biggest risk of yoga is change

kim on 3:27 pm January 18th, 2012 / 6 Comments »

I’m still thinking about that article, which I initially posted about here. Scott Stroud and I take class together on Tuesday nights, and in the car on the way home, he showed me the pictures from the article. OMG those guys, the NYT. As my teacher points out in his response, the paper is trying to increase sales and Mr. Broad is trying to sell books.

I know that’s real, but gross!

John also linked us to the best response I’ve read yet to Broad’s ridiculous piece of poorly edited journalism, from the Ashtanga Yoga Center of New York. I love every word, including his or her slam on Teacher Training Programs and that girl singing The Clash. Like the author, I remember the days of doing yoga, also in New York (for me in mid-nineties) when you could not buy a yoga mat, and when Lululemon’s owner was in Japan selling skateboards to another rich market.

Two best quotes of his/hers:

When there is a great potential for making money, quality is usually the first thing to be sacrificed. Fast food, anyone? It is unfortunate that this is exactly what we are facing now – yoga has been McDona-fied. It has been reduced from a practice that traditionally demanded dedication, discipline, sacrifice, humility, surrender, love, devotion, and self-investigation – and yes, suffering through rigorous practice – to something that one can now learn to teach in a weekend.

I would edit in “sometimes” in front of “suffering” or replace “suffering” altogether with “a lot of work”.

I also totally hearted the conclusion:

To live a life of self-examination is not always an easy thing. But that does not mean that it is not joyous, or have its own rewards, for it can be both of those things.

I made the decision several years ago to change the name of our 200-hour Teacher Training Program to be called Advanced Studies, for this is more accurate a term describing what happens in all Boundless’s Advanced Studies Programs. And, as I reminded my Boundless Yoga class last Saturday, we have been working at Boundless for 10 years to create an environment where everyone learns safely, feels challenged (both mentally and physically), and evolves. I don’t see any reason to do yoga except for these things. I want to evolve, and I want you to do that with me.

That yoga has become, for many who cannot escape the consumer trap of wanting my yoga my way, a drive-through experience, speaks to the fact that change is scary and involves loss. For those of us at Boundless — for those who teach here and who stay for a while to practice with us — we get that we’re in this body not only to own it,  but to know it. We are also in it to feel exactly what our AYNY author said, that:

feeling of freshness, of being clean and free, of feeling that a whole, new world was opening in me.

Transformation starts with the body

kim on 10:45 am July 20th, 2011 / Be the first to comment! »

I’m teaching this for four Fridays in July and August. It’s a discussion and meditation group that I am leading. Boundless’s mission is to foster transformation.

Transformation that happens anywhere starts first in your body. While there are many ways to observe and assess the universal principles of organization and chaos, I will address the topic of human bodily transformation that in turn takes root in society. I want to teach you how you can learn to observe your experience in the world, which then then necessitates positive change everywhere — foremost in your life.

I am specifically teaching you about your own dharma or destiny.  I hope you can make it!

missing the point

kim on 6:29 pm July 30th, 2009 / Be the first to comment! »

This article in today’s US News and World Report is about how conventionally grown produce has the same nutrient value as that grown organically.

But read 50 words in and the article get weird, particularly in paragraph 6 where “conventionally grown” and “traditionally grown” are described as synonymous. Um.

The other crazy aspect of the report is this statement:

The review zeroed in on 162 studies that dealt with the nutrient content of foods. Only 55 were of what the researchers considered to be “satisfactory quality” — a strong indicator that, overall, the science on the subject is not up to snuff.

So why was this news, if only 34% of the reported study was considered scientifically viable, and when someone else asked these questions at the end?

“There are so many variables,” she said. “Where is something grown? Where is it shipped from? How long was it on the truck? There are going to be variables in terms of nutrition just from production methods.”

My guess is that soundbytes in the 24-hour news cycle make money, versus more complicated studies that don’t yield easy results or descriptions.

drug it up

kim on 5:01 pm January 8th, 2009 / 1 Comment »

My job is to teach, and to run a business based on, the stilling of the mind’s fluctuations, so today passing the rite aid on U Street was a challenge.

A big sign I’ve never seen before was right there on the front door:

20% discount on all drugs!

This means two things to me. 1) Demand side: People are less able to afford the drugs they have been prescribed by their doctors, who by and large prescribe these “remedies” for the symptoms of disease, rather than for the disease and/or its cause , and 2) Supply side: The free market (and recession) is driving this sale in order to keep drug-buying traffic high at Rite Aid.

Yoga and its sister science, Ayurveda, or China’s Acupuncture, or even walking 15 minutes a day (possibly to yoga class), could render these discounts–and the RiteAid drug counter itself–utter failures.

all we have to do is use these ancient approaches to health and treat our bodies not as inconveniences when malfunctioning, but rather as messengers of the body’s inherent ability to heal itself.

the yang and the yin of it.

kim on 2:55 pm December 16th, 2008 / Be the first to comment! »

i heard here three or four times today a quote by an unidentified woman, telling the NPR Reporter that for the downwardly spiraling economy,

there are no silver bullets here…The best the Fed can do is throw pillows down to soften the landing.”

sigh, eat a cookie, it’s ok

kim on 4:45 pm December 2nd, 2008 / Be the first to comment! »

or even lose sleep. just stop comparing yourself to how she looks, or if you do, at least consider the first picture!

and anyway there’s still the live puppy cam.

lackblacklack

kim on 1:09 pm December 1st, 2008 / 1 Comment »

i just got off the phone with my husband, who is buying a black winter coat, a coat he does not currently own. the jacket is 40% off its original price, which is a great deal for December. he called to discuss the purchase, and to justify it he said,

“the thing is, i lack [a] black [coat].”

i thought this was a good justification for spending money, and it got me thinking about shopping in general, since many of us will me doing a lot of it in the next 20+ days.

a good way of shopping could be to buy the item only when

1) you want to walk out of the store wearing the item you like/love it so much,

or

2) you need that specific item because you actually do not have any (or one) of them.

another thing i’ve done today is watch this live puppy cam.

(there are many) analyst(s)

kim on 10:48 am November 14th, 2008 / 2 Comments »

particularly as i observe my mind experiencing boundless’s imminent move, which may or may not be to 14th and T, i was struck this morning when reading a commentary by swami satchidananda, who writes a potent and clear translation of the yoga sutras:

How are we to know whether our thoughts are selfless or not? We have watch carefully the moment a thought-form arises in the mind. We become analysts. This itself is the Yoga practice–watching our own thoughts and analyzing them.

Can you run a business successfully and be selfless, I wonder? This is the question I visit and revisit often.

bag it

kim on 3:49 pm November 6th, 2008 / 2 Comments »

i have decided to set a goal: to get rid of at least half of the plastic bags wadded together like petroleum bush in my house by the end of the year, which i estimate can happen if i remember, 90-100% of the time, to take the canvas bags to the grocery store.

I have a car, so i will place two canvas bags to live in the car permanently, which, additionally, should decrease the chances of accumulating new plastic bags, especially from places like Rite Aid.