Yoga Journal Blog: Samadhi in the City

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Los Angeles: Guerilla Yoga

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It’s underground. It’s rough. It’s roving. That’s how Marc Holzman characterizes his Guerilla Yoga – donation only mixed-level Anusara classes that take place wherever he can find a space big enough to accommodate his loyal students.

It started as a solution for wayward yoga orphans abandoned when two local studios ceased to be. (First Ross Rayburn’s Yoga Inside Out merged with Bala Yoga and then the latter closed too). “I thought just because the studios no longer existed didn’t mean the community had to disband,’ says Holzman, who is the kind of guy you want to hang out with, like a hip, gay Uncle.

So he borrowed the donation-only model of Bryan Kest, his first yoga teacher, who has been teaching such classes in Santa Monica for years. He got a couple of friends to join him – Tiffany Fraser and Acro Yogi Huck Hirsch – and created a teacher collective without the hassles that come with running a yoga studio. Students need only to log-on to the website to find out where and when.

Right now, there are at least three weekly classes and they take place either at the Hollywood Dance Center (an old-fashioned dance studio replete with well worn wood floors and hip hop classes in the next room) or at the Woman’s Club of Hollywood (the building is a historic landmark and has been home to this group of ladies since the late 1940s). Both have ample parking and offer-up an inspired spaces for no frills classes.

One recent Sunday morning at the Hollywood Dance Center, about 40 people showed up for Holzman’s 9:15 a.m. class including a few moms with kids, a photographer from one of the local yoga magazines and everyone was happy to give urdhva kukktuasana a whirl. Those in town for the holiday shouldn’t miss Fraser’s two hour Thanksgiving day class and be sure to check the website for future updates.

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Yoga is the best way to control many problems When you suffer from arthritis you get used to living with chronic pain, Your Website is very useful.

Thanks John. Glad to know you find Samadhi and the City helpful.

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