Recently in New York Category

The Djoniba Dance & Drum Centre is closing today (so says their latest email). It's sad. They've been hit by the economic crisis--student attendance is down, rents are way up. That place, a not-for-profit, feels magic--I only went for one African dance class with Djoniba himself, but it felt like a latter-day, much-beloved set of Fame. Authentic, danced-in, drummed-in, lived-in. A New York institution that's been there for 15 years. Sigh.

Is this just the beginning? Makes me wonder how yoga will be affected. I haven't noticed a shift in class attendance lately--have you? But it would make sense if we started to see studios offering more community classes, maybe some special cards with softer expiration dates. Maybe some of the way pricey studios re-calibrating a bit.

Sadly I won't be reporting on that here. Yoga Journal has been caught up too and is cutting the local blogs. I've really loved posting on the NY yoga scene the last year or so and am so grateful for all of you who read. I do hope to keep in touch. Let me know if you'd like to join my email list for future updates and new yoga-related writing ventures (valerie AT valeriereiss.com). After New Year's this blog's savasana will commence. Om, shanti, shanti, shanti.

However you spend your New Year's Eve, you'll get a detoxing rush from yogi and author Sadie Nardini's uber-vinyasa class with live drumming at Pure Yoga. You'll also do intention-setting and get tips for having a new year with powah (details below). That in mind, Sadie kindly agreed to answer my quick grilling about things like why she teaches, her favorite smoothie spot, and her coolest moment of NYC synchronicity.

If you could sum up the essence of what you would like your students to learn in one word, what would it be?
Fierceness

What's your favorite place to get an after-class juice or smoothie?
Juicy Lucy on Avenue A

What's your favorite asana? Least favorite? Why?
Afternoon Napasana and Seated Cat/Cow tie for most energy restoring, and Plow Pose literally gives me a headache.

What's your most recent yoga triumph?
Press-up handstand, finally

Why do you do yoga?
To be able to endure the intensity of life, and love.

How does yoga help New Yorkers specifically?
It detoxes what they retox through stress, breathing the fumes of a thousand cabs and teaches them how to be the eye of life's hectic storms.

What's the most important yoga tip you'd give non-yogis looking to relax in the chaos?
Be like tea, and change the water you're in: life comes at you, but you have the power to come back at life in any way you choose.

What's your favorite healthy restaurant in NYC?
Angelica Kitchen

Which traits do you most admire in your students?
Perseverance, receptivity and heart

What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen in a yoga class in NYC?
A 116 year-old swami smacking my asana with a stick. Or the pet snake.

What's your favorite NYC-synchronicity moment?
The day I chose a random route home, and without missing a step, walked across an intersection, and pulled an oncoming woman out of the path of being hit by a speeding taxi... by inches.

Music in class? Yea or nay? If so, any rules or preferences?
Yea. No speed metal, polka or square dance. Otherwise, anything goes.

Sadie will be teaching New Year's Day at Pure Yoga from 12-2 pm. Class is $25. Call for info or to reserve a spot: 212.360.1888.

I hate to bring it up so soon, but it really is almost here: New Year's Eve. Ack. I was just getting a handle on this whole "2008" thing. So, what's a cleanish living yogi to do on a night of sloshy drinking and overpriced everything? Here are some thoughts:

1) It's a classic and reliable staple: Jivamukti's New Year's Eve celebration. You can choose your evening ala carte or the whole shebang from: a class with David and Sharon, vegan dinner, kirtan dance party, silence and chanting, and a final talk from Sharon and David. Go here and scroll for all the yogic new year deets.
2) You can either add to the spiritual energy or wash your achey head on New Year's Day by chanting the Hanuman Chalisa at Dharma Mittra's studio. All you can chant, any time between 8am and 7pm.
3) Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to watch the fireworks with a New York tour guide.
4) Take to the streets with New York Road Runners' annual four-mile midnight run through Central Park--there'll be a non-alcoholic toast, plus fireworks and a DJ.
5) Om into 2009 at Laughing Lotus with live music.
6) And if that's not hot enough, sweat yourself silly on the Lower East side at Bikram LES.

Got other tips? How are you planning to breathe into 2009?

Today I am grateful for....

1) Kula Yoga Project's 7:45 am classes
2) The vegan pumpkin scone I had recently at the Jivamukti Cafe
3) That a new Lululemon is opening on Friday, November 30th in the Flatiron District right near my office (or, um, maybe that is something for the non-grateful, too tempting column).
4) The MELT class Monday nights at the Breathing Project. Hard to describe, wonderfully relaxing to the entire nervous system
5) Souen on 13th Street
6) The Girlie Girl Army newsletters--full of vegan recipes, NYC sample sale info, charity info, and other hip-but-spiritual pointers
7) The Dharma Punx meditation and darshan I went to the other night
8) Organique, an all-organic deli on 23rd street
9) Meditating on the subway
10) You, for reading.

What are you grateful for today?

Maybe you're participating in Buy Nothing Day next week, a day that takes a stance against the rampant consumerism that has become the holidays (this year they're proposing extending that to the entire season). Or not. Either way, you'll probably need to buy gifts for family, friends, colleagues, and others—in an economic mind-set that is decidedly chilly. Here are some NYC-based gift possibilities for the yogis in your life, for under $100.

1) Yoga-inspired jewelry from the Satya sample sale. You'll find lovely trinkets at up to 80% off retail—as in charm necklaces for $35 and earrings for $20 and more. Friday December 12th, 13th, and 14th at the 253 Centre Street store. And if you miss the sale (or can't deal with the sale's many opportunities to practice patience), you can drop by a Satya store for affordable, not-on-sale goodies—and get free henna painting and Tarot readings each Thursday eve in December. Contact them for schedule.

2) A Lululemon scuba hoodie. With a new store opening in the Flatiron District any moment now (they were wildly sweeping and polishing when I walked by today), you'll have a fresh shot at well-stocked merch. And those sweatshirts are just about the comfiest thing I own. About $85.

3) Wendyloo ‘s hand-printed yoga mat bags (at right) made at a women's collective in Brooklyn, are functional and beautiful. $78 at Local Labels.com, a business co-owned by a dear friend that's dedicated to keeping NYC-based manufacturing alive.

4) A donation in someone's name to Bent on Learning, a charity that teaches yoga and meditation to kids in NYC public schools. They work with students throughout the city and have impressive roster of involved yogis. For more info: bentonlearning.org

5) Along the same lines you can pop into ABC Home (after checking out their gorgeous new window displays) and donate through Gifts of Compassion, a program that gets money to charities that do everything from save the planet to help moms and kids in Tibet to buy glasses for children in developing nations. You'll get a card for your recipient in a lovely sari fabric bag explaining the donation. They've also got lots gifts in their Mission Market—like gorgeous beaded animals—whose proceeds support needy populations around the world. For more: ABChome.com

For vegetarians or clean-food loving omnivores, Thanksgiving can be a bit stressful. Especially when in the homes of folks who don't share your sensibilities. So if you can escape family obligations, don't have any, or can get the whole troupe away from the stove and into a restaurant, NYC has a cornucopia (seasonally-appropriate metaphor! yay) of T-day veggie options.

I was just clicking around and found this post from Super Vegan, from which I am now shamelessly borrowing--and updating for 2008.

Angelica Kitchen is having its Thanksgiving 5-course Prix Fixe again and it sounds delish. It's $50 and you need to reserve by November 24th. Here's the menu (PDF) 212-228-2909

The lovely Blossom is having a $58 veggie prix fixe. They say to reserve as soon as possible, or no less than 10 days before T-day.212-875-2600

Candle's Cafe 79 is having a four-course meal for $68 from 2pm to 9pm. They've started taking reservations and suggest you book now. (212) 472-0970

And finally, if you want to go the all-raw, vegan route, there's a feast at the divine Pure Food & Wine. $72 for a four-course prix fixe. 212-477-1010

If you decide to get out of town, Jivamukti's 15th annual Thanksgiving retreat at Ananda Ashram is an option. The retreat kicks off with a vegan meal, followed by yoga, chanting, meditation, and satsang.

And if you stay at home and actually, gasp, cook, this book looks great (really love her first one): The Healthy Hedonist Holidays.

If you are a vegetarian (or a turkey-compassionate omnivore), you can seal the deal by adopting a turkey through Farm Sanctuary's Adopt-a-Turkey project. You can even choose the bird you'll be saving from being dinner. I'm thinking Hannah (pictured) is pretty cute.

What are your holiday meal plans?

If you're looking for a soothing, free, mini-respite, check out Pulse Park, an interactive art project in Madison Square Park. You go up to one of two little podium-like stands, hold the handlebars inside and have your pulse taken. It then translates the beating of your heart into pulsing beams of light on the field in front of you. Your pulse will be integrated into 199 other people's in a shifting array of light. When you let go, your heart light will stay in a single beam for a moment. It's a pretty magical New York experience. And apparently the electricity for the whole thing is fueled by biodiesel.

Since it's really hard to explain, you can check it out for yourself from dusk-10pm until November 17th. As a yogi who thinks a lot about heart and breath, I found it especially revelatory to see my inside pumps momentarily translated into light--and then watch it commune with other people's. The artist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, told New York magazine that he first had the idea for the piece after 9/11 when he wanted to create something uplifing. Pulse Park he said, "... is meant to bring everyone together, to allow people to express some sort of agency in a public space."

When you're there, remember to look up to see the park's other current exhibit--treehuts.

Yee. Times like this I really love New York.

Have you tried Pulse Park? What did you think?

For a whole lot of us the world looks a little bit shinier today. I was in Brooklyn at an election party watching the numbers, jumping for crazy joy in disbelief and then Mcain (belief crept in), then gorgeous speech (a delicious new shock) from Obama. Sitting next to a yoga teacher, we both talked about how smooth his movements are, how integrated he seems--no front, no obvious knot of tension--just elegance and grace. Pretty cool to have a president who looks like he could be a yogi. And then we heard the whoops--the streets filling with people banging actual pots, honking horns, and saying the name over and over like a mantra: Ohhhhbahhhhhmahhh. There were tears. Relief and yes, hope. A hope for humanity and peace--the best shot we've had in ages.

This post-election pre-amble is to say there's a way to extend your Obama-buzz. On Saturday night is the first Sulha Event for Peace. With incredibly diverse speakers and musicians from around the world, the evening is sponsored by Sulha, a non-profit organization "working to develop a culture of peaceful co-existence and equality amongst Israelis, Arabs, Jews and Muslims." Musicians like Karsh Kale, Parashakti, and Vishal Vaid will be gathering with speakers like Debra Winger and Dr. Gabriel Cousens. Think: incredibly multiculti with poetry and funky grooves for peace. It's produced by Fabian Alsultany, who does the GlobeSonic parties--happy, healthy groove events around the city. All the ingredients for a spiritual but grounded bash for a good cause.

Here are the deets:
DATE: SAT NOV 8, 2008
DOORS: 6PM
EVENT: 7PM -- 11PM
LOCATION: The Church of St. Paul & St. Andrew
ADDRESS: 263 West 86th Street

To get tix for $36, goto: ticketweb.com and enter code FACEBOOK

Otherwise they're $45 in advance | $50 Day of Show | $100 VIP

Questions? www.globesonic.com/sulhapeace Call: 866-468-7619 or Email: sulha@globesonic.com

Also Sulha means "meditate" and the project has been praised by the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu for its effective ideas in promoting peace in the Middle East.

It looks like zombie yoga won't be happening again this year, but you can still get your yoga on this Halloween. A couple of cool-sounding events; let me know if you hear of more and I'll post 'em.

Halloween Midnight Yoga Fest at Laughing Lotus
It's a deluxe version of the studio's usual Friday evening Midnight Yoga. Show up at 9pm for free tarot readings, parade viewing (they're right off the Sixth Avenue parade route) and treats. At 10pm you can show off your tricks in a vinyasa class with live musicians.
To sign up or get more info: laughinglotus.com

Halloween Open Mic Kirtan at Integral Yoga
Yeah, you read that right. For this new event you can "Dress as your favorite singer/songwriter and come out to lead a chant." The event starts at 8pm and a $5 suggested donation includes refreshments.
Here's more info.

UPDATE:
Here's another event:
Punk Rock Yoga at East West Yoga
Kick some asana with this lively class on Halloween.
Friday, October 31, 8:30 – 9:45 pm. $19

And in case you're feeling nostalgic or missed it, here's some pretty great video of zombie yoga from 2007:

I'm willing to bet that New Yorkers rent more mats per capita than any other place. That's mainly because though the tubular tote or mat poking out of a bag says "I take care of myself in a cool way," it's also one more thing to schlep around town. Which is why I've been intrigued lately by the ways around this.

Myself, I recently bought a super lightweight, eco Hugger Mugger mat to carry to classes, while my heavy jute/rubber thing is retired for home practice only. But even that seems like a pain sometimes. Some other options:

1) Yogitoes nubby/absorbent towels are suddenly everywhere, covering nasty rental mats across the city. Stacie, my fellow blogger in L.A. recently posted about the founder, who created these when a rental mat "smelled like wet dog." Gaiam also appears to carry a version.

2)I haven't given Yoga Paws a try yet, but they make loads of sense and fit in a smallish handbag. They're just little sticky coverings for your "paws," a.k.a. hands and feet.

3) Lululemon's "Supernatural" travel mat is uber-thin and made from natural rubber; it folds to about the size of a large, thicker manila envelope.

4) Gaiam's reversible travel mat is an interesting towel-mat hybrid, with sticky natural rubber on one side, microfiber towel on the other. And it weighs just a pound.

How are you solving the mat-schlep dilemma these days?