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Yoga

squatters

Yoga Hippies Want Your House

Do you have a spacious home in NYC or Greenwich, CT? Why not share it free of charge with a married couple in their thirties from Sept. '08 through March '09 while they complete their masters in "Conscious Evolution"? Still not sold? "We are looking for a live-in or house-sitting opportunity in the NYC area while we complete our Masters Degree in Conscious Evolution. We’ll care for your home while you are away, or we can live with you, in which case we’d be happy to share our fitness and coaching expertise. Beth and Alex are a married 30-something couple contributing as professional fitness/yoga/health/life coaches dedicated to raising awareness through movement, exercise, holistic health and relationships." Get to know your lovable new gurus a little better after the jump. More »

Already all burnt out on your Christoga DVD? Newly Netflixable today is "Yoga For Indie Rockers," featuring an instructor named "Chaos" and "songs from Kevin Devine, Paulson, Jet Lag Gemini, Roses Are Red, the Bruises, Two Lone Swordsmen, House of Fools, Dillinger Escape Plan, Crash Romeo and many others." [Netflix via Lindsayism]

Yoga drama in Carroll Gardens! Three charismatic teachers left Area—the spa and children's clothing store and toy store and yoga wear and yoga studio South Brooklyn monopoly—simultaneously to start their own studio, leaving a "nasty taste" in Area owner Loretta Gendville's mouth. But maybe she should take a page from of one of her ex-employees' books and be more, you know, yogic about the whole thing: "New York is a great laboratory—when the guy on the subway won't move, how do you make that a yogic moment, instead of flipping him off?" [NYO]

The zombie plague that a great sage once predicted descended on Williamsburg yesterday, but all they did was practice yoga. It was a promotional stunt for a book called The Zen of Zombie, it turns out. Best quote from the Metro article about the stunt: "I guess someone has to make the videos that go up on YouTube." [Metro]

poseurs

Yoga Now Available With Extra Jesus


First there were innapropriate yoga guys. Then there was naked yoga. Now, for all you who find Jivamukti too heathen, there's Christoga, which is like yoga plus Jesus. Basically, she's just renamed every yoga pose with something from the Bible. Hey, somebody got their phlegm in my peanut butter!

A Baptist minister has banned a toddler yoga class from the basement of his church, calling the practice of yoga "unchristian." This is the best thing that's happened to yoga's image in a long while. [Daily Mail]

downward facing doggystyle

The New Hotness Is Naked Yoga

Yoga couples? Inappropriate yoga guys? No, the next frontier of things that make us ashamed to be yoginis is Naked Yoga, which is gaining in popularity. According to one website, naked yoga "teaches you that there is nothing uncomfortable about your naked body. In other words, it liberates you by making you feel 'at home with your body,'" Because regular yoga just isn't body-liberating enough? Gah. However, the same site cautions, "Nudity can be very distracting and may be a challenge to your concentration. But, with regular practice and with the help of your Yoga instructor, you can win over these distractions." What distractions might those be, we wondered? More »

getting some asana

Yoga Classes Are Full Of Sleazy Eric Schaeffers

The article in the Times today about "inappropriate yoga guys," as immortalized in one of the funniest YouTube videos we've ever seen (seriously, watch it and see if you don't spit out your coffee when he does that Ujjayi breath), rips off all our blinders and reveals the shocking seamy underbelly of the yoga world. Just kidding, nothing in it will particularly shock any lady who has ever a) taken a yoga class that wasn't women's or prenatal or b) familiarized herself with the work of Gawker bete noire Eric Schaeffer, who prowls gyms looking for spandex-clad ladies at their most vulnerable. But we wonder if even he has pulled some of the heinous stunts described in this article. More »

Mediabistro's offering Yoga for Writers. "Give your writing practice a jump-start by reconnecting with your creative muscles." Hmm, are those the ones between the anus and scrotum or the ones in the back of the throat? We always get confused.

hey jealousy

Why Hating On Park Slope Just Makes Us Look Bad

When we first clapped eyes on Samantha Storey's first-person exploration of what it's like to live in Park Slope, we automatically started sharpening our knives. That stroller shot almost guaranteed that the article would be full of easy-to-mock tropes of the Slope, and of course, it was: "open and comfortable breast-feeding is quintessential daytime Park Slope." And! "When I buy fish from the Ocean Fish Market the man behind the counter always asks after my mother." And! "My baby carrier is a $150 torture device." Yes, writing a mean post about this article would be easy-peasy. Our knives were honed! When, suddenly, we put down the whetstone and looked within. Ask the question in your best Carrie Bradshaw voice along with us: Is it time to get over hating on Park Slope? More »

eric schaeffer

Eric Schaeffer Gets A Taste of His Own Meds

Aaaand . . . it gets weirder. While we've being doing our best to avert our eyes from the endless trainwreck spooling out in slow-motion that is Eric Schaeffer's internet-documented life, someone's been doing the opposite. Meet Sandi. She's Eric Schaeffer's stalker.
I admit it, I'm insane. But after I saw his movie "Fall" in 1997, I was a little obsessed with him. I thought his craziness was kind of charming. And when I read his blog, none of it really surprised me. It all seemed sort of....earnest. I liked that there was actually a guy in New York City looking for a wife. I keep getting guys who want to cheat on their girlfriends with me.
Ugh, we hate that! We totally see where Sandi was coming from, and we read about her attempts to get closer to Eric with great interest. Unfortunately, though, she failed to meet choosy ol' Eric's stringent criteria. The email he sent to Sandi, rebuffing her advances, is after the jump. More »

self

Rodney Yee: Caught In Pants-Down Pose?

So we were all scarred forever over the weekend by images of too-happy Vows featured couple Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman's yogic lovemaking (yes, we said it: lovemaking), but we apparently missed the real story. Colleen, it turns out, isn't the first student who Rodney has chaturanga'd atop. Far from it, it fact: a 2002 lawsuit was brought against Yee by a fellow teacher at his California yoga studio, accusing him of "inappropriate behavior" with his students. A tipster points us to this 2004 Self article about Yee and the suit, in which that teacher, Susanne Bruder, maintained that Yee's student-fucking "represents an abuse of power and is unbecoming of a healer or a teacher....His refusal to accept that he needs help in this area and his attempts to blame the women involved puts more students at risk." Yee's response was classic:
The reality is that most teachers fall in love with their students, but sex is such a small part of it . . . every relationship is unique and can't be judged . . . every once in a while, just like in therapy, there might be real chemistry between two people. It's a decent guideline, but you shouldn't be crucified for not following it.
Yup, just like in therapy! (Shudder).

Compromising Positions
[Self] More »

vows

Colleen Saidman and Rodney Yee: Na-nastay.

We were sick of Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman the from the moment we first heard of their illicit yoga love story in New York Magazine — (remember? "'[New agey blah blah],' Saidman says, sitting entwined with Yee on the floor of the shingled house they now share," etc, etc.) But we all must have done something really bad in a past life to deserve their Vows column this weekend. We mean, seriously:
She became a devoted student of his and formed a close student-teacher relationship, which remained platonic for years. Then, in 2002 at a yoga conference in Nashville, Ms. Saidman and Mr. Yee found themselves sitting next to each other in a crowded hot tub after a day of twisting poses.
More »