Yoga Insider

Welcome to The Yoga Insider, a monthly publication by Yoga Alliance® compiling the most current news about yoga. Browse the news by category and check out the archived editions to your right.

Edition 7 | December 2014

Archives

• November 2015
• October 2015
• September 2015
• August 2015
• July 2015
• June 2015
• May 2015
• April 2015
• March 2015
• February 2015
• January 2015
• December 2014
• November 2014
• October 2014

Categories

• Business
• Community
• Culture
• Health & Research
• Legal and Government
• Practice
• Service
• Trending
• YA in the News

Business

Moving Off the Mat and Into the Office

• ABC News reports on FitReserve, a new membership website catering to the "increasingly commitment-phobic" fitness population. The site allows customers to purchase either a 10- or 20-pack of monthly classes redeemable at 2,000 exercise classes in New York City, including yoga studios. (November 21)

• USA Today reports on whether yoga apparel-maker Lululemon will be able to bounce back in the stock market in 2015. "Despite the solid third quarter, analysts still rate the stock a 'hold'." (December 12)

Community

Shining Light on Inspirational Yogis

• New York Times reports on 13-year-old Jaysea DeVoe, RYT 200, one of the youngest yoga teachers in the U.S. “After completing a 200-hour five-month yoga certification program in February, she registered with Yoga Alliance and is a part-time instructor at the Bergamot Spa in Encinitas, Calif., where she teaches students ages 4 to 60 every Tuesday night.” (November 20)

• St. Joseph News-Press (Mo.) highlights The Yoga Room’s weekly baby yoga classes that help incorporate infants into daily life. Baby yoga teacher and new mother Sierra Roberts, RYT 200, on creating the class: “I thought it would be fun to add a class for other moms and babies to build friendships and grow.” (December 15)

Culture

Yoga Happenings from Around the Globe

• Las Vegas Weekly reports on Monte Carlo hotel’s complimentary yoga classes for guests, an amenity offered since October. Teacher Alicia Goldsmith: “Once the... yoga music comes up, that Plaza is transformed for sure.” (December 10)

• Los Angeles Times interviews Deepak Chopra about his new ventures, including a new book and television show, as well as what he does to stay fit – a regime that includes yoga. “‘Once in a while I do weightlifting and strengthening, but I found that yoga achieves the same thing. So lately I've been doing yoga, meditation and I walk.’” (December 12)

• New York Post profiles 40-year-old daredevil and Indian yogi Gugulotu Lachiram, who performs “high-speed yoga escapades” while riding a motorcycle, finding each pose “with ease.” Lachiram: “I completely love doing dangerous stunts on my bike, I will continue to do so for the next 15 years.” (December 2)

• Seattle Times reports on the lack of diversity in American yoga, as well as how the practice in the U.S. has become too “exercise-oriented,” “hard-core” and commercialized. In response, yoga instructor Gita Mehrotra co-founded POC Yoga in Seattle that “provides weekly classes and regular teacher workshops for people of color while also contextualizing yoga’s Indian roots.” (November 27)

Health & Research

A Mantra a Day Keeps the Aches at Bay

• Newsday (N.Y.) features yoga’s role in Western medicine, where it can fill a void in health care by providing emotional and spiritual benefits. “Yoga eases anxiety and gives a greater sense of well-being and happiness,” the article notes. (November 29)

• Prevention Magazine reports on the link between regular yoga and stress resiliency. The connection was made in a recent study in BMC Complementary & Alternative Medicine involving respiration rates of yogis. The article offers poses that help reduce stress and features a video sequence leg by Jillian Pransky, E-RYT 500.

• Reuters reports on a new study of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and rheumatoid arthritis treatment led by Francesca Fogarty of the University of Auckland in New Zealand. In the two-month study, 21 participants on a MBSR regime of gentle yoga and meditation reported less pain, tenderness and stiffness. (November 27)

• Seattle Post-Intelligencer covers the advantages of yoga practice, both internally and externally, including improved strength, flexibility, posture, mood, and cardiovascular support. (December 8)

• BBC reported on a recent review of 37 studies that link yoga to lower heart risk factors such as high blood pressure and cholesterol. The meta-analysis was published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. (December 15)

Legal & Government

Back to the Heart of the Matter

• Reuters reports that the U.N. has declared June 21 as International Day of Yoga. “The 193-member U.N. General Assembly approved by consensus a resolution establishing a day to commemorate the ancient practice, which [India Prime Minister Narendra] Modi called for in September during his inaugural address to the world body.” (December 12)

• Washington Post reports on India’s efforts to “rebrand” and “reclaim” yoga to make the practice more authentic–and popular–around the world. “They are spearheading efforts to promote and protect India’s most famous export, even quietly weighing a ‘geographical indication’ for yoga, a trade protection normally given to region-specific goods such as Champagne from France or oranges from Florida.” (December 2)

Practice

Get Your Asana On!

• Des Moines Register (Iowa) contributor, high school junior and yoga instructor Elena Hicks, RYT 200, shares advice for first-time yogis, emphasizing the importance of taking classes with “knowledgeable and experienced instructors” and taking the correct level class for your abilities and overall yoga goals.

• Wall Street Journal reports on how the use of foam blocks and straps can benefit all levels of yoga practitioners - beginner to advanced - by helping them “deepen their stretches, maintain proper alignment and challenge themselves.” Yoga instructors Bethany Lyons and Robin Armstrong discuss using props and, in an accompanying video, Lyons demonstrates how to put the props to use. (November 10)

• WWLP (Mass.) reporter and yoga instructor Dana Santas, E-RYT 200, shares three yoga tips to help manage seasonal holiday stress. She refers to certain asanas and relaxing diaphragmatic breathing as great ways to ease stress and even stimulate “feel-good hormones, such as serotonin and dopamine.” (December 10)

• News-Press (Fla.) reported on Andrea Trank, USTA league tennis player and RYS trainee, who teaches yoga classes to heal and prevent tennis-related injuries. Her 40 years of surgery-free tennis is all thanks to yoga, she says. Trank: “Yoga is the perfect fit to balance tennis…Yoga can help extend your time on court.” (November 17)

Service

Seva in Action

• Lewisville Leader (Texas) profiles Yoga Bridge, a nonprofit started by Susan Reeves, E-RYT 500, RPYT, and Pamela Ryan, E-RYT 200, that offers cancer patients free yoga. Yoga Bridge requires all teachers, like Debbie Simon, RYT 500, to be trained in yoga for recovery from illness and yoga for cancer. Simon: “Yoga is for healing, and this class is very holistic.” (December 11)

• Miami Herald reports on a growing contingent of veterans who are turning to recreational activities like yoga to ease symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. “Connected Warriors, a nonprofit organization launched in 2010, teaches yoga to service members, veterans and families at 18 studios and VA hospitals in Florida. Nationally, the program serves about 1,100 per month.” (November 10)

• Washington Post reports on the increasing popularity of yoga, meditation and mindfulness practices among Americans, including teens in high school. At Wilson High School in Portland, Ore., for example, students are allowed to take a “for-credit, year-long mindfulness class meant to ease youth anxiety and depression and to prevent violence.” (December 15)

Trending

The Hottest News from the Mat

• BuzzFeed features reporter Chelsey Pippin’s account of Crystal Ski Holidays’ “Ski-ram Yoga,” a yoga class taught by Gaby Flemming in a tent chilled to 2 degrees below Fahrenheit. The classes prepare the body for winter sports like skiing, using pranayama and cleverly-renamed asanas like the “Pepi Penguin” squat and “Snow Salutations.” (November 26)

• CNN features part-yoga studio, part-restaurant The Duce on a list of ten wacky U.S. restaurants. Sunday morning yoga is one of the fitness classes the establishment offers when closed for dining. (December 3)

• Dallas Morning News reports on Snowga, created by ski instructor and Kripalu yoga teacher Anne Anderson, RYT 200, which is a “snow sports-yoga hybrid.” Anderson says it helps "enliven, enlighten and empower those who want to improve their performance on the slopes through the compassionate teachings and wisdom of yoga.” (December 12)

YA in the News

Celebrating Yoga Internationally

• IANS (Indo-Asian News Service) weighed in on the UN General Assembly's declaration of International Yoga Day, beginning June 21, 2015, and approached Yoga Alliance for comment. Our COO Barbara Dobberthien was quoted as saying, "Yoga Alliance was created to spread the power of yoga, and International Yoga Day provides us with another very powerful platform from which to support our mission." The article was picked up by several publications including the New Indian Express. (December 12)