New Yorker 1: Oh, yes! I LOVE YOGA. I go pretty much right after work every day when I get off at 7 because there is a studio right across from the office and there is a class at 7:30 and it just is very convenient because then I can go to the gym on my way home and I’ll be all set for the night.

OR

New Yorker 2: I’ve been doing yoga since the 80s. I’ve practiced with all of the best teachers in the city. I can hold headstand for 25 minutes and I believe I’m very near to mastering levitation.

And now for my somewhat under-informed impression of Californians…

Californian 1: OH MY GOOOODDD. I’m so blissed out right now…[sigh] that was ah-MAZING. You are totally my new Guru.

OR

Californian 2: I love yoga so much that I’m going to open (another) yoga retail boutique. Yippee! I can’t wait to order a wide selection of mala beads and lotus shaped gift items!

Ok, ok. Granted these are broad generalizations and I usually try to steer clear of any sweeping generalizations, but there is some truth in these assessments. New Yorkers in general are over achievers and yoga is just  one more thing to either schedule or conquer. Californians, by comparison, seem to be mellow and trying to be absorbed into yoga…as a life style. This necessitates, apparently, retail boutiques a plenty up dotting the towns up and down the west coast.

New Yorkers…go bendy or GO HOME.

Californians…yoga is totally sweet, brah.

[video: Lululemon for You Tube]

I need to say, that the internets hold a treasure trove of weird, bad and awful. I searched today for “healing” and switched to images only to find that 90% of images associated with healing are a pair of glowing hands. I’m not sure what I thought I would find there…but voila.

Yesterday, I investigated a yoga “center.” I’m not going to say studio, because it really isn’t. It is the Healing Yoga Foundation of San Francisco, and it is in a lovely cottage in the Marina. The center was founded by some people in the T. Krishnamacharya lineage, one of them, Chase Bossart, was a guest lecturer in my training program. It was only a matter of time before I ended up there, and I chose sooner rather than later.

I can’t really review a place like HYF, because what they’re doing is so very different from most other studios. They are a registered non-profit and they are literally spreading their roots in the healing community. HYF is running several community yoga programs with both health-affected and at-risk populations. I think that is totally rad. I love that there are people bringing yoga beyond the Western misinterpretations of yoga.

Aside from their community activism, HYF is probably running one of the best training programs out there. It is a500 hr training over 2.5 years. No more, no less. There is no 200 hr training, probably because everyone knows you hardly learn anything in a 200 hr certification course…besides, HYF’s training starts you out solidly for a Yoga Therapy track. Yoga Therapy is the next up and coming holistic health wave apparently, and someone recently told me to start calling myself a Yoga Therapy while there was no certification required. I was mildly shocked that this was suggested to me because it seemed so dishonest! Now that  I’m close to HYF though I think I can probably start winding down the long road to a Yoga Therapy training…and maybe, just maybe someday I can call myself a Yoga Therapist.

I plan on making myself something of a fixture with this organization. Seems very in line with the way I function. I would highly recommend anyone in the SF  Bay area looking to do a training go to HYF.

[image: Healing Connections]

Today was a day for clarity via many revelations. I discovered today that the hills of San Francisco are unforgiving of newbie bikers…and my body is unforgiving of biking on hills. I also discovered that college is expensive, and that because of that, school will have to wait another year until I can get residency. After all of my early day revelations were out of the way, I decided to go check out the San Francisco yoga scene. More revelations!

Today’s conquest was Yoga Tree (Stanyan). The studio was a nice one room studio with an inviting lobby and friendly staff members (the girl at the front desk even unknowingly tapped into my love of dance and introduced me to a center in the Mission..woo!). In true New Yorker form, I arrived to class 30 minutes early for fear of being shut out, so while I was waiting I had ample time to assess my new surroundings (and have revelations.

Revelations:

1. MEN DO YOGA. The class I was in was almost split equally down the middle between men and women. I would love to discover why yoga is so much more socially acceptable and appealing to west coast men. I am wondering if it has to do with distance from the founding fathers and California being all rogue and experimental. I mean, I guess if life in California “begins” with covered wagons and starving on the Oregon trail your eyes are just open to a lot more stuff. I mean, you’ve already proven you’ve got the cojones…so you’re now free to do yoga.  (I am fully aware that this theory needs a lot of proving.)

2. WOMEN WEAR REGULAR CLOTHES. There was a storage company in New York that had lots of clever advertisement and before I left I noticed one that said something to the effect of  ”New Yorkers don’t make more money than anyone else, we just dress like it.” As I observed the women file into class their most stunning accessories were not from Lululemon, but their ability to SMILE. No more stressed NYC yoga studio competition face…well, this is my first studio experience…so maybe I won’t count my chickens before they hatch.

3.  PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY RELAXED. When harder options were offered in the class that I was taking, it seemed like no one around me was remotely interested in pushing themselves t0 their limits. I tried one thing that I probably shouldn’t have  been doing in my completely out of shape state, but even Her Royal New Yorkness backed off. Yoga isn’t about weight loss or physical fitness per se…

All in all I think my day was pretty successful. I learned a lot, and as they say, “Knowledge is power.”

Hello all from the sunny/foggy land of San Francisco, California. This is my new home. I’m mostly unpacked at this point and the move went smoothly…but now I just need to figure out what goes where! Also, where do I go (specifically for yoga)?

I have no idea at present…except for one clue: Yoga Tree.  The tab on my browser says “Best Yoga Class San Francisco.” This is either pompous or it is a good omen. So far the reviews I’ve gotten from a family friend and some random chick with a yoga mat that lives in my building are very good. Apparently it has many different styles, but they are spread across the six city-wide studios. On a glance, I don’t recognize any of the names of the teachers but the list is exhaustive…so I have a great deal of recon to do. Actually, there is one teacher that was recommended to me by an OM Yoga head that I used to work with. I will be sure to check out Margi Young’s class and report back. She is a fellow escapee from New York.

Anyhow, my little dumplings, I have returned to you. I plan on a robust posting schedule to satisfy all of your nasty little Dharma Chameleon cravings.  We’re going to get deep into the San Francisco yoga scene! Time to do it all again! Oh, how deliciously exciting for all of us.

[image: Our Town]

Never has a place been so in need of yoga and yet, at the same time so at odds with it. Two words, that to me, are at the core of yoga are “stillness” and “liberation.”  New York is the city that never sleeps…I’m sure you’ve heard that before.

When I moved to NYC I made it my business to do anything and everything here. I’m pretty sure that I’m not alone in that mindset. It is notoriously hard to make plans with anyone who lives here. If you’ve ever lived in NYC, I’m sure you’ll recognize this reality. At first, when I was doing yoga it was one more thing on my schedule.

Long story short, yoga nudged most of the other things out of they way, and became my new way of life. Everyone else here? Who knows…Bikram, Power Yoga, and Ashtanga are the more popular varieties of yoga.

Last night I was feverishly working on The Studios  and I think it is safe to say that I’m DONE. It might get edited by location so that it is clear which studios are where, but the list is compiled and it is public!

I had been making claims that I had visited 60 ish studios in NYC. As far as I can tell I was lying through my teeth. It seems that in total I have visited 55 different studios since the birth of the Dharma Chameleon. Three studios were in Naples, Florida. Three studios are in Delaware. Two “studios” are actually Ashrams; one in upstate NY and one in Grass Valley, CA. It would seem then, dear DC readers, that I have visited 47 studios in the NYC area. Not a bad dent…but I bet there are another 50 I could have visited.

It is doubtful that I will get to any new studios before I leave BUT I almost put the following studios on my studios page because for one reason or another I have been recommending them even though I have never been.

Kula Yoga -  A spot in tribeca that has garnered a lot of attention. The studio director/owner, Schuyler Grant, is the co-creator of the Wanderlust festival and is a teacher of some fanfare. She has done a good job snapping up a lot of teachers with buzz around their names. I have received recommendations for this studio several times from other yoga teachers. Also, I was asked once for a recommendation of a yoga studio in Tribeca. I really just don’t know of any there…so I recommended Kula. They also recently opened a Williamsburg Location.

Vira Yoga -This studio is located in Soho and is operated by Elena Brower. I ALMOST practiced with Elena Brower at some huge thing in Central Park that got canceled because of some looming ominous storm. She seems to be a big deal and people seem to love her. I think I would have like to try her studio out.

Yoga Union Center for Back Care -  Looking at their website right now I don’t know why I wanted to try it out. Regardless of my back (being fine more or less) I think their focus is pretty interesting. Originally when Yoga Union opened up I think it was a normal yoga studio. I believe Steven Cheng was teaching there but then I guess they decided to narrow their scope. Honestly, in NYC the yoga scene is over saturated, so choosing a “specialization” will separate them from the masses. After it became a place for spinal health I heard rumors they were trying to recruit Rachel Lynch-John. So, I guess there are some interesting things going on there.

I think we know that I would do yoga anywhere…and there are a lot of places to do yoga in NYC but the ones above struck me as meaningful to try, so I leave them here for you all. I will live vicariously through you.

A large part of the original mission of Dharma Chameleon was to check out as many studios in the NYC yoga world as humanly possible, and I think I made a pretty big dent (I’ve been updating the studios page recently but it is a work in progress). When I’m boasting I like to say that I practiced at over 60 studios in the greater New York area. This may not be exactly true, but I know it was a lot. We’ll see exactly how it shakes down once I’ve completed the studios page.  In any case, in a few short weeks I’ll have chance to do it all again!

To my great delight, google maps has revealed that San Francisco’s yoga density rivals New York’s. I’m sure that the San Fran crowd might even say that it is greater (they do house Yoga Journal’s offices, after all.)  California and New York’s yoga scenes have been evolving simultaneously since the 1910s but I would be willing to venture a guess that my explorations will uncover an entirely different yoga scene out yonder. My first guess? Hippies. New York City doesn’t harbor a ton of  hippy dippy types…people are too serious about making money and being too cool for school. Who knows though, it is a major city…perhaps they will have just as many lunatics obsessed with Bikram and Ashtanga as New York does. I’m anticipating, however, a lot of free form-dancing in the dark-hug therapy-yummy noise making yoga.  And Iyengar. There are definitely a lot more baby boomers doing yoga in San Fran than there are in NYC, and baby boomers and older peeps LOVE the precision of Iyengar.

Whatever is going on out there, I can’t wait to get my prakrti all over that shit. Yogalandia, you are my utopia.

To date, I have been the patient of two Ayurveda doctors. Historically, I’m not a very good patient of any type of medicine, so I’ve only been to each of these docs one time. My first experience was with Pratima Raichur in her chic Soho spa/clinic. I was a wreck and had been under a lot of stress and was glad to meet with her. Her initial consultation is pretty steep, however…so that part I wasn’t really looking forward to. The initial visit is $135 and each follow up is $100. Obviously, since this is Eastern medicine our Western insurance will not pay for it. I may have already reported on Pratima, but I must again now for the sake of comparison. Pratima had a 30 minute consultation with me in a little back office where she inspected my nails, eyes, tongue and my mind by way of a small interview. As previously stated, I was a wreck at this point in time and the little interview included my tears, and Pratima’s assurance that I didn’t have it so bad and that instead of being so wretched that I should thank God for my good fortunes. This was all well and good, and she concluded the appointment with an exhaustive list of things to avoid, herbs to take, and precisely when to take them and how many.  All and all, had I spent almost $200 that day and I didn’t even get all of the recommended herbs. I got some facial products which I now find indispensable and some herbs that I sort of took for a short period of time and forgot about. I also had “prescriptions” for facials and massage. I have nothing negative to say about Dr. Raichur, she is an intelligent and clever woman who also seems to be very good at doing  business. She is also endorsed by doctors  Deepak Chopra and Andrew Weil. My appraisal of Dr. Raichur is that she does a phenomenal job with skin and that is her bread and butter. Her recommendations were too hard for me to follow, so perhaps I can’t fairly say that she was not thorough with my internal matters. It is also possible that my focus and health were just entirely different at that point in time than they are right now.

Yesterday I went to a new Ayurvedic doctor. This time I did not find the doctor on the internet, but instead found him through the recommendations of friends from yoga. Some of these friends are even Indian (that surely makes this a legit recommendation, no?) This second experience was nothing like the first. First of all, there is no spa and no clinic. I do not even know the doctor’s full name…he was referred to as Kumar. The space that Kumar operates out of is called Butala Emporium. In the rear of the store there is a small area that is partitioned off where the ayurvedic herds appear to be stored. The same area houses three plastic lawn chairs and an old beat up grey file cabinet. This small enclave was where I was lead by Kumar after I requested a consultation with no appointment. He was standing behind the counter and I was introduced by my friend Jason, a veteran client. The manner of introduction was sparse at best as Kumar requested my name, age and telephone number which was then recorded in a college rule notebook with a pencil. After that what happened was anyone’s guess. He took my pulse for what seemed to be an eternity, first on my right wrist and then on my left. After he seemed satisfied with the pulse-taking he requested to look in to my eyes and my mouth. That was my intake and my assessment. He then sat across from me for a few moments ruminating over his findings and then began to scribble into his  book. After a few more moments, with out any prompting prior to the appointment, he asked if a list of things were bothering me (exactly the list, I might mention, that led me to seek his counsel). I was impressed of course, and confirmed that yes, all of the things he had mentioned were giving me a bit of trouble and then he explained all about the imbalances going on in my system and how they had come to be the cause of my troubles. I sat there with my jaw dropped as he pulled 4 bottles of mysterious herbs off a shelf and decided how I should take them in the coming weeks to help me achieve health through balance. My jaw dropped further when he pulled out a pricing gun and labeled each my my bottles at only $9.99 (this was a pretty steep difference from the Pratima experience.) He finished the package off with a post it that said $50, a shopping basket to hold my things and a warm smile before shooing me off to the register. My total bill was about $100, and according to Jason any follow up appointments are only $25. Suffice it to say that these prices are totally affordable, even without insurance.

Do I know that any of this is going to work to fix my ailments? No. Despite the hopes of many past employers I do not have, nor have I ever had, a crystal ball. I do know, however, how I like to be treated as a person and a patient rather than a customer. It has been a long time since I have trusted a western doctor. I might even venture to say that I have always been pretty suspicious of them…especially mental health professionals.  Recently I found a place called the Center for Health and Healing through a colleague of mine and I have been very happy with the entire situation there. The staff is lovely, the facility is welcoming and the doctors are good and well  rounded individuals. When I call freaking out, they almost always squeeze me in. I will say though, that I feel a bit as if the doctors treat me like a hypochondriac. Ok, maybe I am a hypochondriac…but it is also my body and I consider myself an individual who is extremely well in tune with my body and its functions. If I show up at your office and say something is wrong, I expect proper testing to be performed to eliminate the possibilities that something is wrong and for them to prove I am a hypochondriac.  I don’t feel that this has been sufficiently done, really. The appointments are too quick, and if they do tests, I am never informed of their findings. I don’t ONLY want to know about serious deficiencies, I want to know it all…and they never tell me squat.

I appreciate the possibility that western medicine offers hard empirical evidence of its findings. Sometimes, Eastern medicine is a little bit more of a leap of faith. I will always go to a western gynecologist because us ladies always need to have someone checking under the hood with regularity. And, if I ever need to have a cancerous lump removed, I will gladly see a western doctor…because lets face it, I’m not so stubborn about this east vs. west thing that I want to die for it. I will say, however, that in my gut the Eastern approach to medicine seems to be more in tune with the human system rather than the capitalist system.

Call me kooky (you probably wouldn’t be wrong) but I’m going to try to find some nice little balance of East meets West for all my medical needs. Perhaps the answer isn’t in one or the other, but as in all other questions in life…in the balance.

[image: wikipedia]

Today, I found an article from a while back in the NYTimes. God, they are as obsessed with yoga as I am with myself. The “room for debate” topic is “Is Yoga for Narcissists?” Well, it seems like most of the debaters don’t seem to think that yoga is purely a narcissist’s activity…but what do you think? I can vouch for having met with many a moment of narcissism…and I know plenty of narcissists who practice yoga but I’m not sure I can say that yoga is for narcissists. I actually stopped doing ashtanga because I felt it was feeding narcissistic tendencies. The same can be said for Bikram, where all of the studios are required to have mirrors like a dance studio. I spent many hours gazing at my toned, awesome, sexy, sweaty body in those mirrors. (oh, god, i can’t even keep up with this narcissism joke…)

Does everyone know the story of Narcissus? I don’t remember it exactly but there was a young man who was quite enamored with himself and took to gazing into his reflection in pools. Then eventually, his punishment was being turned into a flower. This flower is commonly known as the Daffodil…but the latin name for the genus is Narcissus.

Whether yoga is or is not for narcissists, I think that we should definitely take all manners of seeing our reflection out of yoga studios. I don’t know about you, but I’m not trying to be turned into a flower. I’m already beautiful and sweet smelling enough, thank you very much.

Did the Dharma Chameleon mention that it is moving to San Francisco? Yes, this NYC born yoga lizard is trading up for some new digs with views of Golden Gate Park. It has been a good run for the DC in NYC but I’m bring this chapter to a close now.

As I’m closing the books on NYC, I have to do that whole “moving” thing and let me tell you, it ain’t pretty. I’ve been living out of boxes and piles for over a month now. To really ramp up the challenge of moving, I’m trying to move across the country in no more than 6 boxes, plus the suitcase that I’ll check when I fly out there. I don’t know if you’ve ever moved but during this period you discover how much crap just generally tends to accumulate over time when you’re in a space. People are HOARDERS, and I don’t care what you say. On any given day it just seems like you needed whatever the hell that was and then you go to move and your like “?” Moving is a challenge for everyone, but one of the biggest challenges is “what do I really need to take with me into the future?”  One principal handy in achieving “liberation” is vairagya or detachment.  If you think about it attachment really only brings pain since everything is temporary. Jewelry can be beautiful, valuable and sentimental but it is easily misplaced…a friend of mine basically had a severe meltdown after misplacing her wedding/engagement rings. Thankfully she found them, but during the 8 hrs they were missing she was in such pain. It seems callous to say that wedding rings shouldn’t really matter, but in reality they don’t. They’re just precious metals, mined from the earth and formed into  a circle that fits on your finger. What they really are is a symbol of something intangible. The ring is just stuff.

I have so much STUFF (no wedding rings, of course). Clothes, books, furniture, kitchen gadgets…they’re all very useful and lovely but do I really need it? What can I get along without? In my moving process I’ve had to steel myself against the allure of attachment and really just start chucking things. That shirt with a hole in it that I was meaning to sew up? Trash. Those 6 or 7 pairs of shoes that stink to high heaven and are falling apart because I love them and wear them all of the time? TRASH. Sentimental knick knacks like postcards, fliers and memorabilia? TRASH TRASH TRASH.

Its time to go, and I have to make myself light. It’s tough unburdening yourself from your attachments…but there is no time like moving time to do it.