Yoga Begets More Yoga - finding a yoga practice

Soleil of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy addressed a room of fresh-faced yoga instructors at Maya Studio in Fremont yesterday for the first "Meet Play Learn" workshop. One thing I learned from participating in this newly formed group is that Seattle has a lot of studios and there is a lot of yoga happening, but we are nowhere near saturated. There are so many stories of people looking to try yoga in their neighborhood, and walking by a studio without even realizing it's there, and maybe has been there, for three years. 

I think part of the problem in finding a yoga practice is that we are on information overload and compressed time management. Just shout, "Yoga!" and someone will throw a sticky mat at you. It's become such a huge industry in the past five years that companies like Wal Mart and Target have profited off of a "yoga-in-a-box" mentality. On the one hand, there is something good about that: making yoga accessible to the average wage earner. On the other hand, there is nothing like having an instructor open this world of yoga up to you, and a DVD can only take you so far.  When we walk down the street, we're no longer really paying attention to the signs and sandwich boards. We're on our cell phones, listening to our iPods, or running errands on our lunch breaks.  We simply do not see what is there, and as instructors and studio owners, we're not always doing the best job of letting you know we're here.

These are some of the reasons I started thinking about yoga practice "outside the box". Instead of the big studio, I market yoga to the small group  and the corporate setting. Instead of big dance classes and bigger dance studio rental fees that get passed onto the student, I  focus on private and semi-private lessons, and teach bellydance fitness in bigger studios that did not pass the cost of studio rental onto the instructor.  In essence, we bring yoga and dance down to earth, make it more available, accessible, and affordable. 

One of the arms of availability is through the Internet and the blog world. After at least a half dozen friends encouraging me to blog, I came up with "The Wired Yogini" to create a community of openness, inquiry, and learning. I hope you'll bookmark this space and come back for a visit. Say hello and feel free to post questions as my readership builds. 

Please feel free to share websites and resource pages that you feel this community would like to know about. For the local Seattle community, check out this little gem:

www.communityfitness.com 

This fairly new movement studio provides affordable meditation, dance classes, Nia, Pilates, yoga, and bellyance fitness in a 50-minute format (versus the usual 1.5 hr format of many movement classes). Each class is $6.50 (tax included), with a $10 set up fee and NO MEMBERSHIP DUES. 

Finally, I have a question for all visitors. What components make the perfect yoga practice for you? If you have never been in a yoga class, what elements would make you more likely to visit a class? 

Next, I'll share with you some of my "yoga blunders", a verbal account of bloopers and fun stuff to make you laugh.