Drishti – Santa Barbara Yoga Store: Yoga Clothing, Workout Clothes, & Yoga Supplies

Most readers of our blog are well aware of the controversial issues surrounding food politics in general and the industrialized food industry specifically. (If you need a refresher, just check out the trailer for the movie “Food, Inc.” which we featured here on our blog back in June.) Michael Pollan, the food activist who authored the eye-opening books The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, has practically become a household name throughout a significant percentage of the yoga community.

It’s wonderful that many of us (yogis and otherwise) are hip to the food activist cause, but today we’re celebrating the fact that the venerable mainstream news establishment TIME Magazine just published a lengthy five-page article about the reality of the industrialized food system. TIME Magazine, guys! This is big-time. From the article:

The U.S. agricultural industry can now produce unlimited quantities of meat and grains at remarkably cheap prices. But it does so at a high cost to the environment, animals and humans… Add to the price tag the acceleration of global warming — our energy-intensive food system uses 19% of U.S. fossil fuels, more than any other sector of the economy.

And perhaps worst of all, our food is increasingly bad for us, even dangerous….

Some Americans are heeding such warnings and working to transform the way the country eats — ranchers and farmers who are raising sustainable food in ways that don’t bankrupt the earth. Documentaries like the scathing Food Inc. and the work of investigative journalists like Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan are reprising Sinclair’s work, awakening a sleeping public to the uncomfortable realities of how we eat.

Click below to read the full informative article!

[TIME Magazine]

Here we go again with a full list of recent news items you should read in order to be an informed member of the yoga world!

1) The Washington Post highlights yoga people who make a difference! It’s often observed that the overwhelming majority of stories covered by the news media are negative ones, but this Washington Post piece is a shining example to the contrary.  We’re so pleased that a newspaper as established and respected as the Post took the time to write about these amazingly impressive “do-gooder” yoga organizations.  The groups featured include Sprout Yoga, which works to bring free yoga classes to post-traumatic stress and eating disorder sufferers, Upward Bound, which brings yoga to low-income kids, and Street Yoga, which teaches at-risk homeless youths, sexual abuse victims, and more.  We hope that the next time a news journal writes a piece on this topic, they remember to include Yoga Bear, a non-profit dedicated to bringing yoga to cancer survivors.  [Activists Aim to Make Yoga An Exercise in Accessibility]

2) Mercury is basically in every single fish in the universe. Yikes!  Is it the case that while we try to identify specific fish and their home waters as relatively low-risk when it comes to mercury, the truth is that mercury can be found in all fish everywhere?  What’s a lacto-ovo vegetarian to do? [Federal Study Shows Mercury in Fish Widespread]

3) (From the “Is This Really News” Department): Ex-wall street exec quits her job to teach yoga. Really, now – should this story truly be news? People change career tracks every day, and teaching yoga is certainly a popular career option, hence the abundance of yoga teacher training programs offered across the country.  But for some reason (probably a combination of the Wall Street/ivy league/young woman elements of this story), a plethora of news organizations have written about this, including the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and New York Magazine.  Check it out yourself to learn more about one woman’s choice to ditch the high-powered banking exec life in favor of the peace-and-love yoga life. [Princeton Grad Quits Morgan Stanley to Teach Yoga to Bankers]

4) Random fact of the day: Did you know that the uber well-known economist Paul Krugman (a Nobel Prize-winning Princeton professor who regularly writes op-ed pieces for the New York Times) is married to a yoga teacher?  This bit of trivia goes along with the  “Major Political Figures With Yoga Practices” post we ran earlier this year. ) Robin Wells Krugman is an economics professor at Princeton who also happens to teach Forrest Yoga at Four Winds Yoga Studio in Princeton, New Jersey. For proof of this exciting addition to the roster of yogis in politics, just read this.

5) The Landmark Form. It’s a “transformational” personal-growth weekend-workshop around whom the accusation of “cult” has often flittered.  Many of you are probably familiar with this workshop, and some well-known yoga businesses even sponsor their employees to attend it.  Interestingly, the notable magazine Mother Jones recently sent one of their reporters to the Landmark Forum armed with the task of experiencing and writing about it.  The title of the article is “The Landmark Forum: 42 Hours, $500, 65 Breakdowns: My lost weekend with the trademark happy, bathroom-break hating, slightly spooky inheritors of est.”  The article isn’t quite the scathing expose that Landmark opponents might hope for, but it’s certainly critical and eye-rolling in its tone.  Check it out here if you’re so inclined!

6) In the health and science department, the New York Times ran a piece titled “Does Exercise Reduce Your Cancer Risk?” (the answer is a tentative yes) and another about a newly-revealed fact about an insidious connection between the brain and stress: “The sensation of being highly stressed can rewire the brain in ways that promote its sinister persistence.”  Oh no!  (“Brain Is a Co-Conspirator in a Vicious Stress Loop“)

7) From the “Scary Water Bottling Companies You Might Not Want to Support With Your Dollars!” department: A brutal military dictatorship backs Fiji water.

Fiji Water isn’t just devastating to the environment of Fiji, the planet that endures the cost of shipping it, and the environments of the places where it is consumed. It is also the product of a brutal military regime that monitors all outgoing Internet traffic from the island for criticisms of the water business and immediately arrests people who transmit them, bringing them in for intensive questioning and the occasional prison-rape threat, as journalist Anna Lenzer discovered.

[Brutal Military Dictatorship That Backs Fiji Water]

On Thursday we reported about a surprising Whole Foods controversy which had just hit the airwaves.  Today we strolled on over to the New York Times for our regular morning check-up on the news, and we noticed that an article titled “Whole Foods Fight” was in the top-1o list of most emailed articles.  We also noticed that the “Boycott Whole Foods” Facebook fan page has leapt from about 3,000 members at the time of our original post to 13,366members at the time of this writing.  Wow, that’s quite a significant jump!

Apparently this Whole Foods controversy didn’t peter out over the weekend like some people were probably hoping it might.  We wonder what might become of Whole Foods’ controversy-stirring CEO John Mackey in light of the unceasing media coverage this story is receiving.  Will the board decide to oust him at their next meeting and replace him with someone who doesn’t randomly decide to publish pointed op-ed pieces in conservative newspapers at politically-sensitive times which alienate Whole Foods’ entire customer base?  One has to wonder.

While we’re on the topic, we thought we’d share with you an informative web page we stumbled upon while doing some Whole Foods research.  It’s a thorough list of some other questionable aspects of Whole Foods about which you might not have been aware. We appreciate this website’s rather level-headed approach to Whole Foods. They are clear to point out that:

We’re not suggesting that anyone stop shopping at Whole Foods and we’re not calling for any kind of boycott – we just want consumers to realize that even a company that puts on a socially-responsible face doesn’t always live up to its own hype.

If Whole Foods’ recent health care controversy doesn’t really bother you, you might discover something that irks you a bit more on this site…

Remember the yoga studio licensing issue which we’ve discussed several times here on our blog?  The gist is that in some states, governments are attempting to register, license, and collect fees from yoga studios which host teacher training programs. These governments’ justification is that yoga – like massage therapy, auto repair, and hair styling – is a vocation which earns its participants money, and as such it should be subject to licensing.  New York state has taken the most drastic action of all, which has prompted swift and animated action on the part of the yoga studios affected.  In response to the (scary!) cease-and-desist letters that New York’s government sent in May to eighty-one yoga studios threatening them with $50,000 fines, yoga studios throughout the state banded together to form the Yoga Association of New York which has worked to resist the licensing move and has achieved some success, at least temporarily.

The Yoga Association of New York just launched their official website, complete with a nicely-designed “Yoga for NY” logo, photos, and links for visitors to use in order to make donations to the organization.  A website often has the effect of making an organization feel “established” and “real”, and with the creation of this online identity, the association has done just that.  Their mission statement is clearly displayed on the front page of their site:

Your local studio could be fined up to $50,000 for training yoga teachers. Help us get government under control and keep yoga free.

This new website is very well-designed in visual terms – we’re impressed!  However, after visiting the site we must report that we’re a little unclear on the specific name of this yoga organization. Is it Yoga Association of New York (which we’ve been calling it in this blog post), or is it Yoga for New York?  The website’s logo reads “Yoga for NY” and its url is www.yogaforny.org, but the main title of the website is “Yoga Association of New York”, and the name of their Facebook fan page is Yoga Association of New York.  Do you see how we might become a little confused on this point?  If you have an answer to this burning name question, feel free to enlighten us in the comments section.  Bye now!

The corporate chain Whole Foods, many a yogis’ grocery store of choice (except for those yogis who prefer to support local, independently-owned businesses, of course), has come under harsh criticism and even organized boycotting since its CEO and frontman John Mackey published a pointed op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

In his commentary, Mackey expressed his wholehearted disagreement with the health care reform plan which is being proposed by Democrats.  In boiled-down terms, he is ardently against universal health care and thinks we should be moving toward “less government control and more individual empowerment” when it comes to the American health care system.  He even argues against the belief that all people have an intrinsic right to health care, instead claiming that:

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges.

Wow! Whole Foods customers tend to be health-conscious, yoga-practicing, progressive-leaning types who are certainly supporters of universal health care.  With this WSJ piece, Whole Foods’ CEO just opened up the floodgates to controversy and criticism from a huge swath of his most frequent shoppers.

The backlash has so far ranged from an op-ed piece in today’s Los Angeles Times to coordinated boycotts and a new anti-Whole Foods Facebook page.  Whole Foods has also reportedly set up a special hotline to field phone calls from angry customers as well an online forum dedicated to this issue on its website.

What will become of this whole debacle?  Will Whole Foods see any significant drop in dollars from boycotts, and will John Mackey honestly re-evaluate his rather conservative views on health care?  Let’s stay tuned to find out!

P.S. Should it really be that much of a surprise that the CEO of a major, publicly-traded corporation which grossed nearly $8 billion dollars last year would turn out to be… conservative?  Just wonderin’.

Here are pertinent links to explore to find out more about this Whole Foods controversy:

Wall Street Journal op-ed piece by Whole Foods CEO Jack Mackey

Los Angeles Times op-ed piece in response

Whole Foods Boycott Facebook page

Whole Foods website health care reform forum

What if yoga classes today were full of fashion like this?

Would you still be excited to shop at Drishti if the clothing pictured here was what we specialized in?

(From the New York Times – “A Los Angeles Dance Class With a Retro Dress Code“)

Apparently it can, according to India’s famous yoga-promoting swami Baba Ramdev.  Baba Ramdev might not be a household name among yoga practitioners in the U.S., but in India he’s quite an influential figure.  The 44-year-old guru is famous for helping to popularize yoga, pranayama, and Ayurveda in his home country.  Through his television programs and what he refers to as “yoga camps” (we’re thinking that yoga camps might be similar to the yoga “retreats” or “workshops” that we know so well in the U.S.), his teachings purportedly reach tens of millions of people.

Baba Ramdev first came across our radar in July of this year, when he very vocally denounced India’s historic move to decriminalize homosexuality.  In response to the abolishment of this outdated, highly descriminatory law, Ramdev was quoted as saying:

This kind of thing is shameful and insulting. We are blindly following the West in everything. This is breaking the family system in India. Homosexuals are sick people, they should be sent to hospitals for treatment. If the government brings this law, I will take to the streets of Delhi in protest. [source]

Frankly, as yoga practitioners in the U.S., we find this anti-gay attitude appalling.  You certainly won’t be finding anyone from Drishti attending one of Ramdev’s “yoga camps”, and we suspect that all of our regular blog readers would share this sentiment!

Now that Ramdev is on our radar, however, we couldn’t help but notice a claim he made yesterday about yoga and swine flu. In response to several swine flu deaths which have occurred in India in recent days, Ramdev apparently announced at a press conference that yoga can cure swine flu. Hmmmm… We’re all for the spread of yoga throughout our modern world, but attempting to popularize something by making scientifically false assertions about its benefits is neither helpful nor responsible. ‘Nuff said!

Click here to see a video from the Indian media which features the influential figure Ramdev making his swine flu claims.

[SamayLive]

A yoga student named Lauren Cahn has posted a piece on the Huffington Post which has been receiving some attention from the yoga community.  Titled “Five Words That Do Not Belong in Yoga”, the piece is basically a lengthy diatribe against the practice of Ashtanga Yoga as taught by the late Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.

Cahn, who was a dedicated Ashtanga student for four years and who wrote faithfully about her experiences in the Ashtanga room on her blog Yoga Chickie, has since renounced the practice and has chosen to share her reasons for doing so in this HuffPost piece.  Here’s an excerpt:

I practiced Ashtanga faithfully from 2005 until this year (even taught it for a period of time), when for reasons that I cannot even yet articulate, I found myself growing inexplicably repelled by it. I like to say “I threw myself out of the cult.”

Cahn’s criticism of the Ashtanga system includes the many narrow “rules” inherent in the tradition, the “cranking” that students are supposedly encouraged to impose on their bodies, and her observation that “Ashtangis often talk of pain like it’s a good thing”.

After reading this piece, we must say that we are hugely thankful that our own Santa Barbara-based Ashtanga scene headed up by Steve Dwelley and Michele Nichols hardly resembles the strict, close-minded, competitive, gossipy practice that Cahn describes in her article.  Cahn’s own Ashtanga room in her home state might well have been more regimented and linear than the relatively relaxed one we know in SB.  But our personal observations over the years have led us to conclude that to a large extent, the practice of Ashtanga often becomes what the practitioner decides to make of it.  People whose personalities are generally open and accepting often approach the practice with this attitude, while people who tend to be somewhat uptight and competitive will certainly bring these elements into their relationship to the practice.

In our humble opinion, as much as we appreciate honest dialog about the yoga world, we must conclude that this HuffPost piece is at best controversial and at worst unnecessarily harsh. What do you think?  Check out the article here!

[The Huffington Post]

Here’s your assemblage of yoga-and-related news items you might have missed over the past couple of weeks!  Enjoy.

1) You know how so many people in the yoga community love attending live kirtans (call-and-response chanting concerts in the Hindu tradition) at their local yoga studios?  And you’ve noticed how American kirtan musicians with adopted Indian names (Krishna Das, Jai Uttal, etc.) have become household names among yoga students across the U.S.?  Well, how interesting would it be to read an article about the popularizing of kirtan in America from the perspective of the Indian community?  To find such an eye-opening piece of writing, you need look no further than August 4th’s issue of the Wall Street Journal (American’s New Idol?)

2) Could it possibly be? Has a new study revealed the true connection between yoga and thinness?  Although it’s an intriguing idea, we’re kind of skeptical.  Although yoga and thinness have a correlational relationship, we’re not so sure that it’s also a causal one.  But here’s a quick excerpt from the LA Times article (The Real Reason People Who Carry Yoga Mats Always Look Thin) to give you the gist of the argument:

Mindful eating helps people to stop eating once they are full, even if delicious food remains on their plates. They try not to let tempting advertisements lure them to food; they avoid eating while they are distracted by a TV show or other diversion; and they don’t eat to distract themselves from emotions like stress or sadness….

The mental focus required to hold a difficult yoga pose could also help people avoid “eating more even when the food tastes good” or “eating when you’re not hungry,” he said in a statement.

We agree that mindful eating is an essential aspect of healthy living, and we would even concede that a consistent yoga practice definitely teaches one to “tune into” one’s body on a subtle level.  But we don’t think this is explanation can be applied to the entire population of thin people who practice yoga.  There’s got to be some other factor at work there as well…  Any ideas, guys?

3) Both the Atlantic Monthly (Will Uncle Sam Pay for Your Yoga?) and Time Magazine (Americans Spending on Yoga, Echinacea, and Acupuncture) wrote about some recently-released data regarding Americans’ out-of-pocket spending on health care.  Apparently, our country spent about $34 billion on “complementary and alternative medicine” in 2007, and both magazines pondered how this fact might play into the health care debate which has been cycling through Congress lately.  The answer is that it probably won’t impact the current debate much, if at all. But hopefully such data will make a difference a little further down the line as the scope of medicine in our country changes in the coming years.

4) Remember the whole “state licensing of yoga studio” fiasco which has been taking place in the great state of New York over the past few months?  Well, apparently a New York law firm is offering to file suit against the state on behalf of the yoga studios affected by the New York government’s recent actions, and they’re doing so on a pro bono basis.  Their suit will ask for an official declaration that the licensing of yoga teacher training programs is unconstitutional.  If you’re a New York yoga studio who received one of those scary cease-and-desist letters back in May, you might want to consider jumping on board here!  Click here for more information.

5) Michael Pollan, everyone’s favorite food writer (okay, maybe he’s not everyone’s favorite food writer, but he’s probably everyone-who’s-not-part-of-the-industrial-food-industry’s favorite food writer), just published a fascinating piece in the New York Times about the famous Food Network, home to many a celebrity chef and quite a few competitive cooking shows, and whether or not this food-oriented television channel truly ends up helping people cook at home.  It’s an admittedly lengthy article, but it’s well worth a thorough read if you can spare a few minutes.  (Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch)

**We felt like this was a particularly good issue of “Interesting News Items You Might Have Missed”, didn’t you?  The variety of topics discussed here was interesting, and each individual piece was quite compelling.  Bye now!