Guess what!  We just launched an iPhone app called Yoga Quiz Cards!  Can you believe it?  We know, we know – there are an abundance of yoga apps on the market, so a new creation isn’t necessarily that exciting, but our yoga app is actually kind of cool.  It’s designed to test and expand your knowledge of yoga pose names – and that’s it.  It’s not a yoga class/practice app like all the others are.  It’s a great tool for anyone – yoga student or teacher – who might want to deepen their connection to the practice by learning the correct English and Sanskrit names of the poses.

We honestly think our app makes a great contribution to the yoga world by filling a need that’s not being met in the yoga app realm.  We’re pretty proud of our creation, and we think you’ll enjoy it too!

From today through next Friday, April 30th, if you download our app and then email us (email(at)drishtiyoga.com) to tell us a little something about it so we know you’ve truly downloaded it, we’ll email you back with a $20 gift code to our store!  Bye now!

While taking in the scene at John Friend’s afternoon practice on Sunday, I had the opportunity for a quick chat with Sean Hoess, the COO and co-owner of Velour Music Group, one of the producers of the Wanderlust Festival. He likened the festival’s set-up to a choose your own adventure, because of the different ticketing options, offering packages for the music-lover, yogi as well as tickets for those who combine the two joys. Not everyone who enjoys music does yoga and wants to pay a ticket price that includes classes. While the six different ticket options, ranging from one-day Daytrippers to three-day VIP sage & mystic for the yoga and music lovers who don’t want to be able to choose any path in the adventure. Hoess quipped that although it may have made things more complicated on the production end, the options were worth it to provide a customized experience for the festival-goers, making a larger group of people more likely to join in the fun.

Judging by the rainbow-hued wrist bracelets adorning people in all areas of Squaw Valley, it certainly worked. Even though the mountainside music venue could have easily accommodated more music-lovers, the producers are talking about next year’s event…or events, hoping the good vibes shared around the mountain produce a buzz bringing people back for next year’s adventure. Those of us on the mountain certainly shared the joy. I caught the part of Saturday’s lineup that culminated with alt-country Gillian Welch, vibrant Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis and her band finishing with Common’s hip-hop beats. Sunday afternoon after this post, I’m heading back up for Broken Social Scene, Andrew Bird and Spoon. Hoess told me that Sunday’s lineup (which also includes The Honey Brothers, Amanda Palmer and Mates of State), is one personally close to his heart. We both agreed that Andrew Bird is brilliant, and when spotted Thursday night at Reds, Yoni Berk of Santa Barbara’s own The Nayborhood (who just finished their first EP) was most excited about my seeing Spoon. Look for my music report later…gotta log off and get up the mountain.

There was a lot of love for Michael Franti at Wanderlust this weekend. The social justice-minded, activist-oriented, jamming musician who can easily get a crowd on their feet, who is an active practitioner and proponent of yoga had to cancel his appearance at the last minute due to emergency surgery. According to festival co-producer Sean Hoess, COO of Velour Music Group, Franti was a natural choice to appear at the festival combining yoga and music.

It was only weeks of abdominal pain and tests that revealed Franti had been performing for that long with a ruptured appendix, which led to an abscess and infection and emergency surgery that kept him from participating. He wrote a heartfelt letter to all the festival-goers, which can be read on the website (http://www.wanderlustfestival.com) and was posted on walls around the venue. Also posted were large get-well cards, in progress, complete with markers, where people could write greeting and messages to the recovering musician.

Filling in for Franti at the final hour, hip-hop artist Common had the mountainside on their feet, dancing and singing with arms in the air. It was a fitting end to the sun-kissed day on the mountain, sitting on the slopes. Although darkness certainly didn’t bring an end to the day. Many people have been likening Wanderlust to a yogic version of Burning Man, and dark brought costumed troupes and fire dancers on stilts performing beneath the rising sliver of the crescent moon. Speaking of Burning Man, LA-based Anusara teachers Scott and Andrea Lewicki commented on Facebook at Wanderlust reminded them of Burning Man except for the dust on the playa, the presence of real bathrooms and the fact that they got to sleep in a real bed. Also differentiating Wanderlust from Burning Man: people wandering through the Squaw Valley Village commenting: What is Wanderlust? My guess is that not many people wander around the playa, asking “What is Burning Man?” A resort town in Lake Tahoe is likely to have a mix of people, those who live nearby, or just happen to be around and weren’t drawn by the magnetism of either yoga or indie rock. Judging by the people on the outskirts of John Friend’s free class this afternoon, more than a few curious newbies were either watching or trying their hand in a down dog.

During a Sunday afternoon free class beneath the gondola rising up and down the hill, John Friend lovingly encouraged several hundred yogis into every pose from down dog to partner-supported handstands to heart-opening backbends.

It was hot in the midday sun, espeically considering the class was being held at an atitute of 6,000 feet and the current temp is 88 degrees (but it feels hotter for sure). Good thing Luna Bars is handing out lemon zest-flavored lip balm to protect the lips from the chapping effect of the dry air. And, the festival organizers have thought about the water issue when it comes to holding a yoga festival at a ski area in the summer. Klean Kanteen is in full force with a booth and even Wanderlust-imprinted bottles (although this correspondent is proudly carrying a drihti Kleen Kanteen…you know where to get yours). And, there’s an abundance of free filtered water stations outside every yoga classroom to provide refills. If you do want to buy a disposable bottle, the Wanderlust brand bottles are compostable. Usually, this sounds more like a good idea than it actually is, but every trash station has trash, recycling…and composting stations so cups and bottles labeled compostable aren’t just wishful green thinking. All of this meant that there was plenty of water on hand and nothing dampened the joy of the crowd practicing on the mountain. Some people were lucky enough to find shade beneath the pine trees, although the hilly ground under those trees made for some challening triangle and tree poses.

While the clear blue skies make for great overhead inspiration, not all of the yoga classes this weekend have been held in the great outdoors. I attened a morning class with Schulyer Grant, director of the Kula Yoga Project in New York City, and one of the festival’s producers. The intermediate/advanced class was certainly advertised correctly and I even got to try a new pose (for me): half-lotus bakasana, which I did without falling over. The person next to me even made it up into half-lotus sirsasana from there, more gracefully than I even thought about. But yoga is about the practice and the intention, not the shape. And how can you not love the intention when everyone is smiling around you?

Headliner Michael Franti had to cancel due to an emergency appendectomy….but it hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm. If anything, everyone here on the mountain at Squaw Valley USA, a down dog distance from Lake Tahoe, is fully engaged with sending plenty of good vibes to the inspirational yogic artist.

This intrepid reporter began her day at 5:30am, to get ready to help I LOVE YOGA set up their booth and follow Kasey from Yogamates around doing interviews. The first practice: 8am with Sianna Sherman, beginning with some “unrapping” (as he calls it) by popular yogic hip hop artist MC Yogi. (Check out his CD Elephant Power at the Drishti store). What a way to wake up…feeling our hearts sing like Hanuman, which was the theme of the class, complete with a joyful Hanumanasana halfway through.

Then more time in and out of the sun, and a few applications of sunscreen (we are at altitute and the sun is stronger here than the ocean’s all-too-frequent June gloom) and a beginner’s vinyasa class with Les Leventhal from San Francisco’s Yoga Tree. The energy of 200 yogis rising up in sun saluations while being accompanied by live music. There’s nothing like it, especially when graced by Ponderosa Pine-covered mountains. The best part…..Ananda playing didgeredoo over us during savasana. I don’t know if I got any special treatment, but it was certainly the reason to go to a yoga/music festival, when the two are intertwined.

Around the ski village, sunkissed people walking aroung with yoga mats are being seranaded by more than a few bands setting up under tents. Right now, we’re digesting after the morning buffet of yoga in spacious tents, on balconies and in ski lodges. And after posting this, it will be time to head up the mountain via the ski lodge to see Gillian Welch, Jenny Lewis, and artist, rapper and activist Common (who graciously was able to pinch hit at the last minute to keep the music flowing into the sunset).

My only regret so far…that I can’t be everywhere at once.

The yoga world is clearly not the only industry to experience the loss of printed publications – magazines and newspapers everywhere are in crisis mode, due in part to the internet’s rise in prominence as our new information go-to, and also to the current state of the economy.  But it’s interesting to note the vast number of publications which were widely-read by the yoga community and which have now disappeared.

By our calculations, Yoga Journal and LA Yoga are the two main yoga magazines left standing today.  (Please forgive us, any yoga magazines out there still in publication which we might not be familiar with… )  What’s your prediction: will they make it through the economic crisis, or will they close down like Ascent or morph into a new identity like Elephant?

Anywho, if you are as excited about this new DVD as we are (or if you’re even a fraction as excited as we are), click here to learn more and place an order.  Bye now!

Hello and welcome to the inaugural first post of the new Drishti yoga blog! We hope to bring to this forum an assemblage of interesting news items that pertain both to the yoga community-at-large and also to our own Santa Barbara-based yoga scene. We’re excited about this new blog and we hope our community of readers finds it informative, authentic, and fresh.

Bye!