yoga schmoga

One of my new friends in Guatemala, Lynn, embodies what I aspire to become. Her husband is a fellow new teacher here at the American school. They've spent years living in Nepal and Zimbabwe, raising daughters and soaking up diverse cultures. When I met Lynn and found out that she's a yoga teacher, I reflexively asked her the question I hate most as a yoga instructor, "What kind of yoga do you teach?" She leaned in and confided, "You may not have heard of it. It's very obscure. I practice what's called... 'yoga schmoga.'"

I knew from that moment that I wanted to be her protege. Later I found out that she'd worked with a group of mothers of disabled children in Zimbabwe to market their crafts worldwide. (See Batsiranai Craft Project at 10,000 Villages.) For this work, she was one of 50 recipients of a special humanitarian award given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama last April. But when I talked to her about it, she was genuinely modest and underplayed her role in the project, though she still spends 3-4 hours a day working on it remotely from her home here in Guatemala.

She started practicing yoga in San Francisco in the late seventies, alongside renowned Iyengar teachers like Judith Lasater and Manuso Manos. She admitted, "We practiced with huge ego back then." It was all about the form, attaining the perfect posture. I feel so fortunate to have stumbled upon Lynn and her wellspring of information on trends in American yoga over the past three decades. Not to mention a funny and interesting dinner party conversationalist. Perhaps my next book will be titled Yoga Schmoga...