“Yogaflation” (as I’m now calling it) might make sense when times are good, but when we’re in a “Great Recession” (as they are now calling it), it seems bit counterintuitive. It may be that these yoga studios are charging more because they are getting less customers, but is that the smart thing to do?

I know the recession is hitting Los Angeles…why? Because commercial real estate is tanking and you’ll find storefronts and actually entire blocks empty and for rent now. Is this the time to be raising prices? Maybe it’s time to be lowering them.

I’ve personally curtailed my yoga classes…and it’s actually been that way since the end of 2008 when the financial crash hit. I’ve missed the kundalini yoga classes a little, but not hatha yoga for the most part.

Is paying $20 per class worth it? If you’re not buying monthly passes (which are also getting more expensive), you could end up paying $80 just to take one yoga class per week. I also have some sort of mental stopping point when it comes to yoga classes. At Yoga West, $16 seemed an OK price to pay for a single class. When it was raised just $1, my mind rebelled. It’s just too much now.

Think about it…you’re now paying upwards of $20 per class…to battle traffic…and try to stake a good spot in the class…and deal with the sweaty person next to you…and attempt to not get distracted by the outside sounds, if the yoga studio isn’t perfectly sound-insulated…and feel more pressure in class because you’re trying to keep up with the teacher or impress the sweaty person next to you…and all of this ends up taking two hours or more of time to accomplish.

Compare that to a nice quiet home practice. Less than $20 will get you a DVD by a teacher you like that you can watch over and over again to master. Or you can get an online subscription at a yoga website and watch new videos each week. Or make up your own home practice.

Whatever the format for your home yoga practice, you don’t have to fight traffic or the person next to you for floor space. You can work out for a half hour or an hour and be done. And your cost per yoga hour will be much, much less than if you were going out to classes all the time.

One good yoga video at $20 could give you a year’s worth of exercise, not just an hour and a half.

I’m personally enjoying my home yoga, and more and more I’m finding I don’t miss going to yoga class so much. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s not like I was making friends at yoga classes for the most part…I’d show up, take the class, and go home! So why the need for the expense, other than the fact that once in a while, if you are lucky, you’ll get an adjustment here and there in a hatha class?

Certainly, there is a certain high you could get sometimes in a group doing kundalini yoga, but on the flip side, doing kundalini yoga meditations at home can take you much more deeply inward because you are there, with yourself, able to go within. (Never mind the fact that if you are serious about kundalini yoga you should be doing the same yoga set each and every day on 40-day rotations as part of your personal sadhana!)

I wonder how many yoga studios are going to be able to survive in this economy what with higher prices and people cutting back. I know the yoga studio I got my teacher training at closed. I think it was because there was some sort of issue with the space…maybe the rent went up? But when a new space was not found, the place shut down. Sad.

So, take heed, yoga instructors…in this economy, if your yoga studio keeps jacking up prices you may find yourself eventually out of work. (Unless you are super famous, which is mostly none of you.)

I think the savvy yoga instructor in this day and age should consider some sort of Internet video model, where the price per class can be kept extremely low but new content can be easily added to keep it fresh.

Certainly, there will always be a need for some in-person instruction. For certain difficult poses I’m stuck on, I’d love to have some help from a teacher. But I’m more inclined to take a workshop about that problem area, or even find a yoga teacher to trade a private with, than to pay a lot of money for a yoga class where I’m not guaranteed an adjustment or personal attention anyway.

So…will yoga prices keep going up? Or start dropping to attract new customers? How this will all play out as the recession continues will be interesting.

xox

And maybe a smiley face. Sometimes, if she’s in a hurry, it will just be a double or even a single x:

x

I feel like I have warped back into high school, and if she were writing the note by hand, every “i” would be dotted with a heart on top.

I’m wondering if she’s just really young (I have yet to meet her in person). But maybe coming from a more business-y background, I feel such communication is a bit too intimate as well as immature. As a feminist, I also feel that it infantalizes women when we communicate like that professionally. It makes us appear to be someone who should not be taken seriously.

Now, this is “just” yoga, but I feel that acting professionally and maturely should be something we strive for to a certain extent, and that includes communicating to our work peers regarding covering yoga classes. We’ve got enough sleazy videos on YouTube now of “models” doing yoga in skimpy clothing…to me, yoga is something that should be treated with a small amount of respesct.

Or do I have a bug up my you-know-what? Thoughts and feedback are appreciated.

xox (just kidding!)

This same ad was also looking for a female jump rope instructor – which I believe is probably gender discrimination against men – so you have to wonder…were they looking for a large-breasted woman to gawk at during the jump rope class?

Eeuw.

For me, hatha yoga is not enough. Doing hatha yoga does provide stress relief and stirs up those good hormones that help with mood, but that in and of itself is not transformative. The kundalini yoga – particularly the mantras and chanting – seems to be the extra kick in the pants for me. To say that some of these mantras are magical sounds a bit over the top, but they really do seem to create massive shifts.

I can’t say I have reached enlightment yet – I still have my negative moments for sure. I still also react, but not as badly as I used to. (It used to be really really bad!)

So has yoga changed your life? If so, how? Do share!

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The daughter from the pink team said that she was listening to what her training said during yoga about the “third eye” and focusing through it, so she actually went up to the top of the hill, used her third eye to pick a key (out of tons of keys), walked back down the hill, put the key into the lock, and VOILA! It was the right key!

I was just amazed to see someone use their intuition on television like that, and it was all inspired by yoga. Very cool!

There used to be a yoga and pilates instructor at my gym who was so irritated with Bally and how they treated her, that she punished the students for it with her bad attitude. She claimed the issue was not only her pay, but their ridiculous substitution policy, which apparently left her unable to find anyone to fill in for her when she couldn’t be at her class. (At the gym chain I work at, there are so many of us on the sub list I’m scrambling to respond immediately to any call for subs just so I have chance to teach.)

So this particular instructor would just show up late, leave early, or not show up at all on those days where she had a conflict. One time, she was in the middle of teaching her pilates class, and she left halfway through because she had to be on the other side of town “for filming.” She let one of the student regulars finish teaching the class. No joke!

I was so annoyed that I stopped going to her class and only recently tried the new class in that timeslot because she apparently quit or got fired. This new class is not quite yoga, and not quite pilates, but a hybrid. It’s actually a pretty good workout, but I notice that the new teacher spends half the class with her nose in her iPod, fiddling around with the dial to come up with her next song. It would be one thing if she were changing her playlist once or twice during the class, but no. It seems that she manually changes every single song that plays.

Once I saw her on her back, bicycling her feet along with us as she peered into her iPod display, giving half-hearted instructions when her attention was directed solely at the little machine in her hand.

I’ve yet to see her really pay attention to what the students are doing, and she absolutely never comes around to help people.

Personally, I would much rather have a teacher who is paying attention to her students than focusing on her music. There’s this cool little thing that you can do with your iPod. It’s called a playlist. It will play a list of songs in the order you want automatically, and you set it up beforehand. Use it.

Now, some of the yoga teachers I have tried at the gym chain I teach at are pretty fantastic, so maybe my local Bally is just a vortex of distraction and this is not typical of gyms. Unfortunately, the whole reason I got my Bally membership was because I could walk to it and it was convenient. If only they had a better group fitness instructor at my location, and some quality yoga classes with happy teachers who care. Sigh.

I must confess, I have yet to successfully get into the habit of first-thing-in-the-morning yoga. My first go-to in the morning is my email. When I first wake up, my brain is not quite awake yet, I’m still sleepy, and my body is sluggish. I don’t want to speak to anyone, chat on the phone, or bounce my body around in 20 sun salutations. I drag myself to the computer, read my email, check the online news, and if my brain is really high-functioning that morning, maybe even respond to some email.

My personal yoga practice is something I prefer to do right before I go to bed. It’s not a strenuous practice. I’m not working on building up my upper body strength, so an onslaught of planks and chaturangas isn’t the goal. It’s more about stretching my body and calming my mind down before I sleep.

Maybe I’m just an incorrigible night person, but that seems to be what works best for me.

For a demonstration, check out this video. (However, according to the information I’ve read, this woman has the inhale and exhale mixed up. You should inhale on the way down and exhale on the way up.)

For specific instructions, check out these links:

http://www.aarpmagazine.org/health/your_brain_on_exercise.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_2330888_do-super-brain-yoga.html