Wednesday, June 04, 2008

To the New Yorkers Who Want to Practice with a Certain Teacher Again...

I have it on very very good authority that Pure Yoga is opening on the Upper East Side in a very very convenient location (86th Street!), right near the 4, 5 and 6 Line and is offering monthly memberships for a mere $130! Can you imagine?! Even better, they are going to attempt to get a Mysore Program going.

I say "attempt" because I have never heard of a Mysore program being successful on the Upper East Side.

Now, why is that?

I am pretty sure it is because no Mysore program on the Upper East Side had a senior teacher authorized by SKPJ. And more specifically, no Mysore Program on the UES ever had Christopher.

But Pure is very open to bringing Christopher on, which I would think would virtually guarantee the success of an uptown Mysore program. Finally! (This is very very good news for someone like me who has to commute INTO the city to get the good Mysore fix...)

If this is something that is as potentially exciting to you as it is to me, you can email nicole.dimiceli@pureyoga.com and let them know. They totally want to hear from us.

Just think...$130 per month, Christopher, Mysore style on the UES. What is not to like?

YC

11 comments:

lgr said...

Wow! I hope this happens. The people at Pure seem relatively clueless about ashtanga, but their ashtanga programs on Hong Kong and

lgr said...

Oops. Did not get to finish. Pure in NY seems a bit clueless about ashtanga but the Singapore and Hong Kong locations evidently have great ashtanga programs with authorized teachers.

Christopher is one of the BEST in the country and they seem very interested in hiring him. Frankly, he built the entire yoga program at Yoga Sutra from scratch and made the mysore program what it is today - very busy. He did it magnanimously with hard work, humor, and exceptionally talented teaching skills - without ever feeling that those students were "his" students". He did the same previously at Karma Yoga on the west side before moving to YS. Great news for NYC ashtangis.
Sign me up!!

lgr said...

Not to monpoloize the comment section, but I will say, this morning I practiced at YS and Costanza and Arthur are great. They are always super helpful with intuitive suggestions and strong adjustments. Greg was not there today...and he is another wonderful teacher. We are lucky in Manhattan. But if an exceptional mysore class happens on the UES, that would be amazing!

I'll shut up now

Unknown said...

Dear Lauren,

This is Lisa Bridge, the Director of Operations at Yoga Sutra, NY. I am deeply hurt by this blog and the premise that a teacher who subs for us, has been part of our family and practices for free with us would encourage one of our core teachers (who recently resigned in a very hurtful and damaging way from the center he helped found) to pick up work elsewhere and move our students with him. Please know that we are mourning his loss at Yoga Sutra still and this blog has deepened the heartache. I am personally hurt by this post and feel rather disheartened with the sentiment behind it. Christopher has done so much to make Yoga Sutra a great place, but we (including me personally) have been a continuous support to Christopher throughout the years. I don't know what else to say but I'm sorry - sorry for what has happened, saddened by this blog...

Lisa

Unknown said...

Thanks Lauren. I hope he lands somewhere. Please keep us posted.

Yoga Chickie said...

Lisa - I am really sorry that you felt this was any sort of attack on Yoga Sutra. It was not intended that way at all, and it was ONLY intended to support Christopher in finding a new job.

I have zero knowledge of what actually transpired between YS and Christopher, and it is none of my business. I will say though that IF there were ANYTHING I could have personally done to ensure that Christopher would have stayed at YS, I would have done it! I would never have wanted him to leave YS, and I am very sad that he is no longer at YS.

That said, I adore Costanza and Arthur and have blogged about them and how much they have helped me in my practice. My support of Christopher in finding a new job is completely separate from my support of Costanza and Arthur's teaching and of Yoga Sutra, in general.

The only sentiment I intended to express in this blog was my support of Christopher in finding a new job.

In sum, Christopher's departure from Yoga Sutra is most unfortunate, but it is out of my control entirely. Since he will no longer be at YS, the important thing to me is that he be somewhere teaching Ashtanga.

I hope you will reread my blog post in that light, and I hope that we can put this behind us.

I called you and left a message as well.

All the best,

Lauren Cahn

Lees Lamar said...

From what I have read many people mourn the loss of C at YS. From personal experience, I can say that losing a teacher that you trust is very hard, especially if you are an ashtangi. I would follow my teacher anywhere, I would not be loyal to a studio. The connection is with the person, not the place.

I don't think Lauren meant any harm with this post...

Unknown said...

I guess this comment is for Lisa at YS.

Companies everywhere are grappling with the basic issue of trying to control online conversations about their brand. I guess this applies to yoga studios as well.

Unfortunately for YS it is not your choice whether people choose to blog or discuss teachers and studios online. The conversation will happen regardless. You can try to squelch the conversation and you can even ban students from practicing at YS if you catch them blogging, but it's impossible in the web 2.0 world to stop people from talking.

Coming from your obvious anti-blogging perspective, you see Lauren's post as an attack on YS, where her stated intention was to merely support CH.

Neither of which really matters.

May I presumptuously suggest an alternate strategy for dealing with the blog-world?

Embrace it. Join the conversation. Be a little more transparent. Drop a little satya now and again.

Now, you certainly don't have to reveal personal and/or confidential information, but you'll get better results in dealing with the online world if you have a two-way conversation with people rather than just using it as a medium to push marketing materials.

I know, I know, I'm just some random guy that's never practiced at your studio or with any of your teachers, but I do know a little bit about online marketing and I know that you're doing more damage than not to your brand by resisting seeing the world as it truly is.

lgr said...

Cody, excellent comment. Thanks for sharing. You obviously know a thing or two about marketing and the web

Unknown said...

Great post, Cody- you're much nicer than I am.

What I would like to point out to Ms. Lisa Bridge- the Director of Operations at Yoga Sutra, NY- is how tasteless and unprofessional it was for you to use this forum to air out your personal problems with Christopher, and to so blatantly attempt to make him look bad in front of the people who love him by talking about the conditions under which he left Yoga Sutra. Ms. Cahn's post was clearly meant to inform Christopher's students of where he would be teaching. I didn't get the impression that she was trying to gossip or hurt anyone. Unlike you, on the other hand, who came on to the forum throwing around your title, throwing in Ms. Cahn's face the fact that she takes class for free at YS, and throwing in everyone's face how much YOU personally have done for Christopher.

I apologize to Ms. Cahn and everyone else who reads this if my tone is offensive, but I couldn't let this go. I'm tired of studios staffed by self-centered administrators who are ruining the spirit of American Yoga with their false piety and controlling, police-state attitudes towards students and teachers. I hate to say this, but it's just not yogic.

jrc said...

Okay. Everyone take a deep breath. Let's move on.

Copyright 2005-2007 Lauren Cahn, all rights reserved. Photos appearing on this blog may be subject to third party copyright ownership. You are free to link to this blog and portions hereof, but the use of any direct content requires the prior written consent of the author.

About Me

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Northern Westchester, New York, United States
I live by a duck pond. I used to live by the East River. I don't work. I used to work a lot. Now, not so much. I used to teach a lot of yoga. Now not so much. I still practice a lot of yoga though. A LOT. I love my kids, being outdoors, taking photos, reading magazines, writing and stirring the pot. Enjoy responsibly.

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