… tell me….

… As always, taking my cues from something so much larger than myself. .. For me that has come in the form of a redwood this week.

I am eager to drop in with Bay Area yogis to dance with the verdantly unknown, to be with what’s wilder and wiser, and to defer to something that speaks the language of silence.

If you know someone in the area, please pass along.

Coming into this opportunity to share is a bit of a full circle of sorts. During college I worked in a gym in NYC called Crunch. The woman that ran the yoga program was infectiously alive (hat tip Dana F) and I wanted to know more. I caught wind of a small brownstone in the village that housed the classes she taught and there was a sandwich board out front that said live jazz, and another that said live yoga. Those days fostered and laid the foundation for a lifelong love and curiousity. Those that know my practice and how I teach know that it is something of a syncopated, improvised (at least initially), hybrid, and quite musical experience that comes from equal parts: lots of practice, multiple instruments/modalities, and deep listening - much like a jazz musician finding a way through what has of yet, never been trod. One of the women that started that studio in NY runs the one i’ll be sharing with this Friday in San Francisco.

Those days of yoga in NYC aren’t exactly the beatnik moment of the 70s but there was an undeniable aliveness that comes with something innovative and true. All the masters of that Mecca were in their heyday and I thank my lucky stars that I got to stumble, drunk with my own breath, from class to class, epiphany to epiphany. For the fun of it, I made a list detailing bits of those wild beautiful flowering times (see below).

Every teacher led to the next just as every writer left a breadcrumb toward the next book. It was a droughtless time of dreams and butterfly thinking.

Here are just a few more ways those two movements mirror one another:

Spiritual but anti-dogma.
Community over profit.
Urban alchemy: Turning gritty city life into transcendence.
Both movements were about blowing open consciousness in ways that mainstream society initially didn’t understand.
Both had a moment before they got co-opted.

Because I had the great honor and privilege of exposure, the practice I weave and share contains multitudes. It is with a deep bow that I thank all the greats that preceded me, that I might pass it on as a link in that chain. Just as the redwoods tower over the forrest floor, I know there is intelligence far greater than mine that I somehow get to transmit. It’s all a mystery to me. I’d love to share in the practice with you:

This FRIDAY and SUNDAY in San Francisco ~

REGISTER

+ + +

a similar offering at Nandi Yoga in San Mateo (the peninsula), Sunday September 28 at 6pm. Register at nandiyoga.com.

Yoga in NYC (1996–2002)

This was the golden era before corporatization and wellness-as-status-symbols took over. Here's why:

Jivamukti Yoga (founded 1984, peaked late 90s–early 2000s)
Spiritual radicalism downtown. Loud music, veganism, animal rights, devotional anarchy. Bhakti meets punk.
Studios like Om Yoga, Integral, and Sivananda
Deep philosophical roots. Chanting, service, meditation, and Iyengar-style precision. Not just sweat.
Yoga Journal and the early web (pre-social media)
Teachings spread without filters. Books, message boards, zines, and real conversation in actual spaces.
Tight-knit, cross-pollinated community
People practiced together, learned from each other, and debated the Yoga Sutras over dosa or chai. It was personal.
Pre-influencer, pre-brand yoga
No Lululemon. No ring lights. Cotton leggings, wood floors, incense, and real heat.
People read Patanjali, Iyengar, Vivekananda, and Ginsberg
Yoga as spiritual discipline and poetic rebellion. Asana mixed with activism and art.
Eddie Stern’s Broome Street Temple
Sacred downtown space. Mysore practice, chanting, puja, pranayama. Vedic roots held with respect.
Dharma Mittra: the underground master
Teaching all limbs of yoga with humility, Bhakti, and fire. His 908-pose chart was an initiation.
Genny Kapuler’s love of anatomy and word
Embryology, chakras, subtle body woven into precise physical alignment. Esoteric, grounded, alive.
Sadhana over performance
Mysore at 6am. Long holds. Pranayama in silence. Floors washed after class. Practice meant commitment.
No mirrors, no mics, no ego gloss
Just the mat, the teacher, the breath, and the work.
Tradition and rebellion in one breath
Teachers honored lineage- Jois, Iyengar, Yogi Gupta—but NYC made it a living experiment.
So many others I haven’t named… the list goes on…..

In the city where Coltrane found his rhythm, beatniks bounced words in ways never known, and the redwood brings the fog down to earth and feeds us all, i’m so happy to add to the mix- even if only a tiny morsel of a way compared to these greats. I am awed in the presence of what precedes me and what stands in my midst. It is my aim to pay homage at the same time that I find syncopated innovation. Won’t you join me in that awe, that practice, that bow, that breath… ?

With Redwood Readiness,

Love Julia