Dear Yogis, I am honored to be speaking  in a few weeks at The Excel Academy at NYU / Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom School “Radical Futures Project.” Radical is defined as departure from tradition, innovative, progressive. The project asks for a diverse range of professionals, artists and community members, who are creating liberatory change within their fields, to expose and connect youth to various experiences and professions; we capture the inspiring, diverse and evolving narratives of people carving out possibility for life, healing and advancement and thus, radically imagining the future. The students are high school age and from the South Bronx.  Most will be first in their families to attend college (as was I), and all are currently visioning for their...

Hey Yogis! We are thrilled—like really thrilled, like giving birth after being pregnant for two years thrilled—to announce that our online business school THE CATALYST is open for enrollment. This course is unprecedented in the yoga community because it is 100% bespoke to you and your yoga business. The tools and wisdom shared are completely customizable. This isn’t about learning “business” in a general sense; this is about learning the methods we use everyday that are immediately applicable to you and your yoga business. In fact, we start working on your actual business in the very first lecture, and with the very first homework exercise. We are as committed to you and to the progress of your business as we...

Dear Yogis, My childhood was filled with instability, we moved every year, we were always running out of things, or simply didn’t have things we needed at times. I learned early on to be resilient and to make the best with what I had in every situation, a sort of day to day life negotiation. I never grew up thinking life should be “my way or the highway,” because that reality simply didn’t exist. What I grew up learning, was to adjust and to compromise and that every interaction is essentially a negotiation. I share this story because negotiation is a huge part of daily life and a huge part of running a yoga business. Being a good negotiator matters...

Hey Yogi’s, 7 years ago this week YAMA was featured in The New York Times.  It was a solo profile, the kind of coverage people dream about and pay tens of thousands of dollars for. How did it come about?   Well … I had written to the NYT about a client and a stunt we were hosting in Time Square: bringing together 40 women of a certain age to show off their yoga confidence, and their yoga bodies, by doing yoga in the least amount of clothing they were comfortable wearing in public and getting our vinyasa on. They wrote me back right away, but were more curious about this crazy woman was writing to the NYT on behalf of a yoga teacher?!   The article...

Hi Yogi’s, Happy 2018! If there is one thing we know for sure at YAMA it’s that yoga is not one size fits all, and that’s exactly how it ought to be. As a network of educators & artists we are lucky enough to see every day just how diverse the yoga industry really is.