Last week while leaving the studio, our instructor, Evan, told us that YogaWorks plans to cut the Tuesday and Thursday Mysore session. Something about wanting 30 people in the room. At 6am? Evan has between 10-20 people daily, and most of us are studio members. What YogaWorks class would fill a room to 30 at 6am every day? Or even twice a week? Certainly nothing they currently offer.

Nevermind that there are two other empty practice rooms at that hour.

We were miffed. We need our practice, we need Evan, and we need them daily. There’s a possibility that YogaWorks will start to charge for Tuesday and Thursday, above the membership fees. The price of a class? $20? (I’m really not sure, and no one has clarified.) You want $40 more from each of us every week? That’s $2,080 more per person a year, which is almost twice what most of us pay for our current memberships. How strange. If anything, the room has gotten more crowded in the last year.

To lose two days a week (three if there’s a moon day), is to lose your practice, as well as two days of your membership, as we don’t take other classes at YogaWorks. This change will mean most of us will leave the studio for somewhere we can practice daily. Why is YogaWorks so willing to see us go?

We wrote letters. We sent them to the manager at our Westside studio, the regional manager, and the teacher manager. Within hours of the announcement, messages poured in from our group of ashtangis to the management. Not only are they are inspiring, they define what being a community is all about. Over the next few days, I will post them here, and on the yoga blog.

The first, from Rey:

Dear Jackie,

I’m one of the morning Mysore students that attends Evan’s classes on average 5x/wk. I’m currently out of town for work, but as you can see from my attendance when I am in town, I attend Evan’s and only Evan’s classes, like many of his students.

I recently heard from some of the other students that you will be cutting our Tuesday and Thursday classes. Respectfully, I am writing to ask that you reconsider. The whole point of Mysore practice is that it is almost daily—at the very least 4x/wk, and hopefully 6. To make it only 3x/wk basically means NOT having an ashtanga practice.

The grapevine says that it’s a measure to cut costs, but I’m not sure what savings you gain. When I first started attending Evan’s classes, there was no staff in the studio. Evan and his trusted regular students opened up. Evan took care of the towels. Whoever got in the room first would deal with the lights, the altar, and telling new students to sign up at the desk and observe the other students until Evan arrived to instruct and adjust them. Since that time it has felt like YogaWorks has been intent on destroying our community—taking away Guruji’s picture, then the altar altogether, then even a single candle; repeatedly locking us out in the morning; and now this.

It seems like such an odd move to make against such a devoted group of students. As long as Evan teaches daily, our unlimited monthly memberships will continue. And, to be frank, we kind of liked it more when you weren’t paying a staff member (who didn’t want to get up at 5 AM) to be there. We never got locked out back then. If you let him go back to running the place like a typical ashtanga shala (just from 6 – 8:30 AM), altar, student helpers, and all, we could probably get some of our friends who practice at The Shala or YogaSutra or Ashtanga Yoga Upper Westside to opt for YogaWorks in the AM. Especially with a little push from YogaWorks advertising their traditional morning ashtanga classes.

I love Evan; right now, I love him enough to go well out of my way to study with him (I live in Jackson Heights, Queens and work in the East Village—the UWS is nowhere near my day-to-day life). But ultimately I am committed to the practice. Without the ability to practice and grow daily, it doesn’t make sense for me to stay with YogaWorks. It would make more sense for me to study with Guy Donahaye or Eddie Stern, both of whom are closer to a neighborhood I go to daily, or to help Evan find a space that will let him teach with less encumbrances.

On behalf of us all, please reconsider your decision and work something out. We actually are the community YogaWorks appears to want to promote. We practice regularly and are living examples of the benefits of yoga; we see each other almost every morning; we know each other’s names; we Facebook each other; we have brunch; encourage vegetarianism and veganism; we know who is having trouble in what pose, what each other’s injuries are, when people are getting married, or having plays performed, or are teaching yoga classes themselves, or visiting their daughters, sons, or parents. Right now YogaWorks is an integral part of our morning, almost every morning. In the long run, I don’t think any of us want to change that, but we are all confused and even angry that you do.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I’m back in town from Kentucky late Monday night, and you can bet I will be at Mysore early Tuesday morning—I’ve missed Evan and my fellow ashtangis. Despite being welcomed by the Yoga East ashtanga community here in Louisville, I’ve been anxious to come home. I only hope my home will still be there.

Respectfully submitted,

Rey P.

Lovely, right? I posted the whole story on the yoga blog.

Another. I miss them.

Archiving on, I found a shot I’d thought I’d taken for Time Out after 9/11, but obviously it was a few weeks before, as you can see the towers standing. It’s almost the same shot as in the previous post.

I finished archiving 2000 in June, and took a break from heavy cataloging, but also had to add the photos I’d scanned myself over the years to 2000. It was highly tedious. It was not pleasant. Neither was what I had to return to—2001. It wasn’t a great year for me on any level, but ugh, it was worse for the city.

People have asked to see these images and I never really wanted to look at them or to present them in any way, but now that I’m chronologically moving through all the photos, it’s time. They are up on flickr.

Last from the series: Snowstorm Cell Snaps

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I realized yesterday, with a start, while trying overexpose for snow, what I’d always thought was a little exposure meter on my beloved little old grainy cell phone camera is actually an indication for the zoom lens. A zoom lens? Who knew?

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Hmm. Yeah.

I marched on to baggage claim to wait 50 minutes for my bag to pop out. After a 1.5 hour delay because of “weather” in SF, we flew on to NYC. Once over the tri-state area I was flabbergasted by all the congestion. There are probably more people in the NY Metro area then the entire continent of Australia. Good word. Do they really need me here, too?

My bag arrived quickly this time. The airport was quiet as it was nearing midnight. I caught a cab for 20 miles that cost a fifth of my 10,000 mile flight to Sydney after being told that the supershuttle I’d reserved would require a 90+ minute wait. That’s the service one gets with a reservation? Sit until past 1:30am after 27hrs in transit? Welcome home. Imagine living in a place where someone can pick you up from the airport. Sigh.

When I loaded up on groceries the next night, after a few hours sleep and a full day of work, I tried to imagine someone in Australia rolling over my foot with a cart and not even looking up, much less apologizing. No. Wouldn’t happen. Yet here it’s commonplace, I grumped, as I flexed my crushed foot. At Fairway? It’s premeditated.

Some people love this and everything else about New York, but the older I get and the more I get out, I realize that it just isn’t normal, healthy, or pleasant. Unless you’re a millionaire, New York is an entirely uncivilized place to live. Yes, there are lots of nice moments. Like the MTA guy who let me in without paying because none of the vending machines were taking debit or credit cards and I needed to buy my monthly pass. And the baby seated next to me on the train home who grabbed my thumb and held it the rest of his ride, unbeknownst to his mother because of his puffy coat. But these don’t quite make up for the angry bodies pushing onto the trains and up the steps, not to mention the lack of infrastructure to handle so many people. Why weren’t the four machines taking cards anyway? One only took coins! People think they’re tough because they deal with this stuff all day. Bullshit. They’re numb. I know. It’s not a great way to be. Get out for a while and breathe. Stretch out. Relax. Ahhh.

Anyway, I get like this often, especially on return from a trip. Let’s hope I finally do something about it. And soon. Far too quickly I’ll be back to thinking it’s normal.

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I spent my last NYC Saturday subbing yoga classes and sitting at my desk for 7hrs going through the scancafe images, as they wouldn’t just complete my order as is, as no extra charge because of the many issues with the order. Their site was slower than usual, which made it all the more tedious. (I’ve about 1000 more to get through today, which I’m doing now, writing this as the folders load. In the end, I will delete about 50%). It’s weird to be going through so many images from my past when I have a beautiful new camera begging for my attention. I ended selling my DSLR as it was quite old (5 years = ancient in digital years, though still in great shape) for a new one, as I know that current cameras can handle light much, much better than sensors of 2004. Trying to do as little as possible today, to avoid pre-trip stress, but I do need to finish these, catch up on some email, and clean.

Absolutely dazzled by the trip, but a little sad to be out of NY for the thanksgiving to new year period. It’s a great time here, and I love the rituals, even if I only observe them from afar. Will be my second New Year in Oz. Ooooh, summertime! Cannot wait.

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