Yoga business booming in the USA - NY Times article...

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> Yoga business booming in the USA¬

>

> http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/travel/24yoga.html?pagewanted=all

>

> By JANE MARGOLIES

> Published: July 24, 2005

>

> KATIE ANDERSON is not someone you'd call a yoga-head. A 34-year-old mother

> of two, she has taken classes off and on for years, most recently at her

> gym in Oxford, Miss. But she never considered going away to an ashram,

> which she thought of as "something for earthy types" who were willing to

> put up with bare-bones accommodations. Then Mrs. Anderson read about a

> yoga-and-chocolate retreat that was to take place at the Camino Real in

> Oaxaca, Mexico, and decided she had to go. "I love chocolate, and I wanted

> to practice my Spanish," said Mrs. Anderson, who went on the seven-day

> trip last October organized by Katrina Markoff, the Chicago chocolatier

> and founder of Vosges Haut-Chocolat, and David Romanelli, co-owner of a

> chain of Arizona yoga studios.

>

> In the mornings Mr. Romanelli led guests through vinyasa sequences in a

> grassy courtyard, after which Ms. Markoff doled out a treat based on the

> day's chakra (or spiritual source of energy). "We went to markets and

> ruins during the day and got chocolates on our pillows at night," said

> Mrs. Anderson. "It was fantastic."

>

> Cancel that crane pose. Today it's the yoga retreats themselves that are

> going through contortions. Just as the number of Americans doing yoga has

> exploded - a Yoga Journal survey published in February put it at 16.5

> million, up 43 percent from 2002 - so, too, have the ways travelers can

> take it on the road. With registration up at retreat centers, and yoga

> conferences selling out, mainstream properties have decided they want a

> piece of the $3 billion yoga industry. Resorts, spas and cruise ships have

> added morning sun salutation classes to their fitness menus, and many are

> promoting special yoga weekends and weeks. The Hilton and Kimpton hotel

> chains provide yoga mats and straps for use in guest rooms, and Marriott's

> Renaissance ClubSport in Walnut Creek, Calif., the first in a new group of

> health-oriented hotels, has yoga sessions for kids.

>

> The offerings range from the purist (like that at traditional retreat

> centers) to the cursory (some resort classes wrap up in 30 minutes) to the

> opportunist (getting a marquee teacher to fill a Mexican resort in the dog

> days of August).

>

> By 2007, Hyatt expects to increase its earnings from yoga classes to more

> than $1 million from around $200,000, thanks to a new revenue-sharing deal

> with Yoga Away, a Denver company that will offer its branded program to

> Hyatt guests. Introduced at the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort and Spa

> this month and scheduled to roll out at 22 other properties over the next

> nine months, the Yoga Away program includes in-room TV instruction in

> addition to regularly scheduled classes, private sessions and occasional

> three-day getaways. The program is said to be specifically designed to

> address the ails of travelers. (Tied in a knot from a three-hour flight?

> Click on the on-command "Feeling Great Again - Flexibility" workout, which

> emphasizes stretching.) "It's value-added for guests," said Gordon Tareta,

> global director of spas for Hyatt Hotels and Resorts.

>

> Companies that organize yoga retreats have also upped the ante, pairing a

> Hindu discipline that originated in India anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000

> years ago (depending on what authority is consulted) with everything from

> surfing to snowboarding. Some insiders are appalled at what's being

> offered in the name of this ancient spiritual and physical practice ("Yoga

> and chocolate? God forbid!" exclaimed Nancy Lunney-Wheeler, executive

> director of programming at the Esalen Institute, in Big Sur, Calif., which

> has taught yoga for more than four decades).

>

> But many longstanding retreat centers are responding to the surge in

> interest by broadening their offerings and upgrading their facilities to

> cater to a more mainstream clientele. The 22-year-old Kripalu Center for

> Yoga and Health, in Lenox, Mass. - which is projecting a 25 percent

> increase over last year and gearing up for a multimillion-dollar capital

> campaign - is replacing some platform beds with real ones and serving

> coffee in its cafe. (Its directors had come to realize that some guests

> were wandering around on yoga weekends with caffeine-withdrawal

> headaches.)

>

> "People who do yoga on a regular basis want to keep doing it while they're

> away on vacation," said Cathy Keefe, spokeswoman for the Travel Industry

> Association of America, who added that yoga has become so prevalent that

> it's now "a standard offering."

>

> One way for a property to pursue success is to plan retreats around

> popular yoga teachers, who can bring followers with them. "We do it to

> build business," said Tricia Hayes, director of marketing at the historic

> Sagamore on Lake George in Bolton Landing, N.Y., which lines up Cindi Lee,

> creator of the best-selling OM Yoga in a Box CDs, for its annual spring

> Women's Wellness Weekend. The retreat takes place during the resort's

> shoulder season, the slow period after the skiers and skaters have gone

> but before the swimmers and sailors wash in. "It's a way to introduce new

> guests to the resort."

>

> It's not surprising that teachers are key marketing tools, as some have

> attained near-cult status. Known for her modern dancelike maneuvers, Shiva

> Rea, based in Pacific Palisades, Calif., leads about a dozen retreats a

> year, in between teacher-training workshops and yoga conferences. Baron

> Baptiste of Boston, famous for his feel-the-burn athletics, holds

> unsparing Bootcamps. (Don't expect coffee or white sugar or sleeping

> through the 6:30 wakeup call at his retreats, which are held in places as

> diverse as the Menla Mountain Retreat near the Catskill hamlet of

> Phoenicia and Pura Vida Retreat and Spa in Costa Rica.)

>

> Teri Minkin got into yoga retreats because the instructor who taught her

> hatha yoga class in Phoenix was doing a weekend workshop at a Korean

> healing center in Sedona, Ariz. "It was so peaceful," said Ms. Minkin, 47,

> who next tried a week at Maya Tulum Resort on the Yucatán Peninsula and

> then trailed a teacher she met there to retreats in Costa Rica and Cuba.

>

> "I'm hooked," she said.

>

> So is Halle Becker, 42, the head of an entertainment company in New York.

> She went on a Rodney Yee retreat at COMO Shambhala in Parrot Cay in the

> Turks and Caicos and, last summer, when she was feeling "disillusioned

> with the corporate life," she followed Shiva Rea to the rustic Feathered

> Pipe Ranch in Helena, Mont., where people can stay in yurts. "It still

> cost me two grand," said Ms. Becker.

>

> "We actively go after teachers," said Rakesh Goswami, the chief operating

> officer for R&R Resorts, which handles reservations and marketing for Maya

> Tulum and Pura Vida. Mr. Goswami, who estimated that yoga retreats made up

> about 80 percent of Maya Tulum's business and close to two-thirds of Pura

> Vida's, said he recruited teachers on the phone and at yoga conferences.

> The resorts, he'll explain, will give teachers a wholesale rate for the

> students they sign up, on top of which the teacher adds his or her fee.

> "They might charge $500 for a week of instruction," Mr. Goswami said, "and

> if they bring 20 people with them, that's $10,000 they earn for the week,

> plus they get to stay at the resort for free."

>

> The big-name teacher strategy doesn't always pay off, though. Miraval, the

> resort and spa in Catalina, Ariz. - which is planning a state-of-the-art

> yoga studio with bamboo floors and glass walls overlooking the desert -

> had just eight people register for a Sean Corn retreat in April, and only

> five showed up for Noah Maze last December.

>

> Many properties take a different tack, developing yoga programs of their

> own using in-house staff. (Fees can range from $17 for an hourlong class

> at Cliff House in Ogunquit, Me., to $35 for 60 minutes at Caneel Bay in

> St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands - with anywhere from $50 to $90 an hour

> charged for private sessions at various resorts.) And, at a time when

> aspiring instructors can find teacher training on the Web and at crash

> courses that promise certification in a weekend, the quality of classes

> for travelers can vary greatly.

>

> "I was at Atlantis with my family and I was sitting on the beach watching

> this woman doing yoga with a group of people," said Alan Finger, a founder

> of the Yoga Works chain of studios, which requires that teachers have 500

> hours of training. "And then we saw this same person greeting people in

> the breakfast area, and later in the day she was giving massages!"

>

> An increasing number of spas are rounding out their menus of mud packs and

> massages with more mind-body programs. (According to a 2004 survey by the

> International Spa Association, of the properties that provide exercise

> programs, 71 percent have yoga; 18 percent expect to have it.) Canyon

> Ranch, which has offered yoga since its founding in 1979, now has about 10

> classes a day - twice what it offered two years ago - with most taught by

> its "core" fitness staff members. In fact, about 70 percent of its yoga

> instructors teach something else, such as pilates or strength

> conditioning, according to Christine Zmijewski, the mind-body coordinator,

> who says that most have at least 200 hours of teacher training.

>

> Other spas, such as Miraval, align yoga with meditation, rather than

> fitness. Barb Kopoulos, a 53-year-old retired computer technician from

> Lee's Summit, Mo., who practices every day, has visited Miraval - 12

> times. "It's serious," she said - unlike what she dismisses as "hotel

> yoga," which she's also tried on vacations with her family. "I just felt

> it was superficial," she said of the class she took at the Four Seasons

> Resort Hualalai on the Big Island of Hawaii. "I mean, it was a good class,

> but it was an exercise class, which is what I expect at a hotel where

> people are there to lie around on the beach and dabble in this and that.

> There was no mind-body connection."

>

> Yoga, of course, has been kicking around in this country for decades.

> First associated with certain swamis, it became unshackled from Hinduism

> when teachers like Yoga Works' Alan Finger began offering classes that

> weren't overtly religious. "People saw they could practice it and still be

> a Christian or a Jew," said Mr. Finger, whose classes in the 1970's and

> 80's attracted such Hollywood types as Robin Williams and Michael J. Fox.

> And once celebrities began going public with their commitment to yoga,

> health clubs began picking it up.

>

> "It's like what aerobics was in the 80's," said Katie Rollauer, research

> manager at the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association,

> whose surveys show that something like 90 percent of clubs offer it. And

> now Americans are combining yoga with everything from hip-hop to boxing.

>

> Indeed, these days even those who register for yoga retreats often have

> things other than yoga on their minds. Enthusiasts can still remove

> themselves to mountaintop retreat centers and devote their days to

> deepening their practice without distractions. And the really hard core

> can make the pilgrimage to India (which, in an interesting twist, has been

> busy importing Western-style yoga studios to its cities).

>

> But more and more yoga retreats are about cushy accommodations in exotic

> locations. They offer not only room service but also adventure tours (zip

> lining, anyone?) and, in many cases, a chance to take part in a sport

> totally unrelated to yoga. They've been put together as if to say, there's

> more to life - and travel - than yoga.

>

> Neither Chris Stack, a lawyer and financial consultant in Darien, Conn.,

> nor his wife, nor either of his two sons had ever tried yoga before going

> on a yoga-and-surfing retreat in Mal País, Costa Rica. (They learned about

> the retreat, organized by the San Francisco company Pura Vida Adventures,

> from Mr. Stack's sister, a yoga practitioner, who roped them in.) Mr.

> Stack and his wife gamely trotted down to the yoga mats spread out under

> the palm trees in front of their hotel every morning at 7 and attempted

> spinal twists and warrior poses, which Mr. Stack, who ordinarily bikes,

> jogs and plays tennis, found "challenging." The couple's 14-year-old

> joined them for a class or two. "The older one did his stretching in bed,"

> he said.

>

> Indeed such "hybrid retreats" are an outgrowth of a new school of thinking

> about yoga.

>

> "Traditional yogis are anti-exercise, anti-running, anti-weights," said

> Ted McDonald, an endurance athlete and president of Adventure Yoga

> Retreats, a nine-month-old Malibu company that has paired yoga with rock

> climbing, snowboarding and horseback riding. His firm, which is

> introducing whitewater rafting in Chile in February, is an example of the

> new breed of retreat-planning company that views yoga as a sort of

> cross-training tool, a complement to other sports.

>

> Jane Fryer, a Washington, D.C.-based yoga teacher who has been doing

> retreats for 15 years and whose own company, Inward Bound, leads decidedly

> luxurious ones to the clubby Round Hill in Jamaica, supports the new

> all-things-to-all-people version of yoga. "Why not surf? Why not cook?"

> she asked. "We have eclectic and endless interests, and combining them

> with yoga is one way we've made it our own - it's the American spin on

> it."

>

> Others raise an eyebrow at some of the combinations. "There's a level of

> silliness," said Michael Craft, director of programming for the

> 28-year-old Omega Institute, in Rhinebeck, N.Y. Mr. Craft said he has

> turned down teachers contacting him about yoga-and-golf retreats. "We

> don't have a golf course," he said.

>

> With the options proliferating, there are signs that the yoga retreat

> market may have reached a saturation point. Up until recently, the Omega

> Institute's yoga conferences sold out with a long waiting list. They still

> sell out, but there's a shrinking waiting list. Lisa Lindblad, a New York

> travel planner who organizes one-of-a-kind getaways for high-end clients,

> had to call off a retreat with Ananta - a Frenchman who practices

> ayurvedic yoga massage, and the darling of the fashion crowd in London and

> Paris - because it never sold.

>

> Twee Merrigan, a New York-based yoga instructor and a student of Shiva

> Rea, says she gets e-mailed bulletins announcing discounts on yoga

> retreats because they haven't filled up: "Every teacher I know gets these

> e-mails saying, 'There's one more month to register!' Or, 'We've taken off

> the registration price!' "

>

> The retreat participants themselves don't seem to be complaining. John

> Gardner of Verona, N.J., a firefighter for 27 years and currently a

> captain in Montclair, might not be the type of person you'd expect to find

> on a yoga retreat. But the 51-year-old Mr. Gardner, who is single, has

> been on two. His first, three years ago, was an intensive workshop at a

> Costa Rica resort, sponsored by the Omega Institute and led by David Life,

> founder of the Jivamukti Center in Manhattan, where Mr. Gardener takes

> classes.

>

> This past October Mr. Gardner went on a six-day yoga-and-surfing retreat

> in Sayulita, Mexico, organized by the Seattle-based Via Yoga. Mr.

> Gardener, who'd never been to Mexico before, did some sightseeing, sampled

> fish wrapped in tortilla bought from a vendor on the beach, and tried

> snorkeling and surfing for the first time. He also did a bit of yoga.

> "This wasn't the strict kind of yoga retreat where you get up and have to

> meditate," he said. "This was more like a yoga vacation."

>

> All Yoga Retreats

>

> Established yoga destinations may not go along with some of the more

> unorthodox yoga-and combinations, but they are adding programs and, in

> some cases, loosening up.

>

> Esalen, Big Sur, Calif.; (831) 667-3000; www.esalen.org. In a first, the

> 43-year-old institute, which is known for its wide range of intellectual

> and new-age programs, held a five-day yoga festival in June called the

> Heart of Yoga. The 130-bed campus offers a variety of yoga workshops, such

> as "Yoga: Anatomy and Biomechanics" and "Vinyasa Krama Yoga" along with

> "Intermediate Yoga Intensive" - but no power yoga.

>

> Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, Lenox, Mass.; (800) 741-7353;

> www.kripalu.org. This year the number of programs jumped to more than 700

> from around 500, including workshops on weight-loss and personal growth.

> "Today people are less interested in the asanas, and more interested in

> becoming well and living a balanced life," said the president, Garrett

> Sarley.

>

> Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, Rhinebeck, N.Y.; (800) 944-1001;

> www.eomega.org. Numerous teacher-training workshops have been added in

> recent years, in response to the demand for certified teachers at yoga

> studios around the country. Also new is a course called "Yoga to Beat the

> Blues," taught by Amy Weintraub, author of "Yoga for Depression."

>

> Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat, Paradise Island, Bahamas;

> www.sivananda.org/nassau; (242) 363-2902. Wake up at 5:30. Satsang

> (includes meditation, chanting and lecture) at 6. Yoga at 8. Vegetarian

> brunch at 10. Workshops at 12. Yoga at 4. Dinner at 6. Satsang at 8.

> Lights out around 10:30. Repeat. At this five-acre property across from

> Nassau, yoga classes are mandatory. Regular rooms, cabins and tents are

> available.

>

> Yoga Hybrid Retreats

>

> The latest hybrid retreats let you have your yoga and your vacation, too.

> Here is a sampling of combo deals.

>

> Yoga and Surfing, Aug. 12 to 14, Montauk, N.Y., offered by Sonic Yoga;

> (212) 397-6344; www.sonicyoga.com. The New York-based company, which has

> been doing surfing-and-yoga retreats in Montauk for four years, now also

> offers them in Mexico and Costa Rica. Lauren Hanna, vinyasa flow teacher

> and co-director of Sonic Yoga, who leads the retreat with Twee Merrigan,

> says the activities are similar: "There's the fluid style of movement and

> breath and the fluid power of the wave." Rates: $300 for the yoga and

> surfing program in Montauk and $75 for yoga only (neither includes food

> and lodging); Mexico and Costa Rica range from $1,200 to $2,000, based on

> double occupancy, with food and lodging.

>

> Yoga and Cooking, Oct. 20 to 23, Ojai Retreat Center, Ojai, Calif.,

> offered by Yoga Works; (310) 664-6470, ext. 117; www.yogaworks.com.

> Jennifer Stevens, a chef certified by the Natural Gourmet Cookery School

> in New York, gives lessons in vegetarian cooking, and Sarah Bell, a Yoga

> Works instructor, provides yoga classes in the morning and late afternoon.

> At midday, participants can hike in the Angeles National Forest, stroll

> around artsy Ojai, relax by the pool or get a massage. "The body can only

> take so much yoga," said Sky Meltzer, director of programming at Yoga

> Works. Rates start at $665 a person, single occupancy, and include food

> and accommodations.

>

> Yoga and Surfing, Nov. 20 to 26, Villa Amor, Sayulita, Mexico, offered by

> Via Yoga; (800) 603-9642; www.viayoga.com. Yoga is taught by Scott

> Blossom, a Santa Barbara instructor who is also a surfer. "We get couples

> where the husband or wife just does the surfing," said Kelly Kemp,

> co-founder of Via Yoga. Rates: $1,995 a person, double occupancy; $1,795

> if prepaid 90 days in advance.

>

> Yoga and Snowboarding, Jan. 2 to 5, 2006, Vail, Colo., offered by ReTreat

> Yourself, (800) 475-4543; www.ridewithbarrett.com. Led by Barrett Christy,

> a leading snowboarder, and yoga instructors from Yoga for Athletes, the

> retreat provides twice-daily yoga classes, one before and one after

> hitting the slopes. Day 3 of the retreat is devoted to a snowshoe

> expedition at Beaver Creek. Rate: $799 (does not include hotel).

>

> Yoga and Birding, Jan. 7 to 14, 2006, Hotel Lagunita, Yelapa, Mexico;

> www.hotel-lagunita.com, offered by Yelapa Yoga; (509) 667-1339 after Oct.

> 1; yogabirds2004 . Participants sleep in thatched-roof huts, do

> vinyasa yoga under the direction of Judith Roth, and go on walks with Cody

> Wahto Sontag, a birder, where they might see russet-crowned motmots and

> military macaws. Hilary Swank joined the group for yoga and birding last

> year. Rates: $1,195 a person, double occupancy; $1,050 if paid by Sept.15.

>

> Yoga and Chocolate. Vosges Haut-Chocolat is planning weekend yoga and

> chocolate workshops in various studios around the country this year. For

> information on locations and prices, call (888) 301-9866 or see

> www.vosgeschocolate.com.

>

> JANE MARGOLIES is a freelance writer in New York.