Chain Yoga Studios As Money Makers

[Guest guest]

Chain Yoga Studios As Money Makers

Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, September 10, 2004: In 2001, while

searching for a new and lucrative Internet market, experienced

entrepreneurs George Lichter and Rob Wrubel worked through their

own serious stress-related ailments with deep breathing, sun

salutations and downward-facing dogs. Then it hit them what their

next business should be: yoga. So they began snapping up

America's oldest, most prestigious yoga studios, calling their new

business Yoga Works. Their goal: a national chain of yoga studios

that, they say, will feature well-trained teachers and high-quality

classes while preserving the authentic, community feel of a

neighborhood studio. Already some yogis - as yoga practitioners are

known - are saying that the businessmen's plan for a branded

national chain marks the beginning of the end for yoga. A corporate

yoga business could drive many small studios out of business,

squelch the creativity of yoga instruction and fuel the growing

commercialism of what for many students is an intensely spiritual

practice.

According to Yoga Journal magazine, 15 million people practice yoga

in the United States, and market studies show that lots more want

to try it. The yoga studio is often a calm retreat from a world

of commercialism - or at least it was. These days, yoga seems more

about fashion, comely figures and pop culture. Women and

celebrities bound about town in high fashion, form-fitting yoga

garb and accessories. Many yoga purists blame an Indian guru named

Bikram Choudhury for helping to strip American yoga of its

spiritual dimensions. For nearly three decades, Choudhury has taught

here his trademarked brand of sweaty yoga, a scripted sequence of

26 poses in rooms heated above 100 degrees. There are now 1,200

Bikram studios internationally. Chaudhury's World Yoga Championship

in Los Angeles last year, rewarding the best poses with cash,

dismayed many yogis. " Yoga is not a mass practice, " says Deborah

Willoughby, founding editor of Yoga International magazine. " It is

a direct transmission from teacher to student and asana (the

physical practice) is only one part of it. " Trisha Lamb, associate

director of the International Association of Yoga Therapists,

says, " It's America, after all, we commodify things here. We

franchise. " Lichter says he understands. " Our biggest battle is the

concept other people have of corporatization, " he says. " We agree

with them, and dislike that ourselves. " It's not surprising that yoga

is attracting increasing corporate attention, for adherents tend to

be affluent, well educated and predominantly female. 30% of yoga

practitioners have an annual income of $75,000 or more, and it is

estimated that they spend on average $1,500 a year on yoga. Many

people see the market expanding as research bears out what many

yogis have long claimed: that yoga can relieve asthma, back pain,

depression and heart disease. Indeed, physicians recommend yoga

nowadays to their patients.