Crystal Kats

YOGA from USA to Paris

PARIS — When I moved to Paris from New York last year, about the first thing I did was seek out yoga. The city, job, language, food, telephone numbers, currency, even the way the milk was labeled: every element of my life from the most major to the tiniest details, had changed. Sure, it was thrilling, but it was also exhausting and humbling. At least on a yoga mat, I thought, I could feel at home.

¶But where to practice? New York City is Yoga Central, rivaled in its fervor perhaps only by Los Angeles. Manhattan yoga studios must outnumber Starbucks these days, and practically every third person on the sidewalk is toting a mat. You can find classes in many styles and levels at just about any hour of the day, in studios, gyms, offices, schools and, in nice weather, in the parks.

¶The 5,000-year-old practice, like sitar music and batik bedspreads, first arrived in a big way in the United States and in France in a populist wave from India in the 1960s, but the current American yoga boom is sweeping the country in all age groups, from the prenatal to the elderly. The mind-body-spirit practice has a lot of appeal as a panacea for stress as well as a way to stretch out and get some deep exercise, with the bonus of savasana, a sanctioned little rest at the end and, for those want it, a spiritual context: a Westernized interpretation of the sacred Sanscrit texts.

¶In recent years, the yoga boom has spilled from the U.S. into other parts of the world, particularly European and Asian cities. (click photo to read full article)  ?