Whose business is yoga this New Year?

Why again did we want to open a yoga studio? This was the question we were asking ourselves as we stood coughing in the dust, surrounded by the noise and mess of construction fit-out of a new space. Marilen Elizalde and myself have been running ECHOyoga for the past four or so years — no stress, no fuss, just a community center of classes and weekly corporate classes. We did it just for the sheer love of teaching yoga and sharing how it can be used as a tool and practice. We have seen how yoga can really balance a person’s body-mind-heart-spirit connection in everyday life.

When Sofia Zobel-Elizalde, Marilen’s sister-in-law, said, “ECHOyoga needs to open in my new Steps Dance Academy building” (on Kalayaan Avenue, behind Rockwell in Makati City), we realized that we were being challenged to bring our yoga teaching to a different level. So we hemmed and hawed and argued about closing or continuing, of going commercial, or keeping our community space, of taking on more responsibilities and running a whole studio. And as push came to shove, we worked through the holidays and tomorrow,  Jan. 6, we open the new ECHOyoga Shala — our attempt to share our practice to a bigger number of people; and to share the advocacies of the holistic wellness and green community, too.

The popularity of yoga has resulted in the proliferation of yoga studios all around, offering intense physical exercises and workouts that can be highly competitive. But our New Year’s resolution was to share more than just physical exercises that promised sexy butts and svelte figures. We wanted to share the full “ECHO” = Empowerment, Care, Health and Oneness = the core values embraced in ECHOyoga Shala’s new community center. “Shala” is a Sanskrit word, which means “house/home.” As we open our doors tomorrow, our objective is to offer a holistic practice to support a sustainable lifestyle, strengthen community collaborations. Everybody knows that anyone and everyone can practice yoga in some form or another. The Shala is open daily, from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. with five daily classes, weekend schedules and workshops.  A daily early morning Self Practice space allows even busy moms or harassed executives their own no-frills, quiet space.

Yoga in all its varied expressions will be offered to beginners, intermediate and advanced students through classes like Gentle Flow, Restorative Yoga, Vinyasa Flow, Ashtanga Vinyasa and Power Yoga. ECHOyoga Shala’s thrust to go beyond just the physical practice of yoga as exercise includes sessions on meditation, breath control (pranayama) for distressing and even “Off the Mat” community talks on how to bring practical spirituality into our daily lives filled with stress and the challenges of living. Techniques & Alignment are refinement classes for teachers, as well as yoga therapy sessions for students who need help for ailments. All the sessions are led by certified and trained yoga teachers, some with international experience. 

Through the holidays, I have been getting requests from international visiting teachers to come and teach. Which surprises me to no end on how this whole sub-culture of yoga is no longer a fad, but a mainstream practice, a business and continuous transmission of traditional teachings that offer techniques in handling energy in our bodies. I personally think it becomes imperative to balance our own personal energies as the world’s energies are so stressful and fast! Yoga is my personal practice, which makes me keep my balance!

ECHOyoga Shala is also a whole community of wellness we want to create, so we are including friends who do counseling, therapy and body-energy work sessions that can be booked through appointments. They are also trained and experienced counselors and coaches who guide life directions and soul destiny missions and give family-children counseling and integrative wellness and nutrition. Subtler and deeper subconscious sessions include past life regression and dream analysis. Body-energy healing therapy is offered through healing practitioners of reflexology, ventosa and foot and body massage. 

I realized that in more than two decades of our journey in the path of spirituality and consciousness, this business of ECHOyoga Shala is bringing all these friends and network together. It is, I believe, a beautiful synergistic network of “light” that we all want to build together through this space. If yoga were to have true meaning, the self-changes that it brings internally must manifest itself in the outside world. So we commit to giving all proceeds for the year of our Saturday morning classes as “seva” or service to the rebuilding of lives for the typhoon Yolanda survivors.

If yoga is to be embraced for a sustainable lifestyle, ECHOyoga Shala’s classes, sessions, workshop, community talks are sequenced and offered to guide the students in their yoga practice and discipline to develop a strong healthy body, a steady focused mind, a compassionate heart. The ultimate goal is the development of a personal self-practice and tools that can be used for a deeper appreciation of life. When a student begins his own self-practice, and can sit in meditation, lay his mat and do a sequence without a teacher, watch and witness his actions in society with awareness, then we know the fruits of the yoga practice is finding expression. It’s exciting, in this new year, starting a new venture to support the sustainable lifestyle of ECHOstore. It can also be exciting for many who may have been afraid to try yoga for reasons that they think they are inflexible, or fat, or heavy, or stressed, or injured; those menopausing, or mid-lifing. These are precisely the ones we want to join us. Those looking for a regular meditation circle, a group discussion on life and spirituality issues and how to deal with them will find this space at ECHOyoga Shala. This space is also for the strong, powerful, flexible, the triathlete and body buffs — for their continued journey to not only keep the body strong, but to conquer the mind, soften the heart, so the spirit can sing.

The business of yoga is also about the business of our life. It’s all our business to draw out the brightness of our own light that it may reflect back into a world that needs stabilization and healing. And that is why we made it our business to run the business of ECHOyoga Shala! See you on the mat!

Catch the 50-percent off promo for Jan. 18, Saturday when I will lead a whole day Community Detox with Juju Cleanse juices and salads, gentle yoga practice, meditation, to release 2013 and guide reflections on moving forward with 2014.

(The new ECHOyoga Shala is located at 3/F, Steps Dance Academy Building, 8645 Kalayaan Ave. (behind Rockwell), Barangay Poblacion, Makati City. For more information on promos, visit echoyoga.echostore.ph for all the steal-deals that

you can avail yourself of for the whole year, SMS 0906-5063958 or e-mail ECHOyogaShala@gmail.com. “Like” its Facebook page and follow it on Twitter @ECHOyogaShala.)