My Body
My Body
Live From Jivamukti: Dechen Thurman, Yogi
Dechen Thurman, one of Jivamukti’s amazing yoga teachers and masseurs, teaches a wild kabuki class replete with loud music, insane chanting, Buddhist dogma and intense asanas. The first time I studied with him, he read aloud from a Buddhist scripture, then announced, in the middle of wheel pose, "Throw up on your mat if you have to! Just don’t abandon the practice!" Listening to Dechen is like listening to a mad scientist and a scholar and a stoner rolled into one. If you haven’t taken his class, take it now.
I used to be an actor and I used yoga as my warm-up to go on stage. I had a theatre company. Yoga appealed to me because it integrated the physical and the psychological. It helped me become a complete person. It was a way for me to feel masculine without being competitive. It allowed me to be strong and confident without having to break down someone else. I grew up in competitive sports— in high school I did lacrosse, wrestling, and soccer— and I liked them but yoga was a way to use my body just as powerfully without having to compete.
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My Body
Live From The Fierce Club: Sadie Nardini Says Chill The Fuck Out
Downtown It-Gal and Yoga Teacher Extraordinaire Sadie Nardini shares with SW her thoughts on bitchy yoga people, the importance of meat and how to always keep things cool.
I tell my students to Chill The Fuck Out. CTFO, I call it. We have to remind ourselves that we are bigger than this moment and we have to hold our center even in the midst of chaos. Pause and breathe. Master the situation. Calm yourself down. Never just react one second after you get mad. One time I was going down the subway stairs and I had a big suitcase, and there was some guy walking slowly in front of me. He stopped and turned to me and said, what the fuck are you doing? And I said, what the fuck are you doing? But I might not have had the same reaction if I’d taken five breaths. Maybe that guy’s wife had cancer. Maybe she was in the hospital. It’s all about developing preemptive compassion.
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My Body
Fresh Watermelon and Unborn Salmon Live from the East Village
It's pushing 90 out there. Sticky. I call Lisa Cosman, my East Village Superstar nutritionist, to find out what to eat to stay cool. She's the one who works out of her cluttered East Village apartment, and has celebrity clients like Julie Newmar and Julia Styles. She's the one who goes off on tangents, and repeats herself, and somewhere in there speaks the truth. "Lisa," I say, "What should we eat to stay cool?"
More...“Well, here’s the overview. If one is healthy, one’s body makes perspiration. One is losing fluid through the pores— that’s nature’s mechanism. One needs to replace more fluids when one is perspiring more than normally. Not dogs. Dogs are another story. Fruits and vegetables that are in season are good. Watermelon is good. American watermelon. Watermelon is terrific. I buy packaged watermelon at Citarella and Whole Foods and then I can have it cut and ready to go. It’s a question of quality. I also buy it at Grand Central Marketplace. You want is as fresh as possible. You can get it at any of the three Citarellas. What did I say? Grand Central Marketplace. But I don’t think they’re as careful in the cutting, Grand Central Marketplace that is. You want it to look very red. It is a very refreshing melon filled with irrigation water and it cools you as you eat it.
My Body
Head Chef
Introducing Colombe Jacobsen-Derstine, former cast member of The Next Food Network Star, rockstar personal chef and Core Fusion teacher at Exhale Spa. Here she offers up her thoughts on health and healing.
Q: How did you become interested in food?
A: My mom was a macrobiotic, and she had me on a macrobiotic diet as a kid. But in college I was eating incredibly unhealthy— gross cafeteria good, meatloaf. Once I got out of college I began to shop at the Farmers Market in New York and cooking a lot and taking classes at the Natural Gourmet.I did the chefs training program. Then I started cooking for private parties—I wasn’t using refined sugars—and I was experimenting with making both macrobiotic and ayurvedic food. After I got off “The Next Food Network Star” I started teaching cooking classes and consulting. Eventually I started a blog. My business took off.
