"The OM is so community oriented, fun, and loving...
it is nice to be in a class where everything is
personal and still professional."

--- Alicia

"The OM yoga challenges have smartened my practice. My right knee gives me problems quite frequently. Taking  a class every single day can be rough on my knee if i just bang through classes. The challenge has forced me to look at the things within my own practice that need to be refined in order to maintain healthy, strong joints. It has allowed me to pull back and explore new ways of approaching certain poses. Taking a class every day for thirty days really helps you to become more acutely aware of the details of alignment from the inside out...helping me find my alignment from a much deeper place inside." - Kira Leigh, OM yoga teacher & practioner

“The best gift I gave myself during the holiday season was the week long immersion/cleanse with Sarah Trelease. Starting each day with yoga and cleansing throughout the week was the ideal way to detox my body and my mind from the craziness of the holidays and set myself up for a healthy start to the New Year.  I had been looking for a cleanse that didn’t require fasting; this cleanse was the perfect fit for me. It gave me so much energy, I can’t wait to take the immersion/ cleanse again next week!”    Betsy

"What amazes me about the challenge is the fact that I'm not tired of yoga -- and I'm on day 27. I would have thought that at some point, I'd reach a moment where I'd say, Ugh, I have to go to yoga AGAIN. But every day when I go, I am excited and I leave feeling just as great as I did on Day 1. The cumulative effect has been great as well -- I had slipped from a regular practice into an irregular one, so right now I feel better physically than I have in a long time, and that gives me energy for everything else in my life. I'm really glad I signed up for it!" - Laura

I began practicing at OM in the fall 2000 in an attempt to continue addressing a particularly stubborn and painful case of fibromyalgia.  In the summer of 1999, I began practicing privately and soon found that a regular practice went a long way to reducing my physical pain and increasing my range of motion.  My teacher took a leave of absence and suggested that I begin studing at OM.  I began my OM journey in the fall of 2000 and have been here ever since.  Five and a half years later, the Fibromyalgia is a distant memory and my regular practice helps to keep me grounded and sane.    Best Regards, Elizabeth

"why i love om

or:

dispatch from the heart of darkness"

14.02.2006
Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo

I could only find myself here on valentine’s day if I believed. I ’d have to believe, wouldn’t I, to be here, now, watching the orange sun start its daily descent over this beautiful and broken town along the banks of the river congo. 

I used to believe, I really did. but after a few years of this business of “doing good in the world” and of “loving the world”, I ’m not so sure I do anymore. I wish I could say I did.

But how much suffering do you have to see, smell, taste, let writhe then shrivel and decay until it lies- still and putrid- in the palm of your hand? How much before faith runs out and you’re left standing there, powerless and alone and heartbroken by the numbing shrapnel of this, our human condition.

So head over heals I ’m falling, stumbling blindly towards the refuge of cynicism that is the shining armour in this business of ours where its just so much easier to shrug it all off as what we’ve done for millennia and will continue to do under the varying guises of politics or religion or resources or whatever those guys up there come up with next. in the meantime, someone has to do it, and anyway in this state of inertia at least the benefits are good and we have a holiday to nairobi (or dubai) every now and then.

“Little girl, don’t let life go hardening your heart” pema told me some time ago on page three but I had to put the book down because it hurt too much to read any further. and then, much later, there I was, in Earth [just three weeks ago(!), still glowing with the amazement of Joe (and Frank too) having remembered my name after all these years and oceans and continents and heartbreak and hardening]. There I was, contorted and absorbed when- just beyond my nose/right shoulder/left knee/anjali mudra (with every other part of me shaking, taut, ready to topple)- the words came suddenly into focus:

“may all beings be free from suffering...”

Written so simply, so close I could see the pencil stencilling. Too much for me; I had to close my eyes. But there too was my own hideous and ugly darkness, and I couldn’t stop the searing painful rush flowing straight to my heart.

And then class was over and I went home to pack and then I got back on that plane then another plane then another smaller and rather decrepit ex-soviet plane and now here I am, Valentine’s day 2006, without even the remotest possibility of finding blueberries or obscure movies or a beautiful soul to share all this endless love of mine with.

But I’m here, so surely I believe. I must.  

Claudia Seymour

Kisangani, DRC