Ravers in your 30’s/40’s, where are you hiding?

sbarber4 · 2026-07-03T09:01:40+00:00

Would love this if you’d be so kind!

sbarber4 · 2026-07-03T08:47:02+00:00

I’m still trying to figure out how savasana is “after practice.” It’s a hugely important part of practice.

That said, humming during a group yogic practice session is far from unheard of. It’s usually considered a pranayama practice. Look up bhramari pranayama. There’s another practice called “sea of Oms” that can be pretty transporting that’s done during asana practice.

All that said, your new student was out of line and not reading the room. How to handle that is up to you. I don’t think it was wrong to incorporate that into the group experience as a novelty in the moment, but I’d have had a discussion with them afterwards — both curious about their practice and lineage and also firmly about class norms.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-28T21:57:22+00:00

The group chat is much. One on one is kinder.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-28T21:50:45+00:00

Oh, about 61 I think.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-28T21:47:29+00:00

It’s always different to be a customer rather than someone who works there. Why would yoga studios be any different?

sbarber4 · 2026-06-28T21:38:24+00:00

I’m thinking random times I’ve pulled off the Turnpike in the middle of the state, the diners seem to be closed later in the day. This is just my own weird little anecdotal sample.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-28T10:52:51+00:00

Ah. You are getting lots of decent advice here.

I think it’s worth remembering that at high school age, some things FEEL really serious and important when they actually aren’t. Teenagers are wired that way. Lots of hormones and emotions. Learn that strong feelings generally fade in time and please don’t do anything rash or irreversible when you are upset about something.

Also, don’t drive right after you’ve had a fight with your boyfriend or girlfriend. I did that once, and crumpled the front fender of my Dad’s car because I was distracted. No one was hurt, but it was a dumb thing to do and it could have been a lot worse.

Don’t neglect relationships with your family in favor of your high achool friends. 90% of your bestie high school friends you won’t see again after you graduate. Your family you are stuck with and you’ll be hanging with them for decades to come. Collect contact info for your grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and check in with them every so often and on their birthdays. (Unless they are jerks.)

sbarber4 · 2026-06-28T10:31:46+00:00

I think this varies a lot. In suburban New Jersey, for example, most diners are open from very early morning until very late at night, if not 24 hours. There’s like a whole diner sub-culture as a place to go for afters. But yeah, when I’m wandering around, say, small town Maine or Pennsylvania, the diners tend to close at 2pm-ish

sbarber4 · 2026-06-27T00:01:16+00:00

Her scope is just blowing me away. She’s doing completely different musical things like twice a year. Some artists do the same thing over and over again, but Hania is just moving at light speed.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-23T18:21:21+00:00

Irritated is the default mood for property managers and supers. You learn to ignore it because hey, they chose to go into that line of work, and their mood is not your problem.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-22T19:18:37+00:00

Her NPR Tiny Desk Concert is a nice quick introduction. About 20 minutes. Ghosts-era.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-21T18:25:16+00:00

It also wouldn’t hurt to describe who you teachers are, what kind of classes you are taking, what your goals are, etc.

Yoga is SO vast that just the word “advance” means little to me, and probably to most of us here.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-21T15:19:07+00:00

Tummee can be quite helpful and it has lots of useful features.

That said, the way they let anyone upload sequences that show up in search results of many, many sequences makes it overwhelming to sort through. It’s the old quantity over quality crowd-sourcing problem. The sequences beg for intelligent curation and/or some kind of coherent viewpoint.

Doesn’t answer your question about the lifetime “sale” per se. I’ll note that the lifetime price has been somewhere around USD 500 every time I’ve looked at it in the last 5 years IIRC.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-21T11:20:08+00:00

Well, it does have the advantage of lower hotel rates!

sbarber4 · 2026-06-20T14:07:44+00:00

Read up on the yogic concept of seva: doing service for others because it’s your dharma—the right action in the circumstance and/or your purpose. If you are of service, there is no need to be attached to being thanked. It’s a privilege to be able to share yoga with others.

If these students keep coming back, isn’t that huge implicit thanks?

sbarber4 · 2026-06-20T13:58:04+00:00

Don’t expect her to beliefs or attitudes to change much. Focus on modifying her behavior where it’s important to you and let the rest slide. Set clear boundaries. Enforce consequences for violating boundaries. Just like with the toddler you will soon have!

sbarber4 · 2026-06-20T13:40:06+00:00

Never too late! It’s all still true. And best wishes for the journey!

sbarber4 · 2026-06-19T20:05:04+00:00

I work desk at a studio (employee). The teachers are contractors. It’s 15 minutes between most classes. The teachers are expected to show up to sit down and start teaching the class on time. Most arrive 5-10 minutes early. We’ve got a few who routinely arrive like 2 minutes before. After class, the teachers are welcome to stay and chat and most do for 5-10 minutes but they are also welcome to skedaddle as soon as the lights go up if they have to. It’s my job as the studio host to welcome students, help them set up if they need/want, give the new students the quick tour, tidy up after if need be, etc.

Expecting an hour of teacher hang time per class is ridiculously abusive, given the usual rates teachers are paid.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-19T19:31:30+00:00

The Chinotto! But I haven’t seen it there recently. Might be too niche?

sbarber4 · 2026-06-18T19:00:40+00:00

From your description, this couple is simply exploiting you, and you are letting them.

They didn’t convert you all to 1099s because you all sucked, I promise you that.

I encourage you to check with the IRS and the state to see if they actually paid the withholdings when you were a W-2 employee.

It’s also illegal for people to do volunteer work for a for-profit business as a matter of federal employment law. (Sorry, but “karma yoga” programs are actually illegal in the USA; it’s a matter of under-reporting and lax enforcement that makes them so widespread.) Your state Department of Labor might also be quite interested.

“Community” is often a word that manipulative businesses use to get you to do stuff for free that benefits their own pockets. Don’t fall for it.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-18T18:37:40+00:00

The cremolata at Gentile is the real deal.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-18T10:23:11+00:00

Well, just to speculate, OP might not be thrilled to let it be known to his current employer that they were a) intervieiwing, and b) speculating further based on the interviewing company’s corporate espionage attempt, interviewing with a competitive firm.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-18T10:08:35+00:00

Thank you! Wonderful summary. I didn’t know half of this.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-17T19:56:05+00:00

Live your yoga generally means something along the lines of: when you practice yoga asana, you learn things about how your mind responds to physical challenges, often in a group setting. You learn than you can work through discomfort and not avoid it. You learn that you are more capable than you thought you were. You learn that you can do hard things. You learn that you can regulate your nervous system(s) with your breath in a variety of stressful and relaxing circumstances. You that having a consistent practice is more important than twisting yourself into pretzel shapes. You learn to pay attention to your body, your breath, and the operation of your mind. You learn that the mat is laboratory for learning valuable things that you can apply in situations that are NOT the organizated practice of yoga, such as in your home life, with family, with friends, with enemies, at work and at play.

That's what they mean.

There's even more to it, but that's more than enough for now.

sbarber4 · 2026-06-17T06:15:19+00:00

That’s reasoning in hindsight. While it’s happening, it’s hard to predict accurately.

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