Nature and the Environment
A Greener Shade of Yoga
As “green” goes mainstream, the yoga community works to put ecological sustainability into practice.
By Natalya Podgorny
A few blocks inland from the beach at Santa Monica, the ocean breeze rustles through a bamboo grove and strikes a serene note of welcome on a wind chime in the shaded courtyard of Los Angeles’ first assertively eco-friendly yoga studio. Home Simply Yoga is a place apart from California’s booming commercial yoga mega-centers. Owners Gary and Melissa Margolin are pioneers in what’s now known as “green yoga.” With a commitment to maintaining a carbon handprint as close to neutral as possible, the Margolins opened Home Simply Yoga a year and a half ago, offering their Santa Monica community a range of Ashtanga-style classes alongside a healthy dose of ecological awareness.
Reverence for nature permeates every detail of their 1500-square-foot studio, from the reclaimed wood floor to the neatly rolled, certified-organic cotton towels in the bathroom. “When we decided that we wanted to open a yoga studio, there was no question that it had to be supportive of our natural environment and honoring of the earth,” explains Melissa, an interior designer specializing in sustainable design. Though the Margolins were trailblazers, Melissa reports that the complex process of designing, constructing, and running a green yoga studio has gone surprisingly smoothly. “It’s as if the universe wanted us to have a green studio,” Melissa says. “Whenever we were faced with an obstacle, a green solution presented itself.”
Hasn’t Yoga Always Respected Nature?
“I don’t know how to separate ‘green yoga’ from yoga,” Gary says. With the Green Revolution so widely touted in news media and advertising, “green yoga” seems almost redundant. “For us, ahimsa, or non-violence, means living peacefully and in harmony with the environment that sustains our lives,” he says.
Traditionally, yoga was practiced on a mud floor or outdoors—by riverbanks, in forests, in mountain caves. The ancient masters carefully observed and honored the natural world; in their view, nature was an extension of the Divine Self that resides within us all. Here in the West, as yoga practice becomes less traditional and more profit-oriented—and as it has moved indoors to studios, strip malls, and gyms—the link between yoga and nature has become less apparent.
In 2004, this painful disconnect motivated Kripalu-certified teacher and yogic scholar Laura Cornell to found the Green Yoga Association (GYA) “dedicated to fostering ecological consciousness, reverence and action in the yoga community.” Through its website (greenyoga.org), newsletters, and conferences, the nonprofit raises awareness about yoga’s ecological roots and philosophy, and shows how practitioners can become “conscious consumers.” The organization held its second Green Yoga Conference, in Watsonville, California, in May. The lectures and workshops sent a ripple of consciousness throughout the community. “People were deeply inspired,” Cornell says, “and when they went home, they were empowered to speak out—on behalf of the earth and from a yogic foundation.”
The Collective Mission
GYA has launched a pilot program to help studio owners green their businesses. Another program trains teachers to bring green yoga into their classes and become leaders in their communities. GYA urges yoga practitioners to look beyond the marketing trendiness of today’s fitness industry and be guided instead by fundamental yogic precepts like ahimsa (non-harming) and aparigraha (non-grasping), and what Cornell calls “the more mystical, more reverential aspects of yoga.”
A plaque in the welcome area of Gary and Melissa’s Home Simply Yoga states that the studio is a GYA founding member. The business shares ideas and sustainable practices with other eco-friendly studios across the country through monthly conferences. The pooled wisdom will be shared online early next year as the Green Studios Handbook.
The collective mission is bigger in scope than just using non-toxic paint or selling eco-mats. “As studio owners, we have a responsibility to the greater good of society,” says Pam Bliss, owner of the green YogAsylum in Brookfield, Wisconsin. “We have the opportunity to make a big impact on people who come through the studio door, to help them understand and experience the essence of what yoga means, and to inspire them to ask the question, ‘Do I want to touch my toes, or do I want to touch the world?’”
Home Simply Yoga’s Ecology
For Melissa and Gary, it is both duty and privilege to share their principles and tips. Gary explains their zero-carbon handprint philosophy: “We looked for a space that could be modified as little as possible, so as not to disrupt things already in existence.
“Let’s say I buy a house and decide I want to have a green home, so I just tear the existing house down and send it off to a landfill, then rebuild,” he says. “The carbon handprint of the work I’ve done is so far negative, it’s going to be generations before I can get it back to neutral.”
When they found the Santa Monica space, it presented challenges. The five-sided main practice space looked like a designer’s nightmare, but Melissa and Gary came to see it as a “metaphor for giving people room to grow, as opposed to putting them in a box.” Embracing the odd shape, Melissa allowed it to inform design elements like color. The natural light coming from one side of the room bathed three of the walls, so she chose a serene green there, with a warm brown for the two cooler walls.
The shining star of Home Simply Yoga is its beautiful mahogany floor, reclaimed from a local Armani Exchange store. Mahogany may not be the first thing that comes to mind when considering sustainable flooring materials, but in fact, “the hardwood had already been cut and was being removed from this other facility, and reclaiming has the smallest carbon handprint—even smaller than going off and buying a bamboo floor from a forest in Brazil somewhere and having it shipped to you,” Gary explains.
Beneath the mahogany, the Margolins wanted radiant floor heat to provide a comfortable, even temperature and natural ventilation. Such a heating system is more energy efficient than forced-air systems, and it’s better for personal health because it decreases mold, dust particles, and allergens.
The challenge was figuring out what to do with the existing concrete floor. “Conventional technique would have had us jackhammer that concrete out; it would have been hauled away, taken to a landfill,” Gary says. “We developed a method where we actually put the tubes and the hardwood over the concrete.” Gary and Melissa attribute the deep quality of relaxation in shavasana (corpse pose) that students frequently report to the even warmth of the mahogany floor.
Many other fixtures and furniture are reclaimed. The cubbies in the retail area and the practice room came from the same Armani Exchange store. The swiveling stools in the changing room are all reclaimed, too.The smooth limestone altar was also salvaged. While Melissa was sitting in traffic two days before the studio opening, “two gentlemen from a church thrift store put out this stone corner,” she says, “so I jumped out and put it in the back of my truck.
“It fit perfectly just where I had wanted something natural, something stone. Truly, things just came to us the way they were supposed to. It was like a poem.” The only fixture that was newly purchased and created is the check-in countertop, made of PaperStone—a material composed of post-consumer recycled paper and natural resin compressed under pressure. Melissa says, “The contractor had never used PaperStone before, and was so excited by the product that he has introduced it into a number of his projects since.” Several students have consulted the Margolins when renovating their homes; a few have even chosen the brand of non-toxic paint used on the walls of the studio. “Many people don’t know about VOCs [volatile organic compounds, a big factor in indoor air pollution], or how the environments in which they’re spending time are bombarding them with off-gases and various particles,” Melissa points out. She admits that taking on the role of educator felt presumptuous at first, but has become effortless.
A little sign in the bathroom reads: “We use organic cotton hand towels to preserve our forests.” Alicia Johnson, who teaches at Home Simply Yoga and also chooses to practice there regularly, says, “Every detail reminds you that you’re not just here to take a class and run out—but you really need to tread a little bit lighter, a little bit softer on the environment. It sets the pace for the rest of your day. I don’t even use the paper towels at work anymore.”
Gary, who was a corporate finance lawyer and a senior executive at a Fortune 250 media company before opening a yoga studio, believes in consumer power. “If the individuals vote with their dollar, they are saying, ‘This is important to us and we’ll support it,’ and then the businesses and big companies have to evolve in order to survive. The key is to make sure that every time you make a choice, it’s a conscious choice and you consider the earth.”
The Margolins, who live ten minutes from the studio and either bike or walk to work every day, discourage students from driving a car to class by offering incentives for bicycling, car pooling, and taking the bus. Students earn “eco-credits” every time they use an alternate form of transport, and these are redeemable as discounts on class packages. Gary is even looking into buying monthly carbon offsets to compensate for the rest of the students’ gas-guzzling.
Home Simply Yoga currently hosts educational classes with local environmental experts. The Margolins are creating a virtual community as well, with a website full of resources, links, and information about eco-sustainability, and a newsletter with monthly tips for greening your practice as well as your home.
“We’re committed to using our studio to give people small bits of knowledge that they can chew on and make choices with. People think you have to make these huge leaps, and they don’t realize how powerful the simple little choices are,” Melissa says. “A yoga studio just happens to be a kind and gentle place to create awareness.”
Natalya Podgorny is the editor of Yoga+ and is currently studying at the Himalayan Institute.
Where to Go: Green Gear & Info
• Green Home Environmental Products
The longest running online environmental store and resource center has sustainable solutions for everything from bath to office.
• Green Building Supply
Find products for home or business greening projects—from non-toxic sealers to natural fiber carpets.
• Barefoot Yoga Co.
Makers of bamboo yoga blocks, this online boutique also carries organic cotton and hemp clothing and other eco-conscious yoga props and accessories.
• Prana
Business practices like supporting wind power through their Natural Power Initiative make the clothes feel even better—on both body and earth. Prana continues to expand its line of organic cotton apparel and explores other natural fibers and recycled materials.
September/October 2007
Yoga+ magazine