"I just got word from India that Sri K. Pattabhi Jois passed away this morning in Mysore after a year of declining health. He was just shy of his 94th birthday.

I was just speaking about his condition with Doug Swenson, Gary Kraftsow and others at Yoga Journal NYC on Saturday night.

My thoughts and best wishes go out to all my friends who's lives have been so deeply transformed by their association with Guruji."

What are some of your best memories with him? Please share them below in the comments field.

images courtesy of Marcus Simpson

Most of us extend compassion to our friends, family, and pets, he said, but what about the animals we eat? Dharma warned that eating a diet that contains animal flesh will cause the mind to be unsettled, making meditation more difficult.

Lucky for all of the NY conference attendees, vegetarian and vegan eateries are plentiful in the city. Of course, we had to test out a few.

Our favorites on this trip include Candle 79 on the Upper East Side, Zen Palate in the Theater District, and Lula's Sweet Apothecary in the East Village.

Want to take Dharma's advice but need a little help taking the first steps toward going veg? Get a free vegetarian starter kit.

What are your favorite ahimsic eating establishments in NYC?

It's hard to explain what separates a great class from a good one--there's an alchemy, an end result that's larger than the sum of its poses. So I won't try to explain, just give you a sampling of her wisdom from class today, which was a rich layer cake I'm still digesting:

- On getting us to relax some things for an easeful strength: "Be determined in your arms and your legs and your lungs, but don't be determined in your eyes or your tongue."

- A collapsed chest "causes density and contraction," she said. "When your chest is open, you'll feel beautiful inside and out."

- Because the mind mirrors the body and the body mirrors the mind, we can start with the body--for example, pulling the spine toward the sternum and setting the shoulders back can teach us to feel more confident and happy. I took away a rather hopeful message that we can fake it till we make it--since at least for me it's easier to shift my body than my mind. And if that can create a confidence-boosting spiral, yay.

- She told a story of asking a student to give the postures names for how they made her feel. She called Virbadrasana 1 "The Champion." Now I want to re-name asanas and see what happens.

- Backbending builds courage.

- Inversions and arm balances help you conquer fear.

- Looking downward can create a feeling of darkness, looking up toward the sky allows the brain to feel more positive.

- "All your yoga practice should help you create more and more sattva in your being."

- Oh, and a funny moment. While Patricia was adjusting a woman's shoulders in a Wheel demonstration, Rodney stepped in to assist, pulling the student's pelvis at the same time. "Savor this," said Patricia, of being adjusted by the two maestro yogis simultaneously. "This is a moment you won't forget." We all laughed.

Turns out Zero Balancing (ZB), developed by osteopathic M.D. Fritz Frederick Smith in the early 1970s, is about releasing energy in the bones to allow chi to flow optimally. The idea is this can help heal myriad ailments. A guy named Ben Fleisher worked on me and by the time he got to my feet I was in a galaxy far, far away. In a subtle, nervous-system-chilling good way. It felt like a combo of massage, cranio-sacral, and energy work. Just a 15-minute taste, but I'd love to check out the method more some time.

After, though, I felt a bit woozy (six hours of yoga minus food) so my practitioner, his teacher Michael Oruch, and a woman whose name I don't know (sorry!), all gently acupressured me till I felt better. They even made sure I got headed home OK. So very sweet. (I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I have to re-enter "real" NYC again.)

If you want to check out ZB, Ben has a practice in NYC: benfleischer.com. (And Michael, who teaches ZB around the world, is also a fine artist with amazing paintings--some based on the I Ching--on his site, here.)

So, what are Rodney Yee's Sacrum Secrets? Here's what I took away from the class:

1) We mostly don't think about the sacrum. But it's the "heart" of the skeletal system. The base from which all our structures sprout. Sacred.

2) You can start to feel the sacrum in downdog by pedaling your feet and paying attention to which way the triangular bone shifts.

3) The moment when 30 people simultaneously went "Ohhh" was when we finally "got" what he meant about going from updog into downdog by first engaging the legs, then the tailbone, then the sacrum. And pulling in the head and neck last. I think we all had no idea how good it would feel to go into it that way--it puts no stress on your neck and shoulders. If you had asked me though, I never would have known that I usually get into Adho Mukha with my head first. And apparently I'm not alone. Total "ah-ha" moment. Try it. Legs first, then tailbone, then sacrum, then the relaxed, dangling neck and head.

4) In poses like pigeon we tend to thrust our hips back with the leg that's stretched behind us. This throws the sacrum into a misaligned position. So instead, if you use the thrust to actually pull your sacrum forward, it makes each side level, with the bone square instead of one side pulled forward and the other back. This is really neat to play with.

5) You need to synchronize and correlate the movement of the shoulder blades and the sacrum, always.

6) When you move your sacrum, relax your jaw.

7) "Your legs should do the asanas," not your back, he told us. Then, "the sacrum is the conduit that brings the energy to your heart."

And the little marketplace thing here is one loaded with spiritually themed goodies. Gorgeous lotus jewelry from Clo and Liz; tie-dyed yoga pants from Shining Shakti that I might have to buy; hand-printed clothes in a riot of colors fro Victoria Keen. Plus my fave Dude Girl yoga clothes, Gaiam, Young Living Oils, tons of yoga books, and lots of Ganesha silk-screened others.

A bit ironic, as always, this spiritual shopping, but fun, and mostly from small business owners looking to make a life out of selling things they love, that mean something.

[Image by Marcus Simpson]