hippie, yogi, farmer?
the tis the season post inspired this crazy video:
and, just to give props where props need to be given (thank you yogadork and Mrs. Yogi Oki Doki):
Max Thomas (a/k/a Yogi Oki Doki) is one of California’s most beloved and respected yoga teachers. He was the director of the Center for Yoga in L.A. for four years in the early `80s before yoga became hip and ubiquitous. He has taught teacher training courses at the White Lotus Foundation in Santa Barbara, and in his own studios in L.A., Topanga and currently in Yucca Valley, CA. He has worked gratis for HIV patients in West L.A., and for schizophrenic teenagers at UCLA Medical Center. He was one of the first yoga teachers to acknowledge that if children were taught yoga we would be living in a much saner world.
Now, on a badly edited YouTube clip that has received close to a quarter of a million hits and 1,100 comments in 6 days (”Weird Hippie Yoga Farmers”) Max has been derided in every way imaginable, called “creepy” and “a pedophile.” One viewer referred to one of the beautiful children he was teaching as “that little n***.” I know that the mental capacity of most of these people makes Fox News viewers seems like Rhodes Scholars, but it would be nice to see a little support from the yoga community for a fellow teacher, one who has dedicated the last 35 years of his life to bringing yoga to the world.
so, enjoy, and leave a positive comment :)
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I watched the clip and besides the fact that it is straight out of the 80’s I don’t really understand where the negativity is coming from.
It seems pretty straight forward- if you want to keep kids engaged you have to make it fun and silly, especially for young children. Kids want to move around so keeping them on their mats and engaged in the practice takes a special commitment and talent. It seems, besides the video being cheesy, that Max Thomas is successfully achieving that.