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Well, happy Groundhog Day friends. Congrats to the Steelers fans and condolences to the Cards. We didn’t see much yoga going on, but it was an intense game.

And now your Goundhog Day news…

NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg was bit while trying to lure the little bugger out with snacks, but Chuck G. Hogg preferred his finger instead. In response:

“Let me say this: For security reasons, there’s a limit to what I can say, but I think it is fair that whenever the people of Staten Island are at risk, the mayor is willing to put himself at risk, his physical well-being in harm’s way, to protect them,” Mayor Bloomberg said.

He added, “Given the heightened response against terrorism, and clearly in this case a terrorist rodent who could very well have been trained by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, I’m not at liberty to say any more than that.”

If you didn’t know, Bloomy has quite the sense of humor.

PS. Chuck says an early spring is coming, but Punxsutawney Phil says 6 more weeks of winter. With snow in the forecast we’re going with Phil on this one, even though it’ s all bollocks anyway! Ahh, back to hibernation.

Like us, at first thought you might assume yoga to be the perfect activity/treatment for the incarcerated. Hey we’ve never been to jail but we’ve see Shawshank Redemption! And can imagine it’s pretty stressful in there, being locked up and all. A little yoga would do just the trick to ease the angst and perhaps inspire some good habits. And with all these prisoners finding Jesus in jail, why not yoga?

Welp, what we forget is that with yoga, and deep breathing, comes the uprooting of deep emotions and psychological locks that had previously been tucked away, deep in the caverns of our mind, and our muscles. Yes, there is crying in yoga. Cursing too, dammit! You could say it’s a bit like  “ex-er-cising the demons”.  Are jails prepared to handle inmates’ emotions unleashed?

Right now yoga is actually a bone of contention in recent discussions over an $8 billion CA state prison health reform plan, where a proposed yoga space is argued as either necessary for mental health requirements or a waste of money. Perhaps not helping the case is an experiment held in a Norwegian high-security jail a couple of years ago which produced surprisingly mixed results with negatives being “agitation, aggression, irritability, trouble sleeping and mental confusion.” The program was canned.

And then… there’s the Prison Yoga Project, their mission:

“to expand the practice of Hatha Yoga and Mindfulness Meditation to prisons and rehabilitation facilities, and to provide training for Yoga instructors interested in teaching to at-risk populations in prisons, residential rehabilitation facilities, and community programs.”

That teaching bit is something special – prison yoga students probably aren’t your easiest crowd. Special skills are a plus.

The Art of Living is another non-profit org seeking to promote peace within cell block walls. You can watch a BBC video report on their positive influence in a maximum security prison in South Africa.

Jails aren’t full of cookie cutter criminals, and maybe not every crook can handle the transformative affects of yoga, so it’s only sensible to adapt programs to certain cases. The “rehabilitation” attempt seems solid, and addiction is probably a good place to start.

Also, get those poor inmates some decent $90 lululemon pants for crying out loud! What are we animals?

Making people late for work, inciting pneumonia, embittering local businesses, disrupting the dead, all in a day’s work at Lululemon. But all they wanted was to say thank you!

If you made it out to the Niagara Falls warehouse sale this past weekend, we hope you felt the warmth from the bouncing staff – educators?- (and the booze) because there was a strict “no coats / no bags” policy in the store, which had people ditching their outer layers in their cars and booking it for the entrance in single digit temperatures. Also, since the prices dropped every day we hope you just made camp outside and stayed the whole weekend to mooch and make the most of it. Word is they had washrooms – you could certainly do with a sink bath for a few days, right?

So was the trip worth it? One lulu duo said they figured to save $400 trekking to the sale instead of spending the cash at their nearest retail store. Well that’s a lot of money, but how much do these lollies spend on yoga clothes in the first place? Cripes!

Early reports have declared the event a success, even if at the expense of neighboring businesses, including a funeral parlor, and people trying to deal with lemmings traffic:

…the popularity of Lululemon’s sale has left other businesses bitter. Existing businesses had to fight to preserve parking spaces for their own customers and had shipments disrupted by traffic for the sale.

“They drive us crazy. They’re taking all the spots,” said Basha Mahmoud, working the cash register at the Busy Bee convenience store. If parking is an obstacle, people will bypass his store, he said.

The Hetherington and Deans funeral home placed orange pylons on the street to reserve some parking for its customers.

Sheesh, some people just can’t understand greatness. And golly, didn’t they realize this sale was a special “reward” for the area’s loyal loonies lulus?

“The reason we came to this community is because we truly wanted to say thank you,” says Carmen Ip, regional community manager for the Greater Toronto Area.

Well put Carmen. Don’t pay any attention to those goal-less souls.

So were you there? How were the world record lines? Did the top spender beat $3000?? Did you get toasted on the free wine and blow your child’s college tuition on a yoga bra? We want to know! Send us your stories. yogadork@gmail.com

[Niagara Falls Review]

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