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In the heart of the Valley of Digital Distractions, mindfulness is the latest coin of the realm. "The speed at which information is coming at us can get overwhelming,'' says Google's (GOOG) Gopi Kallayil, a marketing manager for Google+ who also teaches a popular weekly yoga class for stressed-out Googlers. "I'm seeing more and more people in Silicon Valley moving to yoga as a centering, anchoring ritual because it gives them a respite from that relentless onslaught.''
From Google's "Optimize Your Life'' program that helps employees unplug from the digital grind, to the valley darling Asana, a Web-based productivity-services firm that lists "Mindfulness'' at the top of its corporate-values list, everyone's getting into the awareness-raising act. Deborah Burkman, who leads yoga retreats and "urban-wellness" programs for companies, has been teaching meditation at Twitter, Advertisement the microblogging behemoth that practically embodies the frenetic digital drill so many people are caught up in. "Twitter's really into this,'' she says. "There's a whole mindfulness program they're trying to build there. Like a lot of companies, they're concerned about the well-being of their employees and they're big believers in trying to have people be consciously connected.'' Burkman and others see the tech tsunami unleashed in recent years by the explosion of smartphones along with the social-networking "always-on'' phenomenon as a double-edged sword. "It's like we've created this Frankenstein, where all this incredible technology can either be used for good or can take over our lives,'' she says. "Companies like Twitter are having an active discussion about how we can use technology in a way that's helpful, but without suffering from its negative effects.'' Despite the recent buzz in the media about yoga sometimes causing injuries, the yoga trend seems to be increasing right alongside the rising digital din of our society. A recent study by Mediamark Research & Intelligence found that the 4.3 million Americans practicing yoga in 2001 had mushroomed to nearly 14 million last year. Kaitlin Quistgaard, editor in chief of San Francisco-based Yoga Journal, which is sponsoring the conference, said, "We saw a big boom in yoga practice at the onset of the recession, when people seemed to be looking for a way to take care of themselves in ways they hadn't done before. With so many distractions in our life, just taking 10 minutes to focus on your breath can be enough to reset your day.'' Jennifer Prugh, owner of Breathe Los Gatos yoga studio, has been teaching for 12 years and offers 82 classes a week to keep up with the growing demand by harried South Bay techies for inner peace. There's a downside, she says, to having so many of our waking hours sucked up by screen time on PCs, tablets or smartphones. "It's wonderful that we're all connected all the time, but it can also be horrible,'' says Prugh, many of whose clients are senior executives at local tech firms. "To be part of that virtual conversation is fantastic in some ways, but when you go back to alone time there's almost this guilt you feel, like you're missing something or not working hard enough.'' Christina Enneking, one of two dozen students in Prugh's yoga class on a recent morning, said: "The whole idea of moderation is lost as we get sucked into our smartphones.'' Dr. Amy Saltzman, a Menlo Park physician who teaches meditation as part of her holistic-medicine practice, calls yoga and mindfulness meditation "antidotes to Silicon Valleyitis. "In my medical practice,'' she says, "I see a lot of people who are extremely anxious because they're always leaning into the future, worrying about it and exhausted. It's that next-new-thing obsession that many in the valley suffer from. And with all that stimulation, we get rundown and end up all over the map.'' Facebook and Google, of course, have plenty of precedents when it comes to new technologies that seem to threaten to overwhelm us. Salon.com co-founder Scott Rosenberg, who's on the yoga conference panel Sunday called Digital Distractions and Your Practice, says many generations have had to cope with technological change. What's different now with the Internet and personal computing, he says, is the ubiquity of the firehose-blast of data. It's not as easy to unplug as those yoga videos might suggest. Marti Foster, a yoga therapist from San Jose who teaches at Santa Clara's Applied Signal Technology and other companies, says many of her high-tech students are practically being texted, tweeted and friended to death. "It's just chatter. And it's causing a lot of stress for people because it's so addictive.'' Yet despite the toll it's taking, Foster says "the minute they leave class, they roll up their yoga mats and check their status updates on Facebook.'' What's a Silicon Valley yoga instructor to do? "The only thing I can do is demand that for this one hour their phones are turned off,'' she says. "But even doing that is a big deal for some of my students. They say, 'But Marti, I'm expecting an important call.' '' Posted:
01/14/2012. Marti
Foster By Michelle Pollock It is going to speed up, so you're going to need to be able to slow down within yourself." It wasn't until Marti reached her teenage years did this begin to make sense. Today, after years of studying a variety of disciplines, traveling extensively, and transitioning from student to teacher and back again, Marti has fully embraced this wisdom. A native of Los Altos, California, Marti was born with thoracic scoliosis. At her father's suggestion, she began doing some yoga stretches, hoping to strengthen and straighten her spine. Through this simple yoga, she discovered her body had a natural fluidity, and she began studying ballet and jazz. Over a period of eight or nine years, her body continued to become less and less rigid, until she moved without restriction. Looking back, Marti feels incredibly grateful to have been exposed to yoga at such a formative age. "There is a natural form of healing that doesn't involve surgery," says Marti. She still has the proof of this healing, in the form of eight sets of x-rays that show the improvement in her spine. In talking about scoliosis, Marti is quick to acknowledge fellow teacher Elise Miller, who suffers from the same condition. Miller has recently put out a video and DVD on yoga for scoliosis, which Marti calls, "just fantastic". Marti's formal
training began in her early 20's, when she began studying with the world-renowned
Walt Baptiste in San Francisco. Although she later studied at Santa Barbara's
White Lotus Foundation, Marti considers this solo study with Baptiste to be her
most valuable training, providing her with a solid technical background in Iyengar
methodology. At Baptiste's urging, Marti began subbing at local studios while
working part-time in a corporate environment. A highly theatrical person, Marti
did not stay long at her nine-to-five desk job. "An artist," Marti laughs,
"just can't sit still!" She transitioned into teaching full-time, constantly
seeking out venues that were creative in nature. In 1991, Marti was extended an invitation to dance at Carnival in Brazil. While there, she noticed the way local musicians wandered out of their neighborhoods to play for the dancers in the street. Upon returning to the Bay Area, Marti decided to merge live music and yoga, and began teaching Tribal Yoga. Accompanied by a variety of talented local musicians, Tribal Yoga is a joyful combination of dance, yoga, meditation and movement. Marti also uses music to inspire her youngest students - fourth through sixth graders in the Palo Alto School District. Today's computer-savvy schoolchildren are developing carpel tunnel syndrome and repetitive stress injuries at shockingly young ages. Tuned in to these needs, Marti teaches a program every fall that focuses on specific stretches for the arms and hands. As anyone who has stood in front of a room of pre-adolescents can attest, this age group can be a tough sell. Marti explains how she won them over: "I brought in cool music, and I didn't call it yoga!" Continually looking for ways to expand her training, Marti recently completed a certificate in pre-natal yoga from San Francisco's Inyengar Institute. Marti's interest in pre-natal was sparked when she realized students in regular yoga classes were doing poses that were not appropriate for pregnant women, especially those in their second and third trimester. She also noticed women returning to class soon after giving birth, their weakened abdominal muscles barely able to hold them up. "This is an incredibly important part of our population", Marti says, "and I wanted to specialize in it. In addition to teaching, Marti now finds herself in the role of mentor and consultant to the new generation of yoga teachers. Her message to them is an important one. "I remind people that preservation is critically important. Let's practice what it really means to take care of ourselves so we're not depleted." She encourages yoga students of all levels to take responsibility for their own well-being. Marti flashes one of her infectious grins and shares some of her own advice: "Don't be shy - ask questions. Good teachers will love to share what they know." —Michelle Pollock
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