Andrea Marcum, U Studio Yoga strikingTHE YOGIS a OF HOLLYWOODpose Fame, fortune and fit go together in Los Angeles, where not to strive for the body beautiful is a sin. While most Hollywood exercise fads fizzle faster than a Kardashian marriage, the ancient art of yoga endures – albeit with pumping rock anthems and signature postures. Yoga devotee Emily Carr salutes the sun next to Tinseltown’s finest. PHOTOGRAPHY HUGH HAMILTON AUGUSt 2012 QANTAS 79 LOS ANGELES WELLBEING that continues today. Some of the best-known yoga students; while world-famous hot yoga guru SHIVA REA teachers call Los Angeles home, commanding high Bikram Choudhury has taught pop stars such as Exhale Center for fees as they travel the world like rock stars, teach- Madonna, Britney Spears and Beyoncé. Sacred Movement ing yoga to ever-increasing numbers of fans. Of course, most of Tinseltown’s A-listers prefer 245 South Main Street, Venice. Today, there are hundreds of yoga studios in the private classes, but some, such as Russell Brand (310) 450 7676. greater Los Angeles area, many of them attached and Miranda Kerr, have been seen taking the www.exhalespa.com to, or owned by, teachers almost as famous as their wildly popular classes taught by Gurmukh at www.shivarea.com celebrity devotees. Actor Golden Bridge, LA’s most With her California surfer- Robert Downey Jr sings “thE BEST-KNOWN renowned Kundalini girl looks, Shiva Rea changes the praises of teacher YOGA TEACHERS studio. Orlando Bloom the energy of a room just by Vinnie Marino, whose has been known to pull entering it. She is best known for style of yoga – Vinyasa Call LOS ANGELES up a mat at the Holly- popularising yoga Trance Dance, Flow – is set to thumping HOME, COMMANDING wood YMCA. an energetic and fluid style that rock music at Yoga HIGH FEES AS thEY For a drop-in class with incorporates dance moves and Works in Santa Monica. TRAVEL thE WORLD teachers of this calibre upbeat music with traditional While Downey Jr prefers LIKE ROCK StaRS” you can expect to pay asanas (postures). to take private lessons, about $US20. Without A native Californian, Rea the likes of Heather Graham, Kate Hudson, exception, all the teachers mentioned here travel spent a decade immersing herself David Duchovny, Jeremy Piven and Adrien Brody for weeks at a time to attend retreats and workshops in the Ashtanga school of yoga, have all been spotted posing in downward dog at around the globe, so it pays to check websites to but draws on many styles and Marino’s premises. make sure they are “at home”, and arrive early for philosophies in her classes, retreats Another high-profile teacher, Mandy Ingber, classes, which are almost always at full capacity. and teacher-training courses. counts Jennifer Aniston, Kate Beckinsale, Ricki Rea describes her style of Lake, Brooke Shields and Helen Hunt among her yoga as “Vinyasa Flow integrating the tantric bhakti roots of yoga, Krishnamacharya’s teachings and a universal quantum approach to the body”. The term vinyasa refers Marilyn Monroe in Life, 1948 to the alignment of movement and breath, as well as to the movements between each pose in a series. en iv p Y S em BIKRAM CHOUDHURY R ge e j A ; m S I Bikram Yoga World ge A Headquarters tty m I Suite 150, 11500 West Olympic tty on: ge Boulevard, Los Angeles. ist n (310) 854 5800. A on/ge R e www.bikramyoga.com if dati Love him or loathe him, Bikram oun F & jenn Choudhury is a powerful global R e bal Asana addicts B o brand. Born in India, Choudhury K (clockwise from ng I n founded the Yoga College of H above): Mandy dy n : jo Ingber with India, first in San Francisco, Ma hy Jennifer Aniston; ; HEN MaRILYN MONROE performed a series of yoga before arriving in the US. Known as “the first lady of yoga”, Devi’s p Helen Hunt; then in Beverly Hills in 1973. ra poses for a photo shoot with Life magazine in 1948, famous followers included Gloria Swanson, Robert Ryan, Greta dia Jeremy Piven The Bikram style of yoga is what og me T R and later claimed the exercises improved her legs, Garbo and Jennifer Jones. o Starbucks is to coffee, and what all H ppe A great franchises are founded on – H ollywood’sw nascent love affair with the ancient Indian discipline A star of Bombay cinema in the late 1920s before discovering yoga, n oe p S R : was thrust into the spotlight. Not by coincidence, it was also the year Devi was as colourful as her celebrity devotees. She continued to be T students know exactly what un that Monroe’s Latvian yoga teacher, Indra Devi, opened her own a major presence in LA throughout the 1960s and ’70s, and was close H they’re going to get each and every n mon en L time. With Bikram, that’s 26 poses studio in Hollywood. A student of the renowned Indian guru Sri to spiritual guru Sai Baba. As one of the first yoga teachers in the e H arily m Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, Devi had taught in India and China West to become a celebrity in her own right, she began a tradition & done in exactly the same order, 80 QANTAS AUGUST 2012 AUGUSt 2012 QANTAS 81 WELLBEING Andrea Marcum goes with the Vinyasa Flow (above and far left); U Studio Yoga class u Studio, a boutique affair that people right away from that.” fits just 33 mats. marcum teaches marcum can be booked for a Vinyasa Flow style of yoga, with group classes and private lessons. an emphasis on alignment. Her studio, a light-filled space on the GURMUKH fifth floor of an art deco building Golden Bridge, that affords a clear view of the 1357 North Highland Avenue, Hollywood sign to the north Los Angeles. (323) 936 4172. and downtown LA to the east, www.goldenbridgeyoga.com has become one of the top gurmukh Kaur Khalsa is the destinations for serious yogis co-founder and co-director in a room heated to 105°F (40.5°C) Rolls-Royce and waxing lyrical and yoginis in the know. of golden Bridge yoga, located and with 40 per cent humidity. about how great it is to have marcum says she likes to bring in the heart of Hollywood. Choudhury says the heat “softens” “made it” in America. But for people to yoga who might not be The American-born teacher the body in preparation for the sheer entertainment and a great predisposed to it, which is code began practising yoga in 1969 poses, and flushes away toxins. workout, a class with Choudhury for the fact that her classes are and has now been teaching Choudhury has attracted is an only-in-LA experience. physically punishing. “I’m known Kundalini yoga and meditation controversy for his legally for my notorious abdominal in Los Angeles and around the on ilt aggressive attempts to protect his ANDREA MARCUM sequence, but it goes much world for more than four decades. m ha style from imitators, despite freely deeper than that,” she says. “Kundalini is like the phD of U Studio Yoga H acknowledging that the poses are Fifth floor, 5410 Wilshire “It’s really about getting to a truth yoga,” says gurmukh. “people ug H : derived from the ancient Hatha Boulevard, Los Angeles. and becoming more comfortable often come to it after doing many hy p tradition of yoga. In person, he www.ustudioyoga.com with that truth. I think we can other disciplines and finding they ra og also bucks industry norms, driving At the opposite end of the turn our yoga into yet another want something more. It’s a yoga T o H around Los Angeles in a white spectrum is Andrea marcum’s distraction and I try to move that anyone can do, no matter p 82 QANTAS AUGUST 2012 WELLBEING LOS ANGELES ONLINE SHOP LIKE A staR Post-yoga workout, hit the shops with LA-based celebrity stylist Sophia Banks-Coloma’s guide at Bryan Kest limbers up qantas.com/travelinsider (above); at his Power Yoga class in Santa Monica how old or what shape they are in. meaghan Kennedy Townsend two hours of free parking with “people are realising that our Kundalini works to clear the mind (granddaughter of the late validation, so it’s popular with mental state is the largest factor of old patterns and when you clear Robert F Kennedy) won’t rub busy Hollywood types looking in our physical wellbeing,” says those patterns it gives you more your shoulders, though – she’ll to sweat it out between meetings. Kest. “That’s what the class creativity, less fear, better health. likely move them back towards discourse is about: reminding It also forms a community.” your shoulderblades into upward BRYAN KEST people to stay present, to be more like a one-stop wellness dog position, or adjust your hips Power Yoga Studio gentle, to think about powerful shop than a yoga studio, golden in triangle pose. West (studio A) stress-reducing qualities: calmness, Bridge also offers vegan food, Townsend’s up Dog Fitness is 1410 2nd Street, Santa Monica. gentleness, humility – all the stuff massage and osteopath in the heart of West Hollywood, Power Yoga Studio East we work on, on our yoga mats.” treatments, astrology readings meaning the clientele is young, (studio B), 522 Santa Monica Kest was the first to establish and even the odd celebrity beautiful and drenched in Boulevard, Santa Monica. a large following in LA with an sighting.