It's not something you'd normally worry about when going to a yoga class, that your little neighborhood yoga studio might close or be bought up by a larger company. But this just happened in my neighborhood, where a local yoga chain bought up a standalone studio nearby. With no warning. It's quite disconcerting to walk into what was a familiar and cozy environment to a redecorated lobby with a new logo in front. 

After years of people writing letters to the editor asking Yoga Journal to stop being so ageist and monochromatic in their choice of (ugh) yoga models, Yoga Journal may be getting the hint. I noticed they had a black woman on a recent cover, and a friend noticed that they actually had an older woman without a perfect body as the demonstrator in one of their inside spreads. I hope they are getting the message that we women yogis do not need to see pictures of perfect female bodies in order to want to buy a magazine. We are more evolved than that.

I was trying out a new yoga class the other night, and the teacher started the class off by apologizing for the substitute who'd ran her class the week before. See, one person had given feedback that he didn't like the sub very much, so she felt somehow this was important to announce to the class and apologize because she had not been able to "hand pick" the sub.

There are many ways to age, and in my observation, people tend to age in the following ways:

1) They try to ignore their aging, and pretend they are still young even when they aren't.

2) They throw their hands and just "give up" and totally let themselves go.

3) They age gracefully, with acceptance, and take good care of themselves at the same time.

Of course, not everyone is going to fit into those categories. But I've been observing lately that a lot of people tend towards either 1 or 2. They'll either go into a bit of denial and try to Botox their way out of aging, or they'll just quit bothering and let themselves get "old and fat."

Somewhere in between is that happy middle of aging with grace. As I'm only newly aging and in my early 40s, I hope that I can find that middle ground. Still, I find myself wavering between wanting to push my body and taking better care of it...and yes, it's true, you do start feeling more "aches and pains" after 40.

I do want my yoga to be challenging, but a bit more gentle. And I'm less and less interested in doing yoga to "look good" or master the perfect expression of a pose, versus just doing enough to keep my body in good shape and healthy.

Every year, there's a day of yoga smack dab in the midst of Times Square. But does it actually help the cause of yoga? It is good PR? Or does it cause a yoga backlash?

Yahoo comments tend to be the bottom of the barrel, but they do provide an interesting window into the minds of Americans. The reaction to the yoga event on this Yahoo article was predominantly negative. Comments ranged from the annoyed to the political.