Princeton yoga center is celebrating its 10th year
By: Gwen McNamara
In the last 10 years, yoga has exploded into mainstream culture. There are videos, books and classes in the gym. Yoga apparel is "cool" and "hip" as celebrity practitioners like Madonna and Nicolas Cage only add to the hype.
All this exposure means more people are aware of and practicing yoga, which is a good thing, according to Deborah Metzger, founder and director of the Princeton Center for Yoga & Health (PCYH) in Montgomery.
"Yoga isn’t just for health nuts anymore," she says. "A greater number and different types of people are interested in yoga."
But what troubles Ms. Metzger is that as more people experience yoga in the gym, or through the latest video, they may also be misunderstanding what yoga is really all about.
"Yoga is a healing practice and that’s what I find most exciting," Ms. Metzger says. "It’s not just for exercise, or to help fix your bad hair or big butt. Yoga in all its richness is about so much more it’s about breathing technique, enlivening the spine, meditative practice and diet really, your whole lifestyle."
Now celebrating PCYH’s 10th anniversary, Ms. Metzger aims to bring this message front and center.
Throughout September and into October, PCYH recently named one of the "Top 5 Traditional New Jersey Yoga Studios" by New Jersey Life magazine will be offering a number of special events and programs, in addition to its usual variety of yoga, meditation and holistic lifestyle classes and workshops.
"Our mission is to provide a warm, comfortable and inviting environment to explore different paths to health, healing and personal growth," Ms. Metzger says. "And we’re giving people a number of ways to discover what’s right for them."
Visitors to PCYH can explore everything from a meditative drawing series and the rhythm of drum circles, to the mystic powers of medium Trish Woods and the folk music talents of David Brahinsky and Friends.
PCYH’s well-trained yoga teachers will also be offering more than 40 yoga classes each week from the most gentle classes, such as "Ageless Yoga," which uses chairs for many of the yoga positions, to the most vigorous, like "Power Yoga" or "Hot Yoga," where the room is heated up to close to 100 degrees. There’ll even be a "Free Classes for New Visitors Week" from Nov. 6 to 11.
Ms. Metzger first opened PCYH on Sept. 30, 1996, in a one-studio location in Montgomery Commons about 1 mile from the center’s current home in the Montgomery Professional Center on Vreeland Drive. PCYH moved into its current digs four years ago, greatly increasing the amount of space for programs and classes.
Ms. Metzger originally started out as a "one-woman show" teaching yoga classes throughout Princeton.
"I’d schlep from place to place teaching classes all over, in places like the Arts Council and what is now the New York Sport Club in the Princeton Shopping Center," she says. "It made for some interesting experiences."
At the sports club, for example, her class was right next to the men’s locker room and some rather loud, often inappropriate, conversations could easily be overheard.
"We also had to deal with loud rock music from a martial arts class in one place and the Arts Council would sometimes double-book space, which made life interesting," she adds.
The unpredictable environments, and the fact that she was carrying around four Army-sized duffle bags of mats and other yoga necessities, spurred her to find a permanent home for yoga in Princeton.
Her own passion for yoga started after she discovered the practice’s healing potential first hand.
Diagnosed with asthma after a severe bout of pnemonia around the time she was pregnant with her second son, Ms. Metzger was left taking a range of medications, both pills and an inhaler, to treat the problem. Dissatisfied with the idea that she’d be stuck with asthma the rest of her life, she decided to explore alternative therapies and found the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Mass., a world-renowned yoga education, practice and training center.
There she learned about the benefits of yoga and lifestyle change.
"There were people there a lot sicker than I was, but with yoga, diet, support and exercise you really learned how your body was telling you that something was wrong," Ms. Metzger says. "First it’ll whisper, and then get louder, and louder until it’s finally screaming. For me it was my lungs that let me know.
"A few years after I found yoga I became a teacher, teaching off and on, and was off all my medications," she continues.
In 1991 she became serious about teaching and went back to the Kripalu Center to take additional classes. She now has 500 hours of training under her belt.
Ms. Metzger firmly believes that yoga teachers need more than a quick basic-training session to properly deliver a quality yoga class.
"Another symptom of yoga’s popularity is that more locations are looking for yoga instructors and are offering quick two- or three-hour training sessions," she says.
All yoga teachers at PCYH have at least 200 hours of training. Ms. Metzger encourages people to check out whether their yoga teacher is a registered yoga instructor, through organizations like Yoga Alliance, the most prominent national registry of yoga teachers.
"Being registered means you’ve completed 200 hours of training and are proficient in your knowledge of physiology, anatomy, yoga philosophy, etc.," she says. "Some programs require you to continue your education to stay registered. Not everyone who’s registered will be a great yoga teacher, just like not all doctors are great doctors, but it’s one way to verify the level of training they’ve received."
Ms. Metzger is hopeful that ultimately yoga’s popularity will continue and that through the efforts of places like PCYH its real message will shine through all the hype.
"There are great physical benefits to yoga, but that’s not all it’s about," she says. "It’s about finding that connection to yourself, enhancing the union of mind, body and spirit."
On Saturday, Sept. 30, the PYCH will mark its 10th year with "A Sacred Celebration" that will begin at 3 p.m. and last "until we’re done." Lots of events will be offered, culminating in an outdoor fire ceremony at 5:30 p.m., a potluck dinner at 6 p.m. and kirtan chanting and music-making at 8:15 p.m. A $25 donation will be requested.
For more information about PCYH, visit www.princetonyoga.com.