Yoga Chandra in the News – Courtesy of Island News:
The Insider’s Outing at Yoga Chandra with Kim Cech By Josefina Blanc
We know there are instructors, then there are teachers, and then there are masters. I once stumbled upon a master almost by complete accident in New York City, while trying to do some yoga for the first time. I didn’t know anything about it, and I mean nothing. In New York City you often have no idea whether you are looking at a dumpster or a masterpiece. Well, I was unknowingly looking at a masterpiece when I found Dharma Mittra Yoga Center through a couple of friends, but it did look more like a dumpster at first: a totally unassuming, wall-to-wall ugly carpeting yoga studio on 3rd Avenue.
That first day, I had no idea I had just been instructed by one of a handful, literally, of master yogis in the United States. I found it hard to believe that a master, as my friends described had such a crappy, humble little place. But I was hooked.
Dharma Mittra had a way of teaching that was unlike anything I had experienced. He didn’t explain anything, he didn’t talk much –although he is religious and does talk about God and steamed vegetables a bunch- he just did things that you followed until you made them your own. He always begun class with wildly original –to me- breathing exercises. In his purification class, breathing and chanting was a long routine, and my body never failed to do things it had never done before, with ease I cannot explain.
What I learned from him went well beyond yoga. I remembered what it’s like to learn ANYTHING from a truly inspired human being who has committed his life to a craft or a path, and who also happens to have extraordinary talent in that particular thing they do. It enriched and reinforced the way I act to this day. Life is too short, so you have to strive to find the best, from groceries to carpenters, from schools to company, for a better chance at changing yourself and the world around you.
I have been thinking about all of this because I stumbled upon a different kind of yoga teacher here in Beaufort. She is an unassuming person who has lived an almost completely underground existence in the Lowcountry, with the exception of her business, a yoga studio at the Lady’s Island Marina, for some 15 years now. Almost every Thai masseuse, healer, artist, shaman, belly dancer and yoga instructor in Beaufort has gone through her studio.
Kim Cech is not your average southerner, but she is a true South Carolinian. She has the strange quality of being made of a steely yet gentle character, and that kind of magic that can only be found in these locals who are committed to their truth, their identity and the evolution of the spirit and the earth, in spite of everything around them telling them about progress and the markets being the only way into the future.
She works with elemental and human nature. She carries out her yoga practice as a lifestyle, not as an isolated event or a midlife crisis remedy (like I do sometimes); she offers it to people and to hidden spots in Hunting Island’s sandy beaches, to help nature heal from this awful oil spill.
She is not afraid of what she understands, and she is a relentless activist of light, no matter how deep her encounters with darkness may be. Needless to say, I am impressed. Impressed like I was with Dharma Mittra a decade ago. And I am delighted to get to taste a piece of this pie, where the most unusual and the most typical of Beaufortonians gather for a stretch, a breath, and a little or a lot of self-made healing.
Today, Dharma Mittra is a true yoga celebrity, but he remains unchanged. Over the years, I have seen his disciples build his business for him. First came the asana book with 600+ poses, then the DVD classes, the new website, Vogue. He never had much of a business instinct –as his choice of carpeting showed!
So, sometimes it is up to us, the students, to give our teachers credit. There are still businesses in South Carolina that have been built upon this special kind of foundation over years; Yoga Chandra Center is one of them. This jewel by the bay is a stroll away, with open doors, open hearts and absolutely no judgments, just for us. And that is one more thing to love about Beaufort.