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File photo: A yoga teacher at Facebook was recently fire from her position.

The first pose for students of yoga instructor Alice Van Ness: putting their cell phones in the off position.

But after a Facebook employee snuck in some phone time in between downward dog poses and Van Ness expressed her displeasure, the yoga teacher is now in the fired position.

Van Ness received a termination notice from Plus One Health Management, which provided yoga classes on the Facebook campus, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. She was fired because "saying 'no' to Facebook employees is a no-no," the newspaper reported.

Van Ness begins every class -- at Facebook or anywhere else -- by asking students to turn off technology and focus on the yoga for the duration of the class. The offending student was asked to turn off her phone but was tuned into her device during class. Van Ness "shot her a look," the newspaper reported, but the student later complained.

The firing cost Van Ness a yoga teaching position at Cisco, the newspaper reported. She had also asked a Cisco employee not to take a photo during class.

Can tech employees be asked to tune out of technology during yoga classes -- and if so, can they be expected to listen? The jury's still out. But so is Van Ness.

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Yoga Teacher at Facebook Fired For Smartphone Ban

A yoga teacher at Facebook says she was fired after she objected to a company employee using her cell phone in class.

How are you supposed to do this while checking your cell phone?

Yoga is about relaxation. It's about forgetting the corporate world and focusing on the corporeal world.

It's not about peering down at your cell phone and, say, updating your status or replying to an email.

Yet word reaches me of disturbing circumstances that appear to have occurred during a yoga class at Facebook.

You didn't think Facebook employees had time for yoga? Oh, come. They don't work that hard there. They're open, spiritual beings, don't forget. Well, mostly.

As the San Francisco Chronicle tells it, Alice Van Ness is a yoga instructor contracted to lead classes at Facebook's Fitness Center in Menlo Park. Or rather, was.

She has a principle in her teachings, one that is embraced by theaters, churches and libraries the world over: please turn off your cell phone.

It seems, though, that one Facebook employee couldn't quite stretch to this stricture. Indeed, she allegedly took her phone out at the beginning of the class and then again half way through.

Van Ness claims in a blog post that she offered a stern look of disapproval. No words, not even a hiss.

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Facebook yoga teacher objects to cell phone, gets fired

By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune Published: July 11, 2012 Updated: July 11, 2012 - 12:00 AM

When yoga studio owner Francine Messano first organized "Yoga in the Park," a free one-hour class Sundays in Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, the event drew about 10 people.

That was about two years ago, and momentum has been building gradually through word of mouth. Now, roughly 150 people show up rain or shine well, unless there's a tropical storm.

Classes begin at 6 p.m. Sundays. Attendees stretch their hamstrings and quadriceps, rotating hips out, relaxing necks, rotating upper bodies.

Their view: Tampa's signature park, the Hillsborough River and the minarets atop Plant Hall. Everyone loves the location, Messano said.

"Looking up at the sky, there's something powerful with just moving with the energy of nature," she said.

Added Melissa Carroll, who typically teaches the class: "It takes yoga out of its typical realm in the studio and certainly makes it more accessible to people."

The class is open to people of all ages and skill levels. Sometimes children participate in poses. Sometimes people in their 80s will give yoga a shot.

"People don't feel intimidated," said Messano, who runs Yoga Downtown Tampa at 206 E. Cass St.

Ellen Dominic of Riverside Heights and her husband came for a recent class. Dominic said it was her sixth yoga class in the park.

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Yoga enthusiasts take poses to the park

A yoga instructor reportedly lost her job teaching classes on Facebook's campus, because of her overly "strict" policy of insisting that students not use cellphoneswhile trying to stretch.

According the San Francisco Chronicle, until last monthAlice Van Ness worked for a "fitness contractor" teaching yoga classes to employees at Silicon Valley tech companies. She says that during a recent class on Facebook's Menlo Park campus, a Facebooker stretching in the middle of front row picked up her cellphone halfway through the class, even after the entire class was asked to turn them off at the beginning. Van Ness says that she didn't even admonish the student, but merely shot her a dirty look. After class, the students still complained to her bosses and two weeks later Van Ness was fired.

The company that contracted her said in her termination notice that it was a "pattern of strict behavior" that led to the dismissal, including aseparateincident when she asked a Cisco employee not to take photographs of a class in session. (She's a regular Professor Snape.) Thecompanybasicallyadmits that their goal is "to say yes wheneverpossible," which means clients can do whatever they want including ignoring the entire point of a yoga class as long they're paying for it.

Van Ness decided not to fight for her job after realizing that teaching tech people to relax is essentially an, um ... exercise in futility. People who take their cellphones into a yoga class don't want to be disconnected for even an hour and the people of Silicon Valley in particular are big fans of not playing by "the rules." If they want to check email while trying to pull off a warrior pose, Van Ness says that's their business from now on:

"The culture of these places is to let them do whatever they want," she said. "And I'm just not really OK withanarchy."

Image by Poulson's Photographyvia Shutterstock

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at dashiell at dashiellbennett dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.

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Yoga Teacher Fired for Wanting Facebook Employee to Turn Off Her Phone

When the former owner of a yoga studio in Powell pulled out recently, yoga teachers and students decided to combine their efforts to keep the studio operating.

Under its new name, the Yoga Center now is a cooperative venture spearheaded by five certified yoga instructors and eight students at the center.

A grand opening will take place at 5 p.m. Friday at the center, located 163 N. Clark St.

The students stepped up and wanted to keep it open, said Helena DeFina, one of the teachers at the center. We have each agreed to pay a certain amount each month to keep it open ... Its been a breath of new life.

They would like to extend that concept to make it a community-owned center. Theyre making it easy; anyone interested can join the center for $5. The first class is free; after that, classes cost $7 each, or $50 for 30 days of unlimited classes.

The center offers a pleasant, relaxing environment in which teachers and students can tune out the world while they focus on body, breath and mind.

To me, yoga brings in the breathing element, and that just sort of separates it from regular exercises, said Rowene Weems, one of the eight students who spearheaded the partnership.

Yoga is not a religion; its a system of health, DeFina said.

Its not just physical, she said. Whatever helps you calm the mind is what you need. (The Yoga Center) is an environment to help put you in the right place.

Thats why it was so important to keep the center open, she said.

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Yoga Center re-opens as community partnership

We've seen it many times before: A yoga teacher, after six months or six years, decides to give the gift of yoga to an unserved or underserved community. She or he sets up a non-profit organization to use yoga and mindfulness to help one or more of these groups become a healthy and resilient community. That is how the Give Back Yoga Foundation (www.givebackyoga.org) got started, with a phone call in 2007 among Beryl Bender Birch, her administrative assistant Lori Klein, and me, her student.

Beryl has had much experience giving back: Her teacher training program at The Hard and The Soft Yoga Institute she founded and directs includes a requirement to initiate a give back project. At the time I was a manager at the World Bank looking for a way to combine my experience in two decades of international development work with my desire to show appreciation for my yoga teachers who had given me so many gifts as I struggled with the stress of my work. The phone call led to the creation of a new non-profit organization to address the institute's service project requirement.

There are now more than 125 community-based organizations in this country dedicated to outreach through yoga and mindfulness to communities of abused women, prisoners, at-risk children and teens, veterans, cancer patients, and the homeless. At present, indications are that all these organizations combined serve 150,000 to 200,000 people. This is reason for celebration, as well as motivation to ask the following questions, which provided much of the motivation for the first annual Yoga Service Conference held at the Omega Institute campus in Rhinebeck, N.Y.:

How can we support and expand the work and good will of these worthy organizations? Can we find a way for some or all of them to work more closely together to enhance the reach and work of all? Can we find a way to train more yoga teachers so that they can serve their own communities with cultural competence and linguistic sensitivity? In other words, can we extend our reach by working together to serve more people every week in cost-effective programs?

While the numbers served now are impressive, given the talent and energy of the teachers working in these organizations, this number could be increased many-fold if more yoga teachers and yoga therapists came out of their studios and offices and made the practices of yoga and mindfulness accessible to vulnerable populations. I am keenly aware of the service commitments of these organizations and teachers and have enormous respect for them. They bring new perspectives in working with social service organizations, and they serve endlessly, often with ample room for fun. Some organizations, like Yoga Activist, believe yoga is an urban survival skill and work hard to keep it accessible to everyone. These organizations and faculty represent yoga's next self-transformation, away from the sleek and sexy (and privileged!) to the dogged pursuit of introducing yoga to unserved places and communities.

Excerpt from:
Rob Schware: Making Yoga Accessible to Vulnerable Populations

For years, yoga instructor Alice Van Ness has started her classes with a simple request - that students turn their cell phones off.

She brought that policy with her to Facebook, where she began teaching a weekly class at the company's Menlo Park campus in March. But it proved to be a hard policy to follow for at least one employee, who began tapping away on her phone in the middle of class. And after Van Ness shot her a disapproving look, the instructor found herself out of a job.

The 35-year-old San Carlos resident was fired last month after managers at the fitness contractor she worked for explained that saying "no" to Facebook employees is a no-no.

"We are in the business of providing great customer service," said her termination notice from Plus One Health Management. "Unless a client requires us to specifically say no to something, we prefer to say yes whenever possible."

But when it came to the Facebook employee using her cell phone - at the front of the room, in the middle of class - Van Ness refused to bend over backward.

"Hello - this is only Facebook," said Van Ness, whose firing cost her a teaching gig at Cisco too. "We're not talking about the U.S. government here. We're not talking about Russia is about to bomb us. We're talking about Facebook. Something can't wait half an hour?"

Facebook declined to comment. Representatives for Plus One Health Management did not respond to requests for comment. In its termination notice, the company suggested the Facebook incident was part of a pattern of strict behavior on Van Ness' part; she had previously asked a Cisco employee not to take photographs of the class while it was in session.

The incident highlights a growing tension in health studios, where students come to leave the world behind but often find themselves incapable of not checking their text messages, e-mails and - of course - Facebook. As smart-phone usage has grown, many studios have posted prominent notices asking students to leave them outside the studio.

But at a yoga class on a corporate campus, setting aside job responsibilities entirely, even for a few minutes during the work day, can be a stretch.

"Sometimes if you're in the tech industry, or have a serious attachment to your phone, you can't let Facebook go for an hour," said Michelle Michael, who owns Balance Yoga Studio in Woodinville, Wash., near Microsoft and other tech companies.

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Phone ban costs Facebook yoga instructor her job

For years, yoga instructor Alice Van Ness has started her classes with a simple request - that students turn their cell phones off.

She brought that policy with her to Facebook, where she began teaching a weekly class at the company's Menlo Park campus in March. But it proved to be a hard policy to follow for at least one employee, who began tapping away on her phone in the middle of class. And after Van Ness shot her a disapproving look, the instructor found herself out of a job.

The 35-year-old San Carlos resident was fired last month after managers at the fitness contractor she worked for explained that saying "no" to Facebook employees is a no-no.

"We are in the business of providing great customer service," said her termination notice from Plus One Health Management. "Unless a client requires us to specifically say no to something, we prefer to say yes whenever possible."

But when it came to the Facebook employee using her cell phone - at the front of the room, in the middle of class - Van Ness refused to bend over backward.

"Hello - this is only Facebook," said Van Ness, whose firing cost her a teaching gig at Cisco too. "We're not talking about the U.S. government here. We're not talking about Russia is about to bomb us. We're talking about Facebook. Something can't wait half an hour?"

Facebook declined to comment. Representatives for Plus One Health Management did not respond to requests for comment. In its termination notice, the company suggested the Facebook incident was part of a pattern of strict behavior on Van Ness' part; she had previously asked a Cisco employee not to take photographs of the class while it was in session.

The incident highlights a growing tension in health studios, where students come to leave the world behind but often find themselves incapable of not checking their text messages, e-mails and - of course - Facebook. As smart-phone usage has grown, many studios have posted prominent notices asking students to leave them outside the studio.

But at a yoga class on a corporate campus, setting aside job responsibilities entirely, even for a few minutes during the work day, can be a stretch.

"Sometimes if you're in the tech industry, or have a serious attachment to your phone, you can't let Facebook go for an hour," said Michelle Michael, who owns Balance Yoga Studio in Woodinville, Wash., near Microsoft and other tech companies.

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Yoga teacher fired over cell phone ban at Facebook

NEW YORK - Can't touch your toes? Laugh it off.

Laughter yoga, unlike Pilates yoga, water yoga, aerial yoga and other offshoots of the ancient eastern practice of uniting body and breath, doesn't aspire to sculpted arms and bendy backs.

People take part in the 'Pinoy Laughter Yoga' event outside the Manila City Hall recently. Reuters/Romeo Ranoco

"You may not lose fat, but you will lose the idea that you're fat," said Sebastien Gendry, founder and executive director of the American School of Laughter Yoga.

"People come because it's the exercise they can do and it makes them feel good," said Gendry, who founded the school in 2004. "It's the easiest form of yoga. They can't twist, they can't bend, but they can do this."

A blend of yogic deep breathing, stretching, and laughter exercises that cultivate child-like playfulness, Laughter Yoga was developed 17 years ago in Mumbai, India by Dr. Madan Kataria. Laughter Yoga International now claims 600 clubs in 60 countries.

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Laughter yoga cultivates merry mindfulness

Instructor Victoria Wells, foreground, led the yoga class at the Lexington Senior Citizens Center. The six-week yoga class began at the request of some members of the senior center.

Herald-Leader

For the mind, yoga instructor Victoria Wells turns on a soothing play list from her iPod. For the spirit, she reminds everyone to get rid of negative thoughts. And for the body, she rolls out a rubber mat, and announces, "Now let's get those lungs going."

And in step, her class at the Lexington Senior Citizens Center begins the exercise that Wells calls "the perfect blend of everything physical and mental."

Just like its participants' hamstrings, yoga's age limit is becoming increasingly flexible, and members are posing to the beat by taking the senior center's new yoga class.

The multi-purpose community center offers activities including a book club, aerobics and tai chi for Fayette County residents ages 60 and older, but several members recently requested that yoga be added to the mix, manager Sean Wright said.

"People were looking for smaller groups, more of a personal connection with the instructor and more of a broad wellness experience," Wright said. Class attendance grows each time but averages about 20 people.

Wells, who is certified in yoga and senior group fitness, said she was thrilled to start the class after hearing the feedback.

"I'm so happy that everything fell into place," she said, adding that yoga is one of the best ways for seniors to stay active.

"People need to realize they have to take personal responsibility for their health," she said. "And this is an awesome way to do that."

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Yoga is a hit at Lexington senior center