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Yes, this is a real place. I know it’s real because I took it. It’s The Philippines.

In January, I’ll be making my fourth annual trip to Manila, Philippines to teach a new group of students how to teach yoga. Because the five weeks I spend there are the best of my year every year, I’ve already got plans to go there to teach with the same young, growing yoga company through 2017. In no particular order, here are a few of the reasons that I love it so much:

1. It’s affordable.

Most of the things that I pay for when I am in The Philippines cost me a lot less than they would in the U.S.. Very good massages, for example, are priced at a rate that makes it feel almost criminal to deny myself near-daily rubdowns. In the U.S., I can’t imagine being able to afford the going rate for such a thing.

The Philippines’ low prices are, of course, based on the fact that there is a massive population of very poor people there. And I benefit from that income disparity when I partake. But, going there and spending dollars is going to help more than spending them elsewhere, so I spend. For now, I give outrageously large tips and treat everybody with the respect they deserve. And we all could use a massage once in a while. Or every day. Right?

2. There is a very high concentration of extremely good students.

In high school, I thought I was a good student. Now that I am a teacher, I know that I was not. Now, when I say “good student,” I am referring to a person who is there to learn about what I am there to teach, and they put their available resources toward learning it.

For a teacher, good students obviously make the job of teaching a lot easier. But in the case of yoga, these good students get to go much more deeply, and with greater cognition, into the experience of actual yogasana because they’ve acquired a fluency about its aspects and parts. And, since I exist to teach yoga, not to make things easy, I wish that good students were less rare. In Manila, good students are plentiful.

I hate to say it and I wish it wasn’t true, but, generously described, the trainings that I have taught in the US have a lower density of these model students. Typical students in the US require more of a buy-in as to why the content of a given lesson matters. Only then can the learning and teaching start in earnest. The American “just do it” mentality would greatly benefit from an equal amount of “just learn it,” especially before standing it on its vulnerable head and calling it yoga. I don’t mind providing the bells and whistles that my fellow Americans are used to — in fact, I love doing it. I love challenges and it never gets boring! But the extra energy that goes toward that endeavor limits the depth and complexity that is learned and experienced by the trainees.

Being a respectful student and a devoted learner can go too far, though. I remember the first time I taught a teacher training in Hong Kong, which was also my first time teaching outside of the US. During lectures, none of the students would ever have any questions, no matter how much I begged them to please ask me something. One time I actually had a stand-off with them, saying that I would not go on with the lesson until a question was asked. I lost the standoff. I actually didn’t last for very long. Class time is too valuable to waste on standoffs.

The good students of Manila.

Afterward, one of the students, who was Chinese but was raised in Canada, came up to me on a break. She told me that it was considered disrespectful to ask a teacher questions because it could be perceived as an indication that the teacher had not succeeded in teaching. I thanked her and came up with a new strategy. We were all able to adapt together, but it took a while and I learned to be careful what I wish for.

In Manila, the students are, as Goldilocks would appreciate if she were a yoga teacher trainer, just right. They are there to learn and they’re used to the process of education. They ask questions, remember what I say, and they even form highly active extracurricular study groups that actually meet, study, and learn on their own, although we have a nine-hour training day every day. But, they are not so hyper-respectful of the teacher role that they are afraid to ask questions. They ask lots of questions! And they ask questions that indicate they’ve been trying to follow, not ones that indicate that they are actually on Facebook (the blue and white reflection of which I can see on your eyeglasses, American students who are telling me they are NOT on Facebook during lectures of vital importance). How can a teacher not love this?

3. Filipinos are the friendliest people in the world. 

I am sorry, Thailand, Taiwan, and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. You were each, at different points in my life, in the top position on my list of friendliest places. But I hadn’t yet been to Manila.

From the time I check in with Philippine Airlines at LAX until I deplane back at home weeks later, I am treated like a long lost friend in just about every interaction I have. This is not an exaggeration. I am saluted at least once a day there. Saluted! There are security men in the doorways of nearly every business there and, when I walk by, I am saluted as a matter of course. I do not know why and, because I don’t want to mess with it, I am not asking a lot of questions.


Friendly, as ever, on graduation day.

Let’s put it this way, Hong Kong. If Manila had a subway, I would not get pushed nearly off my feet by a different five-foot tall, 80-year-old woman almost every time I try to ride it. Not at rush hour. Not ever.

4. The yoga business is new, yet wisened by the experience of predecessors in other places.

If you live in one of the places where there is at least one yoga studio for every two Starbucks, you might be surprised to know that yoga classes are a relatively new thing in a lot of the world.

Traveling around teaching trainings, I have gotten to see how yoga is introduced commercially in different places. In Australia and Hong Kong, for example, it seems that yoga got traction in fitness facilities more than in dedicated studios; while in London and Taiwan there have been plenty of dedicated yoga studios from the beginning.

In The Philippines, all of the yoga businesses I have worked with are relatively new because yoga is new there. Yet, although they are young, they are in many ways ahead of their industry predecessors in more ripened yoga markets like LA. That’s because they did their homework and got things right from the start, which has included successful, earnest marketing toward working people and those who don’t look or function like the American cliche of a practitioner. From the design of the facilities and choices for in-house props to the all-important standards for teachers, Manila is presenting a more grown-up version of the yoga scene than I’ve seen anywhere else.

But the best thing about yoga’s newness there is that it gives me an opportunity to contribute to setting a higher bar for yoga teacher training standards than those we have here in the U.S. It’s an almost-blank slate there. In the U.S., support for higher standards for yoga teachers is counter to the deeply entrenched status quo, to put it diplomatically. In Manila, higher standards, at least for the new teachers I’ve watched learn and graduate, are the norm.

5. They address me differently there.

In public, service people of any sort often call me Sir James, once they know my name, and that is then the only way they address me. (For the record, my name is not Sir James. It’s just James). Let me be the first to say that I am a horrible human being for many reasons, and loving this is one of them. I am so sorry. I am powerless to stop it anyway. Who am I to get in the way of this custom?

This may sound like it’s too much information, but it’s worth it so hang in there a moment. Walking home from the training one sunny day, I decided to treat myself to a back waxing. It cost almost nothing and I had some time on my hands and some hair on my back. I used to have it done all the time but I don’t so much any more for whatever reason. The fashions change. Nonetheless, I am still used to the feeling. It does not hurt, really, at all. And, though I expressed repeatedly and clearly to the wax tech that I was just fine, she would say, every … single … time … that she pulled a strip of wax off of my fully desensitized back, “OH MY GOD, SIR JAMES, I AM SO SORRY!” Every time. She did not remove a hair without the accompanying apology. Again, not an exaggeration. And my back needs a few dozen strips. But we never got past OMG. THAT is how it’s done in Manila.

Having my lunch explained to me on this post-training beach surely included a “Sir James” or two.

I know. Sir James is a cheap thrill. And I’m cheap so it thrills me. But the first time I got called kuya there, and every time since, I get a little lump in my throat and remind myself how lucky I am to have been introduced to my growing family of friends there. Kuya doesn’t translate easily to English. It almost means Big Brother, but it applies to other older male family members.

Simply put, you had me way before kuya, Manila. But that totally sealed the deal. Alas, it is indeed more fun in The Philippines. I’ll be there soon.


The best educated yoga teachers in Manila (so far). April 2014

As Thanksgiving fast approaches, we’re reminded to give thanks for the wonderful things in our lives: our loved ones, our freedom and most certainly our good health. As humans, we’re extremely visual creatures, so as you look upon the joyous gathering of friends and family prior to feasting, consider taking a moment to give thanks for your healthy eyesight as well.

Many of us are guilty of taking some of the most wondrous and spectacular things about how our bodies function for granted. I think it was Ben Franklin who remarked how people marvel at beautiful vistas, but forget about the miracle of the human body. For example, how often do you consider the sheer number of individual cells working in unison to sustain life inside your body, or ponder the magnificent evolutionary changes which must have occurred to allow you to unconsciously breathe in a perfectly balanced atmospheric gas which then gives life to those individual cells.

Our bodies are truly fascinating, and the eyes are one of the most interesting and critical parts. These feelings and thoughts you’re experiencing reading this article this very moment are a direct result of photons of light being processed by your eyes and interpreted by your brain. Here are seven more fascinating and surprising facts about your eyes to remind you to give thanks for your eyesight this Thanksgiving:

1. The retina in the back of your eyes are made up of at least 120 million cells that are extremely sensitive to light. Of those cells, between 6 and 7 million of them are “cones,” which allow you to see the color and details of the world surrounding you. The other more than 110 million cells are called “rods,” which help you to see better in the dark and distinguish between black and white. So surprisingly, less than a tenth of your visual receptors actually detect color.

2. On average, you blink around 17 times per minute, 28,800 times per day, and 5.2 million times per year. On that note, you actually blink less when you’re reading, which is why your eyes can feel tired very quickly when you spend a lot of time reading or on the computer. Conversely, you blink more when you’re chatting away! The old saying, “In a blink of an eye” came about because the muscle which allows you to blink is the fastest muscle in the body. A blink typically lasts 100-150 milliseconds, and this action plays a vital role in keeping your eyes moist and debris-free.

3. Your eyes are incredibly adaptable. In fact, if you decided to wear your glasses upside down, your brain would eventually correct your vision on its own. You would see upside down for a few days, but your brain will do marvelous things to ensure survival and would soon process that information into the correct orientation. Pretty cool!

4. The lens in your eyes, which focuses on the object you’re looking at, is faster than any man-made camera on earth. These changes occur almost instantly, before you even realize it’s happening. If it took a second or two like most cameras, things would continually seem like they are out of focus.

5. Your eyes have the best “auto-correct” function around. Whether you’re born with them or they are caused by health conditions such as glaucoma or a stroke, many people have blind spots which would be extremely debilitating if it wasn’t for your brain and your eyes working so well together. These gaps in your vision are essentially “filled in” by the brain, completing the picture that you see in front of you despite having a missing piece or two.

6. Your eyes are made up of more than 2 million working parts that function in unison to create vision. While doctors have not yet been able to transplant eyeballs from human to human due to the sensitivity of the optic nerve, surprisingly enough shark corneas (yes, sharks!) are very similar to ours and research is underway to discover if they can successfully be used in human transplantation.

7. Eye color is controlled by the level of melanin in your iris. Brown yes have more melanin (a dark pigment) in the iris, and blue eyes have less melanin which allows blue collagen to show through. Interestingly enough, if you have blue eyes then you share a common ancestor with every other blue-eyed person in the world. The first person ever to have blue eyes lived somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Before then, all people had brown eyes!

These are just a few of the amazing facts about your eyes which should give you good reason to give thanks for them this year. I wish you all a healthy and happy Thanksgiving!

Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler is an inventor of eye surgical procedures and a best-selling author of three books on Keratoconus, refractive surgery and LASIK. He has been an FDA investigator for 13 clinical trials and is extensively published in medical literature. For more information, please visit www.keratoconusinserts.com or www.boxerwachler.com.

President Barack Obama unveiled a bold immigration reform policy Thursday night, an expected move Fox News’ “The Five” discussed on the show hours earlier.

While the group took issue with various aspects of the measure, panelist Eric Bolling added a peculiar bit of analysis to the discussion, specifically regarding the timing of Obama’s announcement.

Bolling speculated the administration is counting on discord from a grand jury decision on the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, to overshadow any fallout from immigration reform.

“Can I be a little conspiracy theorist for a minute?” Bolling began. “[Obama]’s going to do [push immigration reform] because he promised his based he was going to do it, so he’s got to get it done. That would mean he has to get it done by the end of the year. There are about six weeks left before the end of the year, right?”

“So why now? What’s coming down the pike very soon, within hours, maybe days?” He asked rhetorically, then answered: “Ferguson.”

“So, [Obama] does this. We all go, ‘Oh my gosh, he just did it,’” Bolling continued, “and then something happens in Ferguson and everyone goes, ‘Uh oh, forget the amnesty thing, let’s go see what’s going on in Ferguson.’ And then two or three weeks down the road we all go, ‘Did he just slip amnesty in without us really talking about it too much?’”

“I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy,” he concluded with a hand wave, acknowledging the speculative nature of his theory.

“I think you might be a little crazy,” fellow panelist Dana Perino chimed in, “because I think that the timing had a lot more to do with the Latin Grammys than anything else. I think that’s very smart, that’s a good PR tactic.”

H/T Mediaite

Anjelica Huston has packed in enough living to fill four memoirs, but thus far she’s wrapped up only two. Her second installment Watch Me: A Memoir continues in the charming and intimate tone of last year’s A Story Lately Told, but with gobs of ink about everyone’s favorite Bad Boy Jack Nicholson, and how processing her father John Huston’s death brought some surprising insights.

Over sea bass and chardonnay, she talks about navigating the wild streets of Venice, a treasured daybed and her enviable skills with a fish knife.

Q: So, after detailing some pretty crazy stuff, is Jack still talking to you?

AH: (Laughs) Yes! We haven’t talked much about it but I think he takes it all with grace.

John Huston, Bob Richardson, Jack Nicholson, Robert Graham… How did you not lose your sense of self with all these intense men in your life?

I am extremely stubborn! I know it made my father crazy. He couldn’t understand my resistance. I remember when my father would have definite ideas about who I should be or what I should do or what school I should go to. I dug in my heels very firmly and just wouldn’t go along with his ideas. Which he thought were much better.

He must have been frustrated with you, but secretly respectful that you stood up for who you wanted to be, no?

Ultimately he had no choice! (laughs) He wanted to see who was stronger in the end. But he went on to see he wouldn’t win in the end, either!

Tell me about falling in love with your husband, Robert Graham.

Oh, I could talk to him for hours. He was very provocative and very funny. The waiters would be scared to come over and ask what we wanted to eat because I was so incredibly involved with what he had to say. What his impressions were; his knowledge. Bob was encyclopedic about art history. To go to Rome with Bob and walk around the Vatican and hear exactly who made what, when and why. To go to the Chartres Cathedral — he would point things out that you would never have even considered. It was such a privilege. So he was also a great teacher. Just an utterly creative person.

You’ve said “to bore people is one of the primary sins;” I think it’s safe to say your memoirs put you in in the Pantheon of fascinating raconteurs. These are both dedicated to your parents. What do you want them to hear?

First of all, despite a rather unusual upbringing and the fact that there was a lot of coming and going – and I would say childhood confusion — there were also incredibly grounding moments. The love of beauty that both of my parents share, their love of the arts, their determination that we should have opinions. Not to the point of being obnoxious, but they required that you thought about things. I think that’s very important. I remember a seminal moment when I was nine. An image of death-row kidnapper Caryl Chessman caught my eye on the cover of Time and I asked my mother about him. I remember her explaining very precisely who Caryl Chessman was and what he was up to. And I remember having a profound sense of what was serious at a young age. Even though I grew up in remote country in Ireland, I still had a sense of the possibilities of outside. Possibilities of the human spirit and other existences.

Your mother Enrica Soma was an extraordinary beauty and iconoclast in her own right. Was she the inspiration for your personal style?

My mother and also my best friend Joan Buck who was 2 years older than I and was very involved in fashion growing up. She sort of turned me on to fashion magazines. But my mother had a very powerful and unusual fashion sense.

Ok, we all know you are a Vanity Fair Best Dressed Hall of Famer, but your skill de-boning fish would blow Daniel Boulud out of the water! Where did you learn that?

(Laughs) Well my brother Tony is a fisherman — a very good one. We used to fish trout out of the river and I learned to de-bone them very early. And those are tricky little fish! There are a lot of small bones in them. Actually one of the things I never liked dealing with is meat, but I can really gut a fish!

Your Venice house was spectacular. The street it was on, not so much. How did you deal with the craziness?

Although there were challenges, there were elements of Venice I was really grateful for that were really humanizing. Kinda forced me — at a time when I could easily have gone the other way and become more reclusive — it sort of forced me to be more social. And I made a lot of friends out there. There are some fantastic people out there in the real world! (laughs) The nature of “Hollywood” is that you lose touch with the rest of the world. You get in your car and you get out to do your shopping or whatever, but you don’t really interact much with strangers or people on the street. To live in Venice was at once difficult, particularly when Bob became ill — the noise was intense — often woke us up at night, but also very congenial. OMG, sometimes at night you didn’t know if they were throwing firecrackers or shooting at each other. And then the bars would let out at 2:00 a.m., so from 2:00 to 3:00 there would be this cacophony outside on the street and all kinds of madness. Then around 4:00 a.m. everything would stop. Silence would come back. But it was sort of a fortress on the outside and a garden on the inside. It was a pretty fabulous building.

You have a mind-boggling collection of very significant art (including of course, your husband’s work), but tell me about the daybed that belonged to Rousseau!

It’s been in my family for as long as I can remember. My mother had it in London. It was kind of red, green and yellow striped canvas — very chic in its London days. Then I brought it to America and it became blue velvet in the 70s. Now it’s wearing a Fortuny outfit from the 90s. And at one point, Morris Graves a lovely artist friend of my mother’s decided it needed swan feet to match the curved neck of the swan. So he made some cardboard feet that my mother had carved into wood.

I also have a nice really big pair of Mermen from a Mexican church that my father had in Ireland and brought back and forth across the ocean a couple of times. But I’m a bit like a traveling circus. I do that to every hotel room I’m in. Like one of those old hippies that throws scarves on the lamps and burns incense. I was a model you know, that’s how we lived.

What do you think is the essence of a life well lived?

Squeezing the last drop out! I had dinner the other night with my brother Danny and my nephew Jack and some dear friends and we closed the restaurant. And that’s what it’s like. We always close the restaurant. I don’t know, we just think we’re so funny… It feels really good. Part of feeling like a clan and sharing this crazy wonderful background that we have.

Photos courtesy of the Anjelica Huston Collection (Captions: With Jack Nicholson at her 35th birthday party. With her father John Huston at home in Mexico. With her mother Enrica Soma, London late 1960s. At her engagement to Robert Graham in Ireland. Anjelica, Enrica, Tony & John in Tobago, 1954.)