Hasta La Gadget!

I met Henry Cross at the 3rd Annual Yoga Service Conference at the Omega Institute. Henry is the Assistant Executive Director of Hosh Yoga, a donation-based, not-for-profit yoga studio that promotes health and wellness as a right of life rather than a luxury. Henry is also the executive director of Hosh Kids, a nonprofit that offers yoga-based enrichment education for kids. This interview is his offering to help others successfully navigate the rewards and challenges of yoga service work.

Rob: What originally motivated you to do this work, and what continues to motivate you? How, if at all, has that motivation changed over time?

Henry: Yoga was part of a personal healing process; along the way I became fascinated by yoga as a vehicle for social change. Certain thinkers have influenced my yoga service work; for instance, you can view yoga service through the lens and power of voluntary associations as suggested by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, and its application in the living culture of your immediate community. There are plenty of like-minded people around that you can collaborate with to make a difference in your community: find the courage to start the community yourself.

Is there a standout moment from your work with your community?

Yes, it was realizing yoga service nonprofits can be as effective as any private business. Hosh Yoga and Hosh Kids in New York make yoga accessible regardless of skill or income. We have never refused service to any person, school, or parent for lack of financial resources. We build yoga communities by delivering a bold and strong message to all our stakeholders. This does not mean that you can’t build a business that can grow financially solvent and sustainable while developing a brand that is mission- and values-driven. Therefore, the power of our nonprofit story, brand message, and dedicated team can only make our bottom line stronger. You can put good information to action making your organization better.

What did you know about the population you are working with before you began teaching?

When I became a public school teacher, I knew I wanted to make a difference. I’m sure every classroom teacher and teaching artist can relate. However, it takes much more than just your will to make a difference and change the lives of our school students. I’ve seen too many of my peers and colleagues teaching in very stressful environments as classroom and yoga teachers in schools. I developed and directed a staff development program for an enrichment vendor in NYC with over 50 teachers, and I realized you had to teach teachers about the context of a learning environment before they could effectively deliver content. I’ve visited thousands of classrooms and I rarely meet a teacher who doesn’t understand what he or she is teaching. Teachers teach as they know how. Therefore, the sooner a kids yoga teacher develops an education philosophy and an understanding of human motivation, praise, self-esteem and discipline, the sooner that teacher can deliver content. I’ve shared our message with principals, political leaders, and superintendents, most of whom still know very little about yoga as a health and wellness option in schools.

What has been the greatest challenge in your teaching experience, and what tools have you developed for addressing that challenge?

With children it’s difficult to teach life lessons, over and above content. Yoga philosophy is full of guidance in how to live and what to live for that we can help children understand in a simple way. We encourage our staff to understand the context of the learning environment, because children who might need yoga the most are also the ones most divorced from it.

What advice would you give to anyone who is going to teach in the population you work with?

I would get a mentor, and I’d volunteer, as ways to learn from others teaching kids yoga in schools. Be ready to ask for help. Be ready to change and question your teaching approach depending on whom you are teaching. The process might be rocky, but there is good news in every classroom if you look for it. Believe that you too can start a program that makes a difference in people’s lives.

From a business perspective, visual marketing is a powerful tool to deliver your message, impact, and results in an interactive way. You can make a lot of good happen with limited resources, passion, and skill. Investing time in training your staff to deliver the brand message at every point of contact with your stakeholders is essential. Hosh Kids does it by running Open Book Management, and I credit this method with expanding our reach to over 20 kids’ yoga programs in NYC in 16 months. I would say that if you’re going to volunteer a large amount of time, heart, and effort into a nonprofit, it is also possible to plan and strategize about how to generate an income from it in the long run.

As yoga service nonprofits, we should constantly be advocating for more yoga service programs in the community. I believe yoga is a life skill that works for anyone, anytime, anywhere. I simply share with our leaders that as we teach children how to take tests, we must also teach them life skills that make them better test takers. Go out there and tell the community about yoga service.

What are some of your ideas about, or hopes for, the future of “service yoga” in America in the next decade?

I hope yoga studios and yoga service nonprofits collaborate more often in joint programming in their communities. We can do things better and on a bigger scale by collaborating than by competing with each other. I believe yoga service is part of the new yoga economy. I hope there will be innovators who help donors look at yoga service as a form of philanthropy that yields great cost savings to our society, making it worthwhile to use private dollars for this awesome public good. I’m confident that the collective effort of the yoga service community will make yoga an increasingly popular form of community service across the country.

Editor: Alice Trembour

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Are you a yoga instructor giving back to underserved populations? E-mail Executive Director Rob Schware if you’re interested in being interviewed for this series.

What does queer nightlife mean and represent for those who live outside of mainstream societal expectations?

HuffPost Live tackled this question and many more during a live segment built off of HuffPost Gay Voices Associate Editor James Nichols‘ 30-part series “After Dark: NYC Nightlife Today And Days Past.”

HuffPost Live chatted with Nichols and nightlife icons Kenny Kenny and Ladyfag about what nightlife represents for the queer community. Kenny Kenny stated:

“For me it was always about community. When I was growing up gay people were really on the fringe and there was a lot of discrimination, so it was more about a community or a ritual in coming together, supporting each other and really celebrating that. It was very diverse because we were all on the same level… we were all discriminated against and we all came together. A little bit of survival and a little bit of celebration.”

Ladyfag echoed these thoughts:

“[Nightlife] is definitely about community and it’s a church for, not just queer kids but for youth culture where people thinking of night clubs as these hedonistic places and, sure, there’s a lot of that as well. But in some ways it’s kind of your church or community center where everyone comes together. Church, I guess, in the same way with these women in their big hats but it’s also this platform for expressing yourself.”

Check out the clip above to hear more or head here to watch the interview in full.

Broadway is one of the most known and recognizable locations for both tourists and locals alike when they think of about New York City. Perhaps even better known than Times Square where it is primarily located, Broadway is the premier destination for anyone who loves the theater. While the closest most people will get to the Broadway stage is the front row seating, I was lucky enough to get a backstage tour of the Broadway show A Gentleman’s Guide to Murder and was pretty amazed at what was discovered.

View of the Walter Kerr Theatre take with a Canon T3 Rebel camera

When Broadway shows are mentioned, it actually refers to 40 different theaters located all over the theater district in Manhattan. These theaters need to have at least 500 or more seats to be considered in this group and most of them are found along Broadway Avenue for which the area is named after. While the theater in New York City has been around since the 1750s, the concept of the modern musical didn’t arrive until 1866 with the showing of The Black Crook which was the first show to feature dancing and original music to help tell its story. The current shows on Broadway have advanced quite considerably since the modern musicals first inception but many of the theaters currently in use have been around since the early 1900s. Over one billion dollars worth of tickets are sold every year with over 12 million people attending in 2013 alone. With Canon USA and the #Bringit tour I was able to get a backstage look at the Walter Kerr Theatre, which was built in 1921 and used as a radio and television studio until it was transitioned into the Broadway theater it is today.

Up close and personal with the cast of ‘A Gentleman’s Guide to Murder’

The first thing you will notice when taking a step behind the curtain is how incredible small and cramped everything is. New York City might have changed dramatically since the 1920s but the Walter Kerr building has not (which is similar with most Broadway theaters). While these productions might cost millions of dollars to put on, this is hardly reflected in its backstage space. The off-stage areas for costume changes are just white curtains cordoning off a corner or area against a wall with about as much space as you might find at your local Old Navy changing room. Even the makeup station which might be the most utilized and important area for most Broadway productions is only given enough space for two chairs, small table, and mirror with makeup bags hanging from hooks where ever space can be found. It’s amazing that these professionals can get do such amazing things is such quarantined areas.

Tiny changing room surrounded by a sheet

You also can’t walk around backstage without noticing that everywhere is littered with props and pieces of scenery. The props are laid out in a precision that is almost obsessive compulsive with labels and locations written on tape next to each item. This detail is needed to ensure that everything goes in its proper place during the darkened chaos of a show and that it makes it back to its proper storage area especially on those days with back to back performances. Scenery changes can be made with impressive speed due to the fact that all of the main backgrounds are on rollers attached to the floor and pushed off to the side. Other large props can be find dangling on platforms from the ceiling so that they can remain out of the way until needed and stored out of the way when not in use. From behind the scenes it seems a play is more like controlled chaos than a well designed and perfectly-timed performance.

Props all over the place

Beyond just backstage, you will find that most everything else with behind the Broadway’s behind the scenes was equally as surprising with its size. Everything from the staircases between floors, the music pit underneath the stage, to storage and dressing rooms were tightly packed in and hardly a reflection of the big images portrayed on the signs out front. Some high school theatre groups are given far more space to put on performances than you will find on most Broadway stages. Even with all these limitations, the beauty and majesty of seeing a Broadway performance in a theatre built in early 20th century and maintained to that vaudeville tradition is unmatched anywhere in the world. It is definitely an experience you should make sure to include anytime you are in New York City.

Razer has cemented itself as an industry leader in the gaming peripherals business, and here with their “Chroma” line, these accessories get colorful. To be clear – these are the same devices that’ve been on the market for some time – they’re just being released in the Chroma line with light-up bits. We’ve got the Razer BlackWidow mechanical keyboard, DeathAdder … Continue reading

The neighbors of this community synchronized the Holiday lights on their houses together to create this impressive show. I can’t imagine the endless discussions to agree on colors, types of lights, or music—a nightmare before Cheistmas.

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