:: June 2005 Volume 4/Number 4

Yoga Legends Say Goodby to L.A.
Moving to Hawaii, building a home,
growing a garden.

By Julie Deife

May 13, 2005 – Yoga legends and YogaWorks founders Chuck Miller and Maty Ezraty are leaving town. Their story is the stuff yoga dreams are made of. Have an idea that no one else has had, pull it off with panaché, build the business and effortlessly sell it when you have decided it’s time to move on.

That’s not to say the founding and running of the two original YogaWorks studios on Main Street and on Montana Ave in Santa Monica, starting in 1987, was not a challenge. Chuck is glad he’s no longer the one getting the 3 A.M. calls from security about doors and windows left open, or “chained,” as he says, for long hours at a desk. Maty is thrilled the scheduling tasks and constant subbing for absent teachers is over. And, both of them are happy to leave the politics of yoga behind. Still, there are far more accomplishments and fond
memories, which is what this couple will be remembered for by teachers, students, other yoga studios who adopted their ideas and possibly also the new owners of YogaWorks.

In the beginning, “no one thought we would make it,” reminisced Maty. Chuck and Maty did the unthinkable: instead of starting a yoga school based on a single lineage, for example Iyengar, Sivananda or Kundalini, they assembled an eclectic group of yoga teachers under one roof. Iyengar and Ashtanga were taught at the school, movement classes, teachers a little further ‘out there’ like Steve Ross and Paul Grilley were brought on board. They believed then, as they do today, that you can’t really learn yoga from just one person. An upscale facility, now common, but not back then, was provided. A work -shop department was developed, yet another element that today “everyone is doing.”

Both are quick to point out, however, that luck seemed to be on their side, too. The Iyengar Institute in San Francisco would feature a main teacher such as Manouso for a long time, then Ramanand, then John Schumacher and so on through the list of senior Iyengar teachers. If those teachers weren’t featured that year, then they were looking for work, and Chuck and Maty snapped them up. YogaWorks reputation for high standards and diversity in programming grew. More and more senior teachers from all lineages wanted to teach workshops there. And the luck continued right up to the end.

Says Chuck, “we were surprised because we put out the thought [of selling], and there they were, almost instantly.” They hadn’t contacted or spoken to anyone about it, including George Lichter or Rob Wruebel, the new owners.

So is it luck, hard work or their love of yoga that made it successful? They are adamant that the best yoga studios will always be run by yogis. That’s where new thinking and paradigm shifts occur and they had already started moving away from the eclectic model they’d popularized, toward offering teachings only within the lineage of Krishnamacharya. Chuck says he’s entered vanaprasta, the third stage of life, in which it’s time to retreat – Maty’s not so sure and they’ll be touring on the east coast in August and September because they both love to teach. “Shiva is thriving right now,” says Chuck, “destroying and creating.” And that encourages them to continue the dialog online at www.chuckandmaty.com.

Thank you for many years of service and leadership.

 

 

All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2002-2005 LA Yoga Magazine