Guy Spiro: Johannes, you are one of the driving forces behind Yoga Month.

Johannes Sisslinger: Well, we have an incredible team. Something big, like National Yoga Month, takes a lot of working with people to form a good team. I came up with the idea of Yoga Month about a year and a half ago. I liked the sound of it.

GS: So it is your baby.

JS: Yes, yes it is.

GS: Good. Go ahead and take credit for it, but of course you can’t do something as big as this without a great team.

JS: That’s for sure.

GS: So give us the basic premise. What is Yoga Month all about?

JS: Yoga Month is about educating the public about the health benefits of yoga and inspiring a healthy lifestyle. We said let’s create a month where there is a lot of focus on yoga and healthy living. We decided September is the perfect month because that is a time when people start to think about increasing fitness through the winter. Amazingly enough, it has been accepted as a national event, which means that from now on, September is National Yoga Month. We have had tremendous support from the National Institute of Health to make it happen. So basically every year now September is going to focus on yoga and the health benefits of yoga.

GS: That’s great.

JS: I have been involved in integrated medicine, holistic medicine and healing for twenty years and I’ve found that the biggest thing is to motivate people to take action to make changes in their lives. Yoga has incredible potential. You do it just a little bit, and from the very beginning, it feeds itself. It makes you feel different. Practicing yoga creates tremendous change in people’s lives. Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and physically.

GS: People tend to think of health care as fixing something that’s wrong. Yoga and similar practices take what exists and make it better.

JS: Right. Exactly, and that is really our goal. Again, it’s amazing to me that with the first year we have a national impact already. Our kick off event is in Denver, coinciding with the Democratic National Convention. We created that festival as a bipartisan event to focus on health care and how it has to change. Because the reality is, we can’t afford to go that route any longer. It’s too expensive the way we do health care right now.

GS: And it’s no fun.

JS: So basically the whole idea is to really make an impact and to educate. We need more focus on self responsibility. There are many small steps that every one of us can make in our daily lives and Yoga has a huge potential to transform health care.

GS: Definitely. So how many weeks is Yoga Month?

[laughter]

JS: Yeah, it is a six week Yoga Month. Initially it was planned as the month of September, but then the opportunity came along to have a festival during the DNC, so we just said let’s make it two or three weeks earlier.

     Yoga Month is, from the top down, the Yoga Health Foundation, which is a nonprofit, 501C. All the proceeds go back to charity. We focused this year on health education for Edward’s Children. So it’s a nonprofit and our initiative is National Yoga Month, and the main event is a ten city tour. We are going to ten cities in the U.S., starting with Denver. Then Miami, Boston, New York, Chicago, Austin, Los Angeles—which is going to be the big event—San Diego, San Francisco, and Vancouver.

GS: Good work. And a lot of work.

JS: A lot of work, sometimes a bit overwhelming. But the response has just been amazing from the Yoga community, from every angle. We were trying to create win-win situations where we work together to create an amazing energy and fuel up change.

GS: Is there a connection to Yoga Mela?

JS: Yes, there is. But four or five months ago we decided to combine the two events. So we do participate in Mela. So if you are in Los Angeles, September 20–21st, we have the big two day festival. And all of Sunday is going to be Yoga Mela which is part of the festival in Yoga Month.

GS: That is why you were saying L.A. is the big event.

JS: Yes, in LA I am sure we are going to get 4 to 5 thousand people.

GS: So it reaches deep into the local Yoga community.

JS: That is our goal. We want this to be a community based, grass roots type of event. It is our first year, you know, so we are pretty happy with how it is turning out so far.

GS: Oh, for your first year it’s incredible.

JS: The Chicago event is September 13th and we want people who are interested but who have said, well, I don’t know if I want to do yoga, or had some intimidation factors to just try it out, go there and just try. See if you like it. See if it helps you to create a more healthy lifestyle.

GS: Well if you can get someone to do it, how are they not going to like it?

JS: Exactly. We have a lot of free activities, lectures, workshops, many classes, community classes, and then we have all the paid workshops with some of the top teachers. And in Chicago, for example, a wonderful evening concert with Devi 2000.

See the National Yoga Month ad in this issue for more information.

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