At Yoga Mandiram, no pain is your gain
by Destiny Irons | Featured in Encinitas Magazine
Why do Americans think something works only if it hurts?
All-you-can-eat buffets and gorilla size portions stretch out our stomachs to near busting. So yes, all that food surely took care of the hunger. Stores dedicated to taking care of our backs are stocked with medieval torture devices designed to work the kinks out. The local gym promises to give you a workout so intense you’ll throw up. Not to mention that we pay more for entertainment, cars, clothes, and houses thinking that if it strains our budget it surely must be better. Even the yoga-obsessed So Cal crowd brags about the latest yurt and how bad it made them hurt.
The latest talk around Cardiff is Yoga Mandiram, a small studio next to a Subway restaurant on San Elijo Road. There has been a buzz about ropes, balls, wood benches, bolsters, and all sorts of lovely pain inducing toys. It turns out that the rumor couldn’t be further from the truth. For instance, the Restorative Yoga class will leave you with the contradictory and completely new sensation of believing that it didn’t hurt, so it must have worked.
How do we reconcile that with our deeply ingrained cultural bias?
The good news is that we don’t have to climb a mountain to find the answer. The owner of Yoga Mandiram, a Cardiff local named Dennis Dean, can re-program us. The goal, according to Dean, is “trying to establish a deeper somatic awareness.” What that means, he continues, is “learning how to pay attention to your body and how it interacts with the environment.” So let’s simplify it even further. Pain is bad. Pleasure is good. This yoga feels really good. It feels day-at-the-spa-with-dark chocolate good.
Dean’s parents, as he puts it, were “alternative thinkers.” When he was 17 they put him in a private school in Encinitas called the Institute for the Study of Attention (ISA) with Dr. Lester Ingber. It was there Dean learned T’ai Chi and Shotokan Karate and in three to four years earned a second degree black belt. He started practicing Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga in Solana Beach with a yogi named Manju Jois. His first impression wasn’t earth shattering. Dean says, “I was quite young at the time and I was more in love with the lady that was actually bringing me to class.” Dean’s brother died shortly after that and his grief lead him to travel extensively throughout the world practicing yoga. He returned to Cardiff and apprenticed with Tim Miller’s Ashtanga Yoga Academy in Encinitas. Dean moved onto open the Yoga Mandiram studio in Cardiff two years ago. His studio attracts people from all different ages and athletic abilities. One of the studio’s clients world-famous triathlete Paula Newby-Freaser, has learned that if she can release tension in her hamstrings and iliotibial (IT) bands, her time improves. Dean’s clients learn to release their abused and over used parts of the body and train other muscles to pick up the slack. Yoga Mandiram is a great place to become aware of how you live and move while breathing in the heavenly scent of fresh baking bread next door.
