This Clan Is Made for You and Me

When Willow Street Yoga was voted the Best Yoga Studio in the DC area last year, an Express magazine writer called to ask us why we thought we won. "What is your greatest asset," they asked, "your best offering?" For us, the answer is clear: kula. Here at Willow Street, we are blessed with a bright and loving community of inspiringly diverse students and teachers; a group of people committed to illuminating not just our individual selves, but also the community around us. Willow Street shines brightly because you shine brightly.

As we come together each week to find peace and power in our minds and bodies, we encourage ourselves and each other to evolve. We leave the mat with a more luminous inner flame, and as we shine out into the world as schoolteachers and parents, lawyers and bus drivers, we carry that light into the larger community. Our yoga practice helps us to stay centered in challenging situations, our Pilates work strengthens our commitment to the causes we believe in, and every moment we spend breathing consciously and meditating on the interconnection of all beings directly translates into acts of kindness, generosity and love in the big wide world off of the sticky mat.

The best part is that this doesn't just sound good-it does good, in our communities big and small. Last February, dozens of students, teachers and donations came together for Willow Street's Yoga Benefit for Haiti, and we raised over $2,500 for Doctors Without Borders. Every Saturday at noon-for more than a year now!-our faculty and teachers-in-training volunteer to offer a totally free, no-strings-attached Community Yoga Class in Takoma Park. This

Memorial Day, we hope you'll answer another Call to the Kula: join your classmates, teachers and familiar folks from behind the front desk for our Lighten Up Long Branch morning of service. We'll trade in our belts and blocks for gloves and trash bags, coming together for a clean-up walk down Long Branch Creek, and celebrating our kula at the end with a little yoga practice and a picnic lunch.

Whether it's out in the park or here in the studio, each time we come together to practice, we co-create new ways to flourish and evolve, both as individuals and as a family. Anusara yoga's founder, John Friend, envisions kula as "inclusive, life-affirming, and evolving," a clan that celebrates "individuality, plurality and creative self-expression," a community whose members "offer themselves in service to life, in communities both locally and globally, in order to reduce suffering and bring greater happiness and health." Thank you all for co-creating our radiant Willow Street kula.