FML Spotlight: Alex Schatzberg of New Vibe Yoga
Today is Sunday. The air is especially breezy for a summer evening in June. Along St. Marks Place, I duck under the New Vibe Yoga flag and buzz #3, simply marked: “YOGA;” a ritual I’ve followed like it’s my religion for the past two years.
Outside, St. Marks is characteristically restless: tourists, bikers, students, and remnants of the counterculture that defined the East Village move past one another in a constant current. Inside 9 St. Marks Place, three flights up a spiral staircase, the city seems to disappear.
Shoes come off at the door. You warm your feet on a carpeted mat before stepping inside. Beyond the entryway, a studio space unfolds into a cabin-like loft adorned with floral paintings and flooded with natural light. Charred wood lingers from the fireplace as tea brews on the stove, and out back, a lush garden obscures a tucked-away view of the Manhattan skyline.
At the center of it all is Alex Schatzberg and his Ashtanga practice. A traditional form of yoga rooted in sequence, repetition, and discipline, I can say with dramatic confidence that New Vibe Yoga has changed my life. Experience and ego fall away as the practice demands strength, but rewards you with presence and gratitude. With time, Ashtanga has become a physical devotion and addiction, and one my body has learned to expect.
For the past nine years, Alex has not only taught at 9 St. Marks Place, he lives there. His home has functioned as both a yoga studio and gathering place, with thousands of New Yorkers climbing the same spiral staircase to practice with him. After twenty years in the city and twelve years of New Vibe, he is leaving.
When Alex announced the closure of his New York studio and his return home to Marin County, California, I knew it was time to meet the man behind the mat. As he folded laundry between classes and waited for the inevitable ring of the buzzer, FML sat down to talk about what brought him here, what kept him here, and what comes after a dream has been realized.
FML: You grew up in Marin County, California before moving to New York at 18. What was that world like?
AS: Marin is known as a hub in America for spiritual and natural living. It was kind of one of those ’70s hippie spots, and those cultures really became embedded in the area. Growing up, I was very exposed to Eastern religions. There are places called Spirit Rock and Green Gulch, these Zen Buddhist centers where you can go for Dharma talks, meditations, and tea ceremonies.
But it was all set amongst the beauty of Marin, this forested, coastal California blanketed in fog all the time. It’s a very cozy feeling.
FML: What drew you to the specific practice of yoga?
AS: I didn’t get into going to yoga as a regular, daily thing until I moved here. In California, hiking was my outlet. Even going for a walk can be extremely stressful in New York City. You’re like, “I’m just gonna go out for a walk!” and then you see 10,000 people, and it’s noisy.
I was looking for something to find that kind of clarity I found outside in California. Yoga was it. It felt like the closest thing to home in a lot of ways. An easy way to access peace, or some quiet, clarity.
FML: Was there a moment you realized yoga wasn’t just a practice, but an integral part of your lifestyle?
AS: I wouldn’t say there was like one class or one particular moment. I think it’s something that builds over time. There are lots of benefits to yoga. All the things cosmetic companies sell to you promise all these beauty benefits. And I’m like, “Well, you can get that from yoga, too.” You want to look radiant? You want that vibrant energy? You don’t need to put a lot of product on your face; you need that yoga glow. Open up your pores and sweat a little!
My life became better with it than without it. Then you get back into it and start to feel the, no pun intended, vibe again. Hence the name of my studio, New Vibe Yoga.
FML: What is Ashtanga Yoga, and what have you preserved, or changed, in the way you teach it here?
AS: Ashtanga is a traditional yoga format from India that is a series of sequences that get progressively harder pretty quickly. The idea with New Vibe was to stick to the traditional format and offer it in an accessible way. I condense more difficult series into a one-hour class, but we don’t change the order of the postures, and we don’t change the rhythm of the practice.
Ashtanga is traditionally taught early in the mornings in a method called Mysore-style, where you teach each student individually, really gradually, over time. That’s not a New Yorker’s lifestyle. New Yorkers do not get up early. I cannot fill an early morning class for the life of me here. 5:30, 6 P.M.? It’s gonna be packed. You talk about 7 A.M., 8 A.M., and it’s crickets in here.
I’ve changed the way I teach to adapt to New Yorkers. I always say there are 10,000 things that could happen to you before you get to yoga in New York. Literally.
FML: Before New Vibe, you spent years apprenticing under your own Ashtanga teacher. How did that shape the teacher you became?
AS: Before New Vibe, I was living in my teacher’s yoga studio in a basement on Avenue B. It was a really traditional Ashtanga school, and my teacher had learned in India from the guru, Pattabhi Jois. I apprenticed with him over the course of five years, assisting his classes daily.
It was an amazing experience because apprenticeship is not a common modality of learning anymore. It’s rare to have that one-on-one opportunity with a teacher. Eventually, I was feeling ready to be on my own.
FML: Tell me about the early years of opening your own studio.
AS: I had another student, this very eccentric woman who created Two Boots Pizza. She had a townhouse a block away on 2nd Street, and kept saying, “You should come over to my house! I have a yoga studio in my house. You should teach there.”
Six months later, I finally went over and knocked on her door. I ended up renting the parlor floor for three years, and she became like a mother to me.
New York, I always say, is like a city of locked doors. It’s all about collecting your keys when you’re here. It can be an amazing place when the doors open, but it can also be very difficult if you don’t have access to keys or know people who do.
When she left, commercial spaces were too expensive, so I started looking for somewhere I could live and work. In some ways, it’s this beautiful, golden handcuff because it keeps you here in order to do the project.
FML: What do you hope students actually take with them from your classes?
AS: A lot of yoga places want to teach you handstands, acrobatic moves… all the cool stuff you see on Instagram. I don’t want to do any of that.
I want people to do a perfect down-dog, a perfect warrior one, a perfect warrior two. I want to teach people the fundamentals and use them to get to a place of quiet in their mind. My goal is to take people into a place of meditation and give them real time and space, which is so valuable and so difficult to find right now.
FML: The curation of the studio feels incredibly intentional. How much of the space was already here, and what have you made your own?
AS: My landlord, Charles Fitzgerald, is a land conservationist and designed this whole aesthetic. All the wood comes from his land in Maine. The walls are oxidized pine panels from old Dutch settler farmhouses, and the floors he bought at auction in the ’70s. After a fire here in the ’60s, he rebuilt it in this kind of farm style, with wooden beams and an oversized Rumford fireplace.
I came in and added what I call the “beauty touches:” refinishing the floors, hanging the copper pots, and transforming the back roof into the garden and outdoor shower. The plants come inside in winter and back outside in summer. It’s this beautiful space to live in that moves with the seasons.
The art is by my friend Eugene Gregan. He’s 88 years old and lives in the Catskills, and I’ve been archiving and photographing his work for 16 years. When we created the New Vibe clothing collection, we had the idea to incorporate the paintings. To create a synergy between the clothing and the physical space.
FML: That intersection of lifestyle, art, and fashion feels very FML. How did the clothing line become another extension of New Vibe?
AS: I had done some really cool graphic shirts for New Vibe, and Todd Thomas, a designer and teacher at Parsons, was my yoga student. During the pandemic, he said, “I have time. If you want me to help you, we could uplevel your clothing line.” And I was like, “Fuck yeah. I want to do that.”
I’d always wanted to, but you need the right partners in projects. Todd taught me how to create a clothing line, and because he was my student, it became this mutual kind of exchange.
FML: What makes the community at New Vibe different from other spaces in New York?
AS: New Vibe is a cool place. Really cool people come here, but it’s a secret. You would walk by it on the street a million times, and unless you went on the website, looked up the time, booked your class, and buzzed the buzzer at the right time, you’re not gonna get in here.
That’s the beauty of New Vibe. It gives people that third home. In some ways, the third space here is disappearing, and I’m proud to have created one in an area where we need that.
FML: After twenty years of living here, what led to your decision to move back to California?
AS: Really, ultimately, to be closer to my family. Life is finite. Your parents get older, and I’ve lived here now 20 years since my mom dropped me here to go to NYU. If I don’t go back now, the time gets shorter and shorter.
Of course I’m gonna miss it here. I love it here, and the community I’ve built here is my family in many ways. But I’ve done it as kind of an island by myself, just coming here to New York City and being a kid who had a dream.
Dream manifested. Twelve years later, I did it. I don’t need to feel like I’m closing on any kind of low note. It’s a complete high for me.
FML: What is one thing you think you’ll miss most about New York?
AS: I’m gonna miss the people.
New York is a movie set. These frontal walls don’t change. Sometimes the sign changes or the business inside changes, but the iconic imagery of the city is fixed. Everyone wants to be there, but really, it’s about the people on set.
New Vibe has been the most amazing theater. The most intellectual, artistic, driven people are here, or, they’re coming through. I’ve been literally sitting in place at the top of this spiral staircase, and the world has revolved around me. They’ve come through, and I’ve gotten to meet the most amazing people.
FML: Who are you hoping to become in this next chapter, both personally and as a teacher?
AS: I’m hoping to reclaim more personal time, to endeavor in life’s great treasures of close family and friends, and to focus on the simple joys of life like going for a hike, sitting on the beach, or cooking a beautiful meal.
As a teacher, I’m looking to give out a little less of my time. Not to be less present, but to be more potent.
FML: What does it take to trust yourself enough to start over when you’ve already built something that works?
AS: It takes faith in a divine plan. To believe that everything in life happens for a reason, a lesson, or simply because it’s the way.
Many things work, but when people evolve, things change.
For me, New Vibe Yoga was a Dream Complete. I always remember Langston Hughes’ A Dream Deferred. What a shame it is to have a dream and put it off in life. But what a thrill it is to live your dream to its fullest completion, and then move on to the next.
Alex returns home to Marin County this summer, but New Vibe will remain a through line in his life. Between private clients, live-streamed classes, and the search for the studio’s next physical home, the practice continues; just in a new form.
As I step out of the studio for the final time, I shut the door behind me and begin the trek home. I find myself mourning the quiet tradition that has shaped my Sundays and wondering what might take its place. Change is never comfortable, but perhaps it is a sign from the universe to trust what comes next and embrace new rhythms of our own. As Alex puts it: “How many dreams can we have in life? How many lives can we live?”
To learn more about New Vibe and view current class offerings, visit newvibeyoga.com.
Alex’s #FML Faves
Favorite song: Currently – Thank you Jah by Vybz Kartel.
Favorite movie: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Favorite post-yoga dish: Kitchari
What’s in your bag: Wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, water, and a snack. Ready to hike???
My morning routine isn’t complete without… Yoga
Favorite yoga posture: Downward Dog – I love to keep my head below my heart.
Favorite season: Spring because I need flowers.
Most worn item in your closet: My New Vibe Yoga x Eugene Gregan wide body hoodie with a Daffodil bouquet oil painting printed on the front.
Coffee or tea? What kind? Honestly, depends on the day. I do both, but I don’t need either. I often wake up with a lot of energy. If it’s coffee or a black tea, it’s with milk & sugar. I’m not into bitter.
