Issue date: 3/23/06 Section: News

Media Credit: Xavier Mascareñas Dahn Yoga, on Central Avenue at Girard Boulevard, has more than 200,000 members worldwide, with headquarters in Sedona, Ariz.

by Caleb Fort

Daily Lobo



The Body and Brain Club, a student group, is trying to recruit people into a cult, said student Monica Demarco.

She joined the club in the fall semester of 2005. She said she was interested in the club because she saw fliers saying it would help reduce stress. She was also interested in the martial arts aspect of it. At the suggestion of the club's officers, she was soon taking classes at the Dahn Yoga Center on Central Avenue, she said.

By December, Dahn instructors were pressuring her to attend a week-long yoga camp at Dahn Yoga's headquarters outside of Sedona, Ariz., she said.

"That's when a lot of shadier things started happening," she said.

Dahn instructors told her she would receive training at the camp to become a martial arts instructor.

"But the first session wasn't devoted to martial arts," she said. "Everyone has to meditate on their inner child and cry over their inner pain. It was really uncomfortable because that's not what I thought I was there for."



Is it a cult?

Charlotte Connors, a Dahn spokeswoman, said the organization is not a cult.

"It's actually, to me, the antithesis of that," she said. "It really empowers members to be the managers of their own health, and use those tools however they want."

The camp instructors kept their students busy and exhausted, Demarco said. Students had to meditate for several hours a day, and they went to sleep late and got up early, she said.

Several members of the camp were in poor health, Demarco said.

"Everyone was getting sick throughout the camp, and the leader said we were expected to get sick because we were purging negative energy from our bodies," she said. "I don't think it was a result of purging that energy. I think they were putting something in the food, or it was just because we were so exhausted."

Instructors would not intentionally make anyone feel ill, Connors said.

"Our primary focus is health," she said. "Being a staff member or student, I always felt like if I was sick or tired I could take a break, or (go) back to my room and rest."

Continued...

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