Yogi Oki Doki

If you've ever lived in the US, and these days even if you haven't, you are probably familiar with Fox News. To discerning viewers in the states, Fox is well-known for editing audio and video clips to the point of distorting stories. The same could be said of a very unfortunate video clip which continues to haunt Youtube even though many postings have since been removed. The controversy surrounds a dedicated and I might add veteran yoga teacher by the name of Max Thomas, who is based in California. This teacher created a TV program intended for pre-school children called EiEi Yoga. Whoever got their hands on this video edited down to a roughly 2-minute Youtube clip to try and show what a "creepy" and "scary" man this yoga teacher is. Taking clips out of context, repeating them, or emphasizing them could turn any children's program into something awkwardly campy and creepy. Take the late popular television series Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. I'm sure if anyone took the Fox News style editing approach to even a single episode by picking out certain clips, changing the order, and putting manipulative subtitles on the screen, we could end up with the same conclusion that the late Fred Roger's was a "creepy" and "scary" man who should never be near our children. At first, I was drawn into the myth that EiEi Yoga was hosted by a "creepy" and "scary" man until I saw a post from the wife of Max Thomas (whose character is Yogi Oki Doki in the program) that said that the video was given very positive reviews in Yoga Journal and in the New York Times. She goes on to write that along with being a long-term respected teacher of yoga, he has down community outreach with yoga to help patients with HIV and teens with schizophrenia. She concludes that children like the program. On looking around the Internet for these reviews, I was able to dig up the New York Times review which sure enough gives EiEi Yoga. Randy Hutter Epstein writes after showing his kids the video for "...two classes and weeks..., I am starting to become convinced that yoga can aid children physically and emotionally." Amazon.com which still has the video available has it currently rated 3 stars out of 5. I looked through the reviews to see if anyone called the video "creepy" or "scary," and found that either the parents gave the video rave reviews or complained that it energized the kids too much without a calm down section at the end of the tape. All of these reviews are a far cry from evil troll behind the Youtube clip.

Controversial Youtube clip (PLEASE WATCH SKEPTICALLY - if is highly edited!!!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld4rPpYLYq0

Blogger who at first promotes Max Thomas negatively (Note the comments and how easily the public gets swayed by misinformation):
http://www.yogadork.com/news/who-is-the-eiei-yoga-farmer-meet-max-thomas-aka-yogi-oki-doki/

Listing for EiEiYoga on Youtube with real reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/i-i-Yoga-Kids-VHS/product-reviews/1561764019/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

A website with information about Max Thomas and his current work in Yoga:
http://www.highdeserteden.com/yoga.html

A New York Times review for EiEiYoga (Notice how postive it is):
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/15/health/the-novice-hardly-out-of-diapers-and-now-into-yoga.html?pagewanted=all

Notice how the blogger listed above changes their tone towards Max Thomas when his wife posts the following:
http://www.yogadork.com/news/ok-everybody-make-fun-of-the-hippie-dippy-e-i-e-i-yoga-farmer-video/

Robin Maxwell August 4, 2009 at 8:47 pm

As co-creator and producer of EiEi Yoga, and proud wife of Yogi Oki Doki (you may call me Mrs. Oki Doki) I would like to ask that someobody re-print Richard Rosen’s stellar Yoga Journal review of this video (1997) in which he unequivocally gave it “4 hooves up!”. Yogi and Rasta the Rooster appeared on several national TV magazines, and the science and medical writer for the New York Times said “Yogi Oki Doki is a hero in my house.”

Max Thomas (a/k/a Yogi Oki Doki) is one of California’s most beloved and respected yoga teachers. He was the director of the Center for Yoga in L.A. for four years in the early `80s before yoga became hip and ubiquitous. He has taught teacher training courses at the White Lotus Foundation in Santa Barbara, and in his own studios in L.A., Topanga and currently in Yucca Valley, CA. He has worked gratis for HIV patients in West L.A., and for schizophrenic teenagers at UCLA Medical Center. He was one of the first yoga teachers to acknowledge that if children were taught yoga we would be living in a much saner world.

Now, on a badly edited YouTube clip that has received close to a quarter of a million hits and 1,100 comments in 6 days (“Weird Hippie Yoga Farmers”) Max has been derided in every way imaginable, called “creepy” and “a pedophile.” One viewer referred to one of the beautiful children he was teaching as “that little nigger.” I know that the mental capacity of most of these people makes Fox News viewers seems like Rhodes Scholars, but it would be nice to see a little support from the yoga community for a fellow teacher, one who has dedicated the last 35 years of his life to bringing yoga to the world.

Perhaps you can go to the “everything is terrible site” and throw in a positive comment.

And yes, kids LOVE this video.