Hey all, we received a surprise comment yesterday and felt compelled to share it with everyone in post form.
You wanna know who it was from? We imagine you haven’t forgotten the Hippie Yoga Farmer. Well guess what? It’s a real show with a real yogi named Max Thomas, a dedicated yog who’s been an integral part of the LA Yoga circuit for 30 years, and whose late 90′s kids show (“EiEi Yoga“) has been positively reviewed in Yoga Journal AND The New York Times (read). In our/your face!
Thankfully, and to our astonishment, Yogi Oki Doki’s wife and executive producer of “EiEi Yoga”, Robin Maxwell, has written in to YD to set us straight.
We truly appreciate Mrs. Maxwell providing us with the full lowdown on who, what, when…and for clearing up what we suspected to be true, yes kids DO love it. And we still think it’s OK to find it funny… or Oki Doki 
Read on for the real story of “Yogi Oki Doki”and Robin’s unabridged comment below (original here).
ps. Anyone care to dig up the Yoga Journal article? nevermind, check out the reviews here and here. Thanks Google books search.
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 somebody 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 n***.” 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.
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You know what ?
I saw the “Everything is terriable” version and I found myself wanting to get a copy of the actual video. NOT to make fun of it, but because I enjoyed it.
It looks like a great video and it really gets the needed fun factor that children need in order to be interested. If I can find a DVD someplace of this video, I’ll buy it !!
Yogi Ogi Doki is cool.
We have loved “playing” with Yogi Oki Doki and farm friends in our home for over 10 years. It has a great way to do yoga together as a family.
Makes Fox News viewers look like Rhodes scholars? What the hell is that all about? She complains about prejudice and then goes on to judge and stereotype a large group of people in the next sentence! I saw the stupid clip and didn’t think he was creepy or a pedo, I think kids should be encouraged to learn yoga if they want to. However to insinuate that a large portion of the country is ignorant because of a channel that they watch IS ignorant, even if that channel is supportive of a political party more obviously than other channels (because they all are). Take a dose of your own medicine lady.
Your husband might be a jedi master for all I care but that is a creepy, disturbing, borderline sexual video. It’s funny because its absolutely horrible.
I just felt dirty after watching the Youtube video. It’s completely creepy to see some old whack job touching little kids like that. What’s next Hippie Yoga Farmer holding 12 y/o boys whilst they play COD on the XBOX? How about perfecting 13 y/o girls golf swings with his arms around their waste?
The video isn’t derided because it was edited. The video isn’t derided because it was put on youtube. The video is derided because it is creepy. You wouldn’t have a chance in hell of having a Michael Jacksonesque sleepover with milk and cookies with my kids, you dick. Just because you have a copyright doesn’t mean your product can’t be mocked for the tard factor.
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