Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman Yee: Yoga’s First Couple

Globe and Mail

April, 2009

 

Rodney Yee is sitting cross-legged on the floor of his Intercontinental Hotel suite, nibbling on cantaloupe and stroking the palm of his wife's suntanned hand. Colleen Saidman Yee is perched on the couch, hugging her knees to her chest, her Botticelli torrent of blond tresses half-obscuring the mantra ("Remember Love") embroidered on her tight black T.

 

It's breakfast time, and the First Couple of yoga, the handsome poster children of the Om-spouting barefoot bourgeoisie - in Toronto for the Yoga Pilates Conference and Show - has just finished morning meditation. They exude an air of almost objectionable health and calm, not an apparent ounce of fat or self-doubt between them. Their euphoric contentment is only occasionally upset by startlingly loud storms of simultaneous laughter. One never laughs without the other joining in, usually with greater volume and enthusiasm.

 

Ms. Saidman Yee is recounting her first encounter with the great Rodney Yee. "I thought he was arrogant. I couldn't stand him. I walked out. It was the only class I've ever left." Cue trademark Yee guffaws.

 

Of course, their how-we-met story - like any worth its salt - is more complicated than hate-at-first-sight rom-com clich