I think…after holding off for months…I can officially say…I knew Nick Rosen when. Of course, he has been in the Times a fair amount before…still, the below must represent a special moment for Nick Rosen and Kate Churchill, the yogini behind Enlighten Up!

To read the whole thing, click the image above. Excerpt: 

…Approaching the subject through Mr. Rosen is a doubly smart strategy: it allows the uninitiated viewer to explore yoga through a surrogate, and it marginalizes Ms. Churchill’s blatant agenda and rather grating personality.

Yoga appeals to Mr. Rosen as a superb workout more than as a route to enlightenment, and he tours the various studios and methods of the international yoga scene (from New York to Los Angeles and Hawaii before an extended, and fascinating, trip to India) with both an open mind and a dubious eye for its more metaphysical trappings. This clearly frustrates a filmmaker eager to acclaim the “transformative” aspects of the discipline.

As the title indicates, “Enlighten Up!” explores its subject with a light touch and welcome sense of humor. That it ends with a lack of resolution about yoga’s ultimate goal suggests that Mr. Rosen wasn’t the only one to gain some self-knowledge along the way…read the rest.

Trailer, for those of you who haven’t yet seen: