America’s yoga guru journey’s to the Middle Kingdom this month to teach us how to tune out the noise pollution and tune into ourselves.

If world-renowned yoga guru Max Strom had to spend the rest of his life in one pose, it would be royal dancer, a standing pose, which makes a lot of sense as Strom has never been the type to just sit around.

From starting life as a 12 pound baby with clubfeet to achieving praise as a high school football player and later making a living as a Hollywood screenwriter, Strom didn’t seem like a natural candidate for gurudom. But after a friend’s strong encouragement, “I decided to give [yoga] a try. I found my path in life because of this advice,” the best he’s ever gotten, says Strom.

As founder of Sacred Movement, Center for Yoga and Healing in Los Angeles and teacher of a unique combination of Vinyasa and qi gong, Strom is on his way to China this month to impart his knowledge upon those willing to learn. “Max Strom is one of the most respected yoga teachers in the United States,” says Mimi Kuo, co-founder of Beijing’s Yoga Yard where Strom will lead a five day workshop. “He has a centeredness and inner peace that makes you feel good just by being around him.”

Born in Santa Cruz, California, Strom’s first great challenge in life was to overcome a congenital physical disability, which left him looking like Forrest Gump, complete with leg braces. This process, according to Strom, helped him to develop “patience, determination and a high tolerance to pain,” which would serve him well later on. Eventually, the soft spoken giant (he is 6 foot 5 inches) was playing football in high school. After graduation, Strom became a member of a rock band and wrote screenplays in L.A. for films like “Criminal Passion” and “Sunset Heat” (with the tagline, "Sex. Money. Murder. It's a matter of degrees."). But there was always something nagging at his conscience, the thought that perhaps there was some deeper meaning to life than he had experienced so far. In 1991 Strom gave up what he describes as the “clinging, grasping [and] wanting,” he found himself doing, and started down a path to enlightenment. All of this speaks to the power of yoga, which, according to Strom, is more than a form of physical exercise, it is a way for us to "rebuild and transform" ourselves.

Yoga is an industry that has transformed itself into a US$27 billion-a-year business with over 17 million practitioners in the United States. Strom recognizes the inherent contradiction of "marketing the philosophy of non-materialism,” but believes wholeheartedly that yoga is a positive force: "It is exposing motivated, college-educated, upper-middle class thinkers and business people in If world-renowned yoga guru Max Strom had to spend the rest of his life in one pose, it would be royal dancer, a standing pose, which makes a lot of sense as Strom has never been the type to just sit around.

Strom, answering questions for this article from his home in Ashland, Oregon (an idyllic, eco-friendly enclave of hippies, Shakespearean actors and college students) which is about as far away from the hurly-burly of L.A. as you can get, says, "You can be sitting in a very quiet, remote place, and still have a lonely silence in your heart, and an endless negative dialogue in your mind." If we are constantly surrounded by noise and don't even recognize it as noise, how can we quiet our minds, asks Strom. This should ring true, especially to expatriates living in China who are constantly exposed to a cacophony of horn honking and construction sounds. Strom, not surprisingly, recommends practicing yoga; "If we can learn to quiet our mind,” he says, “outside noise doesn't affect us so much."

With regards to his upcoming trip, Strom says he is “very eager to work with the people of Beijing," who have been described to him by a friend, with prior teaching experience here, as being, "very open to ideas and [having] a strong sense of internal beauty as they practice." While in Beijing, though, Strom won’t be sampling the capital’s most famous dish, Peking duck. Aside from his commitment to vegetarianism, Strom fondly recalls a time he was chanting “om” outdoors and was eagerly answered by a duck, who would listen, close his eyes, then sit down and appear to sleep. "After that when he would see me coming he would quack and get out of the water to come and greet me. I ‘omed’ to him every time," says Strom. If anyone happens to see a tall laowai communing with the birds at Beihai Park, rest assured, it's just Max Strom surveying the scenery with his third eye.

Max Strom’s 3 Steps to a Quiet Mind

1. Sit still and take three deep breaths, inhale and exhale through your nose. When you inhale, breathe way up into the upper chest.

2. Imagine the face of the person you have the most gratitude for. Not guilt, gratitude. Breathe and radiate your gratitude towards them. Do this for five minutes.

3. Your busy mind may wander. If you are meditating at home, but stressing about your job, imagine yourself in your office. Wipe everything off your desk and then climb onto the top of it and meditate there. If your mind wanders somewhere else, do the same thing there. No matter where the mind wanders, you will still be meditating.

The Search for My Inner Pretzel

Away from the morning traffic jams and frantic rush to get to work on time, I have sought refuge in Beijing’s tranquil Yoga Yard where I am being told, with a straight face, to breathe through my neck like a fish. I am sitting in a less than perfect lotus pose to yoke my body and my mind, at least that's what I’ve been told, but I would rather be yoking my toast and listening to the morning news. Assef, the guy next to me, is a pilot for El Al Airlines and is in Beijing for only three days. He is tan, hairy, well built and much more flexible than I am. Jealousy is a feeling I must free my weak, materialistic mind of. Assef’s been doing yoga for the past five years because it centers him and even helps him fly better. I’ve been doing it for the past 45 minutes and if I pass out it’s possible that I’ll experience a flying-like sensation. I try to quiet my mind, but instead start wondering how many classes I’ll have to take in order to convene with the Absolute...

In the afternoon, I head over to Beijing Yoga to take an hour of hot yoga. I’m under the false impression that there is such a thing as a crash course in Enlightenment. The Vinyasa yoga at Yoga Yard seemed strenuous, but Bikram is another level. I’ve been transported to southern China at the peak of summer, with my right leg wrapped around my sweaty thigh, my foot locked behind my calf. My arms are as twisted as the sticky mihuar street vendors sell, but I’m not made of dough. “Hold it there,” I hear my instructor say through the haze. She is the picture of serenity, her chakras wide open. “People usually don’t like hot yoga when they do it for the first time,” Sherri, founder of Beijing Yoga, tells me afterward. On the way out, Sherri hands me an organic apple and I take a huge crunchy bite of pesticide-free goodness and think to myself: some parts of the Wellness industry are easier to swallow than others.