When Lieutenant John Wylie, a 25+ year member of the University of Pennsylvania Police Department, wanted to create his new instructional Chair Yoga video, he looked to the Penn Museum's monumental Egypt (Sphinx) gallery to provide the ambiance that would inspire him and his student practitioners.

"I thought it would be eloquent to set the practice in a classical environment that would ground it to the antiquity of the past. I thought the Egyptian gallery was the most ideal place. It's beautiful here."

The space, and Lieutenant Wylie's strong, fluid, and expressive Chair Yoga teaching style, combine to create a program accessible to all on YOUTUBE: "Chair Flow Yoga II – Back to the Future of Chair." The hour-long program (it will also be offered in shorter segments) was videotaped in May 2015 by Chris Cook of the Penn Video Network. Set in the Museum's monumental Egypt (Sphinx) gallery amidst towering pillars of an ancient Egyptian palace, the program is rich in both movement and stillness. As Lieutenant Wylie notes, "The practice can be seen here as an open fluid flow that can be the base for the evolution of movement and meditative stillness for the chair yoga practitioner. I hope that it has some healing properties as well: Yoga Rx."

If you are thinking that Chair Yoga sounds like an easy way out of exercise, you may be surprised. "I think my classes now are usually a bit of a challenge. So, I would suggest that you view this program first, and as my instructor Tiffany Cruikshank says, 'Take what you need!' If you think the entire practice is something that you can use, please just enjoy it and allow it to open up within you. Each of us has a gift that can be unwrapped and opened with our own personal yoga practice. You just have to find the right yoga practice for you. This Chair Yoga Flow II may be the one that unwraps one of your gifts. I hope that it is."

Working in what can be a stressful career, Lieutenant Wylie acknowledged that yoga made a difference in how he approached his life, and his work: "Yoga does give me a sense of calm and clarity in my daily activities and probably more-so in my work life. When I first started feeling the benefits of the practice I would often find myself saying, 'Wow, that person needs yoga.' That happened a lot at work. Over the years it has also helped give me a sense of insight into the impact that my life can have on others and how important it is to value everyone's life and their life process."

More about John Wylie:

John Wylie has been teaching yoga for eight years, and studying with many teachers for far longer. Currently, he is taking classes locally under Mrs. Joan White, an internationally recognized classical yoga guru in the Iyengar style and lineage, having been a student of the late B.K.S. Iyenagar for 30+ years. With Mrs. White, he keeps grounded in a complete practice and study of yoga, which entails meditation, the physical practice (asana), breathing practices (pranayama) and a study of the yoga scriptures (sutras) and literature. He acquired his Registered Yoga Teachers (RYT 200 hr) certification in Baptiste Power Yoga in 2007 under Bill Raup, falling in love with this style after a few sessions of practicing Bikram hot yoga. He is also a student in a program called Yoga Medicine developed by Ms. Tiffany Cruikshank. He is influenced by many other instructors, including; Janet Stone, Clara Roberts-Oss, Duncan Wong, Simon Park, and most importantly Shiva Rea.

Prior to his explorations and teaching of yoga, Lieutenant Wylie received a black belt in a Japanese Karate style called "Muji Shin Te" with his sensei Thomas Coleman. He has a BA in Religious Studies from Franklin & Marshall College, and an MS in Organizational Dynamics from Penn.

From his office in the Babylonian Section of the Penn Museum, Grant Frame directs a National Endowment for the Humanities-funded project that is increasing the understanding of Assyrian and Babylonian history, using never-before-translated or published royal inscriptions.

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The summer season is upon us, and Penn students are taking off—for some serious exploration.

Seventh grade students from the Louis H. Farrell School in northeast Philadelphia, fresh from a June visit to the Penn Museum for an Unpacking the Past exploration into ancient Egyptian science, culture, and art, were enthusiastic—and then some.

Bony Questions: Considering the Origins and Evolution of Flight

Tiny skeletons of about 100 birds and 100 bats, all painstakingly packaged, have been arriving at the Penn Museum, on loan from the Academy of Natural Sciences and the Delaware Museum of Natural History.

They've been moving in to the new Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Material's (CAAM) Human Skeletal Lab since about March 2015. That's when Brandon Hedrick, Ph.D., a recent Penn graduate of the Earth and Environmental Sciences department (specializing in Paleontology), joined forces with Paul Mitchell, Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology and assistant in the lab, and Maya Kassutto, a rising sophomore in Penn's undergraduate department of Anthropology. Together, they've been exploring the capabilities of some powerful new CAAM equipment—and taking on some intriguing questions about the very origins, and evolution, of flying.

This July and August, the general admission price at the Penn Museum is just $10!

Adults, seniors, and children get in for one cool price (1/3 off regular adult admission): $10. (As always, Penn Museum members, children under 6, PennCard holders and active military—and, summers only through Labor Day weekend, active military families—enjoy free admission.) Summertime features great programming, all included* in the general admission:

Five teachers around the table listened intently as a sixth, Brett Lear, shared information about the "personal artifact" he had brought in: a standard-sized playbill from last Sunday's "final" Grateful Dead concert in Chicago. Yes, it was just last Sunday. Yes, he was there. Yes, it had value. He had checked eBay, where it was already selling for $30, though it was handed out for free to the concert-goers.

The stories behind his artifact, like the artifacts that all the teachers had brought in—a cell phone, a photo cube, a memento box with bracelet—went far deeper than the size, materials, and date of the playbill; Brett recalled the summer of '95, when he'd followed the band from stop to stop, touring in true groupie fashion.

The teachers, among the group of 27 middle school teachers from Philadelphia public or charter schools, had plenty of questions. Brett's answers elicited more—and that was all part of the exercise, an early morning warm up to an intensive, two-day Inquiry and the Ancients Mini Teacher Institute July 13 and 14, 2015 at the Penn Museum, co-sponsored by the University City Science Center, and made possible in part with support from PECO. The mini-institute was designed to complement the Museum's Unpacking the Past program, launched in the fall of 2014.