Cyndi Lee was an accomplished downtown modern dancer and a choreographer for more than 15 years, choreographing major hits like “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and “Dirty Dancing.” Then she turned to yoga.

Ms. Lee founded OM Yoga center in 1998 with a mere $15,000 as initial investment and, by the time she opened her small studio doors for the first day of classes near 14th Street, she had $800 in her pocket, one other staff member, two students and an office space without desk. “I didn’t know anything about running a business, and when I got into the business, yoga was still considered as an activity for the hippies,” says Ms. Lee.

Today, Ms. Lee’s OM Yoga is an 11,500 square-foot studio near 9th Avenue and 5th Street with a 80-member staff, 150 classes per week, more than 3,500 students, one other studio in East Hampton, another center opening up in Las Vegas in partnership with Alvin Alley, and with over 30% annual growth rate over the last two years – thanks to an industry making unprecedented strides, OM Yoga is a hugely successful enterprise.

According to Yoga Journal, the leading publication in the field, “about 18 million Americans now practice yoga. The average practitioner’s yearly expenditure on all things yoga-instruction, mats, props, clothing, weekend workshops, books, CDs, videos, could be conservatively estimated at a ballpark $1,500. That amount times 18 million equals $27 billion. To put this into perspective, if the yoga business were consolidated, the resulting corporation would be slightly larger than Dow Chemical, slightly smaller than Microsoft.” Further, according to the World Yoga Foundation, yoga industry sales will reach $40 billion in 2005.

Unsurprisingly, New York has become the kernel of the booming yoga industry. Even by conservative estimates, there are already 150 yoga studios across Manhattan, and a studio typically charges $16 to $25 per class, and an average of $75 per personal instruction class. Despite the unparalleled growth in the last few years, yoga business in New York is only going north.

There are several reasons for the exponential growth of the yoga industry in metros across the country, including New York. According to the Yoga Journal, 75% of yoga students or (consumers) are women. Further, according to the publication, “over 30% of these consumers have an annual household income of $75,000 or more, with a full 15% earning over $100,000.”

Despite the meteoric boom in the yoga industry, the coming months will not be easy for the small business entrepreneur in the market place.

Even Ms. Lee, a successful entrepreneur in the business, from OM Yoga acknowledges that “though yoga has become mainstream, there is more competition in the market place now.” However, at the end of the day, “the mission is really yoga, it is not the money,” she says.