Trying to find the way in and out of the Sun and Moon Yoga studio in Meguro, Tokyo, is a bit like trying to negotiate an Escher drawing. Do you take the clean way, the dirty way, the back way or the other way? No worry, says owner-director Leza Lowitz, there is no right or wrong way, only the space that awaits.

This is the second time that Leza has lived in Japan. When she returned to her native California in 1994, she was burned out. As a freelance writer, editor and art critic, she had found many opportunities here. But after four years, she was exhausted and "drinking too much."

The crunch point, she says, came at an art exhibition opening, when a woman said they had met before, " 'but that time you were drinking, so you don't remember.' Shocked that I had made such an impression, I knew it was time to change course."