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By llewis On March 8, 2010
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Shake your booty and rock your asana–all for a good cause.
At 10 am on April 25, 2010, Toronto’s Liberty Grand Entertainment Complex will host hundreds of men and women uniting to raise funds for breast cancer research. Participants join in on four Zumba® cardio dance sessions and four yoga sessions, all taught by Toronto’s top instructors. There are great gift bags, lots of prizes, product vendors, food samples and more. Information on living a healthy lifestyle will also be readily available. And all participants can attend the opening and closing ceremonies.
Everything comes together for a $25 registration fee and a minimum $250 fundraising goal. Register as an individual or form a team to fundraise together. For more information, visit www.yogainmotion.ca.
My Yoga Online is proud to be a media sponsor of this event. “Breast cancer research is something I’m passionate about,” says My Yoga Online co-founder Michelle Trantina, “so I’m excited we can share our resources for this important event.”
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By Kreg Weiss On March 4, 2010
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My Yoga Online has posted a new Yoga Anatomy video featuring David Keil: The Hip Yoga Anatomy yoga video. Learn the important aspects of the hips including major muscles surrounding the hip joint. Discover why the hip has the amount of tension it has around it. Learn how the hamstrings and quadriceps function as “two joint muscles”. Demonstration of where and how tight hips play a role in knee dysfunction. Demonstration to show where movement does or doesn’t happen at the hip joint.
Click to watch this The Hip Yoga Anatomy video class
About David Keil: David Keil was introduced to yoga in 1989 by his Tai Chi Chuan teacher. Both the Tai Chi and Yoga practice at the ripe age of 17 began his research into his own mind-body connections. As an instructor of Kinesiology (the study of movement and musculoskelatal anatomy) at Miami’s Educating Hands School of Massage, David had developed a fun, informal and informative style of teaching. Because of his passion and desire to share the human body with everyone, he delivers this complex and sometimes frustrating topic in a way that is very accessible and understandable to yoga practitioners.
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By Brenda P. On March 3, 2010
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Whew. I am recuperating from a sprint triathlon (swim 1/4 mile, bike 5 miles, run 3 miles) I competed in on Sunday. The decision to train for it was an odd one for me; I tend to avoid really competitive situations that involve tasks I'm not very good at. But I thought the challenge of racing with seasoned athletes would be a good one, the discipline of training a good habit to develop, and I was really interested to see how my yoga practice would contribute to the process.
Obviously the increased flexibility was an aid to recovery, and stretching was key after hard workouts, but it was the mental rigor of yoga that was most useful. Like I said, I'm very competitive--too competitive--and I know that trying to do something new with people who are better than me is very difficult. I had to summon all my powers of concentration to stay focused on my own lane and pace and not get too worked up about who was passing me. Taming that pesky ego while in last place, ug.
Running is the hardest. I plod along gracelessly--pound, pound, pound--and envy those that seem to bound by, light on their feet and sleek as gazelles. So not only did I have to ignore those fleet-of-feet, but I also had to drown out the voices in my head encouraging me to just stop because it's too hard. I repeated to myself, over and over, the instructions I always give my students: just focus on your own body, breath into any tension, relax on the exhale, keep your mind clear and just allow the experience to unfold. A lot easier to tell than do.
But, still, it all helped. I think the discipline you build as you practice comes into play any time you are facing a challenging situation--whether it's one you choose or one that's thrust upon you. It's also why I think asana is key to learning how to focus and quiet negative voices, but it's only a tool for developing mental stamina, rather than the whole point.
How do you learn to clear the mind? I don't know. I'm still thinking about that. Maybe it just sneaks up you while you focus on asana; maybe you have to take time to practice meditation and pranayama; maybe you need to find yourself in a rough spot before you know you can do it (I'd definitely put labor and delivery of my two sons in that category). I don't really remember before and and after yoga, so maybe it's a long, slow process of accumulated experience.
Anyway, as I shop for my next race--Madison Quarter Marathon?--I'm mulling all of this. It's nice that the challenge I'm working on is one of my choosing (and you get a tee shirt when you finish), but I'd like to think I could pull these mental yoga skills out whenever I needed them. However, I'm not sure how I'd advise anyone to develop their own...thoughts?
By Kreg Weiss On March 2, 2010
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The yoga path shows us how to charge neutral when we feel disagreements with our fellow human beings. The greatest yoga teachers know that we will not always get along, so they teach us that we do not need to make war based on our divergent points of view. We will not always feel joyful or loving, but we do not need to take out our unhappiness on others. We will not always be able to live totally without fear, but we do not need to let desperation for control determine our actions. This is the essence of ahimsa, non-violence, in action.
One of the most basic commitments on the spiritual path is ahimsa, the resolution not to do harm to other beings. Ahimsa is a noble proclamation that aims to align our actions with our intentions to be a force of healing in the world. However, a heartfelt commitment to refrain from harming others does not mean that we will never feel a negative thought again. Nor does it truthfully mean that we will never perpetrate another violent act. Instead the vow of non-violence undertaken by spiritual seekers throughout all time stems from a basic recognition that we have a choice in how we live our lives. While I practice yoga almost every day and live a spiritual life to the best of my ability, I am not always a peaceful person. Sometimes my past ways of waging small interpersonal wars tie me into a sticky knot of anger, fear, sadness and resentment. When I find myself in that hot, uncomfortable space I often feel trapped with no way out. Sometimes I am present enough to remember my desire to live in alignment with ahimsa, and sometimes not.
In moments when anger is too large, practiced and habituated the commitment not to do harm can feel like another burden to bear instead of the release it actually is. Anger breeds illogical states of mind and the nervous system needs time to cool down before any positive action can take place. We will never solve something in the midst of an angry wrath that we cannot solve when we are even tempered and clam. In fact sometimes the mere presence of anger and the urge to fight is itself the problem. Like fiery goggles that paint the world in bright hues of red, anger prevents us from seeing reality clearly. The most peaceful thing you can do when you find yourself caught in a conflagration of emotions is to walk away and regain the balance of your mind. Only once you train the mind to return to a clear state is it possible to reconnect to the path of peace through ahimsa.
All human beings want to live in peace and feel love. What gets in the way is not the desire to do good, nor the desire not to harm, but instead our past patterns of warfare and disagreement. Whenever we react in a callous, confrontational way with people close to us it is more often based in an assumption made in the past than in an actual grievance in the present. Sometimes drama is all we know because that is all we have experienced in the past so we keep recreating it in the present. It could even be said that some people have an addiction to pain and drama that prevents them from living a peaceful life. But when a dramatic interlude is a substitute for a way of living, it is a deep samskara, or habit pattern, that is a detrimental force of pain and suffering in life. Yoga helps build the bridge from past addiction to pain into a more peaceful life in the present.
The only benefit that waging war with those around actually has is that a state of combat is perhaps the greatest motivator for a desire for peace. You never want peace more than when you feel yourself surrounded by war. War does not have to involve dropping bombs, gunfire and fighter jets. It can be waged with an arsenal of words and actions that are almost as traumatic to the heart as weapons of destruction are to the body. When partners live in war zones, erect mine fields around our hearts and cast out others whose culture or appearance is different than ours, peace and ahimsa are simply not possible. As the people of nations sometimes at way we have a responsibility to live more peaceful lives on a direct and personal level. It is an ironic double stand when we expect entire nations to sign peace treaties and when we are not able to make peace with our neighbors. In some sense world peace is a personal ethic choice as well as an global governmental action. The yogic path pledges its allegiance to peace through the ancient vow of ahimsa.
The battle in yoga, if there is one, is actually fought on the inner terrain. The great paradox that many longterm practitioners find out is that the only one they are really fighting with is themselves. Yoga asks you to make peace with the deepest, most secretive, terrifying and even shameful parts of yourself. In doing you you find the only way possible to make that peace with the external world too. It is not that you will never feel irritated, frustrated, angry, sad or fearful again, but that you will learn how to manage these difficult emotions when they do arise. In actively choosing your course of action you will transform the old habituated patterns of war and fighting into peace and friendship. By doing so on the internal level you will naturally change your outer world as well. Yoga means to unify, to yoke, to bring together and one of the most omnipresent things that yoga brings together is the unity of the inner and outer worlds. For was is possible only when we believe we are separate from others and we focus on that separation. Like battle-tired soldiers we must learn to lay down our weapons and surrender to the true power of peace.
Navigating the inner world is not easy and sometimes when we truly realize the harm of being at war with one another we take a inner vow of ahimsa. This vow sometimes creates non-confrontational people who are actually unresolved on the inner plane. While the intention is good, the path to peace sometimes involves a bit of confrontation and inner searching. The non-confrontational person who feels anger and avoids confronting it or other difficult emotions ends up in a kind of cold war with themselves and the people in their lives. This type of peace is not really peace, but instead is a kind of passive aggressive boiling pot that usually bursts at some point. Yoga practitioners cannot dig their heads in the sand like ostriches in the name of peace when conflict arises. Instead we must learn to negotiate a peaceful solution with presence, consideration, compassion and compromise. Just like we learn to practice through an injury into healing we must approach difficult emotions and situation with the same consciousness and awareness if we are to experience true healing.
While it could be said that holding the unhappiness in is at least better than lashing out at others, the danger in being so outwardly peaceful in the midst of inner turmoil is the falsity of peace. The pretense of a desired state is not replacement for the actual experience of it. The substitute for the real goal does not produce a sense of accomplishment. The Yoga Sutras state that the deepest benefits of Ahimsa are not gained when we go about the world in a state of non-harming, but instead when a state of absolute non-violence lives within us to the degree that violence is no longer possible on any level in our very presence. Friend and colleague Govinda Kai introduced the notion of ahimsa as being more than merely non-violent. He stated that ahimsa must mean the radical and spontaneously occurring opposite of violence. As such non-violence cannot be the true antithesis of violence. Perhaps peace is the true opposite of violence, but perhaps healing is as well. For only if we heal the root cause of the violent action can we truly experience peace and resolution. It is healing on all levels that allows our souls to rest in the peaceful acceptance of a situation. Until that healing has transpired the risk of recidivism into a state of warfare will always be there.
In a karmic sense healing could be understood as removing the root of a negative habit pattern. Unless the samskara is healed at the deepest level so that there is no trace of it remaining then there is always a chance that it will resurface and re-ignite the fire again. Yoga is the process of burning away old karmic seeds of destruction and planting in their place the vow of ahimsa. Whenever you practice yoga and align your actions with the spiritual path you nurture these new seeds of change in your life. Peace is a moment to moment choice just like healing. It is a fragile balance that is easily lost in a hateful argument. Peace is an active choice made each time we maintain our balanced mind amidst difficult circumstances. The peace of ahimsa is not boring, just as the meditator’s mind is not dull. Instead this peace, like love, is a dynamic balance where life happens.
About Kino MacGregor
Kino MacGregor is a small business owner (www.miamilifecenter.com), yoga teacher and freelance journalist who has produced two yoga DVDs and is currently working on her first book, Inner Peace, Irresistible Beauty to be released late April 2009. For complete details please see www.ashtanga-awareness.com.
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By Kreg Weiss On March 1, 2010
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My Yoga Online has posted a new Pilates video featuring Rachel Wainwright: Pilates Workout video. Is fun yet effective way to reshape your backside. This class provides exercises to tone & tighten your glutes for all fitness levels. These Pilates exercises will heighten your body awareness and improve your self-image. Be prepared to fall in love with your booty.
Click to watch this Pilates Workout video class
About Rachel Wainwright: Rachel is the creator and owner of Exhale Studio. Her goal is to create a very special comfortable environment so her clients get a great workout, relieve stress, gain fulfillment, feel stimulated and have fun while doing it. Her hope is to inspire people to better themselves, to enhance their self-image and self-confidence.
A highly qualified teacher, Rachel is a Yoga Alliance Certified Yoga Instructor, BCRPA Registered Pilates Instructor, BCRPA Registered Group Fitness Instructor, and BCRPA Registered Personal Trainer. She also, did her Advanced Pilates Mat & Reformer Certificate at The Pilates Den to PMA standards.
Rachel is a professional dancer, and has performed in a variety of stage shows, TV and film work. An avid practitioner of Yoga and Pilates, her other main interests include snowboarding, wakeboarding, scuba diving, surfing, soccer, and traveling.
Rachel combines all of her diverse background, experience, and knowledge to create a well-rounded and effective class. She uses her energy and motivational skills to get you inspired and moving.
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By Yoga Teacher, tony eason On February 26, 2010
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As part of my 2010
AIDSLifecycle training, I have been enriching my personal yoga practice and yoga teaching skills by visiting various
yoga classes,
yoga teachers, and
yoga studios in the San Francisco Bay Area.
View Larger MapAt 10:30am., Sunday, 21 February 2010, I revisited the
Sivananda Yoga Vendanta Center of San Francisco for the morning hatha yoga class. (
After my last experience, I walked with lightness & "I laughed all the way home").
Sivananda Yoga Vendanta Center
1200 Arguello Boulevard
San Francisco, CA 94122
(415) 681-2731 [
map]
Being familiar with the traditional Sivananda Yoga Sequence, I sat patiently in
Virasana. Yet minutes later, I noticed that I was not as familiar as "I though I was ....." Unlike the Iyengar Tradition, I should have been resting patiently in Savasana.
Check out the sequence.
Swami Sivananda
Swami Sivananda, one of the Yoga masters of the 20th century, is the inspiration behind the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers.
"Born in 1887 in Pattamadai, Tamil Nadu, South India, Swami Sivananda whose name was then Kuppuswami, was a brilliant boy at studying as well as gymnastics and naturally inclined toward spiritual and religious practices. His parents were very devoted to Lord Siva and Kuppuswami was eager to join them twice daily for worship (Puja) and Kirtan (Mantra chanting)" - Sivananda Yoga Vendanta Center
The Sivananda Yoga Sequence can be approached on different levels therefore, everyone can benefit from their efforts. The postures have some variations which differ from the Iyengar tradition. Yet, after class, I felt simply "GREAT." It was a workout AND a spiritual experience.
Definitely a worthwhile experience.
I WILL BE BACK!
