Special Guests

So happy to have some special guests in my 4:15 Mindful Alignment class today at Asheville Yoga Center:  my twin sister and her husband.  This is them blissed out in Viparita Karani at the end of class. I thought it was so precious they were holding hands, I had to snap a picture!

There is a candle in your heart...

"There is a candle in your heart..." -Rumi

Thank you so much to those of you who came to the Winter Solstice "Return to Light" asana class with me.  It was such a wonderful turnout and so comforting on the darkest day of the year to be in that warm, nourishing space.  Candles will be playing a much bigger role in all of my classes in the future.  They are such a wonderful reminder to be soft, to burn slowly and steadily in our practice, to provide a comforting light to all those within our reach.

"You are like a candle. Imagine you are sending light out all around you. All your words, thoughts and actions are going in many directions. If you say something kind, your kind words go in many directions, and you yourself go with them. We are ...transforming and continuing in a different form at every moment." 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Peak Pose: Pavrtta Janu Sirsasana

A sequence for spinal extension & lengthening the side body: working up to Pavrtta Janu Sirsasana:
Friday Dec. 14th 5-6:30 at Lighten Up Yoga
Please feel free to comment with any suggestions to the sequence!
*=modification
sukhasana, easy sitting pose
extend arms with fingers interlaced, bulliyangasana
bend sideways, one arm extended
gomukhasana arms
balasana with arms extended, walk arms to side, twist
table top: cat/cow
Adho Mukha Svanasana
low lunge to open twist in low lunge
AMS to uttanasana
tadasana
urdhva hastasana
crescent pose
vrksasana
uttanasana to AMS
utkatasana at wall
utkatasana without wall
Gate pose with foot of straight leg at wall
Parsvakonasana, elbow on knee
Parsvakonasana, hand to inside of front foot *with block
Prasarita Padottanasana (*hang dog style with chair)
Sirsasana or *prep
Dandasana
Maricyasana I (open twist)
Janu Sirsasana
Pavrtta Janu Sirsasana
Upavista Konasana
*option to use chair for all forward folds
bridge pose
Salamba Sarvangasana or *Viparita Karani
Savasana

Iyengar in Janu Sirsasana

Light and Intention

The Solstice class will be a candle-lit experiential flow class, themed around embracing the Darkness within you to transform it into Light. 

What's the difference between a resolution and an intention and why this year, you should make it your resolution to set an intention.  First half of the class will be vinyasa flow, last half is gentle restorative.

Sun Salutations for Recovery

Here's some information about a local yoga fundraising event for a substance abuse recovery program, an issue close to my heart  

Yoga for Recovery Fundraiser: Winter Solstice 108 Sun Salutations

Live music and mantra with Chaitanya, Saraswati Markus and Johnny Gi.  Enjoy Dobra tea after the event.

Teachers include:

Sierra Hollister

Joe Taft

Dr. Robin Saraswati Markus

Andrea Franchini 

Elise Blanton

Heidi Vaught

Amy Kalyn Sims

Mackenzie Guerin

From the MtnXpress press release:
This fundraiser event will be held at the Asheville Yoga Center main studio at 211 S. Liberty St. All levels welcome; registration is free. Donations accepted at youryoga.com or at the event. Tea and refreshments will be offered by Dobra Tea. 

Yoga for Recovery is a therapeutic beginner yoga series designed specifically for individuals in recovery from substance abuse. Run by Addiction, Recovery, & Prevention, this program is based on the belief that yoga is an essential tool for transformation and empowerment. Breath by breath, individuals who have coped with life by using substances learn how to embrace the present moment -- the good and the bad. For practitioners, the breath becomes the lifeline that we hold to guide us through life’s challenging moments both on and off the mat.

Asheville Yoga Donation Studio (239 S. Liberty St.) is proud to offer sliding scale pricing for all budgets to partake in the magical healing practices of yoga. We offer a weekly, all levels Yoga for Recovery class Fridays, 10:30am - 11:45am. No pre-registration necessary for this ongoing class.

Syngergy

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." -Aristotle (and R Buckminster Fuller)

A little talk about synchronicity by Steven Strogatz.

*Thanks to my Neuroscience professor, Dr. Patrick Foo for sharing this TED talk in class. :)

Christmas Vrkasana (tree pose)

Me in vrksasana, tree pose.  My first addition to the Lighten Up Yoga holiday themed asana photo contest.  

Emilie Travis, a friend and fellow yogi, in a tree that hasn't been chopped or decorated yet.

Peak Pose: Pasasana

I've decided to start posting some of the sequences I teach online, for my students to practice after class and also as inspiration to those who did not make it to class, and as a reminder to me of what we went over. 

Please feel free to leave any remarks/comments/suggestions below!

The following sequence is from my Friday Dec 7th class at Lighten Up Yoga from 5-6:30

Peak pose: pasasana (noose pose)

• balasana (childs pose)
• balasana with twist
• ardha j
  athara parivartanasana (revolved belly pose)
• surya namaskar A (sun salute A X 5)
• utkatasana (chair pose)
• pavritta utkatasana (revolved chair pose)
• partial Trikonasana (Triangle)
• Trikonasana (Triangle)
• Prasarita Padottanasana (wide legged forward fold)
• Baddha Konasana (with block) to Upavista Konasana: alternate between variations (bound angle to wide legged forward fold)
• Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward facing dog)
• Uttanasana with rolled mat under toes (standing forward fold)
• tadasana to malasana (mountain to garland pose)
• malasana holding on to wall straps (garland pose variation)
• malasana variation (squatting twist)
• uttanasana 
• virasana to parvatanasana in virasana (heros pose, arms extended)
• Pasasana at wall (noose)
• Supta Tadasana (lying down tadasana)
• Supta Padangusthasana 1, 2, and 3 (reclined hand to big foot pose)
• setu bandha sarvangasana (bridge pose)
• vipartita karani (legs up the wall)

Other preparatory poses for pasasana to work into the sequence are:  Pavritta Parsvakonasana and Maricyasana I

Salty Yoga Jan 6th

Space is limited Please R.S.V.P.

Learn more about the benefits of salt therapy at Sola's website here now.

Please join us for a relaxing and restoring Yoga practice; basic asana to open the chest for breathing more calmly and completely,  Pranayama (breath work), and guided meditation.

Get the most out of your Salt Cave experience with simple exercises to enhance your breath.

Gift Certificates  available

Yoga Sessions and  Salt Cave Sessions.

 Gift Certificates make great gifts!

12 Eagle Street,  downtown Asheville

828 236 5999

Meditation Crush Clip

Thanks to Mackenzie Guerin Thomas, flow yoga teacher extraordinaire and cherished friend of mine, for sharing this clip on Facebook this morning.  It's a funny clip from the new season of Portlandia  the best show ever, mostly because I think it should be called Ashevillandia. 

Return to Light

Tis the Season: Ten Yoga Gift Ideas

Here are ten gift ideas for your yogi friends: 

10) DIY:  Knock-off Anthropolgie headbands

9) These Galaxy purple leggings by Black Milk:

8) Dosha candles by Mystic Masala:

 

If you are curious about your dosha take the quiz, if you are unsure of your friends dosha, just buy the tri-doshic one.

7) DIY mat cleaner.

6) DIY:  lavendar eye pillow...btw, it is so so nice to heat your eye pillow before you use it.  Instructions here.

5) French Broad Chocolate Lounge chocolate with an Indian twist:

The Orange Cardamom Caramel

4) Sierra Hollister's new book:  "Foundations of Yoga: The Eight Limbed Path"

3)  Three Minute Eggs by Jason Scholder
These things are so handy. 

Do this with them everyday to relieve shoulder and neck pain:

Janet Stone at Yoga Tree

2) A bolster by Inner Space Yoga.
I personally love the caravan pattern:

1) A session at the therapeutic  Sola salt cave. (I'm teaching another Meditation and Pranayama class here Jan 6 at 2pm, gift certificates available!)

If you have more gift ideas, please share!
Happy Holidays

Incommunicable Past

 "I had the sense of coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man's experience is." -Willa Cather, My Antonia

November leaves me pensive and nostalgic as the holidays loom.  I am more content to sit.  Sit with new insight into old memories. I'm re-reading one of my favorite novels, My Antonia by Willa Cather.  I read My Antonia for the first time in the 7th grade and it was the first novel that made me sob myself to sleep.  I reread this novel in college and was surprised at the fresh perspective and understanding that maturity brought, a well of deeper emotions to draw from.  I am reading the novel again now because of the memory of sentiment it brought me.  The longing for youth, as Jim returns to his childhood love's home, feels comforting in its familiarity as I let myself wander into memories of the "incommunicable past."

I recieved a priceless gift this month.  A letter from my mother.  My mother's name was Debbie, and she died in a tragic car accident a month before my twin sister and I turned five.  She was 28.  My entire life she has been an unknown legend.  She was "recklessly untame" as one of her dear friends has described her in a recent letter.  Her funeral was full of bikers and wildlings. Most of her friends are dead and surround her pink granite tombstone in Statesville.  I used to run to this tombstone, lean my back against it and cry in high school as I struggled with boys, fought with my Dad and my sister, and just generally tried to figure myself out.

I tried to be just like her, in ways that I am now ashamed of, as the truth is that she wasn't exactly perfect.  I set out to learn all the  lessons she learned the hard way--the same way. I am told I am most like her in the ways in which I don't try-- she also liked to cook, loved dogs, loved books.  When I turned 29 in May, a day after my sweet loving grandfather died, I realized I could let go of my ideas of who she was and could finally be myself.  I've lived beyond her and can embrace my adulthood undefined.  What freedom this brings me.

The letter I recieved from her was written to her friend, Carol, who had moved to Germany.  Carol returned to NC many years later and I am happy to have her letters and blessings in my life, as well as another friend of my mother's, Gena.  Gena attended one of the recent Yoga on the Mountain hikes.  I was so touched by her presence and interest in my life.  I like to imagine my own friends playing this kind, supportive role in my future children's life (if anything should happen to me).  And, of course, I imagine playing this role for my friends' children (Jackson, Maddie, Sadie, Tully, Reid, Miles, and more to come soon!).   

The letter contained the words of a soon to be young mother, 7 months pregnant in Florida, where she had moved with my Dad for his new job.  She explains how she was placed on bed-rest because her doctor said she was too small to have twins.  She seems so innocent, anxious, so young.  She mentions how difficult it is to name someone, how hard it is to lean down and tie her shoes. 

My whole life I wanted to hear these things from my mother's mouth.  But now I can appreciate that I am at an age to truly understand the words she'd written.  My image of my mother has changed as I've aged-- affected by how she has been described to me, by who I wanted her/needed her to be, and who I wanted to be.  This letter reminds me of her innocence and her youth and I ache for all that has been lost.  But the letter reminds me also of the shadows I've put on her memory through the years.  It's a relief to see her clearly--with a little more perspective, a little more understanding of how little she could have understood about life in her death.   

Snapshots from Roger Cole at One Center Yoga

By some miracle, I was able to exchange my extraordinary dust-mopping/trash emptying/ attendance-tallying skills for a weekend at the Roger Cole workshop at One Center Yoga, this weekend (Nov. 16th-18th).  It's my second workshop with Roger so I knew just what a gift I was receiving.

I cherish Roger's clean, succinct teaching style and his broad knowledge of anatomy and the human body.

It was an excellent workshop.

These pictures are just a few random snapshots I managed to take when not completely involved in my asana practice and note-taking.

Hope to see you all in some of my classes this week so I can share with you some of what I learned all weekend: from restorative, standing, back bends, and inverted poses.  

Roger Cole in Adho Mukha Svanasana

Roger Cole whacking me with a stick (just kidding: Roger Cole teaching me how to isolate the extension in my shoulders in Adho Mukha Svanasana)

Four and Quartering James:  Traction.

That's me on the left, hanging out

Roger Cole in Urdhva Dhanurasana

Roger working on Sarah's elbows

Every-Body Yoga

NEW FRIDAY CLASS 5-6:30 p.m.

Lighten Up Yoga

 

Every-body Yoga: All levels. Literally a class for everyone and every body. Don't be intimidated, this class is laid back and highly casual. Feel free to ask questions, tell jokes, and just enjoy moving your body before heading full swing into the weekend. Some of you might like to think of it as a little de-tox before you re-tox.

 

Check out the rest of my class schedule here.

Make Every Breath Count

Sunday November 11th, 2012

2-3 pm

$40/person

at Sola Salt Cave

with Kimberly Drye

Please join me for a relaxing and restoring yoga practice at the Sola Salt Cave.  Practice will include some basic asana to open the chest for breathing more calmly and completely, pranayama (breathwork), and guided meditation.  

Get the most out of your salt cave experience with simple exercises to enhance your breath. 

Breathing the salt air is said to, " foster good sleep, alleviate symptoms of allergies and asthma, relieve hypertension and stress and even cure hangovers."  Learn more about the benefits of salt therapy at Sola's website.

Make every breath count.

Please call 828-236-5999 to reserve your spot.  Space is limited.

Moooogfest!

Take a break from Moogin-out this weekend with me at any of these times:

 

7-8 pm tonight (Friday 10/26) Yoga for Awesomeness at Asheville Yoga Center (youryoga.com)

1-2:15 tomorrow afternoon (Saturday 10/27) Bhakti Vinyasa at Asheville Yoga Center

10-11:30 am Sunday (10/28) Dynamic Flow at Lighten Up Yoga (lightenupyoga.com)

4:15-5:45 pm Sunday (10/28) Mindful Alignment at Asheville Yoga Donation Studio (ashevilledonationyoga.com)

*All classes are withing walking distance of the festival.

A Spooky Ending (To My Monday Class)

After next Monday, October 29th, I will no longer be teaching my Monday night 7:15-8:45 pm class at Lighten Up Yoga.  So come enjoy that last evening with me there-- costumes are highly encouraged.  Wait until you see what I have planned to wear!  Make sure your costume is comfortable enough to move around in.

The class will be taken over in November by Mira Shani of Pranahata Yoga. 

I will be adding another weekly class at the Asheville Yoga Donation Studio. I am taking over Richard Fabio's Tuesday 5:45-7:15 Slow Power Flow 1&2 class indefinitely as he is hopping on tour with John Friend. I am grateful to Rich for the opportunity to teach his class in his absence and can't wait until he gets back so he can share all he's learned.  

The Wednesday 4-5:20 class at Lighten Up Yoga is now called "Energize and Restore" and consists of a perfect balance between invigorating standing poses/sun salutes and restorative poses/relaxation.

The Sunday 10-11:30 class at Lighten Up Yoga is now a "Dynamic Flow" class: An active, invigorating practice beginning with sun salutes to warm the body and continuing into a mindful and themed sequence.  Each class will lead up to a "peak" pose and every sequence will include inversions, a brief discussion of philosophy, and a pranayama session. 

And last of all, the Sunday 4:15-5:45 class at Asheville Yoga Donation Studio is now called "Mindful Alignment", an all levels class that works to balance movement from pose to pose with longer holds on certain postures to emphasize the physical or mystical aspects of the asana. The purpose of this class is to bring the student to alert peacefulness.  Each sequence will begin with a short meditation/centering followed by a focused asana practice and a generous savasana.  

Continue to check the CLASSES tab at the top of the page in the future to check for schedule changes and updates.

My Workshop Wishlist

There are some amazing yoga masters coming to our area soon.   Here are the workshops I would like to attend in the next month:

Roger Cole at One Center Yoga, Asheville, NC Nov. 16-18th

I've been to one of Roger Cole's workshops at One Center before, and I highly recommend this extremely knowledgeable teacher.  Roger is a scientist who shows us that using science to explain and understand our yogic practices could never take away the mystery, that in fact the practice only becomes more mysterious as we delve into the practice.  Roger specializes in the science of sleep, circadian rhythms and relaxation.  I learned a great deal in his workshop about the physiology of inversions and another workshop on sacral stabilization.  

Check out the flyer for this years topics:

I would love to take the Friday classes especially, as I've recently begun to teach a restorative class and I would love to hear his input.

Judith Lasater at Moving Mantra Studio, Raleigh NC

Nov. 2-4

Judith has a doctorate in East-West philosophy and a physical therapist.  She's been teaching since 1971 and has studied with BKS Iyengar in the US and India.  I'm deeply interested in exploring a deeper practice at the organ and energetic level the description of her workshop suggests. I feel ready to explore this idea she mentions of "stabilizing and balancing from the inside"

Information about workshop from host studio's website:

Moving From the Organs

with Judith Hanson Lasater

November 2-4, 2012

12-5pm Friday & Saturday; 10-1 on Sunday

We often focus on practicing our poses from the spine, arms and legs. But the ancient teachings of yoga also dealt with the opening and quieting the organs of the body, like the heart, kidneys and liver that are found in the “kunda” or vessel holding these organs. As our practice matures, it becomes increasingly apparent that our real health comes from the health of our organs. When we practice backbends, for example, we open the front kidneys, and in forward bends we close the front kidneys. How do we balance this effect on the kidneys? Can we explore the effects of "moving from the organs" in other organs like the liver, uterus, prostate, and bladder?

During this 13 hour workshop we will focus on specific poses that create a healthy balance for the organs in the chest & abdomen, as well as explore the theories of why they work. All types of poses will be studied, including backbends, inversions, forward bends & twists. We will also spend some time on specific therapeutic applications that will be immediately applicable to ourselves & to our students. We will begin each day with a focus intention & then go directly to practicing active poses. In the second session of the day, we will focus on a quiet practice – Restorative yoga, meditation & pranayama. Throughout the workshop we will return our awareness to stabilizing & balancing from the inside, as well as focusing on how to teach others to do so. For experienced students & teachers.

Moving Mantra Yoga Studio 200-101 Sawmill Road Raleigh, NC 27615 919.449.0530 www.movingmantrayoga.com info@movingmantrayoga.com

Fall (in Love) at Max Patch

Here are some pictures from the recent Yoga on the Mountain, October 13, 2012 on Max Patch Mountain.  Thank you again to everyone who came out!  I love these events, so much.  They give me so much to look forward to.  There will be more outside yoga events announced soon.  Keep checking the blog for details ;)

Much love to you all.  

Ring around the Yogis

The View From Max Patch in October

Vasisthasana

Group Shot.

Lungin'

Jess and Jackson

Trees

Child and child poses

Pets

Natarajasana:  Dancers

Ommmmm

Jori and friends

Micah

Alysha

Heidi Vaught 

Hugs

Josh and Elisabeth

Me and Heidi <3 td="td">