Dear LifeFit students and friends,
Hope you all have been keeping cool and finding lots to enjoy during these beautiful summer days!
Class rosters are "shaping up." I am excited and I hope you are too! Goals for this years yoga classes: increase core strengthening by incorporating more Pilates exercises into each class, learn to incorporate lifting from the pelvic floor in our poses, and of course, the continued "tweaking" of our poses geared toward progress, safety and increased awareness as to where we are in our practice. The 11:00 CUMC class has a new name: Simply Fit! This is a very low impact aerobics/strength, stretch and balance class that packs the work into 45 minutes every Tues and Thurs at Christ Church. Here are the rest of the classes at Christ United Methodist church. (Note: The rest of my classes are in my home studio or my "corporate classes"):
9:45 - 10:45 Tu/Th Yoga:
This is more an intermediate level class - not necessarily because of the intensity but because of level of understanding/awareness.
12:15 - 1:15 Tu Beginner's Yoga:
This class runs in 8 week sessions with the entire sequence handed out each time!
12:15 - 1:15 Th Chair Yoga:
This is my "pet" class - I have developed the coreography for this class and it is designed to enable the use of yoga as a physical therapy. There is no getting up and down from the floor and half of tje class is improvised poses sitting in the chair and the other half is standing poses beside the chair. It serves a great purpose to anyone who is recovering from an injury/surgery, trying to go to the next step after physical therapy, trying to keep a physical issue in check and hopefully improve the situation, or someone who needs a gentler starting place in a yoga practice. The class is comprehensive - we do a little of everything except inversions... Several people in the Beginners Yoga add to their practice time by adding or dropping in on this class.
5:15 - 6:15 Su
This class is like the Tu/Th 9:45 am but as they only meet once/week, our progress depends on their home practice !
All classes will begin the week of Labor Day
New on the agenda: Group Circuit classes at the home studio!
Group circuit classes at my home studio that will have a chance to run for 2 6-week sessions this Fall, on Mon, Wed, and Fri at 9:30. Price will be $90/session which boils down to $15/class and will be nonrefundable. Once each group is determined, I will devise the coreography for each session based on the participants needs/abilities. Each class/session will be compromised of 4 to 5 circuits rotating between the yoga walls, the Pilates reformer and the Pilates Arcs and if the group wants, they can include the Migun bed. This is all elite equipment designed for refined, specific work and well worth the time and investment! Once participants get used to some of the exercises at each station, they can get more out of each session - ex. if they are waiting for someone to finish a few repititions at the station they are about to rotate to, they can perform an alternate exercise at the station they are at, which may come from memory of previous sessions. We will be prompt in finishing at 10:30. 5 people makes the group with this pricing. If anyone is going to miss, they are responsible to fill their own space if they want to recoup lost fees. I do not have time to be involved in finding replacements. Each student should come with their own yoga mat and blanket. Session dates are:
Monday Group Circuit classes: Sept 14 - Oct 19, Nov 2 - Dec 7
Wednesday Group Circuit classes: Sept 9 - Oct 14, Oct 21 - Dec 2 (no class Wed Nov 25)
Friday Group Circuit classes: Sept 11 - Oct 16, Oct 23 - Dec 4 (no class Fri Nov 27)
I have had some great questions and comments after the workshops and here is some food for thought (from the Yoga Journal), as I am hoping you are remembering to make time to practice:
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July 27, 2009
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Practice with Purpose
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By Judith Hansen Lasater
Almost everyone who does yoga will tell you that their "energy" feels different after they've practiced. This is no doubt one of the main reasons why we practice: to change our experience of how energy moves in the body. We want more energy; smoother, more even energy; or energy that is quieter and less agitated.
One way to think of organizing a home practice has to do with consciously manipulating two of the main energies in the body, prana and apana. In the ancient teachings of India, prana is believed to exist above the diaphragm and to have a tendency to move upward; it is "masculine energy" and controls the heart and the respiration. Apana, it is said, exists below the diaphragm and has a tendency to move downward; it is "feminine energy" and controls the organs of the abdomen, pelvis, and legs.
Before starting your practice on any given day, first ascertain which energy you want to increase and then practice the appropriate poses to accomplish your goal. For example, inversions increase apana; standing poses stimulate prana. Forward bends quiet both apana and prana, as do supine poses. If you are feeling scattered and fatigued, you may want your practice to increase apana; if you are dull and unenthusiastic, you may want to increase prana.
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No matter what approach or approaches you use in constructing your home practice sessions, keep in mind that the point of practice is not just simply to become more adept at the poses or to improve your health. These are worthy goals, but even more importantly, your home practice can ignite awareness about how you respond to difficulty and ease, to consistency and change, to the way you fall into the universal human strategies of avoiding the difficult (whether for you this means Savasana or challenging backbends) and clinging to the familiar and comfortable (whether that means calming, inward-looking asanas or difficult poses in which your ego is happy to show off).
If your home practice draws you deeper into such awareness, it will achieve its most important purpose-and it will also create a momentum of consistency and a sense of accomplishment, pleasure, and well-being.
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No matter what approach or approaches you use in constructing your home practice sessions, keep in mind that the point of practice is not just simply to become more adept at the poses or to improve your health. These are worthy goals, but even more importantly, your home practice can ignite awareness about how you respond to difficulty and ease, to consistency and change, to the way you fall into the universal human strategies of avoiding the difficult (whether for you this means Savasana or challenging backbends) and clinging to the familiar and comfortable (whether that means calming, inward-looking asanas or difficult poses in which your ego is happy to show off). If your home practice draws you deeper into such awareness, it will achieve its most important purpose-and it will also create a momentum of consistency and a sense of accomplishment, pleasure, and well-being.
August homework : Corset Contraction exercise: Inhale - Stand upright with good posture and place hands on either side of the ribcage.
- Inhale fully into the lungs with an expansive thoracic breath. Feel the
spreading and flaring of the ribs as the external intercostals contract and
the internal intercostals stretch.
Exhale - Exhale and close down the ribs by tensing and contracting the internal
intercostals to reset the ribcage - Intensify the end of the exhalation by drawing the bottom of the ribs down
toward the naval and creating a binding action all throughout the midsection. - Continue to exhale until no breath is left, as if the whole torso were being
corseted. Feel the blending of the internal intercostals with the obliques,
transverse and diaphragm.
Targets: diaphragm, intercostals, TA, obliques, rectus, spinal erectors From Yoga Tuneup On Aug 20 I am off to attend a conference in San Fransisco "Pilates on Tour" - a mix of first and second generation teachers who learned from/worked under Joseph Pilates himself - wow! This group won't be around forever so I feel priviledged to have this opportunity. I am already looking forward to what I can learn to share with you all! This is offered internationally with different lectures/class topics and of all that was offered this year (oh it would have been nice to go to Italy for a learning experience there- what an excuse to go...), this was the site that incorporated a more rehab related aganda.
If you are unable to open the attached .pdf files, please click on the following link to download the Adobe reader program: http://get.adobe.com/readerYOGA FOR CLEANUP On, Wednesday, August 26, I will be offering a free yoga class (gentle – chair work and restoratives) in exchange for help “tidying “ in our classroom at CUMC, room 216. Please let me know if you are able to come at 9:30.
And, several of you have made mention of the Bhagavad Gita and wondered about its spiritual meaning. It has been translated by many, analyzed by many more over time and here is an excerpt by a well established writer to inspire us to the value of this text:
The Bhagavad-Gita translated by Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda. If I had to choose one book to take to a desert island, this would be it. The ageless "Song of God" is, of course, a magnificent, sacred scripture and not technically a novel, but its narrative form makes it read like one. The Gita tells the story of Arjuna, who turns to the God Krishna, his friend, for explanations and advice on life. Krishna lays out an entire worldview, the philosophy of Vedanta, one of the great achievements of human thought. Christopher Isherwood, an English novelist, and Swami Prabhavananda, a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna and Isherwood's guru, translate the Gita in a simple, modern style, alternating between prose and poetry without sacrificing the majesty and wisdom of this ancient story. Krishna gives Arjuna simple advice which I have found so useful in my own life, such as not to do anything for results, but rather for God: "You can have the work," he tells Arjuna, "but not the products of the work." Gerald Rosen is a Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing at Sonoma State University, he lives in San Francisco.
By the way, I would also take a Bible to a deserted island J
Thought to ponder: “Inner peace, world peace.” - Zen Teacher Cheri Huber
Thought to share: It doesn’t matter where you are in life, it is who you have beside you. I am proud to know you all, to have you as friends and students. Thank you for supporting me, my business and my family. I am lucky to have my wonderful family and especially this week I have to share that I am especially lucky to have now been married to a most wonderful husband for 20 years.
I look forward to seeing you all soon!
Namaste,
Mona Flynn
Mona Flynn, MS, RYTLife Fit Yoga, Inc.5806 Wildrose DriveGreensboro, NC 27410336-580-5833lifefityoga@bellsouth.nethttp://www.lifefityoga.com/
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