Dear LifeFit students and friends,
As I am completing this belated newsletter, it is Mother's Day - I wish you all a Happy Mother's Day indeed! I must tell you that my mother is my hero. I truly believe there isn't anything she cannot do. Everyday I see something in myself that shows her great influence and wisdom, and I am so grateful. Everyday I hope to be as great a mother to our children. Time will tell.
Hope these beautiful May days are full of sring-like energy for all of you as we need that in May - life is FULL this time of year. The focus this month is to build awareness. Thoreau wrote: "Only that day dawns to which we are aware." As classes come to a close at CUMC, we are busy getting to "final stages" of understanding in the goals I have for our progress together. I hope our daily practices together will reflect my attempt to leave you strong and with good things in your memory box to practice this summer. I would like to think that what I plan and teach my students leads to a great mind-body practice with the "fruits of our labor" being: a sense of peace, clarity, strength, flexibility, balance,... all showing a great quality of time on the mat. I should also like to think that by now you all recognize the importance of consistency in practice and its relationship to the outcomes. That said, I hope to see you all in class! Classes which finish this spring will have good handouts to include recent sequences. And, you all have two opportunities to manage sneaking in some work over the summer: Workshops and private/semiprivate classes. I will offer 8 workshops this Summer to help you build on your own practice and knowledge of certain themes. The workshops are great for beginning students too so, if you have friends who need a good place to begin, please share the info:
June 14 Hip Openers
June 14 Building Your Own Home Practice
June 28 Kids Yoga
June 28 Chair Yoga - Using the Chair for Improvised Poses and Theraputic Applications for Yoga
July 12 Yoga for Back Care
July 12 Shoulder Openers
July 19 Pilates Mat
July 19 Restorative Poses
Private and Semi-private sessions are now available with the chance to "circuit train," using the equipment in my home studio - that is: two yoga wall stations, the Pilates reformer and the Migun bed. Here are possible times/dates to sign up for - more will be added with each month. First come, first serve. Sign up with buddies and contact me to confirm. Cancellations cannot be made within a 24 hour window. The great advantages of the semiprivate classes are: request for specific work and splitting the cost of the hour! Up to 5 people can make a semi-private class. Cost is $65/hour - private
$70/hour for semiprivate (split by all students attending that session).
Mondays June 1, 8, 15, 22 9:30 am and 2:00 pm
Tuesdays May 19, 26 1:30
Wednesdays May 27, June 3, 10, 17, 24 1:00
Friday May 29 1:00 and 2:15
The Art of Awareness by Wilferd A. Peterson
The art of awareness is the art of learning how to wake up to lthe eternal miracle of life with its limitless possibilities.
It is rising to the challenge of the stirring old hymn: "Awake my soul, stretch every nerve."
It is developing the deep sensitivity through which you may suffer and know tragedy and die a little, but through which you will also experience the grandeur of human life.
It is identifying yourself with the hopes, dreams, fears, and longings of others, that you may understand and help them.
It is developing a sense of "oneness" with all life.
It is keeping alert to all that goes on around you: it is being curious, observant, imaginative that you may build an everincreasing fund of knowledge of the universe.
It is striving to stretch the range of eye and ear: it is taking the time to look and listen and comprehend.
It is searching for beauty everywhere, in a flower, a mountain, a machine, a sonnet and a symphony.
It is knowing wonder, awe, and humility in the the face of life's unexplained mysteries.
It is discovering the mystic power of silence and coming to know the secret voice of intuition.
It is enlarging the scope of your life throught he expansion of your personality.
It is through a growing awareness that you stock and enrich your memory - a man thinks with his memory.
Why Do We Practice?
Have you ever asked yourself why you're really practicing yoga?
By Richard Rosen
Most beginning students will tell you they got into yoga to alleviate back pain, relieve stress, or become more flexible—fairly simple responses. I started my own practice after reading that yoga asanas are the best form of exercise ever devised; that belief kept me going for several years.
But the reasons you practice might not be as straightforward as they seem. It's entirely possible that after closely examining your innermost motives, you'll find nothing more than a hankering for looser hamstrings—but don't bet on it. Yoga is full of surprising twists and turns.
It's no secret that we often do things for reasons we're totally unaware of; sometimes our unconscious motives become clear only after a good deal of self-reflection. So it's important to realize that questioning the intent of our practice inevitably leads us to inquire about the meaning of our life as well. We could just as pertinently ask: Why am I really alive?
At the outset, it's natural to assume that our practice and our life are totally separate, that we practice for an hour or so a day and then forget about it. But after a while, the two inevitably begin to merge. As Sri Aurobindo, the great 20th-century Indian sage and progenitor of Integral Yoga, reminds us, "All life is yoga."
In Aurobindo's view, yoga is threaded through the warp and weft of our very existence, and in effect it chooses us. We practice yoga because we really don't have any other choice. Of course, we do decide what form our practice takes—we can go off and live alone in a cave and meditate, or we can stay at home, raise a family, and root for the Yankees. Performed with the proper attitude, each of our everyday actions can be an asana, each breath a pranayama, each thought (or space between two successive thoughts) a seed for meditation.
We may have been gifted with the life-enhancing tool of yoga, but for what reason? The clue is in the Sanskrit word yoga itself, which as you no doubt have heard means "union." For our purposes, though, it might be better to define it as "wholeness," a word etymologically related to both healthy and holy. So why do we really practice yoga? Because life wants us to be whole in the widest and truest sense of the word.
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May 03, 2009 |
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Meet the Other Mat |
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Many yogis are beginning to recognize that Pilates —an 85-year-old system of body conditioning designed by German émigré Joseph Pilates—is a rewarding complement to asana practice. And some are finding that Pilates' focus on building and engaging a strong core can propel their yoga practice into new realms.
While yogis are instructed to either hold poses or flow quickly through them in vinyasas, Pilates is a rhythmic practice of precise movements repeated five to 10 times for each exercise. The aim is to engage and strengthen the transversus abdominus (the deepest layer of abs that wrap around the torso horizontally), the obliques, the lower back muscles, and the pelvic floor during complex movements. By doing so, you develop a strong, corset-like support system that protects your back from injury.
Yoga and Pilates are, of course, distinct practices, but there might be times—perhaps when you've hit a plateau in your asana practice or are in an experimental mood—when playing with some Pilates techniques on your mat might enhance your yoga practice.
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The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
- Psalm 19:1 (NIV)
Mona Flynn, MS, RYT
Life Fit Yoga, Inc.
5806 Wildrose Drive
Greensboro, NC 27410
336-580-5833
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