Inspired by a talk by Ram Dass about karma yoga (yoga of action) we will try to move through a familiar practice of sun salutations with a deeper sense of presence and fresh eyes. In meditation, we’ll remind ourselves that we need not compartmentalize our practice from our everyday life. Every action and interaction is an opportunity to tune in deeply to our lived experience. With each task, may we do so with great intention and compassion.
With fall quickly approaching, I often start to feel a bit melancholy – a bit of sadness saying goodbye to summer. I tend to love all of the seasons to a point but east coast autumns are probably my favorite. Today, we embrace the melancholy and start out slow but move into a standing flow. I’ll lead you through several body scan and mindfulness practices with a focus on listening. We end with invigorating breath work that will hopefully help you start your day with a joyous heart.
In today’s class, we build on the twist sequences from Tuesday, continue strengthening the legs with chair pose, and practice watching our thoughts during a guided meditation. But we start in a slow, nurturing child pose sequence. Hopefully, this class will leave you feeling loose, limber, and ready to fully experience the day!
You are okay. The thoughts you have and the emotions you have are okay. We CAN choose what to hold on to and what to let go of. Let’s have compassion for ourselves and others – today’s class will help us get there. Along with a sun sal b flow and plenty of twists to squeeze out any leftovers from the holiday weekend – physically and metaphorically :).
For September we will explore liberation – self-liberation from our habitual patterns of thinking and feeling, in our minds and our bodies. We will learn that we can truly choose to let go.
Do you ever feel so irritable and angry that you could just breathe fire? The intense heat and humidity of August here in Eastern WV can cause our pitta dosha to become imbalanced making us quick to anger and lash out — just like a fire breathing dragon. Today’s practice aims to tame our inner dragons with cooling breath work, grounding and balancing poses, and a guided meditation.
This practice is perfect for coming back to the mat after taking a break from your practice. Whether due to travel, vacation, injury, or illness, it’s important to start with a grounding practice before moving into a more vigorous flow.
For the month of August, we’ll be building a summer “first aid kit” — each class will have tips, poses, and techniques that you can pull out whenever you find yourself in need. Today’s class will help relieve neck and upper back tension — it’s a slow-moving all-levels class that will allow you to release in the neck, warm up the upper back muscles, and hopefully ease into your day!
Today’s class wraps up our July theme of trust. We’ll check in to see how we’re showing up on the mat and how we want to show up when we step off. We start slow with a seated sequence to stretch the neck and side body and then move into a standing flow ultimately playing with supported half moon. I hope you enjoy!
Today we play! We’ll test our balance through a table-based core sequence and later with a gate-based half-moon sequence, ultimately leaving us an “open” chest and heart.