Class Description
Mindful Yoga Lev 1 (Beginners/Mixed Level): Integral Yoga is a yoga style that integrates all the different branches of yoga: Hatha, Karma, Bhakti, Japa and Raja yoga, addressing our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual being. This course offers both, a gentle step-by-step instruction, at a comfortable pace with attention to each student’s needs as well as welcoming experienced students. We explore our bodies with mindfulness, kindness and honesty, in a non-competitive and safe setting. The course includes postures, breathing, chanting, meditation, relaxation techniques and Yoga Philosophy, applying them to our personal lives. [Anne Bhudevi Fletcher, the instructor for this class, is taking a summer break. She will resume teaching on September 2024]
Mindful Yoga Level 2 (Mixed Level): This class is for experienced students who had previous understanding of yoga, and includes Asanas (yoga poses), Chanting, Breathing, Yoga Nidra (deep relaxation) and Meditation, based on the Integral Yoga® sytem. However Beginners are welcome. This course offers an opportunity to experience the poses deeper, exploreing both, our physical and mental/emotional “edges” or challenges in each pose as well as in life. It is practiced with mindfulness and loving-kindness, in a non-competitive and safe setting. Practical application of the Yoga philosophy to the poses and daily life, as well as bringing awareness to the power of yoga healing to many health conditions. It encourages to develop a daily personal practice. As we learn how to master the body, we learn how to master the mind.
Gentle Yoga: A gentle class combining “Chair Yoga” with yoga on the mat. Specially designed for people with different physical limitations, post-surgery, arthritis, hip/knee replacement, injuries, cancer or for those who enjoy a slow pace in a caring safe setting. Some of the benefits: Breathing, relaxation, flexibility, balance, strength, better sleep, pain management, inner peace. This class fills very quick!
Chair Yoga: A gentle class combining “Chair Yoga” with standing poses and yoga on the mat. Specially designed for people at their workplace, and those who work sitting at the computer for long periods of time, and those with some physical limitations, post-surgery, arthritis, hip/knee replacement, injuries, cancer or for those who enjoy a slow pace in a caring safe setting. Some of the benefits: Breathing, relaxation, flexibility, balance, strength, better sleep, pain management, inner peace.
DRAWING MANDALAS– A meditation technique, a tool for self-exploration, a manifestation of our creative self, an opportunity for transformation
Using colored pencils on black paper, starting with a circle, which represents our unconscious or psyche, we allow our creative force and active imagination to unfold and express itself through lines and colors, inside and outside the circle. The process of this method as well as the final product (used by Carl Jung as daily journaling to explore the state of his mind) leads to a deeper understanding of one’s self and a vehicle for transformation. The workshop is facilitated as a meditative experience towards an intimate relationship between the subject, his/her object of expression, and the process to express it.
MEDITATION / RELAXATION /YOGA NIDRA 6-week Course: This class offers the opportunity to experience Yoga Nidra (Deep Relaxation) as a way to relax the body and mind and make it ready for sitting still to practice Concentration. Meditation is a state of mind. We cannot practice Meditation, we can practice different techniques of Concentration. This is part of the focus of this course, the learning and practice of the different methods to still the mind. Using the breath as the focus of our concentration, gazing or fixing our eyes on a visual object of our choice (picture, candle, flower, yantra, etc); sound vibration, are some of the methods we will learn and practice. Learning to find a comfortable posture so that we can be still, will also be part of this course as well as developing a personal program to fit your needs.
YOGA OF BREATH: Pranayama helps to purify the system, calm and regulate the mind and provides a multitude of healing benefits. During this workshop you’ll learn the fundamentals and science of breathing. Receive step-by-step instructions for the basic pranayama techniques done in the Integral Yoga Level I class (Dirgha Svasam, Kapalabhati, and Nadi Suddhi). Each technique will be demonstrated and explained in detail so that participants leave with resources to develop
YOGA OF BREATH: Pranayama helps to purify the system, calm and regulate the mind and provides a multitude of healing benefits. During this workshop you’ll learn the fundamentals and science of breathing. Receive step-by-step instructions for the basic pranayama techniques done in the Integral Yoga Level I class (Dirgha Svasam, Kapalabhati, and Nadi Suddhi). Each technique will be demonstrated and explained in detail so that participants leave with resources to develop
with Nora Vimala Pozzi, E-RYT 500, C-IAYT, PRYT, YACEP (Starts JUNE 2024)
Learn to apply the wisdom of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the ancient text of Raja Yoga, to your everyday life. From gardening to relationships, from personal and professional goals to illness and death, the Yoga Sutras have an answer for every question you may have, including questions you never knew you had.
Raja Yoga, the Yoga of concentration and meditation, offers us an invitation to go on a blind date with ourselves and embark on a journey of self-discovery. By practicing Raja Yoga, we can learn more about who we really are, what we really want, and how to achieve our goals with minimal suffering and a great deal of enjoyment.
Don’t let the Yoga Sutras remain an obscure, scholarly textbook full of hieroglyphics. Join us for this workshop to deepen your understanding of this ancient text and discover how to apply its user-friendly guidance in the context of your own life. With familiarity, the Yoga Sutras can become a “yogi landing pad” from which we look at life with the awe of a child and the wisdom of an ancient guru. Both reside within us, and we can access them to face challenges in life with strength, courage, and joy.
In this hybrid (online & on-site) workshop (and course), we will identify:
- Some of the sources of pain and suffering in our lives
- Activities and work we do but don’t like, and those we like but don’t do
- Obstacles that blind us and don’t allow us to manifest what we want or need
- Sutras that can address each of the different situations in which we need to keep our peace or re-gain it
- Triggers that allow us to “lose our peace,” so we can find the right Sutra to minimize or prevent them
Areas of life where the Sutras could be applied:
- Relationships
- Work and career
- Life purpose and goals
- Hobbies and recreation
- Illness, pain, suffering, and death
- Hatha Practice
This workshop will use Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Sri Swami Satchidananda as its textbook. If you have a copy of this book or can order it, it would be helpful to read the verses as we discuss them.
TRANSITIONS Workshop: Transitions could happen in any stage of our lives where there is some kind of change in which something is lost and something is gained. Change is associated with pain. We cannot avoid change since it is inherent to the rhythm of life. We have a choice to either accept it and move through it or resist it. The first one will open the door for new possibilities and manifest our potential, make some of our dreams come true and align us with our true purpose of life. Resisting or avoiding, on the other side, will bring pain and suffering, continues to get us stuck in some old patterns and behaviors, and put a hindrance to our spiritual growth.
Aging, illness, death, divorce, loss of job, carreer changes, moving to a new place, are some of these transitions that we, as human beings, experience in our lives. Yoga can help us to surf through these changes and find balance between the old and the new.
Whether we want it or not, we have to face whatever challenge comes to us. The main problem with aging (or any other challenge) is the perception that it is about loss. Unless we understand that with each loss comes some gain, we are set up for suffering. Otherwise, we can control and minimize it. Furthermore, we may be looking into a new beginning, at the end of the “transition” as a totally new paradigm, one which we look forward to rather than fear it.
This program will help us discover and experience how some of the ancient teachings of yoga can offer us some valuable resources that we can apply in a very practical way in our daily lives. Some of the Yoga teachings include Jnana Yoga (Self Inquiry), Bhakti Yoga (ritual and devotion, Hatha Yoga (befriending and honoring our Body and Breath) and Raja Yoga (Yoga Sutras of Patanjali to understand the nature of our minds), can help us look into our conditioned responses to challenges, so we can make some conscious changes in our habits minimizing suffering and cultivating new wiser & less stressful responses. Finally, finding MEANING in our transitions can help to guide us in our magical adventure of our life journey.
Integral Yoga®
The practices and principles of Integral Yoga are the foundation of Dr. Dean Ornish’s landmark work on reversing heart disease and Dr. Michael Lerner’s Commonweal Cancer Help program.