New Slow Flow classes on the weekends!
The class is open to ALL LEVELS!!!
Taught by Alexis.
Saturday and Sunday at 10.30am!
Starting March 6, 2010!
Here at AREA Yoga, we have a great variety of teachers from many different yoga schools and backgrounds. We seek to share our teachers’ knowledge and style with the AREA community as a whole – even if you can’t make it to each teacher’s class. “Tea with Our Teachers” is our way of fostering satsang – a forum to discuss our yoga practice.
Last month, we heard from Erin about restorative yoga. This month, Anne shares her take on the same practice of restorative yoga. Ask the same questions, and get very different answers.
AY: What does “restorative yoga” mean to you?
AT: I trained in restorative yoga under the supervision of Bo Forbes PsyD, a bio-psychologist and yoga therapist who looks at restorative yoga in the context of the nervous system — i.e. as a way to cultivate balance for the body and mind. Much of my experience teaching restorative yoga has been as a tool to promote healing. I have taught restorative yoga to persons with chronic pain, immune system disorders, as well as persons with heightened or depressed nervous system functioning (anxiety, insomnia, PTSD, and depression). I see restorative yoga as an antidote to our accelerated pace of life and a way to clear the mind and learn to be comfortable with who we are.
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We’re into the dog-days of summer, when the temperature outside is practically equal to our body’s natural temperature — the perfect time to juicy backbends, like Ustrasana.
Teacher Tina in Ustrasana
Getting In: Be sure you are quite warm before doing this pose; ustrasana is an excellent pose for the end of your practice. Start standing on your knees and shins, with your toes tucked under. You can stand on a blanket or double mat if your knees are sensitive to stand on. Your knees should be hip distance apart; check behind you to make sure your feet are hip distance apart as well. Take your hands to a prayer at your heart. Draw your shoulder blades towards each other and allow them to slip down your spine. Broaden across the front your chest and begin to direct your sternum and heart space toward the sky. Every inhale lifts your heart higher and every exhale holds you suspended as you begin to move your upper chest up and over your shoulder blades. Reach one hand for your heel and then the other. Move the fronts of your hips and thighs forward. Either drop your head or keep looking forward. Rise back to stand. Rest in rock pose (seated on your shins). Try the pose again, but with the tops of your feet flat on the floor.
Lining Up: Connect your mind and weight into your feet, legs, and knees to give yourself a sturdy base. To broaden your lower back, energetically move your thighs toward each other, as if you held a block between your thighs. Continue to move your thighs forward, looking to balance your pelvis directly above your knees. Notice if you are pushing forward by squeezing your butt, and instead open forward by releasing your tail down and moving the stretch into your front body — as if your body was being drawn forward with magnets. Keep your breath even, yet hug your ribs in as you crawl out of the sides of your waist and put more distance between your pelvis and your ribcage. Your breath inflates your upper body, to encourage the backbend to move into your upper back. Continue to slip your shoulder blades down your back to provide a surface for your heart to rest and offer your heart to the heavens. Ensure your throat is open to allow your breath to move freely by taking the tops of your shoulders away from your ears. Allow your head to drip from your spine.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons, taken by John O'Neill
Tuning In: Though this is a backbend, you are largely stretching your quadriceps, hip flexors, and abdomen, while encouraging flexibility in your spine and openness in your shoulders. Ustrasana means “camel pose,” and we all know that camels store precious water and moisture in their bodies to survive in the scorching heat of the desert. Can you find your inner reserves, your inner fluidity, to open into this pose and draw the juice of your being to the surface? Imagine that you are pealing a mango as you shed layers of heart and body to find the supple and juicy pose. Or perhaps you are cracking open a coconut to spill the water from inside. When you’re fully in ustrasana, imagine that your heart’s water is pouring over you in all directions.
It’s been a month since I last went to a yoga class – a MONTH. Now, for someone who doesn’t practice, that may not seem like a long time, but it feels like forever! I’ve been bombarded with work lately – an internship at Metro Newspaper, three babysitting gigs, a part time boutique job, and occasionally sleeping. That means no time for yoga and lots of time for stress.
Today I realized just how bad it was when I started to have back pain. As a twenty-two year old, former gymnast I have been lucky enough to never have back problems. I started to feel intense tension in my lower back while walking around Times Square (as I’m sure anyone feels while walking in that area). I’ve also been getting intense tension headaches for the past two weeks. It dawned on me that my life has been all stress and no focus. I’m all over the place – with frantic agendas, constant Blackberry messaging, and overlapping schedules. Growing up in a small Midwestern town, adjusting to the constant movement of New York hasn’t been easy.
I’ve set aside time to get back into a yoga class tomorrow, and I’m hoping to find myself much more centered as a result. A girl in the city CAN have it all, but it takes a little maneuvering. With a 90 minute class, I don’t feel like I need to devote my entire day to de-stressing. That means I can hop right back on to my Blackberry when I’ve rolled up my mat (but PLEASE don’t let me leave that thing on during). Maybe next week I’ll try a spa treatment!
If anyone has any advice on how to utilize your time wisely or to stay on your toes when it feels like the world is on your shoulders, please let me know! It’d be great for all of you to share your tricks and tips with the rest of the Area Yoga Community!
Here at AREA Yoga, we have a great variety of teachers from many different yoga schools and backgrounds. We seek to share our teachers’ knowledge and style with the AREA community as a whole – even if you can’t make it to each teacher’s class. “Tea with Our Teachers” is our way of fostering satsang – a forum to discuss our yoga practice.
I sat down with Anna to discuss her take on prenatal yoga. Having never been pregnant myself, and having never taken a prenatal yoga class, I was curious to learn about the prenatal practice and experience.
AY: What drew you to teach prenatal yoga?
AA: I’ve taught yoga for 10 years. In 2006, I had my son and from that experience – being pregnant while being a yoga teacher, giving birth, and so forth – I started teaching prenatal. I find it rewarding in a different way than teaching to regular folk.
AY: How so?
AA: Pregnant women have to deal with a constantly and quickly changing body. During my own pregnancy I found it to be an incredible lesson in all the things we strive to do as yogis. I was forced – against my will I might add – to be incredibly present with everything happening inside me, like never before or after. And I think about that when I teach prenatal: these women are going through this hyper presence-producing process and I get to support and direct it in a positive way.
AY: It’s very yogic: your own experience has given you a unique awareness. How do you tailor your classes for the needs of your students – both in terms of the physical practice and the emotional/mental/spiritual practice?
AA: There are a few things pregnant women can’t do, such as twists and extreme backbends, so this rules out a whole set of things I would cover in a regular class. The sun salutations are geared toward pregnant women, with step backs, no jumping, wider stance, and so on. I give a few variations for each posture and coming into and out of it, as there is a marked difference in what a women can do in early pregnancy versus in later pregnancy. In terms of the emotional/mental/spiritual, I do exercises that build on a woman’s intuition, her own inner reserves. Prenatal yoga is for the current moment, to stretch and strengthen the woman where she is that day but then to also prepare her for labor, giving birth. There is so much sensation. During labor of course, but also throughout the pregnancy. I’ve stopped using the P word [ed. note: pain] and focus on bringing women into their sensations, in warrior, in badha konasana, in pigeon. This is so elemental in yoga and yet for a pregnant woman, this is so in her face. IT is coming, there is no way out, so I hope to create in each class some feeling of sinking into what is, rather than what we hope for, usually a lessening of sensation. What is fascinating to me is that it is easier for pregnant women to get to these places than the rest of us in yoga.
AY: Very thoughtful Anna. Can a woman who did not practice yoga before becoming pregnant start during her pregnancy?
AA: Absolutely! As long as there are no medical reasons not to of course. It is like a basics class in that way, but with even more caution.
AY: Aside from what you mentioned earlier about getting into the experience of a pregnancy, in your own experience, and speaking of the experience of your students, what would you say are the benefits of prenatal yoga?
AA: Movement is a great benefit. As the baby grows it becomes more and more difficult to move yet movement is how we all, and especially a pregnant woman, can keep the aches and pains at bay. Movement also leads to a comfortable rest, for the body, and for the ever roving mind. On that note, mindfulness is a great benefit of prenatal yoga. There are so many fears and anxieties that come up during pregnancy and prenatal yoga helps ease these worries because we practice being in the present moment, shifting our attention to the breath instead of to our thoughts. Finally, the benefits of prenatal yoga include help for labor. We do postures and breathwork and imagery and meditation techniques that, practiced throughout the pregnancy, can greatly help during the birthing process, regardless of whether it turns out to be a natural birth or a cesarean, with medication or without.
AY: It sounds like your class truly is a sanctuary. I just have one last question, what’s one thing a day that pregnant women can do throughout their pregnancy to cultivate this mindfulness you’re talking about?
AA: Taking 5 minutes each day to sit or lie still, close the eyes, follow the breath with the mind, and whenever the mind wanders away from the breath, bring the mind gently back to the breath. I know you asked for one thing, but I’ll add a physical experience to the above: take 5 minutes a day to move how the body wants to in that moment, it can be standing, sitting, lying down, all fours, watch the breath while moving with one’s intuition.
I’m always a bit wary when two seemingly unrelated things are combined to make one word. The slew of celebrity couple pet names (for example Brangelina for Brad and Angelina and Speidi for Spencer and Heidi Pratt) never caught on with me, and I absolutely abhor any iteration of combined languages (Spanglish, Franglish, you get the picture). When I saw that Area Yoga was offering a new Yogalates class, I was more than a bit skeptical. After attending the first class, and despite my doubts, it seems that this portmanteau is one worth checking out.
That’s not to say this class was especially easy for me. I found it to be a challenge, and it’s probably because I used to be one of those gym disciples: 5 days a week, hard cardio, 20 minutes of abdominal workouts. I’m used to pushing my body to the limit physically – kicking the crap out of it every day just to start over the next morning. For me, working out was about punishment – and all of my negative energy was felt in my workout. At yesterday’s class, that simply wasn’t an option.
Yogalates is most definitely a combination of Yoga and Pilates – as the name would suggest. This isn’t a hard-core ab work out. Instead you work with your body, utilizing breath to compliment your bodies natural movements while also focusing on core strength and toning. Candice, the class’s instructor gives focus to each of the abdominal areas: the pelvic floor and the four main abdominal muscles. You’ll get a tone for that little pooch over your jeans and also trim some of those lovehandles that are especially pesky in swimsuit season.
Probably because the definition of an ab workout is so hard-wired in my brain, the movements and exercises didn’t come easily for me. Luckily, Candace was there to show the class how to do each move and to correct students as we moved along in the class. Just as I reached frustration’s breaking point, we moved on to the more classic yoga movements to close out the class. As we progressed through the movements, Candace was sure to stretch every muscle we utilized – meaning I was able to move today (a nice surprise for someone who’s used to waking frozen the day after a hard workout)!
If your skeptical, as I was, I suggest you give Yogalates a try. I can’t say I’m completely a convert, but I do notice a difference in my core strength already. I’ll be back next week to give it another shot as well!
Candice Holdorf, resident yogalates teacher
Yesterday I attended my first Area Yoga class. I have to say, it was great – small class, hands on and inspiring instructor, and a cooperative and supportive group. There was one big problem, I began to feel a little sick as I was walking from my apartment in Park Slope to Cobble Hill.
Here is the lesson I learned. Yoga, though restorative and wonderful, cannot cure the flu. What started as a nice practice turned into the most difficult yoga session I have ever had! I left feverish, clammy, and sore all over when it was finished.
Taken by Loïc Dupasquier; accessed on www.flickr.com
I think this pretty painful experience is a good way for us all to learn. When your body is telling you something, like “I don’t feel well,” or “I’m hungry,” LISTEN! Our bodies are much smarter than many of us believe. Although pushing yourself through a workout or practice may seem like a small deal, it can actually make you feel much worse.
I must say, as a side note, Candice is a wonderful teacher. Her classes are structured in a fast paced fashion, but everyone in the room was able to complete the practice. Some of us took more challenging moves, but we were all able to tailor our yoga to our own bodies – what each was telling us (although I wasn’t listening very well to mine).
I’m going to listen to my stuffy body for a few days. I’ll be back to Area Yoga when this fever is down and I can breath through my nose again!
Hi all, Yogito here – the newest contributor to Area Yoga Brooklyn!
I’m hear to chronicle and share my journey with yoga (and Brooklyn!) over the next few months. I may throw in a bit of advice as I go along, but I’m really just here to share experiences and hopefully grown in my love and understanding of yoga.
Revolving Lunge Pose; taken by MyYogaOnline; accessed at Flickr.com
Before I begin, I should describe myself a bit: I’m new to Brooklyn but not new to yoga. I actually began with Bikram Yoga – a very intense yoga done in a hot room. You sweat out the toxins and your muscles become much more relaxed and pliable in the heat. Then I moved to Vinyasa Yoga, and got totally hooked. I’ve been doing it for two years now, and see no stop in sight. I love yoga for the flexibility I gain, the stress I release, and the community I find. I find myself at Area Yoga Brooklyn for those three things, and I hope I find them!
Although I’ve been practicing for two years, there’s no end to the learning in yoga – there’s always something exciting and new involved in it. If you feel you can offer me advice, or would like some of mine – just let me know!
I start yoga tomorrow, and I’ve chosen the Basic 1 Hour with Erin! Stay tuned for updates: my favorite classes, most challenging poses, as well as a few things going on in Brooklyn!
Till then!,
Yogito 
Here’s an oldie but a goodie: 77 Surprising Health Benefits of Yoga.
As we hear about new studies and research demonstrating the health benefits of yoga, we’ll post links to the stories here.