Cleaning House

While the weather outside may not necessarily reflect it, spring is here. It's a great time to clean your house, purge things you no longer need or use and get organized. But it's also a great time to clean your figurative house...your body. It's time to throw out the trash so why not take this time to toss what no longer is serving you....junk food, soft drinks, negative thinking.

I recently received a nice email of simple ways to welcome the spring, courtesy of Yoga Journal:

1) Shed the winter weight by adopting a vigorous vinyasa home practice. If you don't know what vinyasa yoga is, there are many classes offered in studios around town. Vinyasa is linking the breath with movement. You'll create lots of heat in the body and begin to burn off those toxins and unwanted pounds.

2) Incorporate a twisting sequence in your practice for an internal cleanse. Twists aide digestion and massage the internal organs. They are also a great way to get the kinks out.

3) Try a juice fast to reset your digestive system. If you are new to cleanses or fasts, definitely consult your doctor first and research the appropriate cleanse for you. If you are new to it, try it for one day, where you take in only liquids: juices, vegetable broths, herbal teas and 8-10 glasses of water. Maybe you can build to 3 days. If this seems too extreme, try #4

4) Incorporate the bounty of nature, but eating more fruits and vegetables and "simple" foods and weaning yourself off of junk food, fast food, food drowning in gravy or cream...you get the idea.

Embracing some simple yogic techniques can help you celebrate this season of rebirth and possibilities. So get out there. Enjoy the weather, breathe in fresh air, practice yoga and be happy.

Blessings,
Susan

http://www.yogajournal.com/newsletter/myj_353.html

Walking Meditation

As the weather gets warmer, I find I do want to spend more time outdoors...and not just outside, but outside in nature. I love shedding my winter clothes and my body loves feeling the light and warmth of the coming summer months. One way you can take your yoga practice outside is by going on a meditation walk.

If you can find a nice trail or even path, walking mindfully outside is a great way to incorporate your yoga and mediation practice into your hectic schedule. It's easy to do but deceptively difficult too. It's walking with complete awareness of each step and being mindful of the breath as it comes in and out. And as you focus on your breath, you begin to focus on your thoughts and the dialogue or chatter that comes up as well. Being mindful of each step, you begin to slow down your monkey mind and become completely absorbed in the sound of your breath or the sounds of nature and trees all around you. You may even silently say a mantra to yourself as you walk.

With the budding of new life flourishing all around you, take your practice outside. If you walk with a friend, try to walk in silence for a bit and just enjoy the experience. There are great nature trails all over the city or just walk in your own neighborhood. One of my favorites is Red Bird Hollow, introduced to me during my yoga training. So, enjoy the spring and I hope to see you on the trails AND on your mat.

Namaste,

Susan

A Yogic Spring Forward

It's almost officially spring. Daylight savings has already hit and it's staying lighter a little bit longer. A lot of people take this time to do a little spring cleaning in their homes and offices, but what about a little spring cleaning for your body, for your mind and your spirit? If you are feeling like you've failed at your attempts for a New Year's Resolution, why not change your intentions and take a spring forward, yoga style?

Yoga studios do stay open during the warmer months for those yogis who must get their fix to stay toned, vibrant and healthy through the spring and summer months. But it's also a fabulous time for beginners to put their big toe in the water and try a class or for novice yogis who want to try a different style of yoga or try a class that's completely different from what they've been doing.

Why do I suggest this? Because there is a strange phenomenon that occurs every year when it gets warmer. People naturally want to spend more time outdoors and they start to abandon their practice. They stop doing what was helping them feel so good in the first place and go on to other things. And the yoga studios have smaller class sizes or must cancel classes altogether.

So, if there are smaller class sizes, then perhaps you won't feel so much fear or angst about trying yoga. There's less pressure there, plus you'll get more personalized attention from the teacher. Now is the time to do it. There are so few things out there we can do for ourselves that are really good and healthy, and yoga is one of them. You'll be rewarding your body with a practice that has been studied for thousands of years and you'll be supporting local studios who need you.

Blessings,

Susan

ps you can also check out my teaching schedule below.

http://www.radiantfitness.com/index.html

The Teacher as Student

I love teaching yoga! I love helping people feel better physically in their bodies and minds. It's rewarding work and hard work, but it's worth it to see people come out of my classes feeling and looking more calm and balanced than when they went in. But part of being a good teacher, is staying a student at heart. As teachers, it's easy to think that once we take our teacher training that it's over...we know it all and can do it all. But this is clearly not so. Completing a teacher training is just the tip of the iceburg.

I hope you can appreciate that it's much different on the other side of the mat when you are teaching as opposed to participating in a class. But we are privileged in this community to have so many yoga studios available. My schedule is so crazy that I sometimes don't have the time to take a class, but for the last 2 weeks I've taken classes, a hot yoga class and an Anusara inspired Vinyasa class. I had to put at least one class in no matter how tired or busy I was.

It was so beautiful to be a student and absorb the asanas and appreciate the varying techniques of my fellow teachers. So for me, to be a proficient teacher and keep learning, I must always stay a student. To bring this sense of excitement, newness and learning to my classes is something I always strive for and it's a lesson for me to never rest on my laurels or take this practice for granted. So thank you to Amber and Gloria.

If you haven't tried a yoga class yet, maybe it's time to start. Spring is just around the corner and you can almost smell the newness of life in the air. Why not celebrate that, by taking a yoga class. Radiant Fitness is adding more yoga classes, so check out our schedule for March.

http://www.radiantfitness.com/

Namaste,

Susan

Breath Body

We know that the human body is an intelligent complex system incorporating physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual elements, but in yoga they break the body down even further. One of those "bodies" or sheaths, is the breath body or Prana-maya-Kosha.

Prana means energy, life force or vitality and in yoga in can be reached through our breathing practices. That's why we as yoga teachers harp about the breath. Over and over you will hear us reminding you to "breathe", or "activate ujayi breathing", or "find your ocean breath", etc, because we know that is through the breath that we can tap into this powerful prana.

Prana resides in all of us. Don't believe me? When you are feeling good in your life, happy, peaceful, grounded, and at your optimal health your prana, that energy, is at its peak and all the energy systems inside you are balanced and running smoothly. Now tell me how you feel when you have a head cold or are depressed, stressed, or just feel out of sorts. This is when your prana, that vitality, is being leached out of you. So, now you have to work at plugging up the holes to protect that energy from draining further. Is there a time when you won't have any prana at all? Yes, and this is at death. Prana enters us at birth and leaves us at death.

So prana is a very tangible thing. You can feel it in your body; you can feel it when you practice breathing techniques when you exercise, or when you embrace someone or offer kindness. You may not understand it fully, but you know it's there. So when you practice yoga in a class, maybe my class, and you hear me say over and over to breathe deep, breathe fully, you'll know why I am saying it. Because it's the breath that is key and it's the breath that will help you tap into and incorporate this beautiful and powerful energy into our lives.

Developing a Practice of Gratitude

How often do you say thank you? How often do you express gratitude for all of the beauty and blessings in your life? When things are so rough out there, we need to take the time to find something we are grateful for. What does this do? It begins to shift the negative energy we've got built up in our lives and it does something miraculous....it transforms it into positive energy.

In your yoga practice you may feel restricted in what your body can do, but be grateful that you have this body than can, say fold forward, even if you can't touch your toes. Be grateful for the breath that moves in and out smoothly so you can flow from one pose to another. That's huge. Ever try doing yoga with a head cold? Ahhh...now you are grateful for your breath.

This week start a gratitude journal and start with one or two things, even if they seem inconsequential, like I'm grateful I have warm socks or lotion-infused tissues. What seems small to you, could be the biggest thing to someone else. We used to say grace after each meal. Let's bring grace back into our lives at every turn. Write your list and watch it grow and change and observe how your mental space and heart grows and changes.

Namaste,

Susan

The Yoga of Devotion

If you think of yoga as a tree having many branches, roots and flowers, you can begin to understand that there are many sides to it to help you explore and develop an awareness of your higher self and connect with the Divine, or God.

One of those branches is Bhakti Yoga (pronounced Bok Tee). It is the Yoga of Devotion. Yoga scholar, David Frawley calls bhakti yoga, "the sweetest of the yoga approaches and often more accessible than the other forms of yoga." In its purest essence, bhakti yoga is connecting to God or the Divine, whether through meditation, repeating a mantra, saying a prayer, or participating in a kirtan. What it feels like is complete love and connection, not only with your higher self, but with God.

It's a branch of yoga I am intrigued with and one in which I want to develop a more personal, disciplined practice. I can do this at home as I pray or meditate at my alter, practice japa (mantra repetition) on my mala or rosary beads, or sing along to some beautiful music.

One of the easiest ways to start practicing bhakti yoga is by going to a kirtan. A kirtan is a group call and response musical "concert" where the musicians/singers will sing beautiful chants/mantras and the audience repeats those words. You don't have to sing or be able to sing in order to participate. You don't have to sing at all and just sit and listen to the music.

It may sound a little strange at first and you may feel out of your comfort zone, but I promise you, you will feel something beautiful and expansive inside by sitting there and absorbing that heart-centered energy. Kirtans have been known to build the Shakti energy inside, bring more love, freedom and creativity and calm your mind.

If you are interested in attending a kirtan, well friends, there is one going on this Friday, January 30th at the Yogahome Studio in Symmes. Mike Cohen will be leading it and I always try to catch him when he's in town. I'll be there too chanting my heart out, I hope you will be too.

Please check out Yogahome's site for details and pricing. And yes, you can bring your kids too.
Some chairs will be available, but you might want to bring a cushion as you will be sitting on the floor.
http://www.yogahome.net/

Hope to see you on Friday.

Namaste ,
Susan