February's Weekend Workshop

Heavenly Hip Openers

Cool Springs YMCA

Saturday, February 19^th, 12-3pm

This is an instructor's training workshop sponsored by the Middle Tennessee YMCA.  Instructors will receive 3 credit hours for this $30 workshop. *Non-teaching Yoga practitioners are also invited to attend.  Come enjoy 1 hour of lecture and 2 hours of practice. 

To register go to www.ymcalearning.org

Course Objectives:

·  Learn to develop a yoga flow that deepens layer by layer and is hip specific.

·  Cover Anusara principles of alignment that deepen hip opening.

·  Discuss Organic Energy Lines:  Crown-to-Tail, Skull Draw, Shoulder Draw and Heart Center

·  Apply “Primary Line” of Muscular Energy to all poses: Engagement, Alignment and Gaze

·  Explore where yoga and physical therapy meet and learn how to use yoga as therapy.

·  Gain practical experience creating choreography that builds and deepens as you teach it

 

Pose of the Week - Warrior II

Virabhadrasana II

1.  Start with feet wide.  Inhale extend arms to side.

2.  Turn your left foot in slightly (almost parallel with back edge of mat); turn right leg out directly to the side (front of mat).

3.  Keeping your legs engaged, exhale and bend your right knee to 90 degrees

4.  Hold for several breaths. To release pull legs to one another to engage the muscles, inhale and come out.

The "Big 3" Directives:

1.  Engagement - Engage leg muscles to the bone.  Draw muscular energy from the floor up into the pelvis.

2.  Alignment - Align right heel with left foot.  Keep torso vertical (meaning hips square to side of mat)  Outer spiral both thighs = Left thigh back and lifting away from floor.  Right thigh parallel to floor.  Right knee toward pinky toe = outer spiral of right thigh.

3. Gaze - Out past right fingertips.

Organic line of Energy - Heart to fingertips

Muscular line of energy - Hip to blade, knee to hip, knee to heel

"Crown-to-tail" is your Primary Line in EVERY pose.  Crown-to-tail means root your tailbone towards the Lord's foundation and lengthen your crown towards heaven and HIS wisdom.

"By wisdom the LORD laid the Earth's foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place."  Proverbs 3:19.

In class you often hear me say "action over form" - this also means "honor the primary line"- or I also often say "maintain integrity of the spine".  They all mean, come out of the pose if needed to honor the Primary Line. In this pose, for example, if one were leaning into the front leg or knee or taking the knee past the foot they would need to shorten their stance to maintain the Primary line.  Make sense?

*Final tips:

As you root down through the outer edge of your "back" foot, energetically lift the inner thigh toward your pelvis ("outer spiral").  It is the practice of giving and receiving.  It teaches us to exert but also be conscious enough (soft/supple enough)  to receive Him (Jesus)  in every thing we do.  It calls us to be intentional and present.



Ashtanga Tuesday's

BEGINS 2/15 @ 9:30 a.m.  FREE to Y members.  $10 drop-in fee for non-members.

PLUS THREE?

Someone asked me today why "Holy Yoga?"  why "Bear?" and why "Plus 3?"  Well,  Holy Yoga is the certification I am currently taking.  I cannot say enough about Brooke and this training.  I am amazed that all God is doing with Holy Yoga. (many more posts to come over the next 6 months!).  Bear - well, that is my nickname, if you will.  My sister use to call me "keah" and that led to "Keah Bear" and then was shortened by my sweet hubby to "Bear".  My children now even call my "Mommy Bear".  Many friends call me "the yoga bear" as a joke and that just stuck.  Mitch says I am so much like a bear....sometime cuddly and soft, sometimes grumpy and growling.  Honestly, I think that's just a woman.  Now, I do like to hibernate in the winter...I hate the cold.  And "plus 3?"  Well, look at the 3 beautiful babies God has blessed me with!  I am daily amazed that God entrusted these little people to me!  If I don't screw them up, it will be a miracle.  No really, I wanted this blog to entail my daily walk......with God, Holy Yoga and my 3 blessings.  They are so much a part of all I do.  I just couldn't leave them out.  So, there you have it.   www.holyyogabear.blogspot.com

Stay tuned......it's gonna be a great 2011!

And the Survey Says......

After sending out numerous emails (thank you to all who replied to the Yoga Survey), I think I am more confused than ever!  I am sure this is why people say "you can't please everyone!"  Right?  Truly there aren't enough hours in the day to teach a class that suits everyone and there are budget constraints - meaning we cannot JUST offer Yoga classes.  I know, I know....I almost agree.....can't people get their cardio outside? :-)  For now, here's our plan:

Monday will remain the SAME.   11:35-12:35   Vinyasa/Anusara blend
Tuesday will be ADDED in Studio C (meeting room) in Mid-February -  9:30-11:00  Primary Series Ashtanga Mix (meaning traditional Ashtanga form with a few Yummy Extras thrown in here and there)
Friday will remain the SAME format ADDING 30 minutes.  9:30-11:00 Anusara/Vinyasa blend

Now, this is a great start.  One thing I need from you!  For Tuesday's class, tell non-members.  In order for this class to "make" we need 5 drop-ins.....meaning 5 non-Ymembers to attend.  The drop in rate is going to be $10/class.  Now, $10 for a 1.5 hour class is unheard of.  So tell your friends and neighbors to come!  If we want the class, we have to get the class to pay for itself!  So, "Go tell it on the mountain - over the hills and everywhere!"  OR as Hank would say, "No standing on the mtn....."  He sang that ALL Christmas.  (so cute!)

I am looking so forward to these new classes together.  I am so humbled by all your comments and attendance weekly.  It is not me who teaches or shares but Christ in me.  I am so certain of that.  He shows up in these classes.....all I do is pray, teach the principles and to him be the glory.  As we forge ahead in 2011....be strong, be supple, be sure......God is holy and Yoga is holy, too.

"Hip" Hip Hooray for the YMCA - ADDITIONAL INFO.

You do NOT have to be a YMCA member to attend this workshop.  Member and non-member fee is $30!  What a bargain! 

"Hip" Hip Hooray for the YMCA - "Heavenly Hip Openers"

Late summer of last year, an email went out within the YMCA instructor/trainer community entitled "Calling All Presenters".  Our Association Group Fitness Director, Leah Steinberg, was looking for instructors who were interested in training to "train the trainers" or teachers who would "teach the teachers".  I sat on this email for weeks....wondering if God was calling me to this?  If there is one thing I have determined is that I am a teacher....it's not just the exercise that I love but the teaching.  My move to Austin taught that, as much as anything else.  I could run, take classes, workout all day long but I wasn't content.  I needed to teach.  You know the whole "don't know what you got til it's gone"....was that the 80's band Poison?  Anyway....off track a bit.

I have studied Yoga for the past 4 years like a mad woman and learned ssssoooo much.  Would it/could it be possible that God wanted me to interview / audition for this team?  Oh, it sounded so exciting.....I has dabbled in workshops in Austin at Lifetime Fitness and loved it.  Since moving back to Franklin, I just haven't been able to really get them off the ground.  People showed interest but then didn't really attend....didn't want to put the time in, etc.  Or maybe my content stunk?  In comes Satan saying, "you aren't good enough to do this! You aren't polished enough?  You're Sanskrit is redneck!  Your smile is crooked! Who do you think you are?" I doubted.....believe me I wrestled God on this one but I eventually went for it.  Truth is, I am not good enough....nothing in "me" is good enough BUT Christ in me is.  If this is what he has for me to do....he'll do it through me. (1 Thes. 5:24)  So, I put my best hip openers together in an outline format and in a flow and drove out to the Bellevue Y to interview.  Two months later, I joined the 2011 YMCA Presenter Team.  Yikes - that sounds too official! 

What does this mean?  Well, the YMCA offers a monthly training for area instructors and trainers to attend to receive continuing education.  This means IF you are Yoga Certified and registered with Yoga Alliance my workshops will give you 3 CECs or in yoga alliance terms 3 contact hours.  The cost is only $30 for the 3 hour course  (very affordable for CECs!).

What does this mean if your NOT a Yoga teacher?  You can come benefit from an affordable workshop being offered at your local Y.  Get a deep, intensive Hip Opening class, learn tons of hip specific poses, network with other Yogis, etc.

The first workshop will be hosted by the Cool Springs YMCA on Seaboard Lane on Saturday, February 19th from 12:00 - 3:00 p.m.  To register go to www.ymcalearning.org.  Payment is collected the day of the event.  

Tell your friends and neighbors.  This workshop is for anyone who has tight hips, suffers from Sciatica or Piriformis Syndrome, runs, cycles, or just the opposite.....sits all day.  Hip Opening is some serious relief that one HAS to experience.   So, Share it!