We have a class for everyone!
Yin
Yin is the stable, quiet, hidden aspect of things. The energy of yin is yielding, allowing and nourishing. This style of yoga targets the body’s deep connective tissues - ligaments, tendons, joints, bones, and fascia.
Connective tissue (CT) stabilizes and protects the body’s contents, surrounding and lining our muscles, organs, joints and skin. It is generally cool, dry and much less elastic than our muscles, and responds best to gentle pressure over a longer period of time. Over time our CT will lengthen and even strengthen in response to this approach.
Nearly every body and person will benefit from yin yoga.
This meditative practice cultivates tolerance to discomfort, patience and focus while simultaneously providing blissful relaxation!
All levels welcome
Beginner friendly
Flow & Restore
This safe and gentle, balanced practice features mindful movement into basic yoga poses while using and developing the breath as a tool to remain present and mindful. The slower pace of this class allows each pose to be fully enjoyed.
This class lies somewhere along the spectrum between hatha and yin yoga. It nurtures and restores our energy while gently opening and warming the physical body.
This is the perfect class for beginning students who want to learn the fundamentals in yoga, as well as seasoned students, who are looking to improve on movement patterns and for a more gentle practice. It is suitable for those who are healthy in their body as well as those who are rehabilitating an injury.
This class will leave you feeling relaxed and nourished.
All levels welcome
Beginner friendly
Hatha
In this warming class we explore movement with breath and deepen our understanding of how inextricably linked these two things are. Postures are practiced to align, strengthen and promote flexibility in the body. We make a full circuit of the body’s range of motion with standing postures, twists, back bends, forward folds, and hip openers. We coordinate deep breathing and mindful movement to generate strong and grounded stability in our practice. Slowing down the practice will help you to connect to more graceful and balanced movement in your body.
You can expect an emphasis on simplicity, repetition, ease of movement and exploration of movement patterns that benefit and balance your body. The rhythm and mindfulness of this slow moving practice promotes relaxation and feel-good vibes!
All levels welcome
Hatha + Breathwork & Meditation
To practice yoga is to practice paying attention. We are training the mind to pay attention. When we direct the attention and sustain focus, the result is a less-agitated mind and intimacy with our experience. Therefore, Yoga is a state of being in unity and connection with our moment-to-moment ever-changing experience. When we step onto our mat or cushion, this is formal practice. In this class we explore awareness of body, breath and mind. We move from what is most obvious to observe and further refine the attention through breathwork and meditation.
The intentions of this class include:
Improving breathing
Learning how to sit with correct posture and support
Deepening the connection between breath and body
Developing the skill of paying attention and concentrating awareness
This class will begin with breath development in a seated position to establish a strong foundation of breath for practice. You will learn how to use props to sit comfortably and correctly. The focus will be to establish deep consistent breath, to feel the breath in the body and understand how we actively facilitate the movement of breath within the thoracic cavity. Through practice this manner of breathing will become more familiar and require less effort to sustain. You will then be guided through a gentle hatha practice, with emphasis on maintaining the breath and connecting movement with breath. Following a short rest in savasana (corpse pose), we will come back to our seat. There may be more guided breathing before moving into a short, guided meditation. We will see how it is possible to refine the awareness from gross to subtle.
This is a great class for anyone newer to yoga, those wanting to improve their breathing in practice, and anyone looking for a balanced, gentle practice. This class will help build confidence and awareness that will support you in other classes you attend.
All levels welcome
Open Practice
Our open practice room is a place where you can ask questions about your practice and get a bit of extra personal guidance and assistance from the teacher.
It is necessary that you have your own personal yoga practice on some level and have experience practicing on your own without being led.
This space for individual practice is not limited to Ashtanga and is open for any active style of practice. Students or teachers can practice their own created sequence or any set sequence such as Ashtanga and can be working through a series given to them.
With this style of class, there is opportunity to find better alignment for your body, to have help with more difficult postures or transitions that you struggle with in led classes, to learn modifications for injury or pregnancy and ultimately gain deeper awareness within your own practice.
If you choose to come to open practice, you would be seeking more physical and/or verbal adjustments to enhance your yoga experience.
All levels welcome
Vinyasa
Vinyasa is an energetic, dynamic and playful style of yoga that can best be described as a journey into the relationship between the energy and movement of our body and breath. We will look at a new sequence every month and cover a different physical aspect of the body, explore key asanas (postures) and the pathway into them while exploring themes around yoga theory and concepts and techniques to deepen our practice and develop strength and discipline.
In a vinyasa practice, the continual movements from one pose to another integrated with ujjayi breath will give you an added cardiovascular benefit and deep cleanse as you increase your internal heat. The steady cycles of inhales and exhales will create mental focus and triggor a meditative state.
This practice is about understanding the different ways we can define strength and how we achieve stamina and sustainability in practice. Ultimately our goal is to find a balance between effort and ease and relax into our practice even as we challenge ourselves in new ways.
Vinyasa is a celebration of the body and its movement. Be prepared to work and sweat! The reward and joy is in the effort and our presence within the process. You will leave feeling cleansed and detoxified (a.k.a. “juiced”)!
Intermediate / Advanced
Gentle Hatha
This class is especially intended for students who are just beginning their yoga journey and/or those looking for a slower, relaxed, back-to-basics practice. We will explore core themes like proper breath, movement with breath, common movement patterns and transitions, postures, usage of props and proper alignment.
You can expect a slow and gentle pace with plenty of detailed guidance, wherein you will also become familiar with common verbal cues given in yoga as well as the different names of postures. The class is broken down and simplified so that students establish a solid foundation and the confidence to support them moving forward in their practice.
All levels welcome
Beginner friendly
Meditation & Yin
The benefits of meditation have been scientifically proven and include but are not limited to:
stress reduction
anxiety control
emotional health, patience & increased kindness
enhanced self-awareness
longer attention span
reduction of age-related memory loss
addiction management & support
improved sleep
chronic pain management
blood pressure reduction
In this class we begin with a seated meditation to focus the mind and drop into a deeply relaxed state within the body. You will be provided with verbal guidance to help align you first with sensation in the body, followed by awareness in breath and exploration of stillness and the space within that experience. We will move from meditation into a shorter yin practice with an emphasis on spine, to stretch the body and enjoy the sensation of breath and body from this heightened state of awareness and deeply restful state.
It is common to experience discomfort both within the body and mind when you are first establishing a meditation practice. Over time you will develop your ability to focus your mind and sit with discomfort and the experience will become more comfortable and familiar. You will find that your ability to listen and be present will improve. You will gain strength in the muscles that support your spine and flexibility in your hips.
You will also discover the joy and value of simply ‘being’ without needing to ‘do’ and the importance of connecting to the intelligence and intuition of your deepest self.
You may want to bring your own meditation cushion if you have one at home for the practice. If you are unable to sit on the floor, please notify the instructor so that appropriate modifications can be made.
In our world so often over-saturated with stimulation and noise, this is a time to soak up stillness and quiet, recharge your battery and discover the benefits of meditation in your life.
All levels welcome
Beginner friendly
Restorative
Simply put, restorative yoga is about finding comfort in your body as it naturally is, and nourishing the nervous system with rest, rather then deep stretching, stimulation or exercise.
A restorative yoga sequence is made up of usually only about five or six poses. These poses are supported by props that allow you to completely relax. The purpose is not to find intensity in the body or put any stress on it but to instead find comfort in the shape. This is deeply healing to injured or over-stressed, tonic (chronically tight or holding tone) areas of our body and being. Postures are held passively between 5-20 min and include very gentle twists, seated forward-folds, gentle supported back-bends and inversions.
Our parasympathetic nervous system is stimulated when we relax into poses, which promotes a relaxation response and reduces stress in our bodies. The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for slowing your heart rate and breath and increasing blood flow to your vital organs, among other things. As it becomes activated, it improves our ability to rest, digest, rebuild and repair.
For practice it is nice to be dressed in loose, warm clothes and even have an eye bag and pair of socks. This practice is deeply healing, accessible and beneficial for all bodies.
All levels welcome
Beginner friendly
Watch how your practice follows you off your mat and into your life!
The relationship between yin and yang
Balance can mean many things. We are constantly oscillating within our lives, relationships and health. Yoga teaches us how to observe and work with our ‘oscillations’. Sometimes we need rest and sometimes we need to move. Sometimes we make noise and sometimes we are quiet. We experience anger, happiness, frustration, disappointment, sadness, hardship, elation, etc. We also go through times of health and times of sickness or injury, and it is important to understand the value and lessons of both, for we can not truly appreciate or even define one without understanding or experiencing the other. This is the concept of yin and yang. All contexts of life can be defined as yin or yang. The energy of yin is dark and hidden, quiet, cool, feminine, yielding, mysterious and passive. Yang energy is opposite to yin energy, in that it is light and expressive, loud, masculine, more dynamic, warm and active. Examples of the contrast between yin and yang are night and day, moon and sun, slow and rapid, cold and hot, plastic and elastic.
“The Tao is the tranquility found in the center of all events, and the path leading to center. When we leave the center we take on aspects of yin or yang. Yin and Yang are relative terms: they describe two facets of existence. Like two sides of one coin, yin cannot exist without yang, nor yang without yin. They compliment each other. Since existence is never static, what is yin and what is yang are always in flux, always changing.”
— Bernie Clark
