yogi

Vancouver Yoga Review Author Featured On The Georgia Straight!

Vancouver Yoga Review Author Featured On The Georgia Straight!

Vancouver Yoga Review author, Sarah Jamieson, is currently featured on the cover of the Georgia Straight magazine. This inspiring yoga teacher and movement coach is running for the world to raise money for charity:

Nearly a decade ago, the North Vancouver native made it her goal to raise $1 million for charity by the time she hit 35, a venture she’s dubbed Run for a Cause. Now 32, she’s raised almost $800,000, logging thousands of kilometres running at home and abroad to support organizations such as the Canadian Mental Health Association, the Vancouver Police Foundation, and Engineers Without Borders, among many others […]

Read the full article here or pick up a print copy. Congrats Sarah!

What Is Kriya Yoga?

Kriya Yoga refers to actions designed to remove obstructions involving body and mind. Kriya Yoga covers a wide range of techniques, including mantras and meditative techniques for control of the life-force (prana), bringing calmness and control of both body and mind.

Paramahansa Yogananda founded the Self-Realization Fellowship in 1920 to make available these universal teachings of this sacred spiritual science originating millenniums ago in India. Kriya Yoga teaches the laws of general conduct (yama and niyama), including harmlessness, truthfulness, non-stealing, etc. Kriya Yoga promotes the study of metaphysical principles, physical and mental health, cleanliness and purity. The ultimate goal of Kriya Yoga is to unite with pure Awareness (God/ Universe/ Higher Power).

The West’s First Yoga Master Of India

Paramahansa Yogananda was the first yoga master of India to take up permanent residence in the West. Born and raised in 1893 in Gorakhpur, he arrived in America in 1920, and proceeded to travel throughout the United States, filling large halls, on what he coined his “spiritual campaigns.”

He founded Self-Realization Fellowship (the first center was located in Boston, MA) to disseminate worldwide his teachings on India’s ancient science and philosophy of Yoga and its time-honored tradition of meditation.

Yogananda’s spiritual legacy has had a lasting impact on Western culture. His Autobiography of a Yogi, first published in 1946, helped launch a spiritual revolution in the West. It has since been translated into multiple languages, and remains one of the best-selling spiritual classics to date.

Yogananda continued to lecture and write until to his passing in 1952. To read more about Paramahansa Yogananda’s biography, visit the site here.

My Five-Minute Yoga Practice App

Eve Johnson, a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher based in Vancouver, created My Five-Minute Yoga Practice app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

A useful application for beginners, Eve talks you through 11 five-minute practices, with detailed instructions describing exactly what to do in each pose. Gradually, five minutes at a time, yoga will become part of life. It’s also a great tool for those who struggle with finding enough time to fit yoga into their day, or frustrated with the lack of progress in their yoga practice.

Available in the App Store, you can also visit Eve’s website for additional information.

Teaching Your Teacher: Sharing the Love

Source: http://www.leeanncareyyogashopping.com/stretch-one-on-one/

My saga of being a newly certified teacher continues! Yesterday I taught a 20min segment to my very favourite teacher – it was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

After all the coursework, readings and practical teaching exercises in my summer Yoga Teacher Training, I was feeling pretty good about things. I was getting great feedback from friends and students about my teaching. My youngest brother had a sore calf, which I helped out with using my new therapeutic techniques and a couple of well-considered (and well-taught!) stretches.

I was feeling pretty good – until my favourite teacher in the world asked me to lead her through a short class so she could get a sense of my style. Yikes!

Last week I devoted myself to planning and fretting. I practiced and prepared. I visualized her loving it – and hating it. I’m usually pretty balanced and confident in front of people, but when I placed my mat down and she rolled hers out in front of me, I wondered how such an amazing teacher could even start to enjoy my teaching. How can I, her student, measure up as her teacher?  I became a little undone— I’m not going to lie.

When the music started and I launched into my routine, my voice was a little shaky and my instructions a bit garbled. I realised though, that teaching my teacher was a great opportunity to share my love for yoga in an expression that she hasn’t seen from me before. Not only that, but I could get tips and pointers from someone I respect and admire a great deal to apply to my teaching!

I realised that I should just do what I’ve been compelled to do all along – share my love for yoga in my own way and hope others will feel inspired and drawn to practice it with me. We both had fun!

Lauren Roegele – Demonstrating Yoga’s Healing Benefits

Lauren Roegele is an Anusara-inspired teacher with a kind soul and a profound love for the healing benefits of yoga. I have taken a few of her classes before, but had the opportunity to work with her at a deeper level in my teacher training last month.

Source: http://www.muddyrootsyoga.com/teachers/

As part of his 200hr YTT program, Dan Clement hosted local teachers in our classes – a way for us to learn diverse elements of yoga from specialists in the field. Among these speakers were Todd Caldecott (Ayurveda), Carol Wray (Restorative Yoga, Thai Massage, Structural Therapeutics), Naomi Clement (Anatomy) and Lauren.

Lauren came in for several sessions – the most striking of which were the healing and therapeutic segments. To start, she told us her story of being hit by a drunk driver’s car while crossing the road. She told us about the years of mental and physical health difficulties. She explained with profound emotion how finding yoga gave her the ability to heal herself and rediscover her enthusiasm for life.

She has practiced under a number of influential teachers, including John Friend, Christina Sell, Paul Grilley, Sarah Powers, Bernie Clark, Sean Corne, Martin Kirk, and David Swenson. She brings her understanding of the body’s limitations and hesitations to a teaching style that is safe, effective and fun. When a student is discouraged and says, “I can’t do this,” Lauren is quick to respond with a warm and encouraging, “not yet…”

Lauren teaches Anusara, Yin and Level 2 at Muddy Roots Yoga in South Surrey (www.muddyrootsyoga.com), as well as a weekly Flow class at Hari Om Yoga in Langley (www.hariomyoga.com).

You can read more about Lauren’s journey, as well as her private session techniques, testimonials and at www.laurensyoga.com.

Yoga-ee People

Patti Paige Baked Ideas Custom Baking

“So, where do you work?” I ask a new acquaintance.

“Oh I work in Kitsilano,” she replies with an unimpressed tone.

“Oh yeah, I work around there too and used to live there. I love Kits, such a nice area,” I respond cheerfully.

“Yeah, it’s ok. It’s very Vancouver and all yoga-ee,” she states, accentuating the ee.

“Yes, I know,” and to her surprise I add, “I’m actually all yogaee myself.”

Vancouver yoga people. Just a bunch of clones wearing Lululemon spandex suits, headbands, and legwarmers with yoga mats on our backs, shopping for organic produce in Capers or Whole Foods. We prefer Naturopaths to Doctors, tea to coffee, and vegetables to meat. We believe that because we practice yoga, we are better than the general public. We feel better, act better, and look better in tight clothing.

I used to be convinced of this stereotype, allowing it to create negative feelings towards practicing yoga. Then, a few years later, I went to my first class.

Rather than being surrounded by the image-conscious people I expected, I was surrounded by all sorts of focused, non judgmental yogis enjoying their practice and supporting mine. Lululemon? Yes of course it was worn – and good thing since most spandex pants reveal bum crack during every Downward Facing Dog. Matching outfits? I couldn’t tell you since my attention was drawn inward rather than towards analyzing classmates’ clothing choice. I even had the option of sipping a free cup of tea before class.

There is an instant sense of comfort when you begin class and recite om for the first time. We’re all there for our own reasons and it has nothing to do with personality type or fashion sense or where we choose to buy our produce. I wasn’t being looked at or stereotyped, so how could I speak of these yogis with negative connotation?

There is no denying that Vancouver is full of practicing yogis who do fit the stereotype to a certain extent. I’m a vegetarian, Lululemon wearing, tea drinking yogi. Yet this doesn’t determine who I am. There is such a wide range of people who practice yoga in this city and we are much more diverse than any stereotype’s classification.

I used to think yoga was for wealthy yuppies in need of an indoor activity during winter. Until I tried it and was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps this new friend of mine should just try it, too.

deadlines.

work has been killing me this week and as i’m feverishly working to hit a super important 9 am deadline monday morning (which feels quite like staring into the barrel of a gun) my blogging duties have fallen by the wayside and i’m left empty-handed for my saturday post.

HOWEVER, have no fear:  i will give you something ELSE to read!  (insert best ‘underdog impression HERE.)

one of my all-time favorite blogs is written by david romanelli, a yogi based out of arizona.  i came across his ‘yoga for foodies’ site one night in new york while i was stressed out with work and desperately googling ‘yoga retreats’.  i like food+i like yoga, so i figured he might have something worth checking out.  while i never made it to the retreat as i left new york to come to vancouver (come to vancouver Dave!!!) i still subscribe to his weekly newsletter because he’s  hilarious.

http://www.yeahdave.com/blog/

also, i’ve just started reading Eckhart Tolle’s ‘the Power of Now’ (the irony that i’m scrambling to post this blog while the clock is ticking down to my usual saturday morning yoga sesh while also multi-tasking work emails and sketches is so not lost on me here).  i recommend you read this one too.  rather than check it out of the library, i bought the book last month during a lay over at the chicago airport.  i actually wanted ‘a New Earth’ but they were all sold out so i started here instead.  best decision ever.  buy it, email me, let’s start a yoga/power of now’ book club.  i’m only on page 34–you don’t have far to catch up.

happy reading!!!!

(ps: i hear it’s suppose to be sunny out today.  save this reading entry for tomorrow, when it’s raining and go get some vitamin D!)

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