During a recent teacher-training workshop at Sanctuary for Yoga, Angie participated in a yoga class at a cool venue, on the rooftop at Acme Feed & Seed in downtown Nashville. WSMV did a story on the classes, which are offered on Fridays at 4 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 10 a.m. If you find yourself downtown on a weekend, you may want to try out a yoga practice with this view!
On June 26, 2015, Eri Golden and Chie Tanaka taught a special yoga class to participants in the Proyecta 100,000 program hosted by WKU and and ESLI. Their students also included other faculty, staff, and students who worked with that month-long program.
Proyecta 100,000 is designed by the Mexican government to support the studies of Mexican students in the United States, and Dr. Alison Youngblood brought the program to WKU and had the idea to include a yoga class during its closing-night celebration. Eri and Chie volunteered to team-teach that class, which was held in Tate Page Hall on campus and drew approximately 15 participants, including the program’s 7 engineering scholars from Mexico.
Eri notes that she offered to teach the class because, as someone for whom English is a second language, she felt a connection to the participants; she also wanted to share the “power of yoga” with them and to remind students that they need to engage in physical activities as well as mental ones in order to remain healthy. Teaching the class as a team allowed Eri and Chie to give more individual attention to each student.
During Tuesday’s Gentle class, Susan Polk discussed some of the brain benefits of yoga and meditation and mentioned an online meditation program presented by Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey. This program, Manifesting Grace through Gratitude, is available on Chopra’s website; registration is free and easy, and participants access a 20-minute audio meditation, centering thought, and mantra each day. There is also the option to reflect on your experience in a private online journal.
Although the program began on Monday (July 13), there is still time to join and participate. If you have been looking for a way to begin or support to continue your meditation practice, you may find this program’s flexibility meets your needs.
During a recent (July 3) Yin class, Angie shared excerpts from this post on the Psychology Today website. Written by Marlynn H. Wei, a yogi who is also a psychiatrist, the piece is titled “Why Does Anyone Do Yoga, Anyway?” While it mentions the physical benefits of yoga, the post primarily summarizes recent neuroscience research on the mental benefits, including this information:
A new, May 2015 study published in the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain to show that yoga protects the brain from the decline in gray matter brain volume as we age. People with more yoga experience had brain volumes on par with much younger people….This finding has also been true in brain imaging studies of people who meditate. In other words, yoga could protect your brain from shrinking as you get older.
Even more interesting, the protection of this gray matter brain volume is mostly in the left hemisphere, the side of your brain associated with positive emotions and experiences and parasympathetic nervous system activity—your “rest and digest” relaxation system. Emotions like joy and happiness have exclusively more activity in the left hemisphere of the brain on positive emission tomography (PET) brain scans.
You already know that your yoga practice makes you feel better, but do you know some of the reasons why it does? Join your fellow yogis and urge your friends you’ve been encouraging to start yoga to attend The Medical Center’s upcoming Women-in-Charge Luncheon on the Benefits of Yoga and Meditation. Susan Polk will present scientific research that confirms what we already feel in our bodies and minds–yoga makes us feel good and improves our health and quality of life.
As an extra reward for attendees, Susan will be giving away door prizes for individual Thai Yoga Therapy sessions, yoga and meditation classes, and individual yoga therapy sessions!
The luncheon takes place on Tuesday, July 28, 2015, from 12–1 p.m. at The Medical Center Auditorium, and the cost is $8 per person. To join Susan for this event, be sure to register in advance. Registration is accepted either online (at TheMedicalCenter.org, or follow this direct link for the event) or through the mail (look for the form on the back cover of the WellNews publication).
For questions or for more information about the luncheon series, call 270-745-1010 or 800-624-2318.
In the last few weeks, several news outlets have run stories about the ways that mindfulness can assist athletes. On Point featured an interview with George Mumford, author of The Mindful Athlete: Secrets to Pure Performance, that highlighted his work with NBA players and the benefits of mindfulness training to professional athletes. And The Washington Post reported on a study about basketball players at George Mason University participating in a “mindfulness-based intervention” that included a regular Hatha yoga practice.
If you will spend your holiday weekend in Bowling Green, we invite you to practice with us for any of these 6 classes:
As always, if you have any questions about our classes, drop us an email (4yoga.me@gmail.com) or send us a message on Facebook.
In the Gentle class this morning, Frances mentioned having seen a recent Good Morning America story on “text neck.” The story illustrates how neck pain and injuries can result from looking down at screens for hours a day and emphasizes the importance of good posture in neck health. It concludes with three neck and shoulder stretches to do to foster flexibility and strength and mentions yoga specifically as a way to maintain neck health.
If you spend a lot of time looking down at a phone, tablet, or laptop, you may want to give yourself plenty of breaks to practice the stretches in the story or other yoga poses to help keep your cervical spine healthy.
Water. It seems that some places are getting too much and other places aren’t getting enough. Statistics show that the Pacific Ocean temperature is rising, and, as a result, the jet stream is shifting. Places that used to be dry are now wet, and places that were wet are now becoming dry.
It is interesting that we use the properties of water in many of our idioms: “frozen in fear,” “go with the flow,” and “in a fog.” Water is the element of the second chakra, Svadhisthana. As a practice, it may be beneficial to contemplate the properties of water within yourself. What parts of you may be frozen? The melting snows in the mountains can become rushing, raging streams. To “go with the flow” requires surrender. When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.
In your yoga practice, use the poses to get into your body to become aware of what in you is frozen. Pull the attention of the mind back from remembering, judging, and planning into the sensations of the body. Learn its language and listen. “The Body is the shore on the ocean of Being” — Sufi saying.
July updates:
July teacher introductions:
We are pleased to welcome two new teachers in July, Carly Hennigar and Richard Denton.
For a full list of July classes, please see the the online calendar or a hard copy available at The Pots Place.
Many yoga students are already aware of the substantial benefits of Restorative yoga to relax and calm both the body and the mind. (Yoga Journal weighs in on why everyone needs this style of yoga during winter, but the information about having recovery time in our busy lives is not season-specific.) Whether you already appreciate these benefits and are looking for a class to take or are searching for ways to relax, we invite you to attend any or all of Susan Polk’s upcoming Restorative classes.
The Restorative class will meet at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, June 26, 2015. Then, in July, it will meet each Sunday at 5:45 p.m. We look forward to sharing this style of yoga with our community!
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