Finally SNOW in the Vail Valley!!

Hope you enjoy these pictures from Bonnie
Hot yoga is going to be Steamy tonight!

Have you ever thought of bringing a yoga teacher into your place of business to teach an hour of yoga to your employees a few times a week?

It is a great way to not only increase productivity and focus in your workers, but is also a great way to keep them healthy and feeling good.  This might also mean less sick days?

For people who sit in a chair all day at a desk, there is a huge risk for their bodies to stiffen up and for them to loose some serious mobility in their back, hips and shoulders.  By creating a pattern in their bodies that counter acts this stiffness, yoga helps keep balance in the body.  Furthermore, the use of deep breathing during yoga practice helps teach focus and helps clear the mind of chatter and chaos so that the person can work more effectively.

At Yoga off Broadway we have been taking our mats into the office and showing people how great they can feel when they take an hour out of their day to practice yoga.  They have said how wonderful it makes them feel and how much more energy they have through the rest of the day. 

For more information about how you can bring yoga into your office, contact Kelly at kelly@yogaoffbroadway.org

Peace and Namaste!

HEADS UP! 

WE are getting ready to plan KID YOGA CAMPS for the summer of 2010.
Look to the website for more details to come in the next week!!
Sign up early, last year we filled up a couple of the camps!!

Kid Yoga Camps are 1/2 day week long camps designed for kids ages 4-6 and 7-10 to have fun learning about yoga as well as self – expression through aret and music and discovery through science experiments and exploration of nature.

Something to think about for Valentine’s Day…

Yoga teaches us to love ourselves and to love those around us, but another great lesson from yoga is to have compassion for all living beings. 

Take a moment on this valentine’s day and send out a prayer for peace for all people and animals around the world.  Feel compassion in your heart for those suffering and acknowledge that we all come from the same Divine source  and essentially we are all the same.

You can take this one step deeper and make it a daily practice to sit quietly, close your eyes and on your in breath, imagine you are breathing in the suffering of those in pain and on your exhale, imagine you are breathing out compassion and peace to them.  You can visualize this as a white light that is sent from your heart to theirs.

Much love and peace to you all
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti
Kelly

I know that it seems as we get older, our bodies simply give out more and more.  I hear many people talk about how they are getting too old, and their bodies just don’t work like they used to, and they are suffering injuries and stiffness like never before.

One question to ponder… as we get older, there is a tendency to be less active.  Before you blame old age, have you considered that you have stopped “conditioning” your body for movement?  Our bodies are amazing machines that are built to be WORKED.  The joints are bathed in fluid when we move, the disks of the back also absorb fluid when we move and thus cusion our spinal column.  Many people complain about getting old and stiff.  Ask yourself, how much am I really moving througout my day?  Try a little morning ritual for moving all the joints in the body.  Sun Salutations (5-7 of them every morning is a perfect way to lubricate all the joints and chase the stiffness out of your body).

It’s not just stiffness that is a problem, many people  have serious issues with the disks in their back, (compression, herniation etc) and thus movement is limited even more… which could lead to even more problems.  Our muscles are designed to support the structure of our skeleton and yet we tend to forget that proper alignment of bones in our bodies depend on muscles.  We sit in chairs and let the structure of the chair take the place of the work our muscles would do.  We hunch forward which stretches and weakens the muscles of the back and pulls the spine come out of proper alignment causing compression which leads to disk issues and nerve pain. 

Another common misalignment is to let your head hang heavy off your neck and as you do this you loose the strength in your upper back/shoulders and neck muscles because you never use them to pull the head back into place on top of the spine. 

How many “old age” problems can be fixed simply by conditioning the body with a daily routine of stretching, strengthening and attention to the alignment of the body.

Yoga is a practice that can help you avoid many injuries.  Can it keep you from “old age”?  I think so

Keep practicing yoga every day and your body will thank you.

When we decide we have time to go for a hike, ride a bike or even when we ask our bodies to be strong and move a couch for a friend… our bodies reject us and we get injured.

I wanted to sincerely thank everyone who supported my friend Jim through kind words and prayers at the end of last year. 

It was simply amazing to me that so many people cared so much to ask about him all the time.  Many, many people told me that they were thinking about him and praying for him or simply just putting out good thoughts for his recovery. 

None of these people knew him, they only knew that he is a very close friend of mine and that he needed some support from a community.

I can’t express how happy and honored I am to be part of this commuinity at Yoga off Broadway.  Each of you brings your gift of positive energy, friendship and love with you to the studio everytime you come for a class.

Many of the yoga off broadway students are struggling with sickness in their families or with sadness in their lives in one way or another and I know that the yoga studio we have is a wonderful place for them (for everyone) to come when things seem hopeless. 

Thank you all for your open hearts and your open ears and your kind words and your love.

God bless you all. Namaste
Kelly

By looking to nature, we get a great example of what to do for ourselves this time of year. 

The plants are taking this time to put their energy into rooting deeper into the Earth, grounding themselves to nature, and so should we. 

The fall is a perfect time to look inward and to find what really makes you happy.

Take a long walk outside in the brisk fall air, wrap up in a blanket with a warm cup of tea, enjoy taking some time to read a book instead of watching tv at night.  Start to eat smaller, more comforting foods like soups and stews.  Changing your diet to warm you from the inside and to nourish a sense of calm that comes this time of year if you let it. 

It is also a time to renew your committment to yourself.  Who do you want to be? What kind of life do you want to lead? It is a good time to literally clean out your closets, your junk drawers and your garages.  Get ready for winter in the most positive way.  Celebrate the changing of the season and the time to change some bad habits that you might have picked up in the summer.

Try a detox diet, or fast for a day, or take a week of eating mostly steamed vegetables and rice.  Clean out your system as you clean out your house. 

Then spread this joy, this peace, and celebrate– celebrate your life, the excitement of the coming holidays, and the gift of reconnecting with those you love– the ones you live with, the friends you have around you and the friends and family from afar. 

Re-ground yourself to the earth and to those you love.  Sogyal Rinpoche tells us in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, “the nobelist and wisest thing to do is to cherish others instead of cherishing yourself.  This will bring healing to your heart, healing to your mind, and healing to your spirit.”

Enjoy this change of the season and spend it grounding yourself to what is real, by spreading peace and positive energy to those you come in contact with every day that you are blessed with.

Peace, love and happiness to you all during this wonderful change of the seasons.

My week of traveling wreaked havoc on my 42 day commitment to a yoga lifestyle.  I was in and out of the car for 14 hours on Tuesday and just slightly less the following days.  I didn’t ‘move’ my body at all that day; in fact, it took all my energy to simply put the key into the door lock just to get into my hotel room.  The other days moving consisted of going for short walks and a few sun salutations/downward dogs, and a few handstands (I chuckled thinking if someone could peek in the window and see me upside down….)  Driving over seven mountain passes this time of year gave me some great time to reflect though, listen to great music, and even practice focused meditation, or more like living in the moment.  I felt God in so many of these beautiful places it was almost overwhelming.  How could I ever move back to city life?  Meditation while driving doesn’t sound safe does it?  Well I think it’s totally possible and an absolutely amazing experience.  Eating was a little off as I sacrificed meals in order to squeeze in extra meetings to see as many customers as possible before the winter sets in.  So I got hungry.  But I’m not beating myself up over straying from my goals (I am proud to say I didn’t partake in any fast food or junk food, though) and will look forward to my practice, gravitating once again inward and focused.  I miss my studio and can’t wait for class tomorrow morning and even more so book club on Sunday.  Have a lot of reading to do!

Normally on a Saturday morning I’m nursing the hangover-but feeling quite fine at a very early hour (for me).  In fact, everyone is still sleeping, and even the dog didn’t bother following me upstairs to start the day.  I have to say I am quite proud of myself this first week.  Not only have I completely cut out processed foods, caffeine and alcohol, but I’ve managed to stick to my goal of moving twice a day – like as if my life depended on it.  Now I had never done yoga at home – although this aint my first rodeo, as they say, there is something to be said about leaving the home,(distractions, the kid, messy house, the list goes on) and making a quick trip to the studio for guided instruction.  It’s like a date with myself.  So Friday morning I saw 5:30 pass, and then 5:45 but just couldn’t make it out of bed, so missing the only class I could make that day, I knew I had to undertake yoga at home.  Just thinking about it scares me.  I made it through 40 minutes on my own (stopping only once to Swiffer the floor, I swear) and I felt great!  So now I know I can do it when I’m on the road next week for work – four days.  I wont say it looked pretty, or flowed very well but it was something and I look forward to the next few days of class before venturing out on my own.

So after three work-related social functions and a FRIDAY NIGHT I made it through (not over but the hard part is).   Will be catching up on some book club reading this weekend in between going to Grand Junction and getting ready for a long and draining week on the road.

Does anyone have any suggestions for some great new music or specific songs you would like to hear in yoga class?

looking for some inspiration!