Tag: yoga classes

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Yoga classes in Altea – amazing! New as of 18-2-22

We are back to the mat, people! Group yoga classes are back, and I am truly thrilled to get back to teaching you the finer points of Hatha yoga.

yoga classes in Altea

A year has now passed since I last gave a group class. It has been a strange year, to say the least. The pandemic (which I know we are all bored of talking about) has exposed rifts both in our inner lives and in our societies. We just had to hunker down and do our best. I wasn’t on my best form for a few months there, so I felt like I didn’t have the energy to give as a teacher. I stuck with my massages, for sure, but yoga became about my personal practice and about teaching private yoga classes at SHA Wellness Clinic.

Luckily, I kept my skills fresh teaching yoga at this world-famous wellness hotel. There, I teach yoga, meditation, mindfulness and pranayama (breath work) and I truly love it. They are private classes, and so have a different feel than group classes. Group classes have their own special vibe, and I am so excited to get back to teaching them.

Group yoga classes are social

I once read a very interesting interview with an Indian yoga teacher from a very distinguished lineage. He was giving a seminar in Sweden and the interviewer stole (borrowed?) a few minutes of his time.

When asked about the differences between teaching yoga in India and teaching yoga in the West, he mentioned the predominance of group classes in the West. Traditional Indian teaching would have been one-to-one, guru to student. Outside of India, that tradition has been lost, or substituted. The teacher mentioned that in Western countries, loneliness is a major social and psychological problem and that group yoga classes play an important role in alleviating this loneliness.

Nice people go to yoga class

In yoga classes, we often meet like-minded people and the environment of yoga encourages a deeper kind of sharing and more intimate conversation that might feel out of place on a pub night out, for example.

Alone in company

I have personally experienced the extremely common situation of being really into personal growth whilst in a relationship with someone who is not. That provoked in me the deepest feelings of loneliness as I felt invalidated when trying to talk about issues that really mattered to me. I was lucky that I worked in the field of wellness and preventative medicine and that gave me an outlet. (Nevertheless, when you’re the teacher or therapist, you’re not expected to share so much as the role of the teacher is to hold space for others. But, that conversation is worthy of a whole other post! )

Entrainment

Have you ever seen those videos of metronomes spontaneously synchronising? There is a tendency for energy waves to fall into patterns, and this is observable in many different area. Birds flying in a swirling flock, feedback on a microphone…and humans meditating. Yep, the phenomenon is called “entrainment” and it happens.

Basically, when you do yoga or meditate, you reduce the frequency and amplitude of your brainwaves. SMB (slow-medium Beta) is the frequency associated with meditative movement modalities like yoga, tai chi or chi gong. If you are practising alone, your brainwaves will relax, but if you are with people who are doing the same practice, it seems like everyone’s brainwaves synchronise and you get to the happy place a little more easily. Also, when you are in the presence of the highly trained and experienced teacher, your brainwaves entrain to theirs. Fascinating to think about, no?

Come to class!

I will start by offering one class per week and take it from there. I am super busy, as is everyone, so I want to make this work.

Day: Fridays

Dates: 18-02-2022 until the end of June.

Time: 9.30-10.30

Studio: Qiyoga

Address: Calle la Mar 143, Altea

Price: 30€/month

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Fascia and slow yoga

On the Alteayoga facebook page, I re-posted a piece from Dr. Mercola’s web site in which fascia is thoughtfully discussed.  I suggest that you pop over and read it, then come back here. 

Summing up: 

Fascia makes up about 20% of body weight and is like a battery pack for muscles.  It also transports water in the body. It seems to be tightly related to pain, especially chronic pain.  Movement is the best method for relieving fascial pain.

I teach hatha yoga in a very specific way.  Firstly, following the Viniyoga method, there is almost always a dynamic and a static phase for each posture.  This means that you get both the flow of vinyasa-style yoga and the holds of classical yoga.  

Uttanasana 6x + 6B

You can see that the whole posterior muscle chain is activated in this sequence.  There is a clear indication of breathing.  Also, there is abdominal compression.  All this contributes to making this very simple sequence highly effective in moving muscles and, ergo, fascia.

I design my classes with anatomy in mind.  There are four kinds of yoga:  Bhakti (devotion), Raja (intellect), Karma (selfless service) and Hatha (movement).  I am very clearly a hatha yoga teacher, and use my deep understanding of kinesiology to design sequences within sequences all with a clear objective in mind.  Loosening up the deepest layers, the bits that no one can get to, the parts that hurt but you can’t put your finger on.  Yoga, specifically Viniyoga well-taught, gets to these parts.

Practise, all is coming.  The Guru is within.

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Updated class times

Jump on over to the “About and Class Times” page for a full listing of my current offering.

I must say that I am so, so happy to be teaching more and more classes.  To have private students and six group classes per week is an honour.  As I always say;

Without students, there are no teachers.

Thank you to everyone who comes to class, who trusts me with their body, who lets me hear their breath, who is patient with my bilingual instructions and who smiles, and looks peaceful afterwards. I am truly honoured.

I don’t think that, all those years ago at the YMCA in Toronto when I became a personal trainer and step aerobics instructor, I ever thought I would earn my living in this field.  I just did exercise because it made me feel good, it kept the black dog at bay.  When I found yoga, or when yoga found me, I realised that I could make that black dog stay away permanently.  Now, my mission is to help other people learn this same thing.  We can live happily, we have a fount of joy within us and we can find it, over and over again, reproducibly.  Yoga shows us the path to our own inner joy.  The Guru is within you, we just need pointing in the right direction.  That’s all I am here to do, and I will do it to the best of my ability, consistently and caringly.  I just want to make the world smile, that’s all.

A heart made out of yoga silhouettes and downloaded from OpenClipart, then customised.
pink yoga heart

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An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

In the natural health world, we eschew medication as much as we can for many reasons. In fact, here are many people who take upwards of five pharmaceuticals per day.

Between 1988 and 2010 the median number of prescription medications used among adults aged 65 and older doubled from 2 to 4, and the proportion taking ≥5 medications tripled from 12.8% (95% confidence interval: 11.1, 14.8) to 39.0% (35.8, 42.3).

–https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4573668/

Here is yet another reason why this can only end in tears:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/11/drug-waste-clogs-rivers-around-the-world-scientists-say

Diet, rest, gentle exercise, loving kinships, contact with nature and creative realisation go a long way to palliating the worst ravages of simply being human and existing in this crazy world. I don’t advocate for a complete avoidance of pharmaceuticals – I am a huge fan of good medical science. What I do advocate for, however, is a reduction in our dependence on such things. This will only come about when each individual adult realises that they hold the keys to their own health and must practice preventative medicine.

Some years ago, I made an independent study of the typical age of onset of various chronic diseases (atherosclerosis, Type-II diabetes, high blood pressure etc). It is much earlier than you think…you’re probably thinking 55? 60? Think again. In men, about 38-45 and in women about 45-55.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  Yoga is  a complete system that offers advice on diet, exercise, rest, healthy human relationship, our place in the big scheme of things – the natural world – and how to realise your inner visions (creativity).  I can teach you some or most of that, depending on how long you stick with me, how often you turn up to class and whether you decide to have private as well as group classes.

It is a long journey, and I am not an easy yoga teacher.  I will needle you, I will make you think. But, I will teach you all that I know, and I never stop learning myself, so my teaching will always evolve.  Of that, you can be certain.   But, without makng any claim such as yoga can prevent cancer – because one cannot make such claims, ok? – I can guarantee that if you do get diagnosed with cancer, having a steady and established yoga practice will help you through it.  And this, a mean yoga teacher is nicer than a mean course of chemotherapy! And one more thing, yoga has been proven to help prevent both cardiovascular disease and diabetes.  So there.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Over and out, dear souls.  Today is a bright and lovely day.  You’re alive.  Be joyful, be joy.

AUM.

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On mouth breathing

prismatic flower mandalaWe are born and the first thing we do is inhale. The last thing we do when we leave this mortal coil is exhale. Everything that comes in between is called a life.
Yoga considers the breath to be both an energy in itself, and a carrier of energy, so many practices in yoga are about freeing the breath. All yoga has breath work (pranayâma), but the style of yoga that I teach, Viniyoga, has a very specific way of approaching pranayâma. I could spend a lot of time explaining how we do it, but it really is easiest if you come to class and embody the practice.

I marvel at the deep belly breaths my 10-year old daughter instinctively takes when she has to concentrate hard on some task like, say, drawing a circle or cutting out a pattern. Most adults doing the same thing would hold the breath. Observe your breath next time you want to take a photo…give me a comment below about what you observe, let’s make this fun, eh?

So, somewhere between youth and adulthood, the breath changes. I have observed many people on my massage table who only mouth-breathe, and many are doing so 20+/minute. Ideally, we should breathe 6-12x/minute. Anything more and you’re wasting energy. Anything less and you’re way ahead of me and I don’t have anything to teach you!

Anatomical manifestations of an incorrect breath are many. Alterations in the voice are common. Back pain in all zones of the spinal column is often related to incorrect breathing . Postural problems are common among mouth breathers, as are changes to the face and jawline. Mouth breathers often project their lower jaw forward, and turn down the corners of their mouths (not a good look, sorry).

There are physiological problems, too: the nose filters incoming air, and warms it before delivering it to the lungs. Mouth breathers take no advantage of the nasal turbinates and adenoid tonsil (for immune function), and thus deprive themselves of a very important cleaning process.

Yoga has tools to re-establish healthy breathing. We often think of yoga as postures, and indeed it is. But the trick of yoga is to do those postures while breathing correctly. By practising with a qualified teacher, using a method that pays attention to the breathing (there are yoga lineages that just put you in a pose and say “breathe deeply”), you can take control of this incredible physiological process that accompanies you from cradle to grave and discover for yourself just how wonderful it is to breathe deeply, slowly, and through the nose.
Happy practice. The Guru is within you.

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New term starts 12-Sept-2017

Yoga at GOA
Yoga at GOA

Hey people, sorry it’s been a while.  The summer term has gone swimmingly and I’ve been kept busyingly busy!.  Classes were sometimes full to overflowing, sometimes empty to the point of silence.  But, the 90-days of consecutive classes is drawing to an end. And, of course, I have got my fingers in the pot, planning for next term.

Firstly, I am going to take a few days off teaching.  Last class is this Friday, 1-Sept-2017.  Then, until Tuesday 12-Sept-2017, rien de rien.

From 12-Sept-2017, I will offer a five-days-per-week teaching schedule. No class Sunday or Monday, but every other day, yes.  Start time is 9:30, pricing model remains the same:  7€ first class, 6€ the second one in the same week, 5€ for the third and so on.  Weekly cost for all five classes is 25€, and there is no monthly fee.

So, I hope to see you there. Not for me, but for you.  Yoga has special, magic powers and my most sincere wish is that everyone reading this could feel that blissfulness at least once.  No, yoga won’t change the world:  only activism and engagement can do that.  But yoga can change your inner world and that might be a good starting point.  Om.

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Welcome to Alteayoga.es!

Hello and the warmest of welcomes to you.  Thanks for stopping by my new and revamped alteayoga.es page.  I have been blogging for a long time over at http://alteayoga.wordpress.com.  So, pop on over there to see what this is all about, while I get the new page up and running.  But, make sure to come back here afterwards, or bookmark before you go!  Or, even better, get on down to GOA on the Altea-Albir seafront every day at 9:15 (9:00 from July onwards) for a delicious session of hatha yoga.  See you there.

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Pratyahara

David Frawley of the American Institute of Vedic Studies is, in my opinion, one of the most erudite and informed yoga pundits on the scene today.  I shall share with you a link to his writings on pratyahara, the fifth limb of Astanga yoga.  If you have been practising with me this winter, you will know that pratyahara has figured in my teachings.  I hope that this article enlightens you on its philosophical underpinnings.  Om shantih shantih shantih.
Pratyahara:  Yoga’s Forgotten Limb

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Festival de Danza Consciente

Ojo!  Los días 5, 6 y 7 de abril se celebrará el 1º Festival de Danza Consciente en Villajoyosa.  En la web oficial del festival, http://valuodesarrollo.wordpress.com/ aparecen todos los detalles,  Sin embargo, hay que ponerse en contacto con los organizadores para obtener el programa completo y los precios.
Los precios no son hiper-economicos, pero tampoco exagerados.  Por ejemplo, para estar todo el día el sábado, y comer y cenar allí, se paga unos €64.  No se si habrá algún mercadillo, pero supongo que si.  Lo cual significa un pequeño gasto extra – este incienso que no encuentras en tu pueblo, ó un zafu super chulo…
Si, estamos cruzando tiempos de malestar económico.  A mi manera de ver las cosas, apoyandonos el uno al otro esta cada vez más importante.  Eso significa gastar nuestro dinero en una manera consciente.  Yo, desde ya hace muchissimos años, control mi impacto en el mundo a través de mis elecciónes económicas.  Comprando en pequeños negocios, comprando en rastros y de segunda mano, y regalando las cosas que ya no me sirven.
Un festival como ese, Danza Consciente, es no solo una inversión en tu proprio desarollo, sino en el desarollo de nuestra comunidad.  La Costa Blanca está saturada de terapeutas, downshifters y todo clase de busquedor.   Aqui y ahora lo estamos poniendo en marcha, con eventos como este.
Y, por supuesto, ¿que es la Danza Consciente?  Pues, en las tradiciones Tántricas del Yoga, se considera que toda la Creación está metido en un baile eterno y Universal.  Siva, el Dios Védico, esta muy frequentemente representado en movimiento, con una pierna elevada, apoyandose sobre el otro pie, pisando una creatura miserable.  Este creatura es la ignoracia.  Siva está bailando  el Baile Cósmico, aplastando la ignorancia.  El yoga es una especie de baile, movimientos muy meditados y coordinados, con el fin de percibir y controlar la energía corporal sutíl, el Prana.  Entonces, este festival, con varios actuaciones de lineage Kundalini, será un yoga tántrico con el fin de mover tu prana.  Será un lugar salvo y una comunidad de apoyo, seguramente, el lo cual podemos atrevernos a dejar pasar la Luz por nuestras grietas, sin miedo ni apuro.
¡Vamonos, amigos!

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Beginnner's yoga class – Yoga para principiantes

This Wednesday, we are starting a new beginner’s hathayoga class at Prana in Benidorm. We will meet once per week, from 09:00-09:45. The class is full already, but keep it in mind for mid-May if you feel like dipping a toe in the water…
Empezamos una nueva clase de hathayoga a partir de éste miércoles. Quedamos una vez a la semana en Prana, Benidorm, de 09:00-09:45. La clase ya está llena, pero tenla en cuenta por mitad de mayo si se animan para probar el yoga…