Hello there yoginis!

We have made it into the second half of this year already. How has 2011 been for you so far?

July brings with it a sweltering, sticky heat… the sign that it’s now my favorite season in Japan: summer. Despite the discomfort that all this sweating might bring, summer is a season of celebration and relaxation. The heat seems to slow things down a bit, and it’s much easier for us to relax. If you take good care of yourself during this season, it can be a very healthy one. We tend to eat fresher foods, drink more water and yes, sweat out more toxins. So embrace the heat and come join us in the yoga class to help your body detox!

This month we’ll be taking a look at a very well-known form of yoga: Hatha Yoga. The term itself is sometimes confusing, as what most people know as “yoga” is in fact Hatha yoga. Other famous branches of yoga, for example Bikram yoga (hot yoga), Iyengar yoga and Ashtanga yoga all find their roots in Hatha yoga.

The word hatha comes from two Sanskrit words: HA (meaning sun) and THA (meaning moon). Hatha yoga is a system that helps the practitioner to confront and balance out opposites/dualities in the body and mind. We live in a world of duality: sun/moon, hot/cold, male/female, positive/negative, etc. According to the yoga system, any problems that come up in our bodies and minds are due to one aspect of these pairs being overactive, and the other underactive. Hatha yoga provides us with the tools to bring our physical, mental and spiritual systems back into balance, and in this balance we find health and happiness.

Traditional Hatha yoga focuses primarily on the asana (postures) and pranayama (breathing), in a slow, meditative set.

This month, we’ll be doing a relaxing, yet challenging set, bringing in a few balancing poses. The balancing poses we’ll be doing include Tree Pose (Talasana), Eagle Pose (Garudasana) and Warrior 3 (Virabradrasana 3). Then, we’ll be exploring quite a few floor-based poses like Butterfly pose (Baddha Konasana), Bow pose (Dhanurasana), Plough pose (Halasana) and Locust pose (Shalabasana).

Our Pranayama for this month will be a return to Alternate Nostril Breathing (Nadi Sodhana), a calming way of breathing that is said to bring balance to the flow of prana (life force) in our bodies.

From my side, keep cool & namaste!

See you on the mat,
Marilu

月毎に行うポーズ名をご紹介します。レッスンの状況により多少変更することがあります。

Namaste yoginis!

As we enter June, nearing the middle of the year, we can look back at everything we have done and learned up to now in our yoga class. Looking at the beautiful yoginis in class from my green yoga mat, I can say with pride that all of you have improved SO much since the beginning of this year! With regular practice, patience and breath awareness, we can all become stronger and more flexible in class.

Last month, in May, we spoke a bit about Karma Yoga. As we said, Karma Yoga is the yoga of selfless service, and is a road to enlightenment by way of continuous awareness of thoughts and actions. In this vein, for the next month I’d like to talk about another type of yoga, called Kriya Yoga.

Kriya Yoga was brought to the West from India in 1920 by Paramahansa Yogananada. To gain more insight into this advanced form of yoga, I’d really recommend reading: “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Mr. Yogananda.

Kriya Yoga is a systematic and ancient way towards enlightenment. It uses a combination of meditations, asanas, breathing exercises (pranayama) and visualisations to slowly but surely train the mind, body and soul to come closer together, towards one-pointedness.

Following the Kriya Yoga way could take decades, and we only have a month. For our asana practice, we will take one of the prescribed daily practices that is part of the preparation leading up to the advanced practices and finally, true Kriya Yoga. Because the asana practice involves a lot of single postures done one after the other (as opposed to vinyasa flow-style postures), our program will look something like this:

I’m looking forward to June’s practice and to finding out more about Kriya Yoga!

Our reading this month is from Swami Satyananda Saraswati:

Namaste,
Marilu

月毎に行うポーズ名をご紹介します。レッスンの状況により多少変更することがあります。

Namaste all yoginis!

I hope that all of you were able to use the golden week time to wind down, relax and connect with friends and family. We often get so caught up in our routines that we forget how good it is to stop those routines momentarily and place our focus on something more personal and closer to the heart. Thank goodness for holidays!

During last month’s class, the topic of different types of yoga came up. The yoga we practice at Imagine* is of the vinyasa kind, but apart from the workout-kind-of-yoga, many other forms of yoga exist, all with the final purpose of bringing a union between the body, mind and soul.

There is a type of yoga that requires not even one asana (pose) to be done, and that is much more focussed on making the mind flexible, rather than the body. This is Karma yoga, and in May I would like to talk about this yoga, the yoga of action.

Karma yoga is the practice of gaining awareness through action. By practicing karma yoga in everything you do from your 9-5 job to washing the dishes, you bring your awareness closer and closer to the present moment. If you do everything you do with full awareness, and without expecting any kind of reward, you remove the ego from the equation and daily upsets, big or small, tend to affect you less and lead to more efficient and powerful actions. The beauty of karma yoga is that you can practice this every moment of every day. All it is is a change of mindset.

On the yoga mats, we will be focussing on asanas that are called heart openers. By practicing these poses, we learn to open ourselves up to others, which in turn helps us to start living a more selfless, serving life. The karma yoga way.

Some of the heart-openers we will be doing include:

Our reading for the merry month of May is by an unknown author, but it is something that every single person should keep in mind. Especially if they are on a quest to increase their awareness.

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

Namaste,
Marilu

月毎に行うポーズ名をご紹介します。レッスンの状況により多少変更することがあります。

Spring is on our doorstep, and this means a lot of exciting things: warmer weather, beautiful blossoms, hanami parties and being more comfortable outside. Unfortunately for many people, especially in Japan, it means another thing: hay fever.

With this in mind, I have designed April’s yoga sequence to help us fight the season of allergies and stuffy noses the natural way. Although yoga is not a replacement for your trusted allergy medicine, it is an excellent companion. With regular asana and pranayama exercise, the occurrences of allergy attacks can become fewer, and this might mean that you’ll be able to take medicine less frequently.

The main way that yoga can help you to clear the way to smooth breathing is by helping you to strengthen your immune system. The three main ways to do this are:

1) Relaxing. As simple as that. Stress breaks down your immunity and relaxation makes it stronger. Yoga poses that are done slowly and with deep breathing have an automatic relaxing effect on the nervous system. We will therefore be focussing a lot on breathing techniques, including Ujjyai breath and Alternate nostril breathing.

2) Increasing the blood flow. More blood being circulated means that more antibodies can circulate through the blood, building immunity. We will get the blood flowing with a nice warm-up sequence of Sun Salutations.

3) Opening the chest. In the middle of the chest is a gland called the thymus gland. This gland plays a big role in immunity, and stimulating this gland with chest-opening asanas is a great way to boost the immune system. We will be doing poses that focus on stretching the chest area, including Cobra pose, Pigeon pose, Fish pose, Bow pose and, this month’s challenge pose, Bridge pose.

Something old, something new… April is looking like a good month to be doing yoga. Our reading this month is from B.K.S Iyengar:

Namaste,
Marilu

月毎に行うポーズ名をご紹介します。レッスンの状況により多少変更することがあります。

Winter is starting to leave us with the warmer spring creeping into the days. Spring is a time of new beginnings and rebirth.

In this month’s yoga sessions, we will focus on techniques to bring rebirth into the body and mind with detoxifying asanas (postures) and breathing. Yoga is very good for detox as it targets the three main systems involved in toxin removal from the body: the circulatory system, the lymph system and the digestive system.

This month’s sequence contains a series of poses focussed on detoxing the body. Twisted poses wring toxins and tension out of the core of the body, while the Downward Dog pose brings the heart above the head, helping blood and lymph circulation.

Some of the twisting postures we will be doing are: Twisted chair pose, twisted lunge, spinal twist and seated twist.

In pranayama, we will practice Khapalabati breath, a breath seen as an excellent way to detox through the lungs and increase our lung capacity, helping us to get more oxygen into the body and release more carbon dioxide.

I leave you with our reading for March, a quote by Robert Fulghum which reminds us that life is not always as complicated as we think it is.

月毎に行うポーズ名をご紹介します。レッスンの状況により多少変更することがあります。

Hello yoginis!

The first month of the year has flown past, and we’re getting ready to stretch into the shortest of them all: February.

As the previous two months had us work up our strength with many balancing poses (which take a lot of concentration), I think that we’ll move into more of a flow again in February.

The sequence that we’ll practice from February is adapted from one of my favorite yoga teachers on earth: Sadie Nardini. She makes yoga available for everyone with her excellent youtube videos, which already number over 200, and her easy-going personality. Her main focus is the core of the body, because when your core is strong, it will support the rest of your body and being, and allow you to reach new personal levels. If you want to check out more of her work, have a look at her website ( Sadie Nardini | Ultimate Wellness Expert ) or search her videos on youtube.

Rather than just list the poses that we’ll be working through in February, I’d rather tell you what we want to achieve with these poses:

Sounds like quite an exciting series this month!

Our class will end, as always, with a reading. For this month, I’ve chosen a piece called “Our Deepest Fear”, written by Marianne Williamson.

月毎に行うポーズ名をご紹介します。レッスンの状況により多少変更することがあります。

Reading

Hey yoginis,

Can you believe that 2010 has come to its end? This year flew by, and many different things happened. 2010 is the year that imagine* Yoga started, and we’ve slowly but surely been building our community of weekly yoga practitioners. Just seeing the improvement in everyone’s practice has been impressive already! I trust that 2011 will be an even more successful year, and that more people will be exposed to, and fall in love with, the practice of yoga.

Seeing as we have a long break at the end of December and beginning of January for the winter holidays, we will continue the same sequence for both December and January.

For these two months, we’re going to move away from the vinyasa flow a bit, and follow the hatha road. December/January’s series of asana will be based on the now well-known Bikram series, which is a series of 26 postures which are said to target every part of your body, from the skin to the internal organs. This series is usually done in heated rooms for the very popular Bikram yoga (or hot yoga), but the effects are just as evident when practiced under normal conditions. It will give us a new challenge for the new year. I hope you enjoy them!

Asana

The postures are:

We will end our lessons around the turn of the year with a short but sweet Apache blessing:

May the sun bring you new energy by day,
May the moon softly restore you by night,
May the rain wash away your worries,
May the breeze blow new strength into your being,
May you walk gently through the world and know its beauty all the days of your life.

To all: May you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2011. Best of luck and love.

Namaste!

Marilu

月毎に行うポーズ名をご紹介します。レッスンの状況により多少変更することがあります。

Reading

In November, our reading will be the second part of the timeless poem by Max Ehrmann called ‘Desiderata’.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Asana

As for the vinyasa (flow) part of the class, November gives us another opportunity to practice and grow better at doing the Sun Salutation. We will use this sequence of 12 poses as the basic flow for our yoga practice. Some other poses we will be doing this month are:

I’m looking forward to doing yoga with everyone as we move into the colder months. It’s a fantastic way to keep the heart pumping, the blood flowing and prevent the winter blues!

Namaste!

月毎に行うポーズ名をご紹介します。レッスンの状況により多少変更することがあります。

Reading

For October and November, we will be listening to a poem called ‘Desiderata’ by Max Ehrmann. Desiderata is a Latin word and it means ‘the things that we desire’. The poem was written in the early 1900′s, and has been seen as an inspirational guide to living a good life.

Because the poem is rather long, we will listen to half of it in October, and half in November. Here it is, in full:

Asana

As the weather is cooling down, we will move into a time where our bodies need some extra movement to warm up. For October, we will continue with the Sun Salutations, as in September, using it as a base for our sequences.

Some of the poses we will be going through this month are:

October’s sequence looks exciting, and is the perfect way to keep the body warm and the metabolism going, especially as we are entering a cooler time!

月毎に行うポーズ名をご紹介します。レッスンの状況により多少変更することがあります。

Reading

For a long time it seemed to me that real life was about to begin, but there was always some obstacle in the way. Something had to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

The perspective helped me to see that there is no way to happiness.
Happiness IS the way.
So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one.
Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

Dance as though no one is watching you.
Love as though you’ve never been hurt before.
Sing as though no one can hear you.
Live as though heaven is on earth.

Asana

In September we will be doing poses around the Sun Salutation (surya namaskar), which will be the basis for this month’s vinyasa (flow).

Other poses include:

月毎に行うポーズ名をご紹介します。レッスンの状況により多少変更することがあります。