Are you planning to go to the beach this summer? If so, are you thinking about going to Shirahama in Wakayama? Wait! I have a suggestion. Instead of Shirahama, why not go to Ogigahama? It’s very close to Shirahama, in the neighboring city of Tanabe. It’s not nearly as big as Shirahama, but only the local people know about it, so it’s not crowded at all! You can have all the space you like and of course it is free to enter!

Is there anything else to do in Tanabe city? Absolutely! You can buy the same sort of souvenirs sold at Shirahama, such as products made with Wakayama’s famous ume and mikan. You can go hiking at Hiki-Iwa, an area of rocky hills near the city center that offer spectacular views of the surrounding ocean and mountains. Or, you can visit one of the many beautiful temples; Japan’s famous warrior monk Benkei spent time at one of them, and the founder of Aikido trained at another. There are also countless hot springs around the city, even on the banks of a river. If you are staying the night, there are many cheap inns and hotels.

There is one more important reason to visit Tanabe city, and that is eating at Kanteki. Kanteki is a small tavern a few minutes walk from the station that serves the freshest fish and the finest sake, as well as interesting versions of familiar meals such as niku jagga with deer meat instead of beef. The staff are always friendly and the local fisherman and farmers who eat there will persuade you to join them in singing local folk songs before the night is over. Of all the places I have eaten in Japan, I can say Kanteki was the best!

After enjoying last year’s Ashiya International Fun Run, I decided to do it again this year. Only this time I joined the half marathon – more than double the distance of last year’s race. It was a daunting proposition and I was feeling pretty nervous before the race began. It was a very hot day, and everyone around me seemed to be fitter, stronger, and frankly younger, than me. However, as soon as we got going things went very smoothly and by sticking to a regular pace and not worrying about what everyone else was doing, I was able to get round in a surprisingly good time: 1 hour 54 minutes!

Having done better than expected, there’s only one more distance left to try: all 42 km of a full marathon. Kobe marathon will be held in November, and all going well, I will be there!

Dan, a friend from home, is in a band called The Papertiger Sound. They are a long distance duo (the two members of the band live very far apart). While Dan is based on the east coast of England, the other member, Kerstin, lives in Canada. As a result, they don’t play many concerts, but the music they make is intimate and warming. Influenced by bands like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, their sound is perhaps best described as ‘transatlantic dream pop’.

The Papertiger Sound recently appeared on TV in the UK:
BBC Introducing Interview Video – papertiger sound

Their latest ep is available to download from their website now:
Music – papertiger sound

At the launch party of ‘FeliCe anima!’, a new exhibition by Chika Fukushima, the artist herself was on hand to talk us through her artworks and explain what they mean to her. Inspired by a recent trip to Italy, she makes pictures of weird and wonderful animals in vibrant colours. Chika has an individual style, and it was particularly interesting to hear her own thoughts about the animals she portrays. Thank you to everyone who came.

As always, it was great for us to chat to imagine members outside of lessons, and to meet the friends and relations they bought with them. Catering this time was provided by ‘The Sugar Fairy’ – a splendid array of cookies both sweet and savoury to suit all palettes. Check this website for information about our next party.

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。

This is the first time we have held an accessories exhibition, and we were unsure how it would work in the space. However, I’m pleased to say everything looks fantastic! The necklaces are absolutely beautiful; so original and unique. Each one tells a story and has a meaning attached, so they’re more than just ‘accessories’. We were happy the artist, Marisa Zenone, could attend before she went home to Italy. It was also lovely to see many imagine* members and their friends. With a mixture of Japanese, English and Italian being spoken, it made for a truly international party with a very lively atmosphere. Check this website for information about our next exhibition, and its launch party, which will be held in March 2011.

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。

It isn’t often the case, but at the moment there are a lot of very interesting films coming from the UK. Due to the global recession and a new government, Britain is experiencing a period of significant social change, which might explain why so many recent British films seem to either focus on an uncertain and worrying future or to look nostalgically at the past.

The late-fifties and early-sixties, a time of recovery and optimism in the UK, is the setting for three new films.

‘Nowhere Boy’ tells the story of John Lennon’s life in Liverpool before he became famous as one of The Beatles. It is directed by the well-known visual artist Sam Taylor-Wood.

Nowhere Boy – Official UK Trailer (2009)

‘An Education’ is a wonderful film about a teenage girl’s relationship with an older man and her troubled attempts to get a place at Oxford University.

Based on Graham Greene’s classic story, ‘Brighton Rock’ is about a young criminal in a seaside town. Originally set in the 1930s this adaptation moves the action forward to the early-sixties.

Brighton Rock (2011) Official HD Trailer
Brighton Rock (1947) – Pinkie’s first appearance

For more forward looking films, two of the most interesting ask serious questions about how we value human life when confronted with the possibilities of genetic engineering.

‘Moon’ is a science fiction psychological drama starring the American actor Sam Rockwell, and directed by David Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones.

Moon | Official Trailer (2009)

‘Never Let Me Go’ is based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s thought-provoking novel. It is set in the near future, or perhaps an alternative present, and depicts a disturbing vision of society.

Kazuo Ishiguro on The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go

At the time of writing, in Japan, ‘Nowhere Boy’ has been shown in cinemas in recently. ‘Moon’ and ‘An Education’ are available to rent, and ‘Never Let Me Go’ and ‘Brighton Rock’ are due to be released next year.