TO: Your Stressed Out, Overworked, Overtired, Under Appreciated Abode….YOUR INVITED!

Calling all yogis, parents, students, friends, and humans that have bodies attached to their souls,

You have heard me rave and roar about YOGA TUNE UP® and its healing, smart, conscious corrective benefits and practices.  Well, now you can really get your hands on these therapeutic tools!  On December 7th, yours truly is going to roll out the red carpet for you and walk you through some of the most paradigm shifting work I have experienced in my practice to date.  Sign up early for the discount and know that this workshop will be right in time for the mid-holiday melt down…seriously we are going to MELT away tension and leave you blessed in spirit and blissed out of your mind…details below! XOXOM

NEW DONATION CLASS ALERT!!!

 

What more could you want? What more could you need? Suggested $5 Donation and all the Yoga Flow you can get on, Every Thursday at 7pm!

For more info: Feel free to visit http://www.yogasole.com.

Looking forward to seeing you on the mat soon! xoxoxom -G

I Wanna Hold Your…Flexor Digitorum Superficialis?

Recently I took an embodied anatomy course with the luminous Jill Miller, creator of Yoga Tune Up®.  Her Level One Teacher Training challenged me in more ways than I can even begin to perceive, but part of the work was to begin to familiarize and befriend the muscles, bones, structures and functions of healthy movement. The following is an essay I wrote on a very sweet muscle called the Flexor Digitorum Superficialis…I am hoping to have more conversations with the body like this for you to indulge in along with me-Cheers!

I Wanna Hold Your…Flexor Digitorum Superficialis?

When the Beatles wrote “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” in the coquettish year of 1963 they were not singing about the Flexor Digitorum Superficialis, but this extrinsic flexor muscle, a master puppeteer of the fingers at the proximal interphalangeal joints, has been inspiring amorous hearts to link phalanges and palmer aponeurosis’s in expressions of school girl love for decades. This anterior muscle of the forearm originates at the medial epicondyle of the humerus, better known as the bottom of your upper arm bone, and at the radius and ulna, the two bones that form the structure of the forearm.  It splits into four tendons that insert in anterior margins on the bases of the middle phalanges of the four fingers, also known as your second knuckles. The most notable action of the Flexor Digitorum Superficialis, besides playing Cupid, is to flex the proximal interphalangeal joints, essentially creating that curling in of the fingers around a lovers hand.

By now I am sure you understand why this muscle is so important, if not only for sustaining your romantic thrills, the Flexor Digitorum Superficialis is also responsible for  taking care of details such as tying ribbons, unbuttoning buttons, playing the acoustic guitar, picking up seashells along the beach, and typing long lost love letters…just to mention a few.

With that in mind, let me do the honor of offering you some ideas as to how to keep this seductive muscle up to par, in Yoga Tune Up® we use poses to strengthen, awaken, stretch and understand muscles in a way that cultivates healthy movement. Check out Megaplank with Active Serratus to work on the action of flexion with the resistance of the floor, Dancing with Myself Minivini will help to stretch and lengthen the muscle, and Floating Angel Arms or Matador Circles will encourage the muscle to awaken in order to grip on to a blanket prop.

So go forth young love bugs and strengthen your Flexor Digitorum Superficialies. In Yoga it is often said that the hands are the gateways to the heart, so let your hearts be strong and invite love in… one Flexor Digitorum Superficialis at a time.  After all, we could all use a hand to hold.

For more info on how to do these specific poses please see my schedule or email me for a private session.

Hope to see you soon!- Yogabugg

NEW WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT: Intro to Chanting & Harmonium

Have you ever wanted to chant, learn mantras, create your own melody? Do you want to explore the power of you own voice and connect to the vibration of the universe?
In this workshop we will chant together, learn a few basic songs on harmonium and overcome the obstacles that get in the way of singing out more fully from the heart!
Whether you take these skills into teaching your own classes, chanting in the quiet of your home, or rocking out at the next Kirtan Jam, this workshop will be the springboard into the yoga of sound.

Please Join me at Laughing Lotus, NYC for this ecstatic workshop!

Saturday April 6th 2:30-4:30pm

Please wear comfortable clothes to move in.

$25
$15 for grads

There is no late entry after 10 minutes**

Sign Up Here:
https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/ASP/home.asp?studioid=137

Donation Class Alert-Tomorrow!

“Your task is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”-Rumi

2:30 Open Level Lotus Flow at Laughing Lotus NYC

Sunset Salutations–An Offering for Amma

When I got home tonight there was a message waiting for me in that magnificent sky. An array of pink and  orange and yellow dotted with blueish grey puff balls had already begun to take shape. Suddenly I heard a voice calling and ran to open the roof top hatch. Throwing off my shoes and grabbing my mat-I knew he was already up there, as always, awaiting my presence…And just as I climbed the last rung of the ladder, there he was; throwing buckets of paint and cotton balls around like a mad man trying effortlessly to get my attention, all the while laughing and rejoicing in his creations. I knew there was no way to stop his madness and I wasn’t about to…so I rolled out my mat and began to consecrate along with him. We danced and danced in the moonlight as we howled the sun into taking its resting place.  A divine show we sure did put on, up there, on that silly rooftop-jubilating the ending of another perfect day. And what fun we do have sharing this moment together, lying back on our mats to enjoy the rest of the performances.  The stars now take on the encore as we giggle and gossip like children into the night.  A perfectly timed masterpiece to end the day; captured and lulled into song by Mother Lunar as she winds us down with her sweet lullaby strutting in the moonlight.

What a divine gift from God a sunset is!

Honoring the Divine Mother

Today I had the chance to experience Amma for the first time.

She has been named the hugging mother saint of the world and is know for her devotion to Bhakti, meaning love and compassion.  She is a true and humble Humanitarian and Luminary, and  being able to see her work today made quite an impression on me.  As she pulled me in close and wrapped her loving arms around me I heard her whisper to me over and over, “Oh my daughter, my daughter, my daughter…”, it was what I had waited over 5 hours for and the moment had come and gone before it even started. Before I even knew it I was being whisked away by her helpers and left with only a chocolate Hershey’s Kiss wrapped in flower petals inside the clutches of my palm. Emotions flooded my mind and the sea of devotees overwhelmed me as I took refuge in a prostration to ground my body and thoughts.

How can one person be so loving? So compassionate? And for hours upon hours, day after day?

Without judgement on religion, race, or character she embraces and blesses all who come to see her as her own children. Enthralled by the divine hugging mothers presence I steered myself out of the worship center and onto a tiny patch of grass amongst the concrete city I live in.  Here I layed in the grass to process all that had happened in that day–the early morning rising, the waiting, the tokens for darshan, the chanting and meditating and then more waiting and waiting…until the hug–that embrace–that aggressive and potent awakening.

“In July at Laughing Lotus we cherish, honor & bow to the divine mother.

The divine mother is, quite simply, everything. she is loving & compassionate; she is forgiving & tender. she is ferocious & unwavering; she is dominant & powerful. at one moment she will chop your head off & wear your skull around her neck. The very next, she will cradle you in her open your arms, will drink your tears & will make you know that you are in the safest place in the universe.

The divine mother is love.

Love is not always pretty. Love is not always the honeymoon phase. Sometimes love is like the jagged shores of a rocky beach & those waves, they come crashing hard. but there is always the calm after the storm.

This is the way of things. This is life. This is the divine mother.

We all need love. We all need nourishment. We cannot– we CANNOT– do anything alone. We all need a mother’s love. It is a special kind of love.

We are honoring the divine mother all month at Laughing Lotus in her many, many incarnations.”

(borrowed from my Friend VR. C.)

Free Yoga Class @ The High Line

I was given the divine opportunity to teach a FREE Laughing Lotus Class at the High Line Park this Saturday! I cannot wait to see you all there-it’s going to be such a blast! So bring your friends, lovers, pets, children and yoga mats! Let’s Celebrate and Share another beautiful weekend of life!

-Until Then Lovers…I offer you this enlightening Gem via Snoop Dogg:

“It ain’t no fun if the homies can’t have none. ”
― Snoop Dogg

 

Park Slope Yoga 4th of July Basics Class

“We need to help people to discover the true meaning of love. Love is generally confused with dependence. Those of us who have grown in true love know that we can love only in proportion to our capacity for independence.”
― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

I am continuing to learn this lesson more and more in my life and what better a day to explore this seed of inspiration than on a day when we celebrate our own country’s independence. We are lucky enough to live in a society where we are allowed to express our independence and claim our own human presence, but often times, I think we forget that this is not only a right but a necessity for our own growth.  To embody ourselves in our truest form and celebrate that–with LOVE!  When it comes to love, I think our right to independence is down right ignored or taken for granted because it seems more often than not “Acts of Love” are demonstrations of selflessness because of a need for codependency and not selflessness as a result of being grounded in healthy independence to begin with.  So let’s dig in those roots to honor where we came from (1st Chakra) and explore what CAN come of our capabilities to love (4th Chakra)when we RESPECT and embody our own INDEPENDENCE!

12pm Basics Level Class

Park Slope Yoga Center

Brooklyn NY

July 4th 2012

P.s. I also have 5$ passes to all Life in Motion and Park Slope Yoga Classes-so let me know if you want to come and I’ll get you the discount! xoxo