By Lucy Kite

PUBLISHED: 07:04 EST, 8 July 2012 | UPDATED: 07:41 EST, 8 July 2012

Formentera is a hop and a skip from hedonistic Ibiza and the destination for my week of bliss. There is no airport here the only person with enough land to build one has chosen not to for fear of ruining the island.

So after a 30-minute boat trip from Ibiza Town and a short taxi ride, I find myself at the Gecko Beach Club. It is the island's premiere luxury hotel and home to young, beautiful bar staff, bleached wood rooms, palm-tree-lined gardens and me, for the next four days.

Into the groove: Lucy (front of shot) is put through her paces by instructor Jax

This isn't your typical yoga retreat. Here there is food, fun and as much guilt-free wine as you desire. But you don't come on a break like this unless you need to be nurtured, recharged and feel human again.

The therapy begins at the first class that afternoon, where we are told to stop thinking and start feeling. If that means I'll end up looking like our teacher Jax May Lysycia (supermodel/mermaid), then count me in.

Jax takes her nervous students, who range from yoga virgins to advanced teachers, through a two-hour session and by the end we feel amazing and starving hungry, ready for dinner.

The food here is fairly basic for the yoga group not quite birdseed but certainly vegetarian but it's tasty and we feel better for it, if not a bit smug for being so healthy. I slope off for an early night and the best sleep I've had in weeks.

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Yoga retreats: Feeling better in Formentera, just a hop from Ibiza

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Soon after Emily Jones discovered yoga 12 years ago, she knew one day she'd teach it.

"I was drawn to the fact that it was not just a physical practice, although it was a physical practice. It involved much more than just my physical body ... it made me feel good. It helped me gain control in different areas of my life."

Jones, 37, joined her love of yoga with a lifelong goal of owning a small business in January, when she opened Lifespring Yoga and Nutrition on Quarrier Street in downtown Charleston.

She had been teaching yoga in various venues and said opening the business was a way to focus her energy.

"I found myself running everywhere," she said. "I didn't feel like I was able to fully commit my energy into the development of one spot. I felt like my offering of this of this practice could be much more powerful if I could just focus my attention to one area, one location instead of having three or four going at one time."

While yoga classes are offered at local agencies in the area, Lifespring may be one of only two stand-alone yoga studios in Charleston.

April Woody opened the Folded Leaf on Bridge Road in January 2008.

"I had absolutely no idea if it would work or not," Woody said.

Yoga studios' fortunes in the Kanawha Valley have been a mixed bag.

Woody had a Teays Valley branch of the Folded Leaf for a year and a half, but she ultimately closed it because she didn't have enough customers.

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Second woman turns yoga into a business

Many communities have private or community center yoga classes specifically for children, and some offer classes for children growing up with developmental delays, physical challenges or disabilities. As with other physical activities for children, there are personality, safety and health issues that should be considered when comparing instructors and programs. The space should be clean, airy and uncrowded and the yoga instructor should be knowledgeable and encouraging. Children with disabilities should be enrolled in inclusive yoga classes so accommodations made for their mainstream peers are provided as naturally as those for a specific disability.

Some community organizations and local parks departments offer Mommy and Me or family centered yoga classes that are especially comfortable and beneficial for children with disabilities. They may help adults remember the diversity of the children they knew growing up and remind us that every child is unique and interesting. And unlike therapy, parent or caregiver participation ensures that we understand that nothing is as easy or manageable as it looks when an instructor is describing or modeling the movements.

Yoga is a personal experience that should not be viewed as a competitive sport. Some families will want the most stylish gear and to achieve perfection in every movement; others will be supportive of one another and help the instructor build self confidence and relaxation into the experience. Many of those who practice yoga in the latest fashions are as apt to create camaraderie and trust in a class as those who are wearing worn out gardening clothes.

My son decided to enroll in a parks department yoga class and I signed up at the same time to make sure it was appropriate for him and to monitor his blood sugar. Because I had injured an ankle the instructor showed me helpful accommodations to avoid pain or further injury. I was not the only person who enjoyed the support and encouragement. My son assisted the instructor several times after the initial classes and enjoyed being a support for others.

One woman undergoing treatment for cancer was supported by a small circle of friends who added to the positive and peaceful atmosphere. We were not aware of the special circumstances until well into the season when my son noticed she had missed a class or two and said he was glad she was back. In regular life, a great deal of diversity is subtle and does not need to be explained or commented on.

If you have not been to a yoga class or experienced yoga techniques, you may be unaware of the less glamorous side effects of stretching and bending bodies or holding positions. Bodies make noises and let go of some constraints of civilization when they are freed to do so. Sometimes children, teens and adults have what would ordinarily be inappropriate reactions during a yoga class that observers might not understand. For this reason, as well as other benefits that are described in the literature, I urge parents to participate in yoga classes with their children or in adult classes.

Browse at your public library, local bookstore, or online retailer for DVDs featuring Yoga for childrenand books like: Yoga for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents and Caregiversor Yoga for the Special Child: A Therapeutic Approach for Infants and Children with Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, or Learning Disabilities.

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Yoga and Childhood Disabilities

Like many in Boulder, Erin Masket found a spiritual message in her regular yoga practice. Yet the inspiration she discovered didn't just connect back to the Buddha, but to the wisdom of the Torah.

Masket, a yoga instructor, hosts a summer Torah Yoga class in the hopes of drawing in Jewish people to the world of yoga while exploring how the Torah and yoga's Eastern principles intersect. The classes take place 5:30 p.m. Wednesdays at Prana, 1147 Pearl St.

"There are so many parallels between Torah teachings and yoga, so many connections," she said.

The event is part of Flatiron Tribe, a networking and socializing group through the Jewish Community Center meant for people ages 21-45.

Michael Rosenzweig, an organizer of the group, said Flatirons Tribe's main focus has generally been to connect young Jewish Boulderites through happy hour events. The group also has hosted an Ignite Chanukah party and a "Persian Shore"-themed Purim party.

"I just want people to be welcome whenever and wherever they feel comfortable. For a lot of people, that's at a bar with a beer," Rosenzweig said.

Yet after meeting Masket and hearing about her ideas for a yoga class, Rosenzweig said Flatiron Tribe saw the potential to expand their social programs outside the bar scene.

"For some, maybe they don't like to drink, maybe they already do yoga or want to start," he said.

With help from a grant from the Rose Community Foundation, Masket will lead the Torah Yoga sessions through July.

Masket began intertwining yoga and Torah studies after graduating college with an architecture degree. Wanting to take some time away from architecture, she got an instructor certification and began teaching classes.

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Megan Quinn: Torah yoga melds multi-faith and body-mind studies

By Reshma Kirpalani

Lydia Michelson-Maverick hangs upside down from a purple hammock, her compact body folding into a traditional yoga pose that has been spun on its head. Her black mass of hair grazes the yoga mat below as she teaches her Austin Aerial Yoga students how to invert the traditional ground yoga pose, Baddha Konasana, and hang loose from their own hammocks. Later, Michelson-Maverick will describe inverted postures as inner-child work in action. "It feels good. I'm decompressing my spine," she says. "It's like being a 5-year-old again, kind of like being on monkey bars."

On a blistering Thursday afternoon in Dane's Body Shop, I cling to my right-side-up view of the world; I'm not quite ready to shake hands with my inner child. Meanwhile, the six students to the left and right of me each get ready to take the plunge and hang from their respective hammocks, which are attached by hardware to the ceiling. Across from me, student Elizabeth Hamilton gazes at the student to my right, Angela Sparks, who I can only imagine looks as flushed as I do after 45 minutes of "monkey-barring" our way through the class. Hamilton leaves us with encouraging words before inverting her Baddha Konasana pose. "If I can do it, you can do it." Then, she flips over, suspending herself from her hammock. Within minutes, Sparks does the same. I decide to cut myself some slack with the inverted Baddha Konasana pose, considering that this is my first aerial yoga class.

Aerial yoga is a version of ground yoga that includes the use of fabric hammocks to help intensify and sometimes invert poses. Practitioners benefit from these postures by relieving tension in their muscles, elongating their spines and increasing their overall flexibility. Michelson-Maverick describes aerial yoga as "more intense" than other forms of yoga. She says, "It forces you even more to be present because you're in the air, doing movements you never experienced before, having fabric press on you in different ways. It really makes you feel and makes your mind aware of what's going on in your body."

Although Austin is a breeding ground for yoga studios, aerial yoga remains relatively new to this fit-minded city. Among the few studios that offer varying styles of aerial yoga is Fit to the Core from the AntiGravity Yoga global franchise, which started offering aerial yoga classes to Austinites in February 2011, but temporarily suspended them while it searches for a new studio space. Austin Aerial Yoga, co-owned by Michelson-Maverick and her husband, John Maverick, started offering classes in October after Michelson-Maverick became certified as a registered yoga teacher by the international Yoga Alliance and received a certification of completion from an aerial yoga teacher training program in Boulder, Colo., by Aircat Aerial Arts.

Michelson-Maverick describes herself as a "new teacher who is still in the process of figuring out what my style is as I continue to do more training, learn more, and grow more." The 30-year-old New York native, who is positively origamilike in her flexibility, rekindled her childhood passion for dance and fused it with the practice of yoga more than five years ago after watching an aerial dance segment in a Cirque du Soleil show in Austin. The stunning performance by acrobatic dancers "just spoke to me," she says. Countless Google searches and aerial dance classes later, a nylon hammock was suspended from the ceiling of Michelson-Maverick's home, where she started her own gentle, aerial yoga practice.

She admits that in the beginning, she was scared. "Over time, I think you learn to breathe there and realize it's not scary and relax into it," Michelson-Maverick says.

Her students agree. After her fourth class, Sparks admits that the first class might feel "weird." "You have to give it more than one try," she says. "The second time, you learn how the fabric works and you can really get into it."

Hamilton, who has been taking Austin Aerial Yoga classes for four months, says, "I feel 10-times stronger now and far more flexible." The evidence lives in the ease of her inversions, at one point, hanging upside down and wrapping the hammock around her, turning into a human cocoon.

In the class I took, fans were blowing loudly in Dane's Body Shop in the un-air-conditioned space. The structure of the class seemed loose, with pauses for instructions about how to use the fabric rather than seamless transitions between poses. Positions were held for a long time while Michelson-Maverick checked on each of her seven students. Michelson-Maverick says small aerial yoga classes are essential to giving individual attention to students and prioritizing safety. "I really want to make sure that each student is feeling the stretches in the right place and is using correct alignment because each body is so different," she says.

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Aerial yoga embraces inner child while hanging upside down

By Melinda Fulmer, Special to the Los Angeles Times

July 7, 2012

Yoga is a great way for athletes of any stripe to build lean muscle and improve their balance. No knowledge of Sanskrit is necessary.

Crescent reps, demonstrated by Tamal Dodge, co-founder of Santa Monica's Yoga Collective and the yogi behind Element's "Hatha & Flow Yoga for Beginners" DVD, are a great way to tone the legs and get the body warmed up for other exercise.

What it does

The movement in this pose gets your heart rate up at the same time you're working your glutes and hamstrings. It also challenges the center of balance, which indirectly works the abdominal muscles.

How to do it

Start in a standing forward bend, with your hands touching the mat in front of you (or as close to the floor as you can get). Step your right leg back 3 to 4 feet so you're in a runner's lunge with your left knee bent and right leg extended on the ball of your right foot. (The taller you are, the wider your stance should be.) Slowly bring your hands to your sides, so your body forms a straight line from your right foot to your head. Inhale and raise your hands and your upper body until they form a straight line to the ceiling. Exhale and slowly lower the arms and upper body until you are back at your starting position. Once you're finished with 10 repetitions, step your right foot back in standing forward bend and switch to the other side.

How much

Start with 10 repetitions on each leg. Work up to two sets of 10.

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Try This! Yoga's crescent tones legs, builds balance

Saving the world, changing the world, inspiring the world into stronger connections and more sustainable choices is the language and pulse of yoga.

Millions of people are coming to yoga for literally as many reasons. That the industry, the culture and the vibratory body is growing suggests that those who comprise the industry are making choices in many aspects of their lives to support on the mat experiences.

These choices might be small, at first, like nutritional choices or creating regular meal patterns, so that one does not feel nauseated in the middle of a Vinyasa class. Perhaps one takes to drinking more water through a regular day to maintain hydration, so as not to be making up ground in his or her hot class. Some may begin to realize that the extra cup of coffee or glass of wine does not serve or make one feel as good as forgoing it, when one is seeking actual calm and well being. From these choices, which may seem small, huge ripples begin to roll.

These students begin to consider what kind of food to eat, what the water is bottled in, where the coffee is grown and by whom. They begin to take an honest long look at what addictions or toxic relationships may be present, actually sabotaging true happiness.

Yoga is defined in many ways but my favorite is connection or relationship. When a student falls into relationship with himself or herself, patterns of sustainability rise to the forefront of awareness and one begins to step into radical connection to personal choice and unavoidable personal responsibility for those choices. These students are influencers in their own homes, families and circles of friends. One person shifts the world because he or she is in it.

How will we have proof that yoga has changed the world? Look around, it already has. Each yogi who has created a shift is part of a market of industry shifting its offerings to meet these needs and heightened awareness around sustainable practices in business and relationships. We as a body of yogis are leading a charge of change. The changes start personal and grow toward universal. We are lining up to the higher rather than the lower mind choices and taking our friends and family with us.

Though yoga is not evangelical, those that gather together within its collectives tend to draw attention and amass more recruits. Some on the outside see clear skin, bright eyes, calm demeanors and strong bodies and they cannot help but be shifted, inspired. They say, I want that! Yoga is recruiting new warriors of transformation every day to raise the vibration and awareness that devouring every resource cannot bring us true health, wealth or actual good in the end.

To celebrate its recruits and the rise in awareness and conscious community, yoga festivals, get-aways and conferences are beginning to take the place of old-model vacations and weekend romps. These festivals celebrate yoga, celebrate positive choice in the world and uplift the concept of fun on and off the yoga mat.

The weekend of July 5 8 will hold time and space for a gathering of wide-eyed, life changing, barefoot, inspired yogis at the Wanderlust Festival at Copper Mountain. Join a host of national and international yoga teachers, musicians, hoopers, slack-line walkers and renowned speakers at this remarkable event where 1000 plus yogis and seekers will converge to practice yoga, shop a host of conscious retailers and artists, eat organic goodness and socialize in a mountain environment. Wanderlust Festival is a leader in the industry of yoga festivals, an out-of-the-box event for those both familiar and unfamiliar to try varied aspects of the culture in an energized and highly entertaining environment.

Awareness, wisdom, and energy are true allies to long lasting societal change. How will yoga save the world? It will save it one breath at a time, one seed of awareness at a time, one belief shift at a time, one downward dog at a time.

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How yoga will save the world

It's just another Wednesday for husband and wife Steve and Sharon Willette. Together, they own the Living Yoga Center in Urbana. Once a week, they head outdoors to practice "Acro Play."

"Acro Play is a combination of acrobatics, yoga, and often Thai yoga massage," says Steve.

"About five years ago, Steve and I went to a Valentines Day partner yoga partner yoga practice at a studio in Chicago," says Sharon. "That's where this kind of play was first introduced to us. And I just thought, 'This is so much fun!' In a normal or regular yoga practice it's an individual thing, but when you play with yoga or practice yoga with a partner it's about connecting with another person. It's about communication, and it's about trust."

While it may seem hard to believe, Steve and Sharon say yoga itself is a safer and more calming practice than your regular workouts. Steve even thinks there are fewer injuries with yoga.

"There's more focus on the entire body rather than specific muscle groups," he says. "You're more attentive because yoga is about being present. The idea is to not necessarily analyze it but to be able to feel it and know where you are. To know where you are in space and know where you are in the inner space, too."

With as much fun as they have, they recognize that it may not be as easy for those new to the practice to stand on someone else's wobbly arms.

"We've all been doing this for four or five years," says Sharon.

For the less experienced (and perhaps less trusting), they offer partner yoga classes at their studio. It is similar in principal but less airborne.

"It's not, because I wouldn't want to scare anyone away," Sharon says. "A lot of what you do in partner yoga is you work together in stretches. It's slow and it's deliberate and you help that person find a space that they may not have been able to find on their own."

To Steve and Sharon, yoga and Acro Play are as much a workout for the body as they are for the spirit.

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CI Outdoors: Acro Play Yoga

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euh-pkdBM6E

02-07-2012 11:32 Welcome to week 1 of your 4 week weight loss series. This routine will get you to move along with your breath, allowing your body to move easily and calm the mind so you can be set up for optimal health. Make sure to subscribe and never miss a video! Get recipes and healthy things to eat here. More goodies and inspirational stuff here. http

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Yoga for Weight Loss - Video

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exdnxh6Dz5Q

02-07-2012 13:50 This very effective and simple "Travel Yoga" sequence by Sandra who is an inspired Anusara Yoga teacher, will ground and settle you before or after traveling, or before or after an exciting event. An all level Yoga sequence great for the beginner yoga practitioner as well as for the advanced yoga practitioner. Remind yourself of this great yoga routine while you travel to feel good wherever you are! Please subscribe to my channel here: Go to my channel: Follow me on Twitter: Look me up on Google+ :

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Travel Yoga, an Anusara Yoga Sequence - Video