Virginia Yoga Week takes over Reston Town Center. (James Martin)If you missed D.C. Yoga Week, with its discounted classes and free outdoor practice, then good news: Virginia Yoga Week is now underway with more gratis lessons and other activities. Participating studios include Viennas East Meets West, which offers a two-hour donation-based class with live music on Friday night, and Little River Yoga in Alexandria, with free Mysore classes Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. The full schedule of special deals is available on the Virginia Yoga Week Web site.

Yoga Week culminates with two free events Sunday. In Alexandria, the closing event takes place from 3 to 5 p.m. with a raffle, kids yoga, belly-dancing and a food drive. Meanwhile, Be Yoga in Sterling will host a vegetarian- and vegan-friendly potluck from 4:30 to 6 p.m. followed by music and chanting. Luckily, even after Yoga Week has come and gone, the opportunities for free, outdoor yoga remain.

In addition to the well-established series in Meridian Hill Park on Sundays and Dupont Circle Wednesday evenings, there are free al fresco classes in the suburbs. One of the few options for early risers is the free hour-long class in the Crystal City Water Park at 7 a.m. on Mondays. For those that treasure their morning Zs, another option is Yoga on the Piers at National Harbor, which takes place every Tuesday and Thursday evening at 7 p.m. and includes live musical accompaniment.

Another new entry on the list of exercise under the sun is POP: Pilates on the Patio on Saturday mornings at Poste, of all places. The $19 fee promises visitors a 45-minute lesson, followed by youve earned it a glass of champagne.

And one more piece of yoga news: After the New York Times article about yoga dance parties, it looks like D.C. is getting in on the trend. On Thursday night at 8:30 p.m., California-based MC Yogi and Flow Yoga host a dance party at All Souls Church in Columbia Heights, following a 6 p.m. workshop in which the musician teams up with his yoga instructor wife, Amanda Giacomini.

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Virginia Yoga Week is underway

After 40 days, there was no going back for Dina Stewart.

The Hazleton woman enrolled in a 40-Day Yoga Challenge last year, and on her final day of the challenge, she realized she didn't want to give it up.

"At the end of the 40 days, I knew that I had grown so much that I was afraid that if I stopped, I'd have to start all over," she said.

Day in, day out - and as early as 4:30 a.m. on most days - Stewart continued her yoga, blending physical exercises with meditation.

She hoped to reach 50 days, then 60, and at some point, she decided to just keep going.

She reached a milestone today, having logged yoga practice every day for the last 400.

"It's just amazing - the transformation. I am just a lot different than I was 400 days ago," she said.

Her life has changed - from the way she brushes her teeth to the way she interacts with people. She's more conscious and knows her mind, body and spirit are united, she said.

"I am more relaxed," Stewart said. "I try to live my yoga practice. I try to bring it out into my life. I try to be less reactive, more compassionate, and just stronger physically and mentally."

Realizing its capability to change lives for the better, she decided she'd like to introduce youngsters - like her daughter, Althea, 7 - to yoga. Stewart trained to become a certified ChildLight yoga instructor, and took her training a step further when she enrolled in the Always at Aum Yoga School in New York to become an adult trainer.

Originally posted here:
Hazleton woman's yoga challenge hits 400

Mark Moran / The Citizens' Voice Dina Stewart practices yoga Saturday at Balance Yoga in Forty Fort.

After 40 days, there was no going back for Dina Stewart.

The Hazleton woman enrolled in a 40-Day Yoga Challenge last year, and on her final day of the challenge, she realized she didn't want to give it up.

"At the end of the 40 days, I knew that I had grown so much that I was afraid that if I stopped, I'd have to start all over," she said.

Day in, day out - as early as 4:30 a.m. on most days - Stewart continued her yoga, blending physical exercises with meditation.

She hoped to reach 50 days, then 60, and at some point, she decided to just keep going. She reached a milestone today, having logged yoga practice for 400 straight days.

"It's just amazing - the transformation. I am just a lot different than I was 400 days ago," she said.

Her life has changed - from the way she brushes her teeth to the way she interacts with people. She's more conscious and knows her mind, body and spirit are united, she said.

"I am more relaxed," Stewart said. "I try to live my yoga practice. I try to bring it out into my life. I try to be less reactive, more compassionate, and just stronger physically and mentally."

Realizing its capability to change lives for the better, she decided she'd like to introduce youngsters - like her daughter, Althea, 7 - to yoga. Stewart trained to become a certified ChildLight yoga instructor, and took her training a step further when she enrolled

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Hazleton woman hits yoga milestone

Predicting a yoga rush in the Chicago area, Laura Jane Mellencamp moved to Naperville from Los Angeles in 1995.

I knew with the baby boomers aging and yoga shifting from a California thing to an America thing, moving to the heartland would be interesting, said Mellencamp, a yoga therapist and founder of a classical yoga studio in Downers Grove.

And she was right.

According to a poll in Yoga Journal, a popular magazine for yoga practitioners, there were 6 million yoga practitioners in the U.S. in 1994. By 2006, that number had increased to more than 16 million, according to the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

Mellencamps classical yoga form was one of the topics of discussion in Lemont Sunday at the Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago.

There, Rajiv Malhotra, author of Being Different, an account of Indias spiritual traditions, discussed yoga, his book, and answered questions.

Malhotra spoke to those in attendance about the popularization of yoga in America, and how American culture has consumed only parts of classical yoga.

This just makes it easier for Indian traditions to be used in a cookie-cutter fashion, he said. But the reality is ... concepts like yoga have lost their essence through translation and simplification.

Malhotra explained that even sanskrit words like om and yoga are incorrectly translated to make them easier to understand.

Its a thought Mellencamp echoed. She said she is concerned that the yoga she knows is not whats being taught anymore.

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Indian-American author talks yoga’s original concepts at Lemont temple

by JOE FRYER / KING 5 News

KING5.com

Posted on June 7, 2012 at 8:46 PM

Updated today at 6:39 AM

GIG HARBOR, Wash. - After watching the women who calmly enter a prison activity room and spend two hours a week practicing yoga, it is hard to imagine that any one of them is serving hard time.

But several of the women have been convicted of serious crimes, including murder. Yoga classes at the Washington Correctional Center for Women provide an escape from the inmates' sometimes volatile lives behind bars.

One of the women, Alyssa Knight, wears glasses as she glides between yoga positions. She resembles a college student, not a convicted criminal, but she is now eight years into a 21-year sentence for second-degree murder.

"I just ended up hanging out with some guys that decided to rob somebody, and in the course of that, they shot the guy," she said.

It was a costly lesson for Knight, who was a college student at the time. But yoga is helping her put that lesson into focus.

"It's all about balance," she said. "Not just balance when you"re standing on your mat, but balance within, and a way to look at the world, to find peace in any situation."

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Seattle nonprofit puts yoga to work behind bars

VAIL With a long hot summer predicted for Colorado, The Vitality Center at Vail Mountain Lodge & Spa is once again offering free yoga on the Solaris lawn in the heart of Vail every Saturday at 9 a.m. Summertime Community Yoga, returning after a successful first run last summer, offers a Vinyasa Flow style practice geared towards all levels of practitioner.

The Vitality Center officially kicked off their outdoor yoga series this year at the Teva Mountain Games and it proved to be a hit as more than 120 people showed up to practice yoga over the weekend.

Summertime Community Yoga is simply a fun way to bring the community together for healthy activity, said Yoga Director Julia Clarke. We've also found that people who are interested in yoga but a little nervous about attending a class have the unusual opportunity to quietly observe a yoga class and join us when they feel comfortable.

The 75-minute classes will be led by rotating teachers from The Vitality Center's yoga studio, which offers 25 yoga classes a week including Vinyasa Flow, Mediation, Restorative Yoga and Kundalini Yoga. Classes are rain or shine, and participants should bring their own yoga mats, water and sunscreen.

For information contact The Vitality Center at 970-476-7721.

Summertime Community Yoga is hosted by The Vitality Center, a program created by the staff at Vail Mountain Lodge & Spa, which offers individual diagnostics and guided intensive regimens, tailored group retreat programs and workshop opportunities year-round. For more information visit http://www.vailvitalitycenter.com.

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Free outdoor yoga in Vail Village Saturday

Yoga Mat Lateral Plank Hops - Get down into a pushup plank position then walk the feet in a bit and bend the knees making sure to keep the back flat like a tabletop. Jump the feet off the mat to the right then over the mat to the left then over the mat to the right and keep going. This is an excellent fat burning cardio workout and improves shoulder and core stability.

Yoga Mat Lateral Leap w/Balance - Stand on one end of your mat with feet pointing towards the long end of the mat. Bend the knees slightly and leap to the other side landing on outer foot with knee bent and hovering the opposite heel off the floor to balance for 1-2 seconds then leap to the other side and balance for 1-2 seconds. This is great for cardio and balance plus works your core and entire lower body.

Yoga Block Single Leg Reach - Place a yoga block a few feet in front of one foot then bend the opposite leg to raise the opposite foot behind you and balance on the supporting leg (keeping the knee soft helps). Slowly bend from the hip of the supporting leg and reach forward to touch the block. This works your core, glutes, hamstrings, inner and outer thighs and lower back.

Yoga Strap Bodyweight Row - Place a resistance band door attachment on your door and loop your yoga strap around it and stand facing the door holding the yoga strap with arms extended and palms down. Bend the elbows and squeeze shoulder blades to row your body towards the door then release back. This is the poor man's suspension trainer and works the arms and upper back. It can also work the legs if you add a squat before the row.

You can perform 10-12 reps of each exercise and do them in a circuit 3 times for a quick fat burning full body cardio and strength workout. You can also pair the exercises and go back and forth 3-4 times the move on to the next pair. Check out the slideshow to see the exercises.

Burn fat and tone up with Breathless Body: The Ultimate Calorie Burn and Breathless Body 2: The Edge, challenging full body fatloss workouts that requires very little time, space, and equipment.

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Yoga Props Workout Ideas

Colorado yoga festivals

Colorado is a hotspot for some of the nation's most popular yoga festivals. Here are a few of the offerings.

Hanuman Festival -- hanumanfestival.com, today through Sunday, in Boulder on the lawn next to Boulder High School and parallel to Boulder Creak.

Yoga Rocks the Park -- yogarocksthepark.com, kicked off June 1 and runs 9:30 a.m. every Saturday morning in June and July on the Boulder Public Library lawn.

Wanderlust -- wanderlustfestival.com, July 5-8, at the Copper Mountain Resort.

Telluride Yoga Fest -- tellurideyogafestival.com, July 12-15, Telluride.

Mountain Pose Festival -- villageatcopper.com/mountain-pose-yoga-festival, Aug. 22-26, Copper Mountain.

She was drawn to the excitement, the celebration and the heightened energy that was almost palpable when a group of like-minded people got together to party with live music.

Now in her late 30s, Rodwin still digs that energy. But her life is different. She is married. She doesn't drink. She's a vegetarian, and she is all about her health.

She's still a festival girl at heart -- only now, she rocks a different kind of party: about health, community, service and self-connection, centered around yoga and that live music that she enjoys so much.

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Yoga fests continue to grow, as Boulder's Hanuman Festival kicks off second year

electricfoxy.com

By Melissa Dahl

When your triangle pose is not quite triangular enough, you might be used to the guiding hand of a yoga instructor to help gently move you into place. Buthow would you feel about getting an electronic "nudge," or buzz, when you're out of alignment?

A new concept for a high-tech shirt intended for use during yoga (and other activities based on precise movements, like Pilates, baseball or golf) is equipped with sensors that can tell when your movements are out of whack; it'll send you buzzing, electo-hints until you correct yourself. It's currently in development from a company called Electricfoxy. Here's how the company's site describes the product:

Haptic feedback embedded in the hips of the garment give you subtle "taps" on the side that needs adjusting. Continue to modify your move until you perform it correctly. Correct movement ensures better performance, faster improvement, and helps keep you from injury.

The "wearable technology garment," as Electrofoxy insists on calling it, syncs with a mobile app that will save and track your progress on getting your movements right. For precision-based activities like baseball or golf, the smart shirt might be a handy tool to create a better swing of the club or bat. But for yoga, while it's true that the ability to practice your yoga poses at home while still nailing the precision part of it would be helpful, there's also something that also feels a little ... offabout the whole thing, said some yoga instructors we spoke to.

At first glance, Seattle yoga instructor Ellen Boyle's reaction was a big "NO!" Boyle, who teaches at Seattle Yoga Arts in the city's Capitol Hill neighborhood, worries that the device would disrupt the fluid connection yoga helps to forge between your physical body and your internal, spiritual self. If you're always waiting for that little buzz, that's a different type of "awareness" than what yoga is meant to teach.

"And it kinda freaks me out a bit," Boyle admits. "It would make me anxious to be constantly anticipating the 'nudge' in my practice rather than relying on my own sense feeling."

Laurice Nemetz, co-president of the Yoga Teachers Association, a non-profit educational organization, worries that students might risk injury by trying to push themselves into the correct position, whether or not their body is actually capable of doing so.And for others, "in a society with body-image issues, this app might feed into those obsessive issues, instead of helping them," Nemetz says. Still, she says she'd be curious to give the app a try.

"This app may prove useful for physical therapy rehab and be an interesting tool, but I hesitate with something that would replace human-to-human feedback," Nemetz says. "Health is far more important to me and my clients' movement than the attitude that implies. The work of yoga, Pilates, etc., is both science and art."

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Hi-tech shirt 'nudges' you into the right yoga positions

Yoga is a fantastic form of exercise for gaining flexibility, and it is terrific for toning muscles. Certain foods are supreme to eat before participating in yoga. In addition, there are certain things one should avoid to be healthy from the inside out. If you are looking to enhance the benefits of yoga, try these eating tips.

Foods that those who practice yoga should avoid

Gwen Lawrence, a celeb yoga instructor, suggests eating properly so that one is healthy on both the inside and the out. She suggest that those who participate in yoga avoid the following things:

Foods that are white in color, such as those made with white flour, rice and pasta.

Foods that are processed, such as canned and frozen foods.

Foods that contain chemicals, such as food coloring (including tartrazine or cochineal) and MSG.

Lawrence also suggest that one not eat between the hours of 8 pm and 8 am, telling us that breakfast means "break the fast." In addition, she advises that those who want to be healthy avoid sugar.

Six superb snacks to eat before yoga

The following foods are excellent to eat before yoga:

Almonds: They will help supply you with energy and keep you from becoming hungry during yoga.

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Eating Tips for Those Who Practice Yoga