Lets Get Traditional

**** SUNDAY, FEB 17th 1:30-3:30pm @ SEMPERVIVA YOGA (Kits Beach) ****

* Come close your eyes and get lost in the sweet sound of the sitar, while I lead you through a yin/yang asana. James will share the history of India's most ancient instrument, before we cover The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

    I'm crossing my fingers that you'll leave your body and escape to India :)

Proprioception: Where Is My Body In Space?

    Earlier this year I came across a TEDtalk by Max Strom entitled, " There Is No App For Happiness." I found myself immediately intrigued, by this big teddy bear before me, and  pleasantly hypnotized by his rich voice. If you've ever studied with this yoga teacher, speaker and author you'll know exactly what I mean!
  A few weeks ago,  I had the pleasure of learning from him in person, at Semperviva Yoga. I felt like he was our kindergarten teacher, feeding our imaginations with animated stories, as we sat cross legged staring up at his big body and jolly gaze. And you know you're in the presence of a brilliant teacher, when everything they've said sticks. I ingested his words so deeply, that I went home to further research a concept he introduced called, "proprioception."
   Proprioception is defined as, " the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body". For example, touching your nose with your index fingers while closing your eyes tests your ability to proprioceive.  The mind has memorized where body parts are so perfectly that you often don't need the use of the eyes to find them. 
   In fact, we have a deeper relationship to our front body because we can see it, and our back body is more likely to feel somewhat numb or foreign to us. Lets say you were told to touch your belly button-you'd be able to find it without even thinking.  However, if asked to quickly penetrate your T7 Vertebra, well....good luck with that one! 
       Proprioception is what allows us to walk in complete darkness without losing balance. It is what allows us to paint freely, without looking at the hand that's performing the paint stroke. When we're driving, it's what allows us to keep our eyes on the road, and not on our feet, while we break and accelerate.
   Max expressed that as we age if we don't continue to stay physically active we lose our body awareness. Thus, one of the number one causes of death with seniors is from a result of falling, because one's proprioception gradually becomes impaired. He shared that for some seniors, finding their nose with the index finger can be a challenging task. This floored me, and I think this sole fact inspired me to write this entry.
   I know I'm a healthy 27 year old and am far from being a senior, but I move my body daily and I sometimes crumple it up into pretzel shapes and then I roll up my mat and leave; My yoga practice is often an afterthought. 
      My first reaction to this was, "Oh, the little things we take for granted." However I then began to reflect on this with great admiration and respect for the work yogis do, and not just physically. As body awareness develops so does your relationship with each individual body part, becoming mindful of exactly where they exist in space. Many areas of ourselves have become unconscious, but the alignment principles of all different types of yoga help to rewire and light up the murky spots inside. I believe that's why you can feel so full after practice: you begin to glow and feel energized because the dots are being connected again and your body parts are being married as one. It's no coincidence that yoga actually translates to mean, "to yoke" or " to unite".
   Before Max's workshop, I never actualized how many miracles occur on the mat. For example, lets say my students are in a twisted lunge to the left, their eyes are gazing skyward, and I ask them to bring their left hipbone back while drawing their right sit bone away from their sacrum- they then adjust accordingly. The fact that they can access a very deep portion of their pelvis, without looking, is pretty incredible; it's a skill we take for granted. 
        Even 2,000 years ago the depths of this work was cherished and eventually expressed in the ancient Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Sutra II.46 states that, "This discipline and attention must be applied to the practice of each asana, to penetrate to its very depths in the remotest parts of the body. Even the meditational asana has to be cultivated by the fibres, cells, joints and muscles in cooperation with the mind."  Sutra II.46 Sthira Sukham Asanam
      This skill is developed and fine tuned every time we hit the mat. As we become more aligned and aware of our physical bodies, we trust it more. This snowballs into us trusting our hearts, and hearing our intuition with confidence and efficiency. I believe this can morph even more into us being present with everything that surrounds us. We become like animals, noticing everyone's wear abouts, everyone's moods, reading everyone's body language, etc! Nothing goes unnoticed and relationships even deepen- from the bone in our left thigh, to our neighbour down the hall.
       To tie my point into a pretty bow, I'll share with you Elizabeth Kadetski's experience on the mat, taken from her recent novel, First There Is A Mountain.
      " I could discover my body anew every day, and through it discover the world around me. I could start again- remake my Universe." 

http://www.maxstrom.com/

   
 

Shake Your Asana

I'm very excited to announce that I'll be taking you on an incredible journey with DJ HYFI! While Hyfi works the turn tables, I'll be working out your bodies ! Come sweat, groove, and experience moving through asana to live beats!
Semperviva Yoga, City Centre, will be hosting us Sat, July 14th, from 7:30-9pm and tickets are $25!

An incredible tool to help deepen your awareness, to heal and to ground you, is music and sound. The yoga of sound is called, Nada Yoga. The cosmos, nature, humans, our entire planet consists of sound vibrations. The vibrations shake up your insides bringing new life and energy to the surface. It also helps to reconnect you with the energy channels in the body, the chakras.
Here is a description of what you're in for:

Take a journey across a sonic landscape of groovin' beats and lush atmospherics. DJ HyFi weaves together a wide array of electronic music, catching the pulse of each vinyasa wave and carrying the collective energy to intense peaks, through smooth groovin' valleys, and eventually melting into deep spacious bliss.

About DJ HIFY

Ian Hyman 
DJ Hyfi is a Philly-based DJ who has taken his art into the yoga studio to create a deep fusion of sound and movement. He spends most of his time on the road spinning for workshops, festivals and conferences around the nation and internationally. He strives to create a fresh experience for yoga enthusiasts everywhere with his unique approach to this dynamic art. Finding inspiration from life on the road and the interesting collection of characters along the way, he shares his perspective on yoga through his turntables. Ian's DJ mixes are infused with a wide range of soulful electronic music, from deep ambient tunes to ecstatic rhythms of Jungle/DnB.
http://soundcloud.com/search?q%5Bfulltext%5D=HYFI

Playlist For My Ladies @ Semperviva Yoga

   








Today is June 16th... and it's pouring rain,...it's cold...and everything looks black and white.
     I taught on Granville Island, at Semperviva Yoga. The studio there hangs right over the water. It's almost made up entirely of windows, the ceilings are high and decorated with solid wood beams, and to top it off the floors creek! On days like these, there is nowhere else I want to be.
       However, when I walked in it was quite difficult to pick up on the energy in the room. Personally, I was craving a cozy class, but half of the students seemed quite lively. Mmmm, what music do I play and how to a cater appropriately?
     I scrolled through some playlists, but nothing was resonating with the complicated vibe. Instead, I just asked everyone what they were in the mood for: Bumpin Reggae or Yummy Folk.
      Both answers were thrown at me!!! GREAT...I shouldn't have asked.
      Why not make everyone happy? I scrambled to help these two very different musical styles find unity and quickly mixed them together. After some dissecting and resembling we rocked out to a not so shabby playlist.
          And by request, HERE IT IS !!!!!!!!!



1) Jamming~ Bob Marley
2) Mile Maker~ The Innocence Mission
3) Bloom~ Paper Kites
4) I've Got This Friend~ Civil Wars
5) Track #3 (not sure of title) ~ Finely Quay
6) Fears~ Jono McCleery
7) Swing~ Zero 7
8) New Love~ Josh Heinrichs
9) I am A Light~ Sarah Slean
10) More Love~ Molyah
11) Je Te Laisserai Des Mots~ Patrick Watson
12) Redford~ Sufjan Stevens
13) Swimming Pools~ Patrick Watson