Weekend Workshops with Moira Anderson

Remembering Samadhi: Negotiating Your Yogi Brain

Weekend Yoga Workshop with Moira Anderson

Hidden in your memory is access to unlimited potential, boundless freedom, deep healing and inner peace… access it through your body and your breath

Saturday & Sunday, August 4th & 5th, 2012
Space 301, Downtown Mobile

$40 per session or all three sessions for $100 (workshops build on each other ) Register by July 16th and pay $90 for all three sessions.


Reserve your space by paying online now! (Scroll down.)

What propels us toward a spiritual journey? As you sit in your house of bone and flesh there is a mysterious pull to remember; to have an experience of magnificent connection.  Yogic teachings tell us that a quiet mind, an experience of the present moment and freedom from mind-created obstacles are accessible to everyone. This workshop offers students the yogic model of practice; specifically, svadyaya (self-study), asana (posture), pranayama (breathwork) and samayama (the trio of dharana, dhyana and samadhi), to reveal and connect with their most powerful memory; the peaceful expanse of their true nature. All three sessions are accessible to all practitioners. Each session will explore a unique hasta mudra (hand position), chosen to enhance the direction of the mind and to open the flow of energy in the body.

Saturday 1-4 pm-- Dharana: Fixing the consciousness at one point or region is concentration.–B.K.S. Iyengar Vinyasa Krama (asana sequencing) and breath awareness will be used to focus the mind in this engaging, enjoyable session. Sequences emphasize forward folds and twisting postures to capture the imagination, draw the attention inward and release any accumulated agitation or tension in the body. Tone, Release, Purify.

Sunday 10am-1pm--Dhyana: A steady, continuous flow of attention directed toward the same point or region is meditation. -Yoga Sutras  What would you do if you were not afraid? This session, seamlessly blends a refreshing flow of standing postures and hip openers, focusing on the breath and  moving toward backbends, to inspire joy. Students are guided to access their courage and cultivate the stamina needed to sustain the attention of the mind, despite its fluctuations, while enlivening the energy in the body. A pranayama and mudra practice enhances vitality for the perfect way to energize the day. This session is the most enlivening of the three practices.



Sunday 2-5 pm--Samadhi: In absorption, or Samadhi, the witness or meditator is fully absorbed in the moment. There is an ecstatic experience. Our perspective is an unfolding, flowing continuum… Jonathan Foust A balanced blend of floor-based posture flow, designed to absorb the mind, is offered in an atmosphere of compassion and relaxation. Restorative postures further settle the body and the mind, bringing the practitioner to a state of satva (clear, sweet balance). Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep) concludes the session, to awaken blissful awareness. It is in this state that we uncover our pure potential, make manifest our deepest intention, and realize our connection to Self. In Samadhi we experience Yoga (union).

Moira Anderson, E-RYT 500, is owner and director of River Rock Yoga in Ocean Springs, MS. She is a Professional Level Kripalu Yoga Teacher, teaching yoga full time since 2000. Her joyful, heart-opening approach and uniquely creative sequencing provide inspiration, focus and a deep re-connection to calm the mind. Moira's classes offer students compassionate self-observation, gentle alignment cues, empowering vinyasa flow, breath awareness and exploratory, joint freeing movement in an atmosphere of vibrant gratitude. Read more at www.riverrockyoga.com. 

Samadhi Workshop

1 Session$40.00 USD 2 Sessions$80.00 USD All 3 Sessions$100.00 USD

Outline for Memorial Yoga Ceremony

Here is the outline for the Memorial Yoga Ceremony in honor of Dana Goudie to be held Friday, June 8 at 6pm at Center for Spiritual Living in Mobile.

1. Welcome and Opening Remarks

2. Mantra lead by John Gulas

3. Fifty-two Sun Salutations

One for each year of Dana's life, as well as Scott's.

There will be volunteers to demonstrate and practice all fifty-two salutations, but everyone is encouraged to practice as much as they are comfortable with. This is not a time to exhaust yourself or prove your strength. The fifty-two salutations simply represent the passage of time, and everyone else is free to do their own practice during the demonstration.

The practice will be silent aside from live music provided by Ben Brenner.

As each salutation is completed, a volunteer will light two candles- one for Dana and one for Scott.

4. Guided Relaxation lead by Ginger Dunaway

5. Call and Response Mantra lead by Amanda Brenner

6. We will close by sharing a meal together. Please bring a vegetarian dish. During the potluck, we will open the floor to anyone who would like to share memories.

Peace be with you all this week.

-Amanda

Donations in Memory of Dana

Posted on Facebook by Dana's sister, Donna Goudie:

For those who would like to remember Dana, the family requests that in lieu of flowers, a donation can be made to either one of the following organizations. In addition to being a very spiritual person, Dana spent a lot of time and effort saving animals. Both of these are not only deserving, but represent who Dana was as a person.

ANIMAL RESCUE FOUNDATION
web: http://animalrescuemobile.org/
mail: Post Office Box 50065 Mobile, AL 36605

Center for Spiritual Living Mobile
web: http://centerforspiritualliving-mobile.org/donate/
mail: P.O. Box 81298 Mobile, AL 36689

There will be a service held on Saturday, June 2nd at 1:00pm (central time zone) at the Center for Spiritual Living located at 1230 Montlimar Drive Mobile, AL 36609.

Thanks to everyone for their support and kind words during this very difficult time.

Memorial and Schedule Changes in Light of Our Great Loss

Dear Friends,

Our community has experienced a great loss recently. Our friend and teacher, Dana Goudie, has passed on due to a tragic accident. My heart breaks with and for all of you who have lost a teacher, friend, and mentor. No one will ever be able to fill her shoes in this yoga family. 

There will be a memorial practice in honor of Dana on Friday, June 8 at 6pm at Center for Spiritual Living, 1230 Montlimar Dr Mobile. 

Know that I plan on continuing the mission of Kula as best I can. Kula Yoga Community was our shared vision and passion, and I want Dana's legacy to live on through it. It is my intention to keep providing Pay What You Can Yoga for those who need it.

Please see the "classes" page for an updated schedule. Dana's regularly scheduled classes will be canceled this week, but I intend to keep the schedule as intact as is possible starting next week. 

The family has yet to make any arrangements for services, but I will keep you up to date as I receive information. 

This blog post has been provided to share happy memories in the comments. Dana's spirit will remain alive in all those she has touched.

Continuing in love,

Amanda Brenner

Guest Teacher Beckie Sathre coming to Space 301!

Beckie Sathre from Abhaya Yoga in Pensacola is coming to visit Kula!

5/5/2012 10:30pm at Space 301

Bio:

Beckie Sathre combines her love of yoga with her love of people in her classes. She has a calm and peaceful presence while challenging her students cheerfully and with love. Rebecca has been studying and teaching yoga since 1997, beginning in Gulf Shores and quickly moving to Maya Tulum Yoga Retreat in Mexico. She began to delve deeper into the practice when she started to practice with Nancy LaNasa in 1999. She completed the Sivananda Teacher Training in 2001. She continues to study all styles of yoga that she meets. Some of these include: Vinyasa Flow, Jivamukti, Ashtanga, Kundalini, Bikram, Iyengar, Anusara and yoga therapy. She loves pranayama, meditation and inversions. She is known for including these in her classes. Her classes are a vinyasa flow base with alignment woven in. Her greatest teachers are life, her students, her mom, friends, and daughters Kaya and Malia. Beckie loves the outdoors, her family, travelling, and focusing on the interconnectedness of life and all beings. Beckie is also a massage therapist. She practices Vedic Thai Yoga Bodywork and travels teaching the art with the Vedic Conservatory. She loves to share yoga and massage as a way to stay grounded and open to the divine which is deep within us every moment.

Class Description:

Come celebrate Cinco De Mayo and enjoy an energetic Vinyasa flow class with Rebecca Sathre. Any one who knows how to honor their body is welcome.

Inspired by Yoga: Student Stories from the Mat- Karla

It’s hard to believe I have been practicing yoga for 10 years now. I’ve fallen off the wagon before, sometimes for weeks or months at a time, but yoga always seems to find me again. What I love most about yoga is that you can always pick up where you left off. Yoga always welcomes you back with open arms, even if your muscles are screaming the next day!

Yoga found me for the first time while I was in high school working at a coffee shop between cross country and spring track seasons. There was a health club in the same shopping center and a yoga instructor named Paul would always come to get smoothies and tea between classes. Paul reminded me of the musician Moby, with his bald head and new-age vibe. He kept urging my best friend and I to check out a class— that even if we never came back we should at least give it a try. One day we finally took him up on the offer and found ourselves among a rather diverse group of people in suburban Pennsylvania.

I was familiar with stretching and spinal twists from warming up for runs—I even remember a teammate telling me to focus on a blade of grass to keep my balance when stretching our hamstrings. It’s like I had the tools within me all along and just needed a teacher to help me dig a little deeper. We moved through the poses quickly, but held them—a vinyasa style class which I enjoyed. I remember being adjusted for the first time before we entered savasana. The feeling of total alignment and balance, inside and out, was intoxicating! I knew after my first class that yoga was a practice I wanted to keep with me for a lifetime.

I continued to practice throughout college and during the summers in between, grabbing as many friends as I could to come along. I love taking people to their first yoga class, exposing them to my secret outlet. I feel that yoga is a practice that everyone should explore at least once and that there are adaptations for people of all walks of life.

After college, I spent some time traveling to figure out my next stepping stone and decided to become a member of AmeriCorps NCCC, a federally funded national service program. I got the chance to explore parts of the country I otherwise may not have visited, including Mobile, where I worked with the local Habitat for Humanity chapter. As part of our required personal training regimen, I led my team through sun salutations and other stretches from time to time. I would read a meditation or quote as we closed our eyes for savasana, modeling after other teachers of mine. I loved watching the look on their faces as we closed practice with a quiet “namaste”. Eventually, I would like to take my practice to the next level and pursue teacher training, but I’ve found comfort in my niche within the Gulf Coast’s non-profit community.

I began working at Bay Area Food Bank a year and a half ago as part of the SNAP outreach team and have since shifted gears to coordinate volunteer and food drive efforts. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and is the federally funded program formerly known as the Food Stamp Program. A major reason for the name change reflects healthy eating initiatives and helping to eradicate the stigma associated with government assistance. Nearly 17% of people along the Central Gulf Coast struggle with food insecurity, many of which are children, seniors or disabled citizens who do not have the means to provide for themselves. That’s more than 1 in 6 people who are unsure of where their next meal is coming from that live within one of the 24 counties the food bank serves in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.

SNAP is a vital resource which aims to help low-income families and individuals afford to eat healthier and helps fill the gap when other resources are not available. With the current state of the economy, more and more people are becoming eligible for these life-changing benefits but often times they run into roadblocks that can get in the way of applying and getting approved. The goal of the food bank’s SNAP team is to pre-screen families and individuals to see if they are potentially eligible for SNAP benefits and to offer assistance with the application process for those who may qualify. Look for this upcoming volunteer opportunity in the near future—the team is moving towards becoming volunteer-based and is seeking out dedicated volunteers to attend mobile pantry distributions and other outreach events where pre-screening may be beneficial.

Since Bay Area Food Bank tackles hunger in a variety of different ways, there many other ways for the community to get involved. Several local organizations and businesses, including Kula, take part in food and fund drives throughout the year. During Kula’s first “Yoga for Newbies” workshop, participants brought food and funds to help raise awareness during Hunger Action Month. Kula was also one of the 12 studios that came together during Yoga Week last year and encouraged students to bring non-perishable food to free classes and events to benefit the food bank by promoting the yogic concept of Seva, or selfless service.

If you are unable to donate food or funds, the food bank has plenty of ways for you to volunteer your time! Volunteers are a critical component when it comes to sorting and inspecting donations to get them ready for distribution to the community. Participants can also lend a hand in our on-site community garden, pack bags of food for children participating in the Backpack Program or assist with departmental needs in the office. We are working to develop partnerships with local farms to coordinate gleaning opportunities so that we can mobilize volunteers to pick excess fruits or vegetables at the end of each farming season to supplement the fresh produce we offer to those we serve in the community.

To accommodate groups and individuals who are unavailable during the week, we host bi-weekly projects from 8 a.m. to noon on the first and third Saturday of the month. In May, we anticipate a high volume of donations to come in from the “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive organized each year with the National Association of Letter Carriers. On Saturday, May 12, we will be hosting volunteers at the food bank between 2 and 10 pm to help unload mail trucks and pre-sort food donated from homes among Mobile, Baldwin and Escambia counties. These contributions help carry the food bank through the lean summer months and really demonstrate how the community can come together to make a difference in the lives of thousands of hungry families along the Central Gulf Coast.

I have truly never felt more of a sense of connectedness to the community surrounding me than here in Mobile, and yoga has played an integral part. The yoga community in this area has been instrumental in syncing me with like-minded people who have similar ideals and outlooks on life. Yoga is my anchor, my therapy, my outlet and I feel comforted to know that I have so many allies along this path. Here’s to the next 10 years!

To find out more about Bay Area Food Bank and how to get involved, check out our Facebook page or visit our website at www.bayareafoodbank.org.

Confessions of a Yoga Student

The following is an unedited note from a student.

Dear Amanda,

I've missed seeing you for the past month. It's been almost a year, I think, since I started doing yoga with Kula and I've been reflecting on my practice and the vicissitudes of my relationship to yoga over this short time. I have some confessions, some of which I have previously hinted at.

Sometimes I am secretly annoyed at the feel-good talk. Sometimes I don't feel much better after my practice. I can never feel the "space" I've suddenly created while getting into a pose, not once. Trying to focus on my breath makes me nervous. Throughout class I am still trying to solve my life in my head which, though it never works, I do constantly and involuntarily. In my morning practice that I do at home, I am not focused on the pose I am on but thinking of the next one and the next one and so on until savasana and what am I doing after this?

When you fully explicate a pose, and all the body parts involved, I can't follow the whole thing and feel no capacity to consciously control or even perceive some parts of my body. Sometimes I think I just started off in life too far away from my body, too far away from the moment, to ever get there (here). Maybe, just maybe, I'll never get here, or never fully realize that here is where I am. Maybe it's enough to show up to class, to have a healthy way to round out my day that doesn't involve sitting at home and drinking too much wine. Maybe if I keep practicing, my focus will improve just a little bit, maybe I will be able to sit still a little more peacefully, breathe a little easier, and maybe that little bit is all I need. I don't know.

In spite of myself, I am thankful for my practice and very thankful to Kula.

Thank you and much love,

Student

And my response:

Dear Student,

I wonder what these confessions would have been before you began your practice or what they will be a year from now. I know that these feelings are real, and you probably feel like you've been struggling with them your whole life. It's hard to see past our current situation.

Everyone- even cotton-candy-cloud, unicorn-riding yoga teachers- feels like this sometimes. Everyone feels they have not attained equilibrium in some respect or another. Everyone is reaching for something.

But your life is what is. What you're looking for exists inside you. The intention is there, and the action is there. Now relax. Each time your head returns to this pattern, take a deep breath.

If you weren't benefiting in some subconscious way from this practice, you wouldn't keep coming back, and you definitely wouldn't be practicing at home. Know that you are absorbing benefits that you just are not aware of right now, and over time they will add up to something tangible.

May I remind you, the first rule is to be kind (to yourself). (Thank you, Moira.) Have compassion for yourself above all. Give yourself permission to feel the way you feel without berating yourself. This is just where you are now.

Let your yoga be love. Not the mushy feeling that is so fickle, but the action of wishing well and doing well for yourself and others. Start small with small thoughts and small actions and let them trickle up. If you feel you run out, come to class to refill. Let others give love to you.

I look forward to witnessing more of this journey.

Namaste- The love in me sees love in you.

Amanda

Please continue this conversation in the comments. Anyone can reply to me or my anonymous student.