Yoga and Pilates NEWSLETTER

Term four 2007

    Special events 

Yoga at sunrise, Christmas eve, south Curl Curl Beach

 Sunrise is at 5:42 am, so the class will be 5:30 to 6:30am, followed by a breakfast to share.

Bring your own everything, please just sign on to the sheet at the hall if you are coming, so I can arrange some thermoses for tea and coffee.  I will provide tea, coffee and juice. 

Holiday classes

These classes are always enjoyable as we have a longer lesson and we are all more relaxed when doing them.  The classes are also held during dusk which is such a lovely time in Sydney in summer. 

You have the option of coming to one, two, three or all four classes or  a combination of  Yoga and Pilates. I do need payment with booking.  I will then give each student confirmation after receiving their booking with payment.  If you decide to come on the night you will need to phone me to check that a place is available and that there is a class for that night please.

These classes are always enjoyable as we have a longer lesson and we are all more relaxed when doing them.  The classes are also held during dusk which is such a lovely time in Sydney in summer.

You have the option of coming to one, two, three or all four classes or  a combination of  Yoga and Pilates. I do need payment with booking.  I will then give each student confirmation after receiving their booking with payment.  If you decide to come on the night you will need to phone me to check that a place is available and that there is a class for that night please.

 Yoga

Mondays 6:30-8:00pm

January 7, 14, 21, 28

Pilates

Tuesdays 6:45 – 8:00pm

January 8, 15, 22, 29

Dvds available for Christmas presents.  They are $20.00 each.  Suitable for both yoga and pilates students. The titles are below:

Pilates for lower back pain and Pilates for shoulder and neck pain (one dvd).

Pilates – beginners

Pilates – intermediate

Pilates on the ball

Yoga

Yoga has, as always, been very enjoyable this term, particularly because so many of you are very experienced now, so we have progressed to some fairly advanced practices.

We started looking for stillness in our postures last term and this term we have continued this practice in the form of a meditation.  We commence our meditation with breathing practices that are called pranayama (expansion of the prana within).  These practices calm the nervous system and make it easier for us to then go further within, in our meditation.  We then focus on one point, a jyoti (candle flame), a dot, or an image of our choice, and then go into a wider expanse where we try to find the ultimate in stillness and spaciousness.

At the end of both the meditation and relaxation this term, we have been imagining or visualising the steady flame in the blue flower in the heart centre, which is called the “jivatman” or divine inner essence.  The flame represents our centredness in  the spacious, still, and compassionate heart centre.  When we can live from this centre our life is said to go very smoothly.  We have all experienced such times.

We have also been finding a physical way to centre our body and so move our it as one unit with the centre in mind.   In this practice we feel the legs, sides and arms in relation to our centre, and also our heart centre, tailbone and crown in relation to our centre, so that going into a Triangle posture (Trikonasana) for example becomes a fluid movement with all our body connected, rather than moving each part into position separately.

As a continuation of this we have been experimenting with changing our arm positions to be effective for our own body.  When in held postures we have been adding the practice of feeling a pulsation of the body and energy within the held posture, so on the breath in we expand with energy and on the breath out we relax with the energy.

During spring we did a lot of twists and side bends to get the energy and body moving after winter.  Now the weather is becoming hotter we are doing more of the Moon postures to cool the body more.  Throughout the year we have been doing Salutes to the Sun, and now it is hotter we are doing Salutes to the Moon.

By finding our centre in our postures we have observed how much stronger we are in each posture.

I would like to commend the effort my students from the DARTS (Disabled Alternative Road Transport Scheme) class make to come to yoga each week; for many of you, it involves hours of travel either side of the  lesson.  Our wonderful volunteers too, continue to inspire me.  You all are my yoga teachers.

Pilates

Pilates has been such a pleasure to teach this term.   Many of you are so experienced now that you are using the three pieces of equipment at once and managing to maintain the contraction of your core and remain stable!!   Well done!!

Using the foam roller creates an unsteady base of support, using the stretchy straps gives resistance to the muscles in both directions  and the small ball, can create both alignment and strength.

We have been pre-stretching our sides, backs, hip flexors and necks in order not to over use those muscles, so that we can concentrate on our stabilising muscles.  We then do our program and again finish with stretches as a  cool down.  The Pilates position most students have improved markedly in this term has been the Front Leg Pull position, or what in everyday language we call Plank.  Over the last few weeks, we will be trying to achieve the same degree of precision and strength in the side Plank position.

All new students have also achieved the contraction of their stabising muscles in the correct order, which can be very difficult at first.  Experienced people will be noticing how you are becoming aware of your centre and alignment to a greater degree now.  Over the past year, we have done a lot of checking of each other to ensure that we are working the correct muscles.  This has led me to allow many of you to lower one leg at a time in the strong straight legged Hundreds position.

Next year I will be adding more movement of the body to our Pilates repertoire, as in our lives our bodies need to move with stability.  I’m sure this will once again challenge our ability to do this.

Yoga and Pilates

To all students of both Yoga and Pilates I would like to finish with this very apt quote, which I found in one of my yoga journals, source unknown:

And your body is the harp of your soul, and it is yours to bring forth sweet music not confused sounds.

I feel this is what we are all trying to do in taking time to work with our bodies whether in Yoga postures or Pilates each week.  Hopefully we are producing more sweet music than confused sounds!!

Whatever your religious or spiritual beliefs have a lovely break and festive season and I look forward to seeing you next year. 

Om Shantih      Annette