Two free classes next week with the fascinating Amy Matthews. If you like the details of anatomy, you’ll love her. She co-authored Yoga Anatomy with Leslie Kaminoff; they describe their partnership something like “Leslie is the forest. Amy is the speck on the lichen on the bark on the trees.” Highly recommended!

FREE movement clinics with Amy Matthews
August 10 & August 12

Next week I’ll be offering two free movement clinics as part of a week-long workshop at The Breathing Project.
The workshop is focused on ways to re-organize patterns in the nervous system and muscles using an approach called “proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation”.

These clinics are open to anyone with movement questions, injuries or issues, and will be a chance for participants in the workshop to observe how I integrate the PNF approach with the Bartenieff Fundamentals and Body-Mind Centering to work with people. You are welcome to come with any kind of question or issue, or just to see what I do — I begin by asking what kinds of questions are in the room, and then choose a few ideas with which to work. No guarantee that everyone’s questions will be addressed, but I do my best!

Please pass the word on to anyone who might be interested – no reservations are needed.

Dates: Tuesday & Thursday, August 10 & 12, 2010
Times: 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Cost: FREE
Location: The Breathing Project, 15 W 26 St, 10th Floor, NYC
Questions: spiralamy [at] gmail.com

about Amy Matthews:
Amy has been teaching somatically oriented classes and workshops in dance and yoga since 1994. She is a Certified Laban Movement Analyst, a Body-Mind Centering® Practitioner, and an Infant Developmental Movement Educator. She co-teaches with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen on the Embodied Developmental Movement and Yoga and the Embodied Anatomy and Yoga program in Berkeley, CA and NYC for the School for Body-Mind Centering®, and was on the faculty of the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies for 10 years. She has taught embodied anatomy and movement workshops for programs in New York, Philadelphia, Berkeley, and Nebraska, and internationally in Canada, Switzerland, Ireland, England, Israel, Slovakia and Japan.

Amy co-authored with Leslie Kaminoff the best-selling Yoga Anatomy, and together Amy and Leslie lead The Breathing Project’s Advanced Studies Program. Amy also works privately as a movement therapist and yoga teacher, integrating Laban Movement Analysis, Bartenieff Fundamentals, yoga, Body-Mind Centering and Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF).

Amy has studied with a range of inspiring teachers: dissection workshops with Gil Hedley, neuro-muscular reeducation with Irene Dowd, Body-Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, full-contact karate with Michelle Gay, and yoga with Alison West, Mark Whitwell, Genny Kapular and Kevin Gardiner.

Best profile pic ever

If you’re free this Saturday night, come out for fun times at YogaWorks Soho. Anya Porter is doing another Yoga Spanda — her mashup class teaching both yoga and breakdancing.

I went last month, to the inaugural event at Mark Morris Dance Studios, and had a super great time. We spent the first hour doing slow Vinyasa yoga, with a focus on drawing everything up towards the core. This prepped our minds, and protected our lower backs, when we moved to the floor. (The action of tucking the tail, finding a “cat spine” in each pose, was a really helpful tip for days to come.)

The second hour was breakdance: uprock, a six step, and a freeze. Don’t worry about looking like a complete idiot; the class was very beginner-friendly. I am the gangliest, slowest breakdancer in the world, and I had tons of fun.

The class has live music; funk and soul provided by DJ Scribe. “Spanda” is the pulse of life, the ebb and flow of each pose, and part of the exercise is feeling the beat, exploring yoga plus music.

Here’s the video:

This month’s class is at YogaWorks Soho, so you can decompress in the sauna afterward. Details:

Yoga Spanda at YogaWorks Soho
Saturday, August 7th, 2010
7 pm – 10 pm

This event is bound to be an amazing one…  We have landed the fabulous YogaWorks Soho equipped with a beautiful studio, showers and SAUNAS!!!!  Also featuring refreshments and bites following class from Sattvic Succulents!!! And last but not least, FREE GOODIE BAGS AND SAMPLES from Khushi Spa in Tribeca!!!  We also have some collaborations in the working for an amazing event at Le Poisson Rouge that evening…  breathe, break it down…  spa and sip…  then walk over to LPR to work it out for the rest of the evening!!!

Register at http://bhaktiandbreakdance.tumblr.com/yogaspanda
$25 pre-reg, $30 day-of
Pre-register and get a free week of classes at YogaWorks Soho!

See you there?

Are You Game?

Lots of sponsored classes at this event next month on Pier 46… Pilates, Martial Arts, Surfboarding, 80′s Dance, Hologram Yoga [?], Boxing, and Burlesque! Thanks to our friends at Flywheel for the heads up!

ARE YOU GAME for an unforgettable day of fun, complete with inventive workout classes, eat smart demos, workout-to-knockout makeovers, live DJ and more? Of course you are! So plan to grab your girlfriends and get in on the fun! If you don’t live in NYC, you can enter a chance to win a trip to the event.

Saturday 9/18/2010
Women’s Health ARE YOU GAME? Event!

Pier 46 Hudson River Bank
Charles Street and West Street
New York, NY

Registration Cabana is open from 10:00AM–4:00PM

Get a free tote bag when you register. Be one of the first 1,300 girls on site and receive a free Kulae yoga mat! ($40 value)

http://www.areyougame2010.com/

Tao Porchon-Lynch is teaching a workshop at Strala Yoga next Saturday. She’s 91, and teaches yoga every day. Inspiring!

Details:

Explore the Body as Energy
with Yoga Grand Master Tao Porchon-Lynch

Saturday, July 24th, 2010
1:00pm – 4:00pm

$25 on-line registration
$20 in person at Strala
$30 same day (if space is available)

In this workshop with Westchester’s matriarch of yoga, you will become aware of the energy that invigorates your life. Utilizing the various breathing techniques of Pranayama you will learn how to control vital energy. By using special hand positions know as Mudras, you will be able to channel the flow of energy throughout your being. Engaging the body’s Bhandas (also known as locks), you can focus and store your energy. Through an understanding of the Chakra system you will attain a working knowledge of your body’s vital energy centers. The workshop will end with a deeply absorbing meditation.

Register online at www.stralayoga.com

Image courtesy of Flickr

It’s sometimes hard to justify a yoga class. The day-to-day challenges of life in NYC are pretty time-consuming, and the bigger picture is full of oil spills and underprivileged children and other important causes that need help. How is a full two-hour practice, or even a five-minute routine, really going to make the world a better place?

Tina Fey, for example, has “thought about yoga, even done it a couple times” but says “While it would be great to work out an hour a day, there is something inherently sort of selfish about it. I can’t do it.” [quoted on YogaDork]

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Here’s a great excuse to reconnect with nature: NYC Wildflower Week. Over 45 activities in all five boroughs, May 1–9. Most are free, but some require registration so check the calendar.

We’re excited for the free wildflower giveaways in Union Square :)

Sometimes we forget that NYC does actually have some nature right within its borders!

Yoga teacher training is opening up my eyes to a whole new world.

As part of my yoga teacher training, we attend Kirtans, a lovely, free-form mash-up of music, call and response, and chanting. I’d never been to one before, and to be honest had never even heard of them. Now I wish I had known about them years ago!

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Lots of events in the air, it must be spring. Here’s one from Pure:

Come expand your nutritional knowledge at Pure Yoga’s Upper East Side location on Tuesday, March 16th. In celebration of National Nutrition Month, Pure welcomes area experts on healthy eating, drinking and living – including a private chef, juicing demos with recipes and samples, organic chocolates, beauty supplements and more!

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There’s an event worth attention this Saturday. Ashtanga Yoga New York is holding a benefit for Odanadi, an organization in Mysore, India, that fights human trafficking (forced prostitution and modern-day slavery) and helps rehabilitate its victims with education, housing, and yoga.

YOGA STOPS TRAFFICK is a one-day global yoga event to raise awareness about human trafficking in India. On March 13th, 2010, Yogis around the world will roll out their mats for a mass sun salutation, to take a stand against trafficking and show their support to its millions of victims.

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Oh no no no

It turns out that yoga in the back of the office is the best idea ever! We’re going to keep it up through March.

The focus is “desk job decompression:” yoga poses to counteract all those ruinous hours at our laptops. We usually do 15 minutes of simple stretches to wake up the wrists, ankles and spine, then about 45 minutes of standing poses, and a guided relaxation at the end.

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