Category: General

Dance

September 18, 2008
Posted by Sharon
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While I have always harbored a love of dance and desire to move with grace and agility, my body has not been the most cooperative vehicle for bringing this love into fruition.  I love it, but I can’t seem to get it right.  I know this about myself and this awareness has served me well.  Once, I went out on a date with a (seemingly) wonderful man who suggested that, on our next date, we go swing dancing.  I confidently swung my hair aside and smiled to say that I thought it would be fabulous.  Inside, I was already frantic thinking about how I could learn how to swing dance in time for whenever this next date would be.  The next morning, I had already signed-up for swing dance lessons and went every night that week to a local club that offered nightly lessons and live music.  As Mr. Wonderful never called me again, it turns out that I had an infinite amount of time to learn, but my fear of even the possibility of dancing led me to an immediate obsession with the task.  The good news is that I learned to swing dance and enjoyed many fabulous nights of music and movement.   The bad news is that I never again met a man that wanted anything more than a second date who thought swing dancing was more fun than a root canal. 

All this to say that I love dancing.  So, this fall, I decided to add some dance inspired classes to the Yoga Matrika schedule.  Mindful movement is therapeutic and Yoga Matrika is delighted to offer a Thursday morning Yoga Booty Ballet class with Aleta and a Thursday afternoon Yoga Inspired Modern Dance class with Mercedes.  Get your body moving, heart pumping and limbs shaking and expand your idea of what is possible with your body and mind.  Try these new classes and let these new skills inspire your practice.  You never know what a little dance might bring into your life!

Yoga for the Wind

September 15, 2008
Posted by Sharon
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Wasn’t that wind storm beautiful?  Perhaps, if you were one of the Pittsburgher’s whose car was crushed by a falling tree you might not be able to appreciate the beauty of it just yet,  but for the rest of us it was a powerful, sensual and dynamic experience.  No rain, lightning, hail.  Just wind blowing over 35 miles per hour for over four hours in a row with gusts up to 60 miles per hour thrown in for gusto.

Yoga has many powerful connections with wind.  First, and perhaps the most obvious, is the wind of breath.  We take the wind of breath in through our nose or mouth and it fuels our bodies with oxygen.  Depending on our breathing pattern we can communicate various messages to our brain through our central nervous system.  As the breath moves through our bodies we use the internal architecture and organs of the body to accept the winds, move them to the available spaces and take the excess to appropriate avenues of escape.  Another, somewhat less obvious connection to yoga(unless you have a ‘thing’ for potty humor or happen to be living with a 3rd grader), are the winds of our digestive system.  There’s even a pose called “wind relieving posture” which has been known to massage some winds from a few student’s bellies.  While the sound of the escape of these winds through burps and farts (yes, farts are part of yoga too) may cause some embarassment to the yogi, their release creates space and ease in the digestive system.

Finally, we have the winds of the internal energy of the body.  Have you ever been really angry?  (If the answer is no, then I’m SUPER excited and honored to have you, the Dalai Lama reading my blog!)  Your anger might have risen from your belly your heart and you felt the need to amplify your voice to allow the energy of this angry wind escape through your mouth on the vehicle of your words.  Illness and health is viewed through many healing traditions as management of the internal winds of the body. 

So, today, allow wind to be a part of your yoga.  Try inhaling and exhaling through your nose as you allow your shoulders to drop away from your ears.  Listen to the sound of your breath.  Close your eyes for a moment and look at your internal weather system.  Belly full of wind?  Heart full of wind? Have all the winds become so sedate that you can’t fly your soul kite today?  Whatever your wind status, just spending a few moments to breathe and look at your internal weather might bring you insight and relief.  And, if a tree did fall on your car last night, it will give you something to do as you call your insurance company and get placed on eternal hold.

Changes in the Light

August 24, 2008
Posted by Sharon
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A little bird was making the most glorious call outside my window at dawn this morning.  It sounded like a last hurrah or a gathering of spirit for the change in season.  While life is a series of transitions, a study of seasonal changes provides a glimpse at the delicate folding and unfolding that occurs on the spectrum of tremendous change.  As the birds sing a different tune and the evening light comes to cloak our homes at an earlier hour there is a gentle call to return your focus to your own folding and unfolding process.  What does the autumn wind call to you?  How will you use your voice this season?  Is there something that should be uncovered?  Covered?

This is a most exciting time for the studio as new instructors start and beloved instructors return and we welcome new students into the supportive community of those who already share their practice at “The Mat.”  If we haven’t seen you for a while, don’t be shy!  Just dust off your mat and shake your well summered self over to the studio.  If you’ve been meaning to “try that new studio on Negley” for the past year, we can’t wait to meet you! 

Do you have any questions about the new schedule or where to start?  Please do not hesitate to contact me.  I hope to see you at our first “First Friday Karmic Salon” on September 5th.  After a soothing restorative yoga class, there will be some snacks and child friendly live music with Chris Fennimore playing guitar, Wendy Mackin on her banjo and other live music treats!

Putney Girl

July 3, 2008
Posted by Sharon
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I once spent a most beautiful summer in Putney, Vermont.  Although my skin is that of an urban flower, the rivers of my soul belong to nature.  My arrival in Putney marked the end of the long strange trip of my junior year of college which had included the accumulation of a new fluency in Mandarin Chinese and a taste of adult pain that had included the cuisine of the death of a dear friend and two broken hearts; the one I broke and the broken one I carried with me.   These dishes were seasoned with the delights of love in another tongue and the great peace that came with finding something I wanted to know with my great young heart and open mind.  At the pit of the meal, was an accumulation of evidence that I carried equally the burden of adulthood and a serene liberation from the confines of childhood.  So when the administrator of the school where I was working announced that staff was welcome to adopt newly born kittens from the farm, it was a naive and genuine newly minted sense of stability and responsibility that encouraged me to accept one of these most beautiful new kittens as my own.  With great confidence that we’d always be living elsewhere, I named her Putney.  At the end of the summer, she returned to Philadelphia with me and kept my feet warm and my apartment feeling like home until I traded in my tissue-thin stability for a one way ticket to China a year later.  My mother, an absolute sucker for anything less than 30 pounds with furr, whiskers and a desire for catnip,  stepped-in and mothered Putney for the next 13-years until tonight when I was given the great gift of the opportunity to accompany Putney as she took her last few breaths.  As she started to drift, I reminded her of some of our most special adventures and I felt her purr and release under the palm of my hand.

Put-Put Girl!  Put-Put Girl!  Put-Put Girl! 

Goodbye.

Yoga and Grief

January 26, 2008
Posted by Sharon
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Many of you know that my beloved Grandmother passed away last week.  So many of you have been supportive and kind and I appreciate everything that the Yoga Matrika community has done to make this time gentler for me.  I have been most overwhelmed by the way grief has settled in my body and I have found a new appreciation for my yoga practice. The gift of a regular practice is that you notice the micro-changes.  In my first practice after the funeral I  noticed immediately that my thighs were tight, my hamstrings and life nerve choked and I had significant discomfort in my neck.  The additional gift of a regular practice is that I have a method to both be physically present with my sadness and to work through these emotions on a physical level.  I also purchased the most fabulous ocean green yarn at KnitOne and I plan to make a special wrap to keep me warm and remind me of this most beautiful, empathetic, intuitive and creative woman who taught me both to knit and to swim.  The fabric of water is the fabric of our muscle and bone.  We can use the waves of our energies to create peace in our heart-minds, bodies and world.  This is our yoga.   Your yoga practice is a gift to the fabric of peace that creates a beautiful light in our studio, in our community, in our city and in our world.  Do not underestimate the power of your practice.

New Teachers and Students

January 10, 2008
Posted by Sharon
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Hello and Peace to the Yoga Matrika Community!  I would like to extend a special welcome to Wendy Mackin who is teaching a mindful class at “The Mat” on Thursdays at 10:00am.  I had the great fortune of taking this class today and I have felt like I was walking on sunshine for the entire day.  Wendy had us focus on moving and breathing from our navel centers and I can’t honestly say that I got in touch with this during the class, but it changed the way I felt all day.  I definitely sat and walked taller and felt confident and light.  This experience reminded me that we can explore our practice and experience our bodies in so many different ways that yoga truly offers a lifetime of challenges and opportunities for inquiry and growth.  Thank you Wendy!  Cindy Warden is teaching at 8:45 on Tuesday mornings now and I highly recommend this class to anyone who is looking for a fabulous and energetic class.  Cindy offers great techniques for opening the body and deepening your practice.  Finally, have you noticed that Julie Straub is going to start offering a 5:45 class on Thursday evenings and that I will be offering two Sunday flow classes this month?  Take advantage of the new student $30 for 30-days of unlimited yoga or the $125 for unlimited yoga in January and February (it’s STILL worth it!) and deepen your practice this winter.