Yoga for the Mamas

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I am so excited about new developments for my students!

On May, 11th- the Saturday of Mother’s Day weekend, join me for a Prenatal Partner-Yoga Workshop.  We’ll have great fun exploring many of the poses we do in prenatal yoga with a partner, friend or whomever you bring!  No Yoga experience necessary.  Build connections, find ways to support each other, get stronger and kick off a celebratory mother’s day that honors who you are becoming.

1:30pm/ O2 Yoga  Somerville – 288 Highland Ave/ $30 pre-registration here 

under the workshop tab

AND…

I’m also starting a Post-natal yoga class at O2 Yoga Cambridge – 1001 Mass Ave

2pm Mondays

This class is for you new moms after you get clearance from your doctor/midwife.  Get stronger and attend to upper back and shoulders that get tired from feeding and carrying your quickly growing little one.  Also, work on building abdominal support again.  I can’t wait to meet your little addition!

Yogis’ Love

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IMG_3486Dear students:

I am most appreciative and energized this month because of all the love my students have shown me in the past year when I started teaching double time.  Thank you ALL, a million times over for coming to classes and including  me on your yoga journey:

…The new mothers who come to pre-natal are ever-radiant, beautiful women who make my week a comfort;  The vinyasa folks who fly and flow on their mats are inspiring and always open to my *original and experiential* sequencing;  Finally, the kids and teens I teach humble me:   I am grateful that at a young age you are empowered  with the gift of yoga.

It is joyful to have a job that consistently reciprocates the values of yoga because I show up and give my best.  I am inquisitive and curious because of the challenges I face with my students on the yoga mat.

Here’s a special shout out to the teen girls I just started teaching this month who gave me this sweet valentine.  They are giggly and smart.  Thoughtful and kind.  Curious and brave.  On Valentine’s day, they gave me my first valentine.  Thank you girls!  I am heartfelt for my job as your yoga teacher and lucky to know each of you as the wonderful young women that you are today.

With gratitude,

xxoo Devon

Defying Gravity Workshop 2/17

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This is going to be so much fun! I can hardly wait! Some of you said you wanted it and so here it is!

Work on how to approach inverted poses in stages, with lots of support – and practice how to fall out of these poses safely. Expect to work on the core, confront your fear of falling, and focus on the bandhas [locks] and how they impact inversions. We’ll do a vigorous vinyasa practice to build the heat and strength for these challenging postures, play with many of the variations, and workshop strategies for incorporating these poses into your regular practice.

This workshop is intended for intermediate or advanced students looking to deepen their understanding of crane [bakasana], handstand [adho mukha vrksasana], and forearm balance [pincha mayurasana].

Sign up here.

(c) photo courtesy of Kimberly Lockwood

(c) photo courtesy of Kimberly Lockwood

Yoga for Runners: a student’s review

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Little Miss Runshine, Devon, Denise

My friend Jessica, came to my yoga class for the first time last week.  Jessica has her own blog, Little Miss Runshine.  Yup, she’s a runner and we met in running club. She gets around the city cross training, a practice she’d dedicated too since an injury and yoga <<hint, hint>> is part of how she keeps her running in check!  I’ve been talking up my yoga for runner’s class and while she couldn’t make it (you totally should…$40 massage when you do this month @ The Breathing Room), she came to a class I taught at O2 in which I focused on hips, hamstrings and IT stuffs.

This is what she has to say about me:  ”As an instructor, Devon is very attentive and comes over to help align you properly and give modifications if need be.  She also isn’t too serious and she makes you laugh throughout the class.  I don’t really take myself too seriously so appreciate an instructor who can throw in some humor.  It was actually interesting that at least half of the class was men-I’m used to the class being predominately women!“

Here’s her second review.  Great photos of fun poses!  And the second one, too! She shows, galavasana, bird of paradise, forearm stand and more in her latest commentary.

She showed up again for two more classes this week.  It’s great to get support!  And, in case you forgot,…Tomorrow is Yoga for Runner’s @ The Breathing Room 7pm!! 

Happy New Year

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I’ve had  a wonderful first week of 2013 and hope you, too, are getting your yoga on and maintaining a happy and healthful disposition.  Quickly, here are some additions for the new year.:

  • Yoga for Runners & Cyclists @ The Breathing Room 7pm Tuesdays register here
  • Yoga for Runners still @ The Cambridge Y still 6pm Fridays
  • Prenatal Yoga @ O2 Cambridge moved to 5:45 on Wednesdays
  • Pre & Post Natal @ Be in Union through February 12pm. Bring the bebe until crawling!

All other classes as usual for January:

O2 Som O2 Cam Breath Rm Gallery 263 Be. Cam Y
Mon 8:30, 12pm Mon 6pm
Tues 7pm YFR
Wed 5:45- Prenatal Wed 7:15pm
Thurs 6pm, 7:45
Fri 12-Pre/post natal Fri 6pm YFR
Sat 12pm
Sun 10:30am

Vinyasa- to place carefully.

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Just last week I was in class and the teacher, who is always exact and precision when it comes to anatomy that one of the MANY definitions of vinyasa is to place deliberately with care:  to place carefully.  I’m paraphrasing. I’ve heard this before.  In fact, I can recall a conversation about the term vinayasa in my own teacher training course.  As a style, the term is confusion.  As a movement it can mean the transition between sides in an Astanga practice or the flow between reverse warrior and side angel.

What my teacher (NR) said was a reminder for me to slow down and be intentional.  Especially in a quickly moving vinyasa class are we paying attention to what we’re doing when we have only five breathes to find the pose and get out of it? I don’t know about you, but for me it’s about 50/50. Sometimes its more brain than body and other times the reverse. The perfect practice would incorporate the marriage of thinking, listening, and doing.

After class, that same evening on the radio Tom Ashbrook’s show on point.   You can listen or read the transcript “Where Yoga Gets Crazy” about Competitve Yoga and Bikram Yoga.  For me, the succession of NR’s class which was intelligently sequenced and informative and this radio conversation made me laugh because I began my serious quest to becoming a teacher with <<GASP>> Bikram yoga.

There was a studio near my college and I went regularly. When I graduated, I still went regularly.  This was the first studio where I had a daily practice.  Part of the appeal of course was that I lost so much water weight that when I got to the showers afterward I felt skinny and beautiful. And, the same sequence of postures every single time was appealing to me. Which, likely speaks to why I found my yoga in Boston with Elliott McEldowney the greatest Astanga instructor on this side of the river. The postures feel differently daily. But there’s comfort in knowing that the sequence is the same despite my body’s unique reaction.

Bikram yoga was not my thing any longer.  I remember people getting sick in class. There were days when I was light headed.  This was not a sustainable plan.  I had remarkable teachers in Noho, but they sold the studio and started another studio leaving Bikram to someone else.  That should have been a wake up call. But it wasn’t.  It wasn’t until I was ready to have this bliss-filling yoga experience that I saw what I was missing in Bikram classes.  The emphasis was now and is still placed on the action of the posture and the intention I bring to the mat rather than realizing the ultimate expression of the posture.  Bikram is not for me now but it is part of my yoga journey. It is the practice that truly got me committed to showing up to the mat. It was empowering.  It was fulfilling.

I just ran into someone in local naturals store and she was looking at yoga stuff for her mom who just started Bikram.  I told her while I’m not a fan these days, If people are moving and happy doing something, who are we to tell them their yoga is “bad” or not “authentic?”  People need and experience the industry of yoga for different aims and ends.

If you listen to the conversation  Tom Ashbrook was having, I wonder what you think.  I am so not ready for yoga competition because yoga is not a performance in my world. For ancient yogi’s it was. Heck, boys went around performing yoga to make money for their ashram.  But I approach my mat differently.  Does the Bikram culture and other yoga cultures condescend to the yoga I teach? Maybe, but it might not matter if my yoga continues to be genuine and intentional. You know, like, placed carefully.