Newport Academy

Discussion:

What is yoga? What have you heard about yoga? What do you think it is?

The practice of yoga originated in India over 5000 years ago and was originally passed down from one teacher to one student. The goal of yoga is to create a calm, stable mind that perceives the world clearly; which ultimately leads to a purposeful life filled with joy.

Yoga is care for the self. The practice of yoga utilizes many tools, including postures, breath work, visualization, meditation, sound, reflection and lifestyle guidance to help people look inward and improve their lives. We practice the physical postures on the mat to increase strength, flexibility and balance in the body. We also change the way we breathe, deepening and lengthening the breath, which promotes healing and relaxation. Thus yoga is replacement therapy, we replace old bad habits with new better ones.

Another aspect of yoga is self-reflection, just as we examine our physical bodies, we also examine our behaviors and patterns. Becoming conscious of these patterns, we can then consciously decide what we want to change or improve. Yoga is also a process of self-refinement; by changing our patterns on the mat, we learn to bring that same awareness off the mat and into our lives and relationships.

Practice:

• Supine, start with belly breathing
• Leg strengtheners, hip opener series
• Abdominal exercises
• Cat/Cow, Downward dog
• ½ Sun Salutations
• Chair Pose
• Wide legged forward fold
• Sunflower pose
• Balance: knee to chest
• Bridge, Shoulderstand
• Twists, Relaxation

Reflection:

Write down your first perception of yoga. What did you like? What particularly resonated with you? What did you find weird? What would you like to gain from this experience? What do you perceive to be your biggest challenge?

Discussion:

Today we are going to discuss habits. We all have them, whether we formed them consciously or unconsciously, it's how we interact with the world. Through our yoga practice we can look critically at which patterns serve us positively and which ones may not be so good for us. Habits can range from brushing your teeth to how we treat others in relationships.

I'd like to open this up to discussion; let's go around and name two habits that affect our lives positively and two habits that we could probably replace with better ones. And for the two negative ones, maybe think about something you can do instead.

Kriya Yoga:

• Tapas: New behavior, contrary action
• Svadhyaya: Reflection
• Isvarapranidhana: Stay out of results, accept what you can't control (Like 12 step serenity prayer)

Practice:

• Seated: Neck, shoulder rolls
• Arm stretches
• Cat/Cow, Cat bow, Child's Pose
• Cobra, Down Dog
• Warrior I
• Chair Pose, Tree Pose
• Staff Pose, Pashimotanasana, Janu Sirsasana
• Reclining Butterfly
• Relaxation

Reflection:

Choose a habit you would like to change and think about how you will address the situation in a new way (even if it feels abnormal, which it will). Try it out for one week and see how it feels, making a conscious effort to sustain the new behavior and resist the urge to resort back to your old habits, and overtime this new behavior will feel normal. (Fake it till you make it).

If we don't consciously work to change our patterns we will continue to do the same things over and over and spend the rest of our lives bumping into shiny objects (so my teacher says).

Discussion:

How do we create balance in all aspects of our lives?

We all know when our bodies and our lives get out of balance. How does that make us feel? Stressed, anxious, unhealthy? Think about how your body feels after a night of partying, your body will let you know that it is not pleased with your behavior, telling you that you have consumed too much, trying to teach you a lesson so you don't go too far again in the future. Or when we procrastinate on writing a final paper, waiting until the last minute, we may experience anxiety, self-doubt and a lot of stress.

Class discussion: Think about one aspect of your life where you feel balanced and one area that may need a bit of work.

Yoga provides us with the tools to create balance in all aspects of our lives. We become more conscious of the decisions we make, and with this increased consciousness we learn to set goals, plan ahead and create boundaries so that we experience balance in more aspects of our lives.

Practice: Balance in breath and body

Pranayama: alternative nostril breathing (balances brain hemispheres)

Asana:

• Seated: Circle body, forward folds
• Table: arm balance flows
• Mountain pose with arm flows
• Cobra, alternate arm/leg lifts
• Modified Side Plank, Chatarunga
• 1-legged Downward dog, Standing split, Warrior I, Warrior III, Dancer
• Flowing Tree Pose, Crow
• On belly, chest/shoulder opener
• Relaxation

Reflection:

Think about an area in your life where you sometimes feel out of balance. How would you normally cope with the situation? What is a better way to deal with the situation or prevent it in the future?

Today we're going to think about kindness and acceptance. The first relationship guideline of the Yoga Sutras is Ahimsa; which translates into not harming or being kind. This yama not only applies to ourselves but how we interact with the world around us. Yoga is a process of self-reflection, looking inward and thinking about the way we live our lives.

Becoming conscious of how we treat ourselves, what we're putting in our bodies and noticing how our bodies feel. Noticing our thought patterns, when we are overly judgmental of ourselves and others are we being kind?

Let's think about ways that we can increase kindness in our lives. Let's each name one way that we can become more kind to ourselves and one way that we can become kinder to others.

Practice: Gentle Flow

• Childs Pose: connect with earth, grounding
• Cat/Cow, Thread needle, Circles, Table: arm balance flows
• Cobra, Upward dog
• Side Plank, Chatarunga
• Downward dog, High Lunge, Warrior II, Sunflower
• Ankle to knee squat, Balance
• Thread needle
• Reclining Butterfly
• Relaxation

Reflection:

Think about one aspect of your life where you practice kindness or will practice kindness; whether it's how you treat yourself or your relationship with another person. What will it look like? How will you do it? How will it change things?

We all want to be happy, to live a life that is joyful, purposeful and fulfilling.

What brings you joy? Think about the things, people, activities or places in your life that make you feel happy. It can be as simple as ice cream or having a meaningful conversation with your best friend.

Name three things that make you happy.

It is important to note, that some things that make us happy are not always good for us. Filling our bodies with toxins may make us feel great for a moment but is not good for us in the long run. Our inner self knows what 's truly good for us and what's not; that's discernment, something we aim to develop through our yoga practice.

By clarifying what makes us happy we can make conscious choices to fill our lives with things that are uplifting and will point our lives in a good direction for the long-run. If we focus our attention on things that bring us joy rather than pain, won't that make our lives more joyful?

Practice: Heart Openers

Meditation: Think about one thing you are grateful for in your life

Asana:

• Supported Reclining Butterfly
• Circle body, Forward folds
• Table: arm balance flows
• Locus, King Cobra
• Side Plank
• Chatarunga
• Downward dog, Warrior II, Triangle, Peaceful Warrior
• Half Moon
• Squat
• Bridge, Shoulderstand, Plough
• Relaxation

Reflection:

Write down 5 things that make you happy and 1 thing that causes you stress or pain. Think about what you can do to reduce or eliminate that element of suffering in your life. Do you need to change a behavior or thought pattern? Do you need to ask someone else to change their behavior? Is so, make a neutral request. Define what it is you want them to do. Don't be afraid to ask what you want.

Dream about the best life imaginable

Discussion:

Think about what you want your life to be like in 6 months or 2 years or 5 years (some future date). If you could imagine the most perfect life, where would you be living? Who would you be living with? What would you be doing? What is your daily schedule like? How does that make you feel?

Be Positive, Concrete and Specific

If we can imagine where we want to end up in our lives, we can consciously take the small steps to get there. If not, we will be bumping around aimlessly and could possibly end up somewhere we don't want to be.

Practice:

• Lying on back: visualize what you want your life to be like
• Arm flow, Leg strengtheners, Hip openers, Abdominal Exercises
• Rock into Boat, Squat
• Mountain, ½ Sun Salutations, Chair
• Cobra, Upward dog
• Downward dog, High Lunge, Warrior III, Bound Angle
• Crow, Tripod
• Reclining Butterfly
• Relaxation

Homework:

Create a Bhavana for your lifestyle and for your career. Be very specific what does it look like when you get up in the morning? Have fun with it!!!