Category Archives: yoga class

Brooklyn yoga studio focuses on people left out of traditional studios

Posted on July 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

From NY Daily News

Before starting their stretches and poses, each student in Third Root Community Health Center’s small yoga studio in Flatbush took turns saying their name.

Some were newcomers and others already knew each other well, but everyone participated in the weekly ritual.

These greetings are part of what make Betsy Shapiro a regular who is loyal to Third Root.

“In other classes,” she said, “you are one of many.”

“You don’t have to worry about other people’s perceptions of you or one’s understanding,” said Shapiro of the wellness center, which also offers classes to members of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender community.

“The other students care about one another and [the instructor] cares.”

The goal at Third Root isn’t just stronger arms or perfect poses. Creating a safe, welcoming atmosphere for every student is equally important, said instructor Jacoby Ballard.

A small group of health practitioners and teachers co-own and run Third Root, which opened in 2008.

Their studio on Marlborough Road is easy to miss. But inside, the small lobby is an oasis of natural light and potted plants.

Posters for community events, health workshops, and even a course on “happiness,” are taped to the walls.

Medicinal herbs, used for classes on natural medicine, fill planters out front.

Instructors draw from their personal experiences.

In college, Ballard was a self-described jock, but after enrolling in a yoga course to fulfill a physical education credit, he says his entire lifestyle changed.

He started practicing regularly, became a vegetarian, and by 2004, was a certified yoga instructor, he said.

In co-founding Third Root, Ballard hoped to create a space where anyone could connect on or off the mats.

“I have personally felt unwelcome in some yoga classes because they will say ‘if you’re a woman do this, if your a man do this’ and so those of us that are in between that spectrum I don’t really know what to do,” Ballard said.

Third Root class offerings have included queer/trans yoga, pre- and postnatal yoga, and yoga for people with “abundant” bodies or geared toward survivors of abuse.

Ballard believes the inclusive venture already is a success.

“I see people getting to know their neighbors as more and more people come into classes together,” he said. “[Third Root] is definitely building community around here.”

Third Root Community Health Center is located at 380 Marlborough Road. Yoga classes cost $12 for a drop-in, $100 for 10; $180 for 20.

For more information go to thirdroot.org or call (718) 940-9343.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2011/07/21/2011-07-21_uplifting_yoga__for_all.html#ixzz1SsWuzXNN

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Posted in personal yoga practice, yoga class

Yoga Camp for Kids

Posted on May 31, 2011 | Leave a comment

From The Well Daily:

Kids are natural yogis; they’re open, flexible and fearless. Yoga is play for them (as it should be for us!) and provides tools that will serve them well for the rest of their lives. Summer yoga camps are a great way to encourage your kids to explore yoga—and just maybe fall in love with the practice for life.

Very little ones are welcome at Bija Kids in Clinton Hill, which runs half and full day camps for kids ages 3 to 8 from June 29th to September 2nd and a mini camp from August 1st to 12th. Camps open with an hour-long yoga session, followed by eco-friendly arts and crafts, music sessions, field trips to parks and museums and organic gardening.

Uptown campers can have Adventures in Yogaland at Land Yoga, open to ages 3 to 10 on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, June 21st to Aug 25th. This new yoga center in South Harlem is run by Ashtanga teacher Lara Lauchheimer, who has taught autistic and HIV+ children and spent three months working with genocide survivors in Rwanda. Lara teaches kids yoga poses by encouraging them to mimic plants and animals. Art and music projects and healthy snacks are included.

Don’t worry; we haven’t forgotten your bored teenagers. Namasteens uses music to engage teens and pre-teens at Pure Yoga East (ages 10-12) and Pure Yoga West (ages 13-15). These classes are designed by Pure senior teacher Lara Benusis, who spent two years teaching in New York public schools and designed a yoga program for The Children’s Aid Society. Each weekly class uses games, creative sequencing, story-telling and music to draw teens out. The goal is to help teens express themselves, release stress and tension, focus their minds and build confidence and strength.

If your kids are adventurous and ready to try sleep-away camp (and you’re ready to part with them for a week), send them to Camp Yogaville for the last week of June. The camp is held at Satchidananda Ashram in Buckingham, Virginia, which is situated on 600 acres of woodlands on the banks of the James River. Against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains, 8- to 12-year-old campers will experience a week of yoga, meditation and vegetarian meals, plus more traditional summer camp activities like hiking and canoeing.

Wait, can we go?

Foot Traffic:
Camp Yoga
Bija Kids Yoga
900 Fulton Street in Brooklyn

Land Yoga
2110 Frederick Douglass Blvd

Pure Yoga East
203 East 86th Street

Pure Yoga West
204 West 77th Street

Camp Yogaville
Satchidananda Ashram in Buckingham, Virginia

The Well Wisdom:
One of the reasons yoga is so beneficial for children is that it teaches self-regulation—the ability to control and direct one’s thoughts and actions. Improving a child’s self-regulation skills can have a positive impact on attention, behavior, school performance and social skills. Just learning to breathe deeply will help children handle their emotions for the rest of their lives.

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Posted in Children, Health, Meditation, travel, yoga class

Further Plans for the Future of Compass Yoga

Posted on May 25, 2011 | 5 Comments

In the past week, I have started to put together a business plan that will facilitate my goal of working on Compass yoga full-time. The admission of this goal has been a long time coming; for years I have tried to figure out what a lifelong career working for someone would look like for me. That picture never fully, or even partially, materialized. I would sit in my meditation practice, go to my yoga mat, and talk to my friends and family in the hopes that some clear picture would reveal itself in my mind’s eye. It was only recently that the answer bubbled up to the surface: my way forward lies in another direction and that direction must be of my own making.

On Sunday, May 15th I had an odd experience in Whole Foods in which I could feel my grandmother very nearby. Later on that day, I went home and began writing down how my own yoga-based business would take shape. I’ve had bits and pieces of this idea floating around in my mind for several years but all the pieces felt very disconnected from one another. On May 15th, some kind of magic found its way in and all of my seemingly disconnected pieces gelled together. I heard a divisive “shoomp” as I typed up my plan. I would ask a question and an answer would quickly rise up to meet it. My friend, Rob, summed up the result this way: “Christa, this isn’t a business plan. This is the work of a life.” I feel that way, too.

I’ve begun to circulate the plan to a very few trusted mentors and friends like Rob, people whom I continually ask for advice and guidance on just about every area of my life. As always they have responded with honesty, grace, support, objectivity, and an astounding amount of creativity. Most of them, while students of yoga or some appreciation for its power, lie outside of the traditional yoga community. They have varied professional and personal backgrounds, savvy business minds, and a lot of heart. I am a lucky lady to know them.

Because so many of you have shown your unwavering support of my ideas through attending yoga classes I teach, comments, tweets, facebook messages, emails, voicemails, and texts , I wanted to share some of the details with you as they’re taking shape:

1.) Compass Yoga will incorporate as a nonprofit. This has been a decision that has required a lot of soul searching, fact checking, numerous hours of consultation, and more pro-con lists / decision trees than I can count.

2.) There will be a physical place that houses Compass Yoga. I have tried this changeable location model and while in many cases this has worked out, for this more refined business vision a permanent physical space is needed.

3.) Compass Yoga will continue to focus on working with underserved populations, and will actually deepen that commitment further with a variety of new programs.

4.) Partnerships will be a key component of the business structure.

5.) Compass Yoga turn a good deal of its energy toward growing the depth and breadth of the yoga field for all practitioners and teachers.

6.) In order to bring this vision to life in as full a way as possible, I will be undergoing a good deal of additional yoga teacher training in the next year. I am grateful for my location in New York City where many of the top teachers in my chosen specialty reside and teach, and I am equally grateful for my current day job that provides me with the personal funding and flexible schedule to make my extensive yoga teacher training possible.

More details are developing every day as this picture becomes clearer and clearer. The way forward is unfolding…

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Posted in business, Nonprofit, teacher training, yoga class

An Amputee and a Yoga Instructor

Posted on February 17, 2011 | 2 Comments

An incredibly inspiring story of how an amputee rediscovered her strength through yoga and then became an instructor to share that strength with others.
From Salem News:

By Amanda McGregor STAFF WRITER
The Salem News Thu Feb 10, 2011, 06:00 AM EST

WENHAM — Since she founded her yoga practice more than a decade ago, Marsha Danzig has trained people who work with children.

Danzig believes yoga is a tool that can make kids less susceptible to bullying and helps children with physical or behavioral challenges.

And she knows about early childhood struggles firsthand.

When Danzig was 5, she had Ewing sarcoma in the bone in her left ankle. She survived aggressive chemotherapy and radiation, only to have the cancer return when she was 13.

“I don’t know the survival rate at the time, in the mid-1970s, but not many people survived,” said Danzig, who lives in Wenham. “I went to Boston Children’s Hospital, and the next thing I knew — boom — I have no leg below the knee.”

Suddenly a teenage amputee, she pushed herself to learn to walk on a prosthetic leg, rather than using crutches or a wheelchair, but it obviously changed her life.

“I wasn’t very active for a while,” she said.

It would be a long journey before she discovered yoga, became a certified instructor, and founded the Color Me Yoga program to train teachers, therapists, counselors and others to use yoga with children.

“I was getting my Ph.D. in medieval French in New York City,” she recalled, “and I was very unhappy — I felt it had no meaning. … I went to a career counselor (in 1997), and I was told, ‘You need to do something with movement.’ I had moved when I was a kid, but I lost my leg at 13, so I thought, ‘How can I navigate this?’”

Between 1997 and 1999, she took a variety of dance classes, from Cuban to African, and “just got this feeling I need to be a yoga teacher,” she recalled.

She started her business more than a decade ago and has trained many people, offering a 200-hour certification course.

Salem resident Alicia Diozzi was a public school teacher when she took Danzig’s training years ago.

“It’s more games-based (than adult yoga), and it’s got some ethics to it like being a good friend, being a good leader and being a good helper,” said Diozzi, who became a yoga instructor and owns Geen Tea Yoga in Salem. “It’s so inspiring for kids who are trying to learn something and work on their expression.”

A number of instructors work with Danzig’s program now, using yoga as a tool to help children with issues ranging from self-esteem and anxiety, to autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

“I’ve trained a lot of people, like occupational therapists, teachers, dance teachers and special education teachers,” said Danzig, 48. “The thing I love about yoga that’s different from other therapies is that you’re giving children the tools. We look at how they can empower themselves when they leave (the studio) by using breathing, pacing, pausing.”

‘Reconnecting to my body’

As she built Color Me Yoga, however, Danzig was simultaneously suffering from kidney failure, a toll on her body from the multiple cancer treatments during her childhood.

“I was also on dialysis because the chemo destroyed my kidneys when I was a kid,” she said, adding that even traveling for a few days was a hassle while she was on dialysis. “Now, in retrospect, it was a lot to manage.”

She finally had a kidney transplant 41/2 years ago.

“My journey has been about reconnecting to my body,” Danzig said. “A lot of people who have a serious illness think their body betrays them, and I felt that way, too. But really, our body is just telling us the truth.”

Using a prosthetic limb to walk, much less to practice yoga, requires a lot of energy.

“Amputees use 70 percent more energy than the average person,” she said. “Simple things become things your mind has to focus on.”

While she draws on her personal experience in her work with children, Danzig said she is sensitive about sharing too much of it with them. She wears pants and socks during lessons with kids and especially doesn’t want to frighten children who are facing their own illnesses.

“Mostly I’ve had curiosity,” she said, “but if I were 5 and I saw a person who lost their leg, I might be terrified.”

But she is candid when asked.

“She just puts it very calmly,” Diozzi said. “She is an example for kids and really for anybody. You don’t let your circumstances define your life. And (at the yoga studio), she is very nonjudgmental and very accepting of whoever comes through the door.”

Danzig enjoys teaching children, despite the challenges.

“When you work with kids, your creativity and inspiration level is really high,” she said. “A big part of my teaching is around possibility and working with your own individual, unique circumstances. I especially want to reach ‘invisible kids,’ the ones on the fringes who feel devalued or have physical, emotional or mental challenges.”

Staff writer Amanda McGregor can be reached at 978-338-2665, amcgregor@salemnews.com and on Twitter @AmandaSalemNews.

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Posted in Health, yoga class

Compass Yoga Featured Today on SocialEarth

Posted on February 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

SocialEarth is a website and blog that gets the word out about businesses and social ventures that have a positive impact on the world. Thanks to a prompt from Tristan Pollock, co-founder of SocialEarth and a Twitter friend of mine, Compass Yoga is featured today as a business that make a difference. Check out the story here.

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How did the 21-day Yoga Challenge Go For You?

Posted on February 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

From Christa In New York: Curating a Creative Life:

I’ve not historically been a huge fan of yoga by video. It seemed impersonal and cold to me as a student. Given the incredible experience I had being part of the Yoga Journal 21-day Yoga Challenge this year, my mind and heart have been changed. Through the videos, delivered by an expert team of amazing instructors, I felt my heart open wider, my hamstrings release further, and my sequences take on more creativity. The classes were every bit as good as most yoga classes I’ve taken in studios.

This experience also made me giddy when I think about all of the possibilities given the incredible enhancements now available in affordable video and the functionality of live chats and social media sharing. Now it’s possible to be with instructors we admire and respect and share our experience with others regardless of geographic location. We now have the ability to broadcast yoga effectively and cost-effectively rather than the traditional narrowcast paradigm of expensive studios. The wheels of my mind are turning, turning, turning…

If you took part in the challenge, too, how did it go? I’d love to hear about your experience. If you missed it, never fear – the videos are still available online here. Take a look and let me know what you think!

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Posted in personal yoga practice, yoga class

Going off balance to find balance

Posted on June 9, 2010 | 2 Comments

“Sometimes when we feel that an area of our lives is out of balance it’s because another area of our life that needs attention is coming in to focus.” ~ Johanna, my yoga teacher

Last weekend I stopped in to Jo’s class. We were practicing taking ourselves out of balance in order to bring ourselves into balance. Last week I felt like a part of my life would come in to focus, only to watch another area go completely out of whack. What was going on?

I show up at Jo’s class to get an incredible work-out. And I do get that and something more. I get a work-out for my soul. Jo has these bits of wisdom that she imparts throughout her class, just like the gem above. Parts of my life were going out of focus because they needed to. As they were going haywire, they forced me to focus my energies on other areas of my life that really needed attention. Things were unraveling at work because I needed to focus on Compass Yoga and on teaching. If everything were going along swimmingly at work, I may fall into complacency about building my own business. It took a little bit of unsettling at work to help me see that and to keep that complacency from slipping in. Prana can’t wait.

In retrospect, this situation reminded me of that beautiful yogic adage: “the universe will always give us the exact learning we need, exactly when we need it.” Our only job is to stop and listen. Message heard.

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Posted in personal yoga practice, yoga class

Stories Weave Their Way Into Yoga Class

Posted on April 27, 2010 | Leave a comment

When I was a kid, I loved story time. My mom would make up little characters and stories for my brother, sister, and I to hear before bedtime. One particular string of stories involved little fictional characters called the hoochie goochies who would run around in the forest and have all kinds of adventures. She’s make them up on the spot, and we could add in little details along the way. We’d read books like Superfudge, Tales of a Fourth Grace Nothing, and Dr. Seuss. Now when I go back and read those books, I can still hear my mom reading them and my siblings and I cracking up. This is the great thing about storytelling, particularly when it’s done out loud – the memories last a lifetime.

Storytelling has found its way into every area of my life – as a product developer, managing theatre shows, as a freelance writer. And now as a yoga teacher. Yoga, I am learning, is largely about stories, particularly when studying its philosophy and Eastern heritage. Even in my own teaching when I describe the energetics of an asana (pose), I give illustrations from stories. And in that way, my yoga comes from my life. Just like this blog. Just like the products I develop. Their commonality is story.

With this lens, yoga teaching isn’t scary at all. It’s just service – I offer stories and lessons I have by providing a physical expression of those stories. In Ujjayi breath, I hear the calling of lions that we tracked in South Africa. In asanas like Anjaneyasana, I see the excitement that my niece, Lorelei, gets from every day experiences like taking a walk outside and checking the mail. During Adho Mukha Vrksasana, I think of the simultaneous strength and freedom I needed to hang glide across the Tennessee mountains. My mom’s storytelling effected my life forever; it shaped who I am, what I do, where I go, and who I spend time with. And now every time I practice or teach yoga, I take her gift with me and pass it on.

The image above is not my own. I can be found here.

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Posted in yoga class