Being Present

You’ve all surely seen the intention tree in the studio. Have you written down your intention? When I was last in the studio, I took a moment to look over the intentions written on the tree. Thinking myself quite clever, I chose, “Be Present” as my intention. Looking at the tree, I realized that my intention was not quite as unique as I had thought. ;) The intention to Be Present is the root of our practice, and one that will benefit us greatly.

Being present opens our minds to understand the world as it truly is - without superimposing our stories on the moment. When we are present in the world, we perceive without bias or prejudice. We may not always enjoy what we perceive, but this is a good thing. We will not hide from negative feelings, but rather we can accept them and take action if necessary. Being present also allows us to live in the positive moments that we sometimes miss.

When we are present, we see the beauty of the falling snow on a winter day; we hear pleasant notes in a friend’s laughter that we’ve never noticed before; we are reminded of why we fell in love with our significant other and do so all over again.

Feeling brave? Share your intentions with us! Let us know how it’s going. We love to hear from you!

David Suzuki thanks Moksha Yoga for its "Speak Your Peace" campaign!

Yogassage!

Have you heard about our Yogassage workshop on January 27th? This one is full, but we'll be hosting another one in the near future! Keep your eye out on our blog and Facebook page for the next session!

Charity Yoga January 2013

This month's Charity Yoga recipient is the Eastern Ottawa Resource Centre. Only $6! (You're welcome to donate more if you like :) )

Kid's Yoga starts soon!

Register your children for 10 weeks of Yoga classes. Beginning January 27th, on Sundays from 10- 1am - your kids (ages 5 to 12) can practice yoga in the non heated room while you practice hot yoga in the other room. Cost is $120 for 10 weeks. Share the benefits of yoga with your kids. Only 16 spots available therefore, Register now!

Moksha Posture Tip Workshop

January 19th, 2 PM - 4 PM. 
There's still time to join us!  

During this workshop we will be going over the specifics of many Moksha poses. This is a great opportunity for those of you that would like to grow your practice and understand the foundations of the poses and the reasoning behind the poses. Cost is $30 and limited spots available.

Click here to register!

Oh, those hips!

Recently, I did a Moksha yin class (my favourite class!) with Edith. Life had gotten quite busy since beginning a new program at school, so I’d been a bit out of practice. With all of the life changes, the previous few months had also been quite stressful - not in a bad way - but a lot of adjustment to new routines and and different activities (it had been a long time since I’d had to hand in essays!).

Then December came along, and while it offered a nice break, there were numerous events which made it a very emotional month for many. So, when I walked into Edith’s class I was carrying a lot of emotional baggage along with my towel and mat.

Enter the lunge, in yin “mode” - in other words a pose held for a lot longer than in a typical Moksha sequence. I’ve done this pose and other hip openers in yin classes before. We are often told that we store emotions in our hips, in particular negative emotions such as sadness, and that we shouldn’t be surprised if these emotions arise during our practice. While I’ve experienced anger during hip openers, this time was very different. About a minute in, I could feel myself welling up and soon enough, I was weeping. I hadn’t realized how much emotion I’d been holding.

At the end of class, I told Edit what had happened and she was so excited - I’ve never seen someone so excited that I cried! It was a very good release and made me eager to return to help flush out the holiday stress.