Elise ( Weezy to most ) started practicing yoga with her mother many many years ago. Since then she has been fortunate to practice and study with some remarkable teachers. Elise is honored to be teaching at Laughing River Yoga.
Deb fell in love with yoga in a pre-natal class 15 years ago and began practicing regularly soon after. While she has always engaged in various forms of exercise, it was immediately apparent that yoga offered an opportunity to work with mind, body, breath and energy all in one powerful package and that the benefits were enormous. Deb completed the Vajra Yoga Teacher Training Program led by Jill Satterfield and Emily Garrett which was a perfect fit due to its emphasis on mindfulness, alignment, breath and deep embodiment of the poses. For Deb, yoga is an opportunity to connect to one’s true experience on physical, emotional, intellectual and energetic planes, and in doing so, experience a sense of home-coming and integration. It is also strengthening, energizing, relaxing and fun! In teaching, Deb aspires to create a space that allows participants to engage in yoga in a safe, compassionate and individual way. As Matthew Sanford, a master yoga teacher and paraplegic, says: “Yoga can move through any body.” Deb enjoys helping anyone who wants to experience yoga to try it, and as a result, is excited to be teaching her first “beginners” class at Laughing River.
Deb has additional training in therapeutic yoga, including completing a trauma-sensitive yoga certification program at the Trauma Center directed by Bessel van der Kolk, a renowned trauma expert. She offers trauma-sensitive yoga classes at the Vermont Center for Yoga and Therapy, as well as private sessions related to trauma or other personal or therapeutic needs (e.g., infertility). Deb plans to offer more Yoga and Writing: Exploring the Gifts of Two Practices workshops at Laughing River and would love to explore an on-going class for students interested in both practices. To learn more about Deb and various services, classes or workshops, visit her website at www.yogatherapyvt.com or www.vtcyt.com.
These photos were taken by Tim Rushford from the Champlain Mill, facing Laughing River Yoga (and the Chace Mill), after Hurricane Irene (August 28, 2011). Click here to learn more about how you can help Vermont flood victims.
Yoga Trance Dance
A High-Energy Movement Meditation to Liberate Your Creative Life Force
with Jane Jarecki Lanza
5:45-7 pm
You begin with creative flow yoga, move into the depths of ecstatic dance, and complete your session with moving meditation and chant.
If you’ve been looking for a dynamic new way to enhance your range of motion, break through physical and energetic blockages, boost cardiovascular strength, and create a more positive relationship with your body, here’s the perfect class for you, Yoga Trance Dance!”
Yoga for Living , Yoga Philosophy
Prepare for Fall and Winter with Ayurveda (recipe included)
“When nourishment is pure, reflection and higher understanding are pure, memory becomes strong. When memory becomes strong, there is release from all the knots of the heart.”
-Chandogya Upanishad, I. vii.
As we transition from long summer days into Fall, where the days are shorter, darker, and colder, we turn to the sister science of yoga, Ayurveda, for support. Ayurveda believes that man is a part of nature and thus affected by changes in nature and season. Ayurveda believes we must focus on balance during these times of atmospheric transition that can lead to imbalance in our own bodies (physical, mental, subtle).
For a smooth transition from summer into fall, mimic nature and move from cool foods and fast days into slow warm foods . Summer is knows as a PITTA season in Ayurveda for it’s combination of fire and water. Fall is a VATA time, characterized by wind, when there is rapid change, lightness, cold, and dry air in the atmosphere.
It’s important we take time to eat slow cooked foods during fall to avoid picking up scattered energy and to stay warm and calm. Avoid foods that are light, cold, clear, bitter, and dry.
As the leaves explode in fiery color around us and fall to the earth to form a blanket, so too we move from the heat of summer into a cooler, quieter phase. While the leaves are changing, Ayurveda suggests you eat apples and pears- their astringicy and soft fiber help clear the bowels of excess heat. As the weather becomes cooler, start to cook these foods and serve them warm, to encourage the body’s heat. Kale is also recommended cooked warm, soups and stews, along with harvest foods full of protein and healthy oils like nuts, seeds, and whole grains.
By slowing down how we eat and how we move, heading from summer into fall and winter, we give ourselves the necessary opportunity to slow down, reflect, and cultivate our own life force.
Read more about Ayurveda in the fall | Read more about VATA Dosha.
Try this recipe from JOYFUL BELLY to nourish and enjoy yourself:
Ayurvedic notes:
Mushrooms are tamasic and asparagus will effect the odor of the urine. Black pepper helps make the almonds more digestible.
Pureed with almonds, cream of asparagus soup is rich, creamy, and dreamy for the coming colder months.
Ingredients
| 1/4 c | Yellow Onion |  |
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| 1 clove | Garlic | |
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| 1/4 tsp | Salt (Mineral Salt) | |
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| 1/4 tsp | Black Pepper | |
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| 2 tbsp | Butter (unsalted) | |
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| 1 c | Almonds | |
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| 2 tsp | Thyme (fresh) | |
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| 1/2 c | Mushrooms |  |
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| 2 c | Asparagus | |
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Preparation:
Sautee asparagus, garlic and finely chopped onions in one tbsp of butter until browned. Remove and set aside. Meanwhile, thinly slice mushrooms. Spread them apart in the pan and brown in the remaining tbsp of butter. Mushrooms have a high water content. They will steam instead of brown if too close together in the pan.
Blend asapargus with blanched almonds in 1c water, salt, pepper, and thyme. Continue adding water whenever consistency becomes too thick for blending. A thicker consistency helps the almonds grind more smoothly without chunks. Pour into pot. Add water to desired consistency and simmer for twenty minutes. Serve. ENJOY!
Moving the Mind: The Body as Vehicle for Transforming Emotions Saturday October 1, 1-5 pm, $60
It’s not in our cultural vocabulary yet, to practice moving energy, mind or consciousness around in the physical body – but it is steeped in yogic tradition, very accessible and empowering to all. Moving the mind is an experiential not wholly conceptual practice. The applications are as limitless as the capacity of the mind itself and as healing as the heart is boundless.
The Body as Home: The Mind, Body and Heart Relationship Sunday October 2, 9 am-12 pm, $45
We can live in our body without really knowing it – we can take it for granted until it becomes sick or injured. But why not radically accept it by taking care of it and opening the lines of communication between our bodies, heart and mind? We can experience our body as our home and begin to liberate the illusion of separateness of heart, mind and body. Being curious about and intimately knowing our physical and emotional body is a way to feel at home everywhere, to embrace our humanity, to be more engaged and live with more ease.
Both workshops for $95. Contact Emily to register.
About Jill: Jill Satterfield is the founder of Vajra Yoga & Meditation, a synthesis of yoga and Buddhism that combines meditation, yoga asanas, visualization and contemplation practices. She is also the Founder and Director of the School for Compassionate Action: Yoga & Meditation for Communities in Need, a not for profit that trains teachers to offer yoga, meditation and emotional support to at-risk youth, people suffering with chronic pain and illnesses, PTSD, and addictions.
Jill turned to yoga 30 years ago in an effort to heal from a debilitating physical condition coupled with acute chronic pain. In 1992, she extended her exploration of the integral relationship of the mind and body through the study of Buddhism. Through combining the two disciplines – yoga and Buddhism – she healed beyond all medical prognoses.
Jill is on the faculty of Spirit Rock Meditation Centers Mindfulness for Yoga Training and the Kripalu Institute’s Integral Leadership Program for young adults. She was the scholar and teacher in residence at the Kripalu Center in 2004. She has been teaching for the past 20 + years.
Laughing River Yoga is proud to host internationally-renowned yoga instructor Simon Park, with Dj HyFi, at the studio this fall. Simon Park began his Yoga journey in 1995 with Shiva Rea in the World Arts and Cultures Department at UCLA. Fast forward to the present where he was chosen by Yoga Journal as ” one of the most influential and gifted, next generation of Yoga teachers”. Dubbed “The Flying Nomad” by Shiva, he draws inspiration from road legends such as Keith Richards and Jack Kerouac.
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Friday, November 11th, 2011: 7:30–9:30 pm: SURFING THE VINYASA WAVE, $35
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Saturday, November 12, 2011: 12-2 pm: JAI HANUMAN!, $35
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Saturday, November 12, 2011: 2:30-5:00 pm: ARTFUL ASSISTS FOR VINYASA TEACHERS, $40
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Sunday, November 13th, 2011: 9:30 am- Noon: LIQUID FLOW YOGA, $40
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We will offer a $20 discount if you sign up for the whole weekend,$130 for the Intensive.
Surfing The Vinyasa Wave – Experience the latest evolution of Prana Flow Yoga, the unique Vinyasa style of Shiva Rea. Dynamic asana, creative flows, and integrated pranayama create a moving meditation that will tune and tone you from the inside out while giving you the tools to navigate life’s changes with grace, power, and confidence. We will explore several waves of multi-dimensional sequences, fluid sun salutations, backbends, arm balances and hip opening, to understand the underlying flow of Prana.
Jai Hanuman! Inversions and Arm-Balances – Handstands and inversions are empowering mudras that embody the best qualities of Hanuman, the archetypal heroic monkey: courage, fearless flying, pranic body of power, agility and light. Learn a pathway of flows within a powerful Vinyasa Flow workshop so that you can evolve to enjoying handstand in the center of the room with creative energy and empowered vitality.
Artful Assists for Vinyasa Teachers – Designed for teachers and students, we will practice assists practical for teaching Vinyasa Yoga. A skillful touch has the power to transport your students to a whole new level of awareness. What could take you years to understand in your body a teacher can facilitate with one precise, effective, supportive assist.
Liquid Flow Yoga: Restore Your Prana – Enjoy a slowly developing, flowing sequence of postures that are restorative in nature, yet heart-opening as well. Practice in a way that creates space in the joints and spine, and calms the nervous system. The movements are similar to the way tai-chi is practiced, slow, methodical and meditative. We will fluidly work toward deep hip-openers, liberating backbends, and calming forward bends moving toward deep relaxation.
Dj Hyfi will spin ambient tunes throughout the workshop.
To register email emily@laughingriveryoga.com.
Train with Jill Satterfield at Laughing River Yoga: Vajra Yoga weekend , October 1 & 2, 2011.
A recent interview with Jill Satterfield by WG News + Arts magazine, calls Jill Satterfield a “Spiritual radical…” Read more about why here. Some portions of the interview follow below.
What is yoga and meditation? One way to look at it is as meditative movement. In other words, you’re trying to keep your mind in your body at all times, rather than allow music to make you move, or move your mind into a zone. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with music while practicing, or working up a sweat, or challenging one’s limits, but there are many ways to practice. I just offer a practice that’s not a vinyasa power flow. Just different, not better than.
Do you think the asana has become so popular because it’s tangible and easy? Well, it’s not necessarily easy, but it’s tangible for sure, and we’re a physical society, and there’s a lot of emphasis on being in tone and in shape here. And it makes us naturally feel better when we exercise. The hormones kick in, it’s great.
Does the Buddhist tradition distinguish itself from a lot of the yoga practices? Well, the Buddha practiced yoga and all the ascetic practices of his day, he was a seeker, and he followed some of the extreme practices that were thought to be paths to enlightenment. And after his enlightenment, he came up with, or he realized, what he called the Middle Way—the middle between extremes in practices or being you could say. There are some yoga practices in Buddhism, in the Tibetan tradition, but most of them are secret.
You just mentioned visualization, is that another practice? Visualizations are a fantastic practice. We have this in our own culture. Athletes visualize: a skier might visualize his/her course over and over again, and a dancer might visualize the steps to his/her dance. One might visualize one’s own goals. We visualize all sorts of things, that’s been going on forever. But some cultures have ritualized them. Tibetans, for instance, have quite an extensive offering of visualizations, and the visualizations are meant to do different things, not to keep us separate from what we’re visualizing, but to embody and embrace and live the attributes of what we’re visualizing. Visualizing was one of the key components that helped me heal. When I was on 10-day retreats, I started to visualize my gut working. I visualized the action of peristalsis over and over and over again. In my mind I was imagining that my gut would remember how to work properly, I was reminding it rather than listening to this death sentence of, they’ll never work again, you cannot retrain them, relayed by the doctors. I also visualized moving energy through my body which then became a physical sensation, so I was literally moving a sensation around in my body which was like a vibration. What I was doing was trying to vibrate tissue open or vibrate it so it would become alive again and thriving. It worked.
What are you teaching exactly? How to move energy, consciousness, mind, prana, chi—whatever you like to call it.
SEPTEMBER SPECIAL: BRING A FRIEND FOR FREE!*
Good for drop-in yoga classes through the month of September.
Laughing River is so excited about the new fall classes, teachers, series and workshops, that we want everyone to know! For fun and friendship, take advantage of this offer and bring a friend to yoga for free! (Applies to bringing new students only).*
Thanks everyone for a super fun and revitalizing weekend at the beach.
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