Current Yoga Class Schedule       private lessons available...........Reiki sessions now available
                                                               workshops and retreats can be scheduled upon request
                                                               have a yoga party with your friends  

Hermitage Church of the Nazarene $25 per month, $8 drop in
4151 Saundersville Road Old Hickory, TN 37138 (615) 847-3335
http://www.hermitagenazarene.org/ (no class on Memorial and Labor Day)

• Mondays 9 -10am Women's Yoga Class

Grace UMC Family Life Center $20 per month one day a week, $40 two days a week, $8 drop in
2905 North Mount Juliet Road, Mt Juliet, TN 37122
(in the Family Life Center slightly down Mt Juliet Road from the main building, between the library and High School,
four driveways down from the library)
http://www.graceumc.net (no class on Memorial and Labor Day)

• Mondays 12:45-1:45
• Wednesdays 12:45-1:45
• Mondays 6:30-7:30pm (no class April 28, instead Sun. April 27th 2-3pm)

Sports Village free for members, $10 per class for nonmembers
1735 W. Main Street Lebanon (615) 449-0031

• Tuesdays 6:30-7:30pm
• Thursdays 6:30-7:30pm
  
  

Jimmy Floyd $8 per class, $5 per class for members
511 Castle Heights Ave. N. Lebanon (615) 453-4545

• Mondays 4:00-5:00pm upstairs classrooms (no class on Memorial and Labor Day)
• Thursdays 5:10-6:10pm downstairs classrooms
  
  

YOGA TIPS

Arrive a few minutes early.
If you do arrive a few minutes late, take a breath, unravel your mat outside, and then enter as slowly and quietly as you can. Consider being prompt as a part of your practice.

Abandon the competitive mind-set.
Yoga is absolutely non-competitive. It is not just a "work out" it is not just "cross-training" it is a spiritual practice which makes the body stronger, more flexible, and generally much healthier. But the aim is to calm the mind, open the heart, and accelerate our spiritual evolution.

Keep your eyes on your own practice.
We practice from the inside-out. When you can finish your practice without knowing what the person next to you was wearing or even who else was in the room, you'll know you were truly focused.

Be kind and loving to yourself by accepting where you are.
Rest sometimes. "Do what you can, with what you have, with where you are." Remember: Wherever, whenever in our life we begin yoga is perfect. No experience or flexibility required.

Mention any pre-existing injury or special condition to the teacher at the beginning of the class

Breath We hold yoga poses, not the breath! So Breathe! Inhale and exhale through the nose when possible.

Caffeine Try to avoid caffeine at least an hour before class to aid in relaxation.

Empty Stomach Practice on an empty stomach. Wait 2 hours after a light meal or longer for heavier meals.

Clothing Wear light and comfortable clothing that does not restrict the breath or movement. Layer for warmth. Barefeet are preferred for traction and stability during standing poses. Remove wristwatches and other loose jewelry so as to not impede the wrist.

Equipment A sticky mat and other yoga props for your personal hygienic use at home and/or in class can be purchased from your instructor.

Doctor To reduce risk of injury, in your case, consult your doctor before beginning this exercise program. Please advise your teacher of any special health or physical challenges you may have. Yoga poses can be modified to fit your needs.

How often It is better to do a little everyday even if it is only one pose. Used as an effective preventive program, yoga practiced regularly can help to prevent the development of many health and functional problems commonly associated with stress and aging.

Inverted Poses are those when the head is below the heart. Practice with caution if suffering from high blood pressure, heart conditions, eye or ear problems. Stop or modify the pose if you feel compression in your neck or pressure in face, throat, or eyes.

Menstruation. Avoid inverted poses during menstruation as these interfere with the natural outflow of blood by working against gravity.

Pain If it hurts it is not yoga! When done smoothly and quietly, a stretch reveals signs of tension, stiffness, listen to it. Let the intelligence of your body work for you. Respect what it says about how far to go and how fast. Your complete awareness during yoga will clue you into that line just before pain. Impatience my allow you to push yourself past your limits but it only delays your progress and can result in injury. Physical fitness is supposed to improve your condition, not add insult to misery. There is no place for pain in yoga, "no pain, no gain" does not apply here. Tip; if you do hurt yourself, gently massage the area and stop the posture for the day. Massage a few times daily until the pain goes. Gently resume when you feel ready. If you experience a cramp, stop immediately and gently massage until the discomfort goes, then start again. Regular practice will end these occurrences.

Pregnancy Avoid extreme stretching positions (so go about half way when stretching to avoid over stretching esp. side stretches affecting the abdominal muscles and uterus tendons) and any position that puts pressure on or contracts your uterus (thus avoid lying on the stomach, instead stay on your hands and knees). Maintain that abdominal space by moving the legs out the way when bending forward or twisting gently. After the 20th week, avoid lying on your back for more than a few moments as blood flow to the baby can be hindered; instead elevate the torso with blankets.

Rest There is one rule to follow regarding rest; if we need a rest, we take one.

Twists always twist to the right first to insure good digestion.

Yoga means unity or to unify and to make whole. Hatha yoga is the process of bringing the body and the mind together, in unification and making one whole in body, mind, and spirit.

Namaste' "the light in me bows to the light in you"

Benefits of Yoga:
Reduces stress, anxiety, and muscle tension.
Builds bones and lubricates joints.
Increases strength, stamina, and flexibility.
Helps weight loss with improved circulation and digestion.
Improves concentration, balance, and posture.
Helps relive insomnia, headaches, backache, and asthma.

Who can do Yoga? Yoga is extremely beneficial for anyone of any age. Whether you are flexible or not, yoga poses can be adopted to fit your abilities and needs. Please let me know before class of any physical problems or injuries that you may have. The most important thing for everyone to remember is if it hurts, stop! We do yoga to leave class feeling better than when we came into class. So please enjoy yourself and do as much as you and your body are comfortable with.
Yoga means "to join" or "unite" it signifies the union of the mind, body, and spirit as one whole working within the universe. We do breathing exercises to quiet the mind and lower blood pressure while moving into poses to strengthen muscles and increase flexibility. I like to think of it as a way to wring out life's daily tension and stress.

Below is infromation found on Erich Schiffmann's webiste www.movingintostillness.com

Yoga is a sophisticated system for achieving radiant physical health, superb mental clarity and therefore peace of mind, as well as spiritual insight, knowledge edge, and understanding. It is a complete system for total psychosomatic spiritual health. It's a way of learning to live in happy harmony with life. And, as with a cat stretching as it awakens, yoga wakes you up - gently - and makes you feel wonderful. The more yoga you do, the more awake you will become, both literally and figuratively, and it feels wonderful while you are doing it.

Using the pose both as a map and tool, you deliberately explore yourself, looking for tight, sore, or painful areas within yourself. You look for them so you can erase them. You then gently stretch them, press and squeeze them, breathe into them, relax and release them, and thereby ease away the tension and open the contracted area. This allows new energy to flush through you, nourishing undernourished areas, soothing chronic pain, and improving energy flow throughout the whole of you - revitalizing you. You can actually increase your vitality and improve your experience of you. This is done slowly, carefully, with sensitivity and feeling - enjoying what you are doing. You creatively and intuitively make subtle internal adjustments in the poses as you deliberately search for even the smallest knots of tension. This is not an attack against yourself, remember, and it should not feel like one. It's a loving gesture.
This is like going through your garden and pulling out the weeds. If you do this daily, eventually you'll have only baby weeds, and your work will be considerably easier. When you are really weed free, the poses will feel clean, and there will be the experience of free flowing, unobstructed energy.
Like the yawn, the early morning stretch, the neck roll and massage, yoga feels wonderful. And why not? You're releasing tension, relieving pain, and improving proving energy flow. It's liberating, energizing, healing. It's exhilarating. As you move inward and take care of every part of yourself, as you sweep through your energy field and ease away the pain - pulling out the weeds, creating more space and comfort, flooding yourself with new life - you'll not only realize you are taking superb care of yourself, that you are undergoing a deep cleansing and healing, and that you are truly making yourself more radiant, but your outlook on life is changing. You'll find yourself being different, and as a consequence, you'll understand the world and everyone in it differently, too.
More importantly, though, you'll realize you are not becoming different ... you're becoming who you've always been. You're consciously "becoming" the genuine, authentic You - the You that is the Son or Daughter of God, the Father Mother. This is radical! It's not just "feeling good" - and it's not just physical.

Actually, yoga is more studied than simple stretching. It's slower, more deliberate and conscious. It does not have the same random exuberance as an early morning yawn and stretch, for the most part. Yet it feels better! Sometimes you will press firmly as you stretch, other times you'll stretch with less intensity and be soft. Your intent will change and flow according to the need. Sometimes you will stay on one specific spot, remaining motionless, letting the stretch penetrate; other times you will work the area more generally. Yoga has many moods. One is not better than another.
The idea is to be increasingly sensitive, appropriate in the moment, so that each moment of practice feels perfect, alluring, desirable - and then to be as wholehearted as possible. The more yoga you do, the easier this will be, and the better you'll get at doing it. Getting "better" at yoga is not only a matter of becoming stronger and more flexible, of becoming more proficient in the poses, but of getting better at finding the specific alignment in each pose - moment by moment by moment - that feels perfect to you, and of wholeheartedly immersing yourself in the experience. The ability to immerse yourself in your conscious experience of the poses and meditations, to be more and more fully present in the Now, is what will cause this awareness to infiltrate naturally into the rest of your life. This, of course, is what it's all about.
Your breathing is the key. Breathing brings the poses to life. It's what animates the stretches and gives yoga its fluidity and flow. As you immerse yourself in the flowing rise-and-fall rhythm of your breathing, you'll begin to sense that really there is only one breath; even an hour of yoga is just one long continuous stream of breath flowing in and out. The idea, the training, is to make your awareness as continuous as the breath. You do this by staying with the breath continuously, breathing consciously. Therefore, pay attention to your breathing; listen to it, feel it, taste it, savor and enjoy it. This flowing awareness of unbroken continuity will bring an integrated and increasingly meaningful sense to your practice.
What makes asana practice especially interesting, however, is the fact that you are working with an energy field - your energy field. You are not just stretching and squeezing muscles, bones, skin, and tissues - simply being therapeutic. You are changing your energy pattern, the way your energy flows. The pattern is expressed in your muscles and tissues, and this is where you'll feel the changes taking place, but what you're changing is the underlying pattern. Consistent asana and meditation practice will improve the way your energy flows, and this will change the way you experience yourself - transforming the way you perceive and relate to the world.
The various asanas and meditations have proven themselves to be especially effective at relaxing tense, painful areas of your body and in strengthening weak areas. They have powerful therapeutic value in dealing with physical and psyche logical problems. They improve circulation and glandular function. They retard aging. They increase the strength, stamina, and flexibility you need for other activities. They increase your sensitivity. They enhance your looks, your posture, your skin and muscle tone. You'll find it easier to sit comfortably in meditation and remain attuned to the creative life force energy within you. The practice of yoga will help bring a welcome, renewed vitality to your life. You will feel more alive as you allow the creative life force to flow through you unobstructed. This feels good.
Learning yoga will often feel as though you are learning something you already know how to do. This is not surprising since we are all familiar with the wonderful feeling of stretching and yawning after a restful sleep and of spontaneously taking a deep breath in clean mountain air. Yoga is a way of consciously bringing these natural surges into daily life. The joy and refreshment of a deep, full breath in combination with the exhilaration of a deep, strong stretch is rejuvenating. To deepen your breath is literally to inspire yourself, and to stretch, expand, and allow greater openness in your energy field is to experience, acknowledge, and embrace a bigger sense of who you are. As you embrace the fullness of yourself without inhibition or apology, you will be able more fully to participate in the world in a constructive and meaningful way.
Be happy you know how to practice. The practice will make you happy.

Yoga is a Sanskrit word that means "yoke," and yoke means "union" and "joining." This is a reference to our ever-existing connection with the creative God Force. Yoga as a practice is about making this personal connection a conscious feeling-reality fact. Allowing yourself to then be guided by this inner feeling-reality is the source of right action. Yoga, then, is about cultivating the consciousness of your personal connection with the All and of living your daily life with this awareness.
The interesting thing about the word yoga, however, is that union and joining do not mean the same thing. Union means oneness, wholeness, not separated or divided, indivisible. Joining means coming together, implying the formation of a union from a previous condition of separation. The implication here is that people who at one time felt separated, abandoned and alone, like strangers in a strange and hostile land, now feel connected, in harmony, safe and whole because of yoga. Yoga changes the way you feel, the way you look at things, and the way you interpret what's going on.
Yoga, therefore, is a simple statement of a previously unrecognized but, nevertheless, already-existing union between each of us and all of nature and the universe. We are all a part of the Oneness, creations of a common Creator and parts of the same whole. We were never not a part of the whole, never at odds with the universe, and contrary to appearances, there are no enemies. Therefore, we need not fear each other. We are the Universal Family born of the Father-Motherhood of God. This is what is meant by union.
Yoga is also a process by which you become aware of this ever-existing union. This is what is meant by joining.
This distinction is important because being "joined" and knowing you are joined is a different experiential reality from being joined and not knowing it. Being a part of All That Is but not knowing or feeling it is tantamount to not being joined.

You are already in union with the whole of creation, and you always have been. There is nothing you need to do in order to establish your personal connection. It is already so. But you may not have been aware of this. Not being aware of your ever-existing connection with the creative God Force--ignorance is the root of fear.
"Joining," therefore, can only be meaningful to a mind that perceives itself as separate. Since you are already joined and have always been an integral part of the whole, and have never been separate except in your imagination, then really there is no such thing as joining. No actual joining ever takes place. There is no need. There are no separate parts. But, insofar as you feel separate, there is a tremendous need. Joining, then, is nothing more, or less, than the clear recognition that you have never been apart.
The teachings of yoga, then, are designed to awaken you to the happy truth of your real identity. With this comes the release from fear and the subsequent inner relaxation that accompanies fearlessness.
This is interesting because you retain a sense of individuality, free will and "separateness." But you now operate with the knowledge that you are connected to a larger thing, like players on the same team or cells in a body, and that "you" as an individual are an expression of that larger thing. There is no "you" apart from It. You are It in specific expression. Yoga, therefore, encourages a sense of "joining with" which results in an awareness of the already-existing "union." When that happens you relax inside and start feeling good. You feel different about who you are--better.

Q: Are you saying that God is within us, and that yoga is a way of helping us discover that relationship?
Yes. But it is more accurate to say that you are in God rather than God is in you.
As you become aware of God "in" you, you will naturally become aware of God in others. A religious life, then, involves nothing more, or less, than relating to the God in everyone and in following Spirit's guidance without hesitation. In this sense there is nothing but One Being experiencing Itself through everything created.

Q: Where does meditation fit into yoga?
Meditation is the heart of yoga, and doing the physical yoga makes it easier to meditate. This was one of my initial motivations for getting involved with the hatha side of yoga. I wanted to be comfortable sitting in Lotus so I could meditate. So I did the exercises. What I learned, however, was that doing the physical yoga is not only preparation for meditation, it is an extremely interesting meditation in itself.
Q: What, in your view, is meditation?
Meditation is the "listening" mind--the listening-to-Infinite-Mind-mind. And yoga is a way of learning to be in meditation all day long. In other words, listening inwardly with a quiet mind as many moments of the day as you can for the guidance and wisdom of Infinite Mind, God.
The way to listen inwardly for guidance from Infinite Mind is by being attentive to your deepest impulses about what to say or think or do or be. This, again, is like a wave seeking guidance from the ocean, as though the ocean were something other than itself, and then diving deeply into itself in order to feel out the answer. The wave "diving into itself," however, is the same as the wave diving into the ocean, for the wave is the ocean in specific expression. The wisdom and guidance that comes from Infinite Mind, then, will be experienced by you as your deepest impulses to do or be. It's a matter of being still enough mentally so they can rise from the ocean's depths--your depths, the depths of Being--and float into your conscious awareness.
The practice of yoga, therefore, is the practice of meditation--inner listening--both in the poses and meditations, as well as all day long. It's a matter of listening inwardly all the time, and then daring enough, and trusting enough, to do as you are prompted to do. Meditation, therefore, is many things, not merely sitting straight in Lotus. Primarily, it's a way of coming upon the truth of who you are by experiencing what you are: you practice not thinking long enough to feel the energy you are made of. This puts you in touch with the natural joy of Being and the actuality of conscious communion with Spirit. You'll find yourself becoming more intuitive, effortlessly. And then it's a matter of listening on the run, of voluntarily allowing yourself to be guided by the Infinite as you live your life and do what you do.
For me, meditation in action--that is, in the midst of daily life--always involves the realization that this moment, right now, is absolutely worthy of my fullest attention. This means that "here" is where I am supposed to be, and that "this" is what I am supposed to be doing, and that "you" are who I am supposed to be with. It always feels as though the whole world is right now and that this moment is the only time there is--as though this room were the stage of the entire universe, the only stage, and you and I the only people in the universe. This can happen when you are sitting alone, listening to music, talking, painting, writing, making love, walking in nature.., anything wherein you experience the joy of being you.
Meditation is a way of opening yourself to the intimations of the universe that flow through you constantly. It is the means whereby you exchange your previously small definition or sense of self for that of an individualized expression of the Infinite. Meditation helps you realize that you are a spiritual personality essence and that your mind is part of Mind. And in the stillness of your quiet mind you'll learn to use your mind in a new and expanded way. Having a mind is like having a library card. With your library card you have instant access to all knowledge within the library.
Meditation, therefore, is not something you do for half an hour a day and then forget about. It becomes your total way of being. It is constant, all day long.