Leighanne's Current Yoga Class Schedule       private lessons available...........usually $60 per one hour session
                                                               workshops and retreats can be scheduled upon request
                                                               have a yoga party with your friends  

Lebanon, TN Yoga Classes

Home Studio$15 per class or $10/class when you pay for the whole month.(limited to 5 students per class)
located 1mile east of the fairgrounds in Lebanon, TN ..........email, call or text 788-9731 to register
1830 Bluebird Road, Lebanon, TN 37087

• Wednesdays 1:30-2:30 Gentle Yoga
• Private classes for 1-5 students $50/hour

Sports Village free for members, Members only
1735 W. Main Street, Lebanon, TN 37087 (615) 449-0031

• Tuesdays 6:30-7:30pm
• Wednesdays 9-10am
• Thursdays 6:30-7:30pm
  

Jimmy Floyd non members pay the daily fee of $6 or $3 age 55+, free for members
511 Castle Heights Ave. N. Lebanon (615) 453-4545 in the upstairs classroom next to the track

• Fridays 11:20 Gentle Yoga slow and stretchy standing and seated chair yoga poses
• Fridays. 12-12:30pm Power Lunch Yoga an energetic practice to build strength, endurance and flexibility.

Cumberland University free for students, classes in Baird Chapel

• Wednesdays 12-1pm Jan 18-May 2 ---------(No class Mar 7)

Elmcroft Sr. Living Community free for residents

• Wednesdays Chair Yoga

Mt Juliet, TN Yoga Classes

Grace UMC Family Life Center
$25 per month one day a week, $8 drop in
Corner of North Mount Juliet Road and Timber Trail, Mt Juliet, TN 37122
(in the Family Life Center slightly down Mt Juliet Road from the main building, between the library and Sonic,four driveways down from the library, at the top of the hill)
www.graceumc.net (no class on Memorial and Labor Day)

• Mondays 10:45 -11:45 am
• Mondays 6:30-7:30 pm

Diamond Academy of Dance $15 per class or $10/class when you pay for the whole month.
Providence Commons (Publix Shopping Center) 639 S. Mt. Juliet Road, Mt. Juliet, TN 37122

• Tuesday 11:00 - 12:00pm Gentle Yoga slow and stretchy leaving you loose and relaxed. all levels.
• Tuesdays 12:10-1:10 pm Flow Yoga links movement and breath to improve endurance and flexibility.

Rutland Place Senior Community free for residents and guest

• Tuesdays 1:30-2pm Chair Yoga

Hermitage, TN Yoga Classes

Summit Hospital $10 per class or $8/class when you sign up for the whole month
Enter the lobby with the flag poles and follow the signs to the education center.Past the elevators, first left, then right. Usually in classroom D.

• Wednesdays 5:15 - 6:15pm

Old Hickory, TN Yoga Classes

Old Hickory Country Club $10 per class (nonmembers welcome)
1904 Hadley Avenue, Old Hickory, TN 37138 (no class on Memorial and Labor Day, July 4th)

• Mondays 7:45 - 8:45 am
• Mondays 9:00 - 10:00 am Chair Yoga

visit my amazon store to purchase yoga mats, books, blocks, straps, music and DVDs

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. The aim is to calm the mind, open the heart and body.

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. Also twist more gently.

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 may 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 information 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, 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 energy flow. It's liberating, energizing, and 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.