Galfromdownunder Yoga

SIGN UP for this workshop here or if you can't abide Facebook, here . Caught mid Warrior II on Arizona Desert Camp 2010, where I taught a daily Yoga for Cyclists class.   See a shot clip . By cyclists, for cyclists ... I'm going to be doing a workshop in January in collaboration with Pilates teacher and cyclist Karin Fantus. For the yogaphobic and pilates-curious, it's a little back-to-back intro for newbies that demonstrates flexibility techniques (yoga), resistence techniques (pilates) and core strength (both). Karin Fantus with a client in her pilates studio Details below. It's sponsored by the New York Cycle Club, which is always coming up with fun and interesting ideas for its members - the last one was a group visit to the Bespoke Handmade Bicycles Show at MAD. You can sign up on my Facebook Event page , which will simply help organize responses and let you post questions and comments ... or, if you can't access that for some reason, there...

For those who've never experienced a Kirtan (call and response) chant beyond encountering a bunch of Hari Krishnas in the street, here's a little sampler.  I recorded this during one of the Sivananda Vedanta NYC's 8pm Wednesday Satsangs, comprising half hour meditation, half hour chanting, half hour lecture. Yes, you will indeed hear Hare Krishna sung, but you are far from being "converted" against your will. Rather, the chanting is infectious, and wonderful way to free that inner singing voice that unites us all. Have a listen, rock yourself along to one of the Satsangs, and see you at my Tuesday yoga class, where we do just a little of this to get things going! I wrote about some of my chanting and meditation excursions a while ago, including Sivananda.

Is my face red ... SPINNING instructor Anthony Musemici says you don't need a long and winding road to get a pretty decent hill, interval, sprint, and endurance training  on a bike. ... now add a bit of yoga to the mix and what do you get? SpinYoga! A perfectly Peaceful Warrior pose at the free  Chelsea Piers "Yoga On the Pier" classes, Aug 2010. I just completed a 9 hour Spinning Instructor Orientation at New York Sports Clubs. Now, what is a seasoned cyclist like the Galfromdownunder doing riding a bike that doesn't go anywhere? As one participant confessed in the pre-course stairwell speeches ('cos you get fitter riding the stairs than the elevator): "I was a bit cynical about it all until I tried it." Ah yes, one winter in NYC where biking through a bunch of snow isn't appealing, and I discovered, thanks to a two-month intro membership at the Equinox gym down the road and some guest passes from the stunning Chelsea Piers across the r...

Photos by the Galfromdownunder - mid downdog!  Is yoga better outdoors or indoors? Beach or park? Ashram or gym? I've generally preferred indoors, finding the outdoors a bit of a distraction.  But think of the advantages: better dissipation of neighboring sweat, no one bumping into you, and the chance to gaze up at the sky and watch clouds in that boundless blue sky slide by - something we rarely do when we become "grownups" grafted to swivel chairs and tempurpedic mattresses. Last Thursday, lying flat on my back on Pier 64 with a piece of foam between me and the concrete, I felt strangely exhilarated. The occasion? The free every-other-Thursday yoga class offered by Chelsea Piers Fitness Center, the massive complex just over yonder. And yes, it really is on Pier 64. Hint: to locate the cross street, subtract 40 from the Pier number and you get 24th Street. The instructor, Paolo, was possessed of a delightful South African/British/Spanish something else accen...

At the risk of being pacifistically (is that a word?) incorrect, I discovered a really good stretch I hadn't come across in my training or any classes to date, which I've called the "Charlie's Angel Stretch". The term "Charlie's Angels Hands" refers to the hands clasped with forefingers pointed like a ... gun. I got that  nugget from my teacher trainer and anatomy nurse,  Joschi Schwarz . It's a tremendous stretch involving several muscle groups. But which? Over to Joschi ... Congrats! I hope you're having a lot of fun teaching! Answer to your question is: obliques quadratus lumborum (smaller muscle in the lower back),  latissimus dorsi (because arms are over your head) rhomboid (shoulderblades are pulled away from each other), and pretty good for the  erector spinae infraspinatus teres major and minor.  Gluteus medius I guess plays more of an activator here. Great pose to create space for the hips (lumbosacral fasci...

My Booma! Yoga is now being re-monikered to Easy Yoga. Yep, rather than "say it straight, then say it great" I'm going for "say it straight, then say it straighter." I discovered last night that newbies and seniors are pretty close in their requirements ... Apparently Doris, the Chelsea Parks and Rec mover and shaker, had spent the week strong-arming everyone able to bend at the waist to come to my class. Bless her. I arrived to find the room already full, including the four kidz who stumbled in last week. Most had never done yoga;  a handful had done "this much" - picture a raised thumb and forefinger pressed together. Ages ranged from around 20, to an 83 year young gal who was game to try everything. After teaching them a short dog and a simplified Vinyasa involving a short dog and a rock back to child's pose, the room was visibly sweating - who needs hot yoga? "Never thought yoga was so hard!" cried a really athletic look...

My mother loves to send along intriguing things ... in this case, a clipping from the newspaper of yogis in India: Last time she greeted me at the airport with an for poledancing . While you can practice and practice and get more flexible, the kind of hyperflexibility in this photo is largely genetic. I've never been able to easily do back bends - Joschi told me that small people with small bones can experience a lack of room between vertebrae to enable the spine to bend - it's all a bit tight. But keeping these images in mind does give you something to aim for and who knows? See you Tuesday 6-7pm 5th Floor at the Chelsea Rec Center!

Do these look like 50+ boomers to you? Nope. My Booma! Yoga class is getting off to a slow start at the Chelsea Parks and Rec Center - and today's monsoon-like rain didn't help. Meanwhile downstairs, the aerobics class was packed and in full swing. What gives? I suspect it is partly little flyer the center prepared. * The time slot is 6-7pm, which  suits me and younger folk, but not seniors. * The poster says 50+, which suits seniors, but not younger folk. So it's keeping both groups away. I'm going to ask them if they can tweak it to ... BOOMA! 50+ YOGA All ages welcome No wait, let's K.I.S.S. that goodbye and make it EASY YOGA. Because it's a class that will suit newbies AND seniors. I waited a while, not really minding that no-one was turning up - I am offering my time as a service, and the commitment to do so is as much a part of my contribution as teaching the class itself. Besides I can always catch up on some Barackberrying. Enter...

It's the end of the first week of my post-Bike Friday life, and I yet I still find myself subconsciously doing things one could call "work related". Since May is National Bike Month, I came up with the idea of giving the seniors at the Hudson Guild - where I volunteer teach yoga - a little thrill by riding it around their lunchroom. "Great idea!" said Yehudit Moch, the activities director, tasked with the tireless work of coming up with programs to keep seniors active and engaged. "Let's called it Folding Bike Fun, and do it at 12.45pm, towards the end of lunch, before they disperse." For disperse they do - the attention span is short, and hearing and vision loss doesn't help. The night before the demo I had this last minute idea to invite some local senior cycling friends to the show. Four names came immediately to mind: Tod Moore (72), a bicycle tour guide who rides every year in France; Jesse Brown (70), former president of the lo...

Tuesday has become my day of double yoga volunteering. Chelsea Recreation Center Today I taught my first BOOMA! Yoga class at the Chelsea Recreation Center, 6-7pm. BOOMA! is what I wanted to call it, for want of a less ageist word than "senior" or "50+". But when I arrived at the center,  sure enough, a flyer stuck above the counter simply said "Senior Yoga Tuesday 6pm". The staff told me it was a bit of an oversight and they'd try and correct it.  Two woman who'd spotted the flyers came looking for my class - one from the Dominican Republic and the other from Mexico. Que bueno! Yet another opportunity para practicar mi Espanol! The 5th floor art room is a nice space for yoga - one of those rooms with smooth blond wood floors. If I narrow my eyes I might almost hallucinate I'm in the sumptuous studios at Equinox, where the membership is 20 times more expensive, and if you can afford it, you love it. But this is the "everysoul...

I'm now teaching yoga Tuesdays 6-7pm, starting May 4, Chelsea Rec Center, 25th and 9th NYC. Best thing ... it's free to members, and membership is a recession suppression super deal - $75/year, $10/year for seniors - pools, access to all sister centers etc. I was asked if I would teach a senior class, since their needs are underserved a world where we worship the youth we all lose ... Since I already teach at Hudson Guild Senior Center, I'm aiming this class at Fit 50+.  And I've called it BOOMA! YOGA to be less ageist. (f-o-g-i-s did cross my mind but I'll wait til I'm 50 before I dare float that one). So don't expect any serious pretzel moves, but feel perfectly free to upstage me, as Colin Freestone, one of my customers, is doing in this picture. Colin's a long time yogi who offers yoga to cyclists on the trips he leads to Indonesia . So yes! Cyclists welcome - in which case bring on the pretzels or you might find yourself looking like ...

Namaste! Today I received 6 yoga blocks and 6 blankets thanks to the kind donation by Bike Friday Customer Glenn Martin  (pictured mid-Vasisthasana on Arizona Camp 2010 ) and a kind price break by YogaDirect.com. (As I said in my last yoga post, the ex-studio mats were donated by Laughing Lotus and my training was by Joschi Yoga Institute). It's gratifying to know that a dot com with a word like "direct" in it still has some human intervention to do special things for special people. Thank you Yoga Direct. The special people I'm referring to are the seniors at the Hudson Guild Community Center where I am volunteering a weekly yoga class. So far I've done 2 classes. Abilities range from belly dancers to someone in a wheelchair. It's really making me think about what really works for different bodily limitations. A lady with problematic feet could n ot do Downdog. We did Navasana (boat poses) instead - like a Down Dog upside down - no pressure on her feet a...

"Lynette, tell them about your yoga class. LYNETTE'S GOING TO TELL YOU ABOUT YOGA!" Yehudit is gathering people around one of the giant round tables in the cavernous community dining room. Some people aren't moving, so I won't get their attention. Most are already walking out the door. There's at least two generations of a Chinese family with a translator in front of me. Someone asks if I can speak Spanish. "Sufficiente para sobrevivir," I answer. I start to describe some simple movements and talk about Ujayi or "Darth Vadar" breathing. "Slower," says Yehudit as we raise our arms above our heads. I announce that we will be doing standing yoga in my class. I catch a glimpse of a Chinese gentleman in a wheelchair just as Yehudit says, "what about people who can't stand?" "We'll be doing sitting postures as well," I say. Thus began my induction to volunteering yoga at the Hudson Guild Se...

As you can see I'm hard at work, and practicing my yoga routine  ... (Photos below from the YogaJournal.com site) This picture was taken during my recent, oh-so-brief 5-day stay in the Bahamas, thanks to Bike Friday customer Hilge Hurford for generously inviting me to her timeshare.   My take on the Bahamas . I got caught up on plenty of reading, including fully digesting the current issue (as opposed to being 3 issues behind) of Yoga Journal, a nice, tight publication with a very long history.  I've been doing regular practice ever since putting my back out in November  at the end of my Japan trip, and it's really paid off. After some emergency chiropractic, then letting the pain subside, I went to a yoga class after 3 weeks and was amazed that 75% of the pain and stiffness had disappeared by the end of the class. Wow! Sacro-iliac joint pain is so utterly common, than when it hits we seriously worry if we've done something drastic. It just needs some rest ...