Karoun Yoga Studio Blog

Last week I received a phone call from a person interested in yoga. He informed me, "Well, I've been in Springfield for a while now, and have been thinking about moving out, perhaps to Amherst or Northampton. The other day I saw your yoga studio sign and I thought, gee, maybe Springfield IS changing. Maybe I'm supposed to stay in Springfield and give it a shot."

Sunday morning was an early one for me -- by 6:30am I was in Lowell helping my sister prepare for the Baystate Marathon. She has run many marathons before, but this one was different -- it was close to freezing with a chance of snow and she hates the cold. As a yoga instructor, it was interesting to watch her mind tricking her into thinking she couldn't do it (the prior 36 hours filled with nauseau and insomnia). After months of training her body, it was time to train her mind.

We live in a world of energy, the gas that gets us to and from work, the electric current running through our houses,but what about the electric current that runs through our body?

There exists a type of yoga called laughter yoga, believe it or not. The reason this works, is that laughter is actually a form of release. Laughter can be just as healing, and just as stimulating as yoga poses. If you're working through a challenging pose and fall out -- laugh! This could be as much of a benefit as getting into the challenging pose itself.

Over the weekend I was visiting Manhattan. While Manhattan is somewhat of a yoga destination spot, I was surprised to discover that what we have here in Springfield is not very common out there in the big city. What seemed to be lacking was a sense of community.

I was at the Mattoon St. Arts Festival over the weekend. What beauty everywhere!

When people first meet me, often they emphatically inform me, "I can't do yoga!" I get a kick out of it - they think they are supposed to walk into their first class as expert yogis!

A recent study showed that slow yogic breathing (pranayama) had an immediate effect on blood pressure and heart rate (pulse). Both systolic (the "top" number) and diastolic ("bottom" number) blood pressures decreased significantly after only 5 minutes of pranayama breathing. The scientists also showed that the pranayama breathing practices works with a certain part of the nervous system to bring blood pressure and heart rate to lower, more relaxed levels.

Namaste, "The light within me salutes the light within you" is a traditional yoga closing. Easy to say when feeling warm and fuzzy at the end of a yoga class. But actually, Namaste means we salute the light of not just our yoga classmates, but the light of everyone in our lives. Yes, this means business competitors, in-laws, exes... And it's not just about saluting a person, it's about finding and seeing their light, and then saluting that aspect about them.

I taught my first yoga class for kids last week. The class was complete with animal noises (mooing and meowing through cat and cow and ruff-ruffing in downward dog), for my 6 year-old niece and 3 year-old nephew.

Do we have space in our daily lives? We are all so busy yet we add more to our schedules. Our closets are full, and we still go shopping. Our minds are full, and bombarded with information. Sitting for hours and walking (wrong shoes?) crunches the spine and tightens the hips.

Saturday morning at Yoga in the Park, in preparation for balancing tree pose, we gathered around one majestic tree. First, we admired the tree's roots. These roots, a foot wide, extended away from the trunk tens of feet, to unknown depths underground. Wow, what grounding! We too can embody this sense of grounding, down through the standing leg in tree pose, or even simply walking, connecting into earth energy.