Tag: hatha yoga

2.5 hrs Workshop Pantanjali’s Yamas and Niyamas

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yama and niyamas

Yama and Niyamas: the non-physical benefits of Yoga

In Patanjali´s classical texts about yoga, eight parts of a yogic practice are outlined. These parts can also be referred to as “limbs”. The most widely known limb of yoga is Asana practice– the practice of physical postures. In our English Berlin Yoga Classes, we understand the value of going beyond the physical. This workshop, therefore focuses mostly on two specific limbs of Patanjali´s eight-fold path: Yamas and Niyamas.

 

Yamas and Niyamas are the first two steps of yoga that Patanjali discusses in the Yoga Sutra. They are ethical, behavioral and spiritual guidelines for living. There is a lot of room for interpretation with the Yamas and Niyamas–because of basic translation issues (some concepts are very tricky to twist into English!). These guidelines are designed for yogis to personally interrogate, observe and experience in the context of their own lives. They are given to students of yoga to contemplate and  incorporate into their everyday lives.

When:  Sunday 27th of January, 2019 14:00

Where: At The Yoga Hub Berlin, Greifswalder Str. 8, 10405 Berlin, Germany

Who is this workshop for:

Anyone who would like to be introduced to the dimension of yoga that is both beyond and essential to the physical practice. This workshop is also good (but not only) for yoga teachers wishing to refresh or deepen their knowledge.

Format of workshop:

This workshop is given in the form of a talk with ten mini self-explorative guided meditations to make the material relevant to you and your every day life.

Please note:

  • Most of the talk will focus on:
    • Patanjali and the goal of yoga
    • the Yamas and Niyamas (ethics and moral observances)
    • Pratyahara (the practice of dettachment).
  • The talk will focus very briefly on:
    • Asanas (yogic postures)
    • Pranayama (breathing techniques)
      • As these are explained in the regular Hatha Yoga classes
  • The talk will briefly introduce the goals of:
    • Dharana (concentration)
    • Dhyana (meditation)
    • Samadhi (liberation)
      • as these subjects are too big for a 2.5 hr workshop.

About the teacher:

Pinelopi teaches Berlin Yoga workshopsBackground info: Beginning her yoga journey in 1999, Pinelopi completed a 600 hour Hatha Yoga Teacher and Vedantic Philosophy Training course over a period of two years in Valencia, Spain. This training is recognized by the Berufverband de Yogalehrenden in Deutschland (BDY), World Movement of Yoga and Ayurveda and the European Yoga Federation. For the last decade, she has worked as a full-time yoga teacher in Spain and in 2010 she founded English Yoga Berlin. Currently she is deepening her knowledge through Leslie Kaminoff’s Yoga Anatomy Course and David Moore’s “Injury-free yoga” applying the Alexander Technique postural alignment to all yoga poses.

Price: 35 Euro

Early registration discount:10 € discount if you register before January 15, 2019. The workshop is refundable unless cancellation occurs later than January 13th, after which 50% refund.  Space is limited so register early before the spots fill up!

To book a place please contact:

pinelopi (at) englishyogaberlin (dot) com

 

Pinelopi specializes in Hatha Yoga. Her yoga Kreuzberg Berlin classes are open for and welcoming to beginners. She offers Berlin business yoga,  private yoga classes for people struggling with chronic pain, yoga courses and workshops.

Weekend Hatha Yoga Retreat on Softening the Heart

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Pinelopi is organizing a weekend long Hatha Yoga retreat dedicated to:

“Softening the Heart”

You are warmly invited to immerse yourselves in a weekend full of yoga, meditation, mindfulness and presence.
Hatha Yoga Retreat Berlin

Photo by Omer Salom on Unsplash

When:   Friday March 8th, 2019; 15.00 – Sunday March 10th 17.00

Where:  Rosenwaldhof  – This is a beautiful place in Brandenburg, 1.5 hours South-east of Berlin, on the river Havel, surrounded by nature.

What is included:

  • Four yoga sessions
  • Meditation instruction
  • Mindfulness walks to explore the river and nature
  • Bio vegetarian food: breakfast, lunch and dinner
  • Accommodation based on your preference

 

Prices:  Prices include all the above plus one of the following accommodation options:

  • Double room 245€
  • Single room 255€

** All bathroom facilities are shared. If you have a need for a private bathroom please inquire.

Who:

  • Up to 15 yoga students

Early registration discount:   15 € discount if you register before January 15th, 2019. To reserve your space, please send an email and deposit 50 Euro by bank transfer or paypal. *The deposit is refundable unless cancellation occurs later than 21 days before the retreat. Space is limited so register early before the spots fill up!

For more details, please write to:

pinelopi (at) englishyogaberlin (dot) com

Interview with Pinelopi – Hatha Yoga Teacher

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This interview was taken by Clelia, an Erasmus entrepreneur working as an intern in learning how to set up a small yoga business such as English Yoga Berlin.  During her stay here, she decided to interview the English Yoga Berlin teachers to find out more about their past and their pathway that lead them to yoga.

1. When was the moment that yoga became something else for you than just another experience?

interview with PinelopiThe first class I took. I was 19 years old, and mostly aware of my body through pain created by the imbalances brought about from a club foot at birth. Up to then, I would look at all physical activities more as a challenge and a “must” rather than a source of pleasure and opening. When my friend, Eve, took me to my first yoga class in Chichester, England, I experienced a form of opening of over-contracted muscles and untying knots and habits of my body that was incredible. I experienced the first “physical exercise” that brought me pleasure and made me feel capable – whilst at the same time built muscles and made me strong. When the teacher arrived to the guided relaxation, I had an incredible experience of “being” which was in stark contrast to my overwhelming “doing” mode. At that moment I knew that this was not just another experience, like a zumba class would have been for me, but a path for me to take.

2. Can you pinpoint a time when you could say, this is life before yoga, and this is life after yoga?

A year later, I moved to other parts of the world and left my wonderful Chichester teacher. Unfortunately, the chronic pain in my leg got worse and was spreading. I ended up needing to take six months off to solely focus on physical therapy and finding a way to deal with the pain in my body. I had to do at least two hours of physical therapy exercises every day for my body to function. That’s a LOT of time to dedicate to your body daily!  And they were the same five exercises repeated over and over, again and again and again.  That is when I started remembering my yoga and slowly turning the exercises into yoga.  Soon,  I had a two hour daily yoga practice, with a relaxation to calm the nervous system down from the chronic pain… and to access that “being” state again and again.

That would be the moment where there was a life before and after yoga.  The life before was predominantly painful. When I started doing my daily yoga practice, I felt like I had a tool box. I would wake up in pain, and than I would take the toolbox out to loosen some screws and tighten some others and oil the rest… and then I could function for the rest of the day.

My teacher used to say that “people approach yoga for a specific reason, but they stay for other reasons”. This is definitely what happened to me. I approached yoga out of being in a lot of pain, and I stayed because it opened the doors to another way of relating to life. To the “being” state that brought lightness, depth and connection with every thing that mattered to me.

 

3. Why are you teaching yoga, rather than just practising it for yourself?

I love teaching. Before I was a yoga teacher I would teach kids extra curricular theatre, languages, and all kinds of stuff.  I taught young women self defence workshops in Spain. I learned lots of incredible and alternative teaching techniques at a popular education seminar we organised in ESCANDA. Teaching is something that I have always been attracted to, that always felt natural to me, and that was a way of learning.  When I was a kid, I would learn or do my home work  by putting my dolls in a line and pretending to be their teacher! Teaching, for me, is the best way of learning.

And so it is with the yoga classes too. It is through teaching that I learn. It is through saying things to students while I teach, that I notice the gaps in my knowledge and am able to dig deeper…. or that I comprehend better the understanding of the yoga teachings.

Of course, one of the biggest sources of happiness for me, is when a student who suffers from chronic pain is able to untangle the different parts that contribute to that pain through yoga and gets to breathe more freely. Being able to teach pathways that bring people to such self exploration, body awareness and understanding of their own knots is one of the most precious parts of my work, and a reason in and of itself to teach.

4. How did you find your way through the ancient tradition of Yoga?  Why Hatha Yoga and not another yoga?

I have been drawn to hatha yoga because it is a slower kind of yoga, giving me enough time to check in with my body as I put myself into an asana. For me, the time factor, is very important. I use this kind of yoga to increase body awareness, have a communication with my body about what is happening right now and how it is affecting the rest of me, and to induce an embodied presence.  Lots of students say that the way I teach is meditative. I would have never described it that way, as for me, meditation is something very different. But I am starting to understand where they are coming from when describing the classes in this way.  They are referring to being guided in keeping the mind present to what is happening right here in the body and the energetic field at this very moment. I would describe that more as mindfulness.

Pinelopi specializes in Hatha Yoga. Her yoga Kreuzberg Berlin classes are open for and welcoming to beginners. She offers Berlin business yoga, pregnancy yoga, and private yoga classes for people struggling with chronic pain.

5 signs that you need yoga at your workplace

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short attention span1# Do you find that your concentration lags after 45 minutes, even if you did: 

  • have a healthy breakfast?
  • walked into work with plenty of fresh air?
  • slept fairly good last night?

There are countless articles on business organisations attempting to combat distraction in the office.  The issues are the technology employed in communicating internally (too many emails); the hyper-connectivity available to us all the time demanding our attention (mobile phones, social media); the multitasking nature required by our job roles.

Concentration and focus is rapidly becoming a real issue in the modern workplace.  Interruptions can be beneficial in refreshing our resolve and perspective when we look back at a task.  Still, productivity can take a toll as workers go back to the job in hand working faster and faster, causing stress.

Yoga at your workplace is one of the most efficient and effective ways of counteracting these concentration lags and grounding the multitasking nature of today’s world.

A regular yoga practice helps employees develop skills in how to clear and focus the mind and become more aware of their sensations, learning how to release them. This gets taught through techniques of movement, breath, visualization and relaxation.

 2# Do you make far too many cups of tea, and make them for the whole department?

  1. a) your true vocation is to open a tea and fancies shop or
  1. b) your brain is just crying out for more oxygen – through movement rather than through tea.
yoga at the workplace

Your body needs a breath of fresh air, like a stretch

In our experience of delivering yoga in office environments, the latter is the most common. Regardless of our best intentions, it is a challenge for our bodies to sustain its energy in a closed environment, sitting on a chair for long periods of time.

Of course, in response to this, YouTube videos of desk yoga are popping up all over the place. This, however, ends up being another entry in our endless to do lists, another random distraction and can at times be dubious of actually delivering results.

A weekly group yoga session in your workplace can instead provide an interactive and supervised experience.  It brings the benefits of controlled, injury conscious movement, tips on posture, breathing techniques.  It nurtures ways to cultivate a mind-set that also helps with anxiety, depression, sugar and nicotine cravings – so the workplace becomes invested in health promotion.

yoga at your workplace

Posture related back pain is common in an office environment

 

3# Do you take a painkiller everyday because your back hurts? Or maybe it is your neck that is stiff, and your shoulders and upper back are crying out for relief? Or your eyes are burning and your head feels full of fog by the end of the day?

You might work in an office that can afford to invest in one of those adjustable desks for every employee to be able to work standing for part of the time. However, the issues connected to repetitive movement, of holding your arms forward to type, of staring at a lit surface like a screen all day remain.

Yoga at your workplace offers most of all the opportunity to become aware of what we do and how we do it;

how we sit

how much interrupted time we spend at the screen

how we breathe unconsciously

how we slump and more.

 

We do all of the above differently as individuals according to our health and psychological history.  Meeting an experienced Yoga teacher every week can help workers address their specific individual issues.

4# Do you wish you could connect to your colleagues in better conditions than during your quick trip to the water cooler or while washing your hands in the bathroom? Are you wishing they didn’t just see you rushing from the desk to the kitchen?

business yoga

Yoga as a group at the office (photo by enfad)

Practising yoga as a group helps to build empathy, solidarity and communication amongst participants. It allows each person to relax individually, to look at their colleagues in a different light, to learn something new and to nourish themselves amidst their busy work day. Participants report going back to their desks feeling refreshed, energized and positive.

5# Are you hooked on books about anxiety and success? And you really would love to learn to embrace your workload as a challenge to look forward to, rather then the familiar old anxiety ridden pattern of achieving through pressure?

The workplace nowadays requires you to thrive, and that is exciting. It speaks to us about opportunity and development, which are all human needs.  Unfortunately the price tag for many of us is anxiety, fear of failure, hyper-alertness and burnout.

When a person burns out, it takes a huge toll on the individual and on the people around them: their family, friends, community and co-workers. Managers need to stay alert to these risks, and put structures in place to help their staff cope. It’s estimated that burn out and mental health stress costs the European economy billions of euros per year. Any business that wants to remain effective, cohesive and innovative needs to invest in the physical and psychological wellness of its staff: happy, balanced employees make for a creative, capable team and an effective, flexible organisation.

Yoga at your workplace addresses all that with a mix of physical movement, breathing techniques and an understanding of how body and mind are connected. It raises an awareness and provides concrete steps to address imbalances and a self-responsible attitude.

Are you interested in providing a business yoga class to your employees? Pinelopi offers high quality business yoga that addresses all the issues named in this article.

Click here to book a class, or contact Pinelopi directly: pinelopi (at) englishyogaberlin (dot) com.

5 reasons why the best time for business yoga is at lunch

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business yoga in Berlin

Lunchtime: everyone is doing yoga

After years of experience of offering business yoga, we have developed an understanding of when yoga in a working day is both a beneficial and sustainable commitment for a business and its employees, and….. it is not a time slot that necessarily makes sense to the human resources department!

 

When a business approaches us, it typically asks for after-work business yoga or early morning sessions. These time frames tend to be very popular at the beginning of a business yoga season and then lose momentum within the next six months. The businesses that, however, choose a lunchtime yoga session are the ones that end up having a business yoga class running for years! Here are five reasons why:

1. It does not feel like longer work days.

When choosing after work in-office yoga, employees feel that their workday is getting lengthened.  It’s like an optical illusion: of course it is not work, but we know and can relate to the fact that employees remain in the office longer -even though they are not working- and that somehow translates in their psyche as “longer work days”….

2. It keeps it realistic.

Getting out of the house even earlier to go to work for your in-office early morning yoga class? In winter?? In Berlin??? A wonderful idea in principle… but in reality….. (tick the one that applies to you):

– the kids need breakfast

– the bed is warm

– you got a long commute

– last night you had a great party

– last night you could not sleep

– you need to meditate at least 30 minutes (with or without coffee)

– it’s the only time you can really catch up with your partner or yourself

– all of the above and more

 

…so, getting out earlier in winter is unrealistic. Most people are trying to stay healthy, fight off colds, and need their sleep and to move at their own pace. Lunchtime yoga does not ask any more time of employees in the workplace.

3.  Sweating in the workplace can become an obstacle.

Employees are self conscious about sweating in their office. It sounds obvious, but this took us some time to discover… and no one ever really admits it. When you strive for an early morning class with a strong work-out in an office where showers are not available…. one of the reasons that fails is …. sweat.  Hatha Yoga and gentle Vinyasa Yoga can be taught without working up a sweat, addressing back and shoulder pain, fuzziness and sluggishness, while bringing more oxygen to the brain.  No sweating or further injury with contorted poses or fast sequences in an early morning class; more about presence, mindfulness, a sharpened kind of awareness.

4. It gives you a new lease of life for afternoon to come.

 You got the urgent stuff out of the way first, now it’s time to deal with the important juicy tasks:  enjoy a new wave of energy with a gentle, balancing and energising lunch yoga practice.  Employees get to compare their state of mind before and after yoga in the office, and they also get to look at their colleagues in a different light, which can go a long way in strengthening working relationships

5. It is inclusive to people who are caretakers .

We are talking about people with children, or carers for parents or others, for whom home is mainly more work. It is a grateful, loving kind of work, but work nonetheless. It is often very hard for these people to be able to attend a pre- or after- work yoga class as they are often juggling more schedules than just their own. A weekly yoga class could tip the scales for them in helping them to not get sick and to build a relationship to the workplace as a source of support and care.

Think of these reasons when choosing the time in which to offer business yoga as a contribution to your workforce.  A weekly in-company yoga class is something that employees can look forward to every week. It’s an opportunity for each individual to relax and rejuvenate their body and mind, and for the group to build trust, relationship and communication with each other. Office yoga classes offer a healthy injection of positivity and wellness into your workplace culture.

We at English Yoga Berlin offer business yoga and special events to businesses in Berlin.  Contact us if you are interested!

Yoga Alexander Technique workshop-3 hrs-July 2018

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As our six-day Yoga Alexander Technique workshop is booked up, we are now offering a smaller version of the workshop for those of you who didn’t get to take part.

Berlin Yoga and the Alexander TechniqueWHEN:            Wednesday 18th July 6pm – 9pm

WHERE:          English Yoga Berlin, Görlitzer Str 39, Kreuzberg

FOR WHO:      For any one with an interest in yoga or the Alexander technique.

TAUGHT BY:  Rossella Buono and David Moore from the School of F.M. Alexander Studies

PRICE:              €30

The Yoga Alexander Technique workshop consists of one afternoon in which we will develop an individualized practice and an understanding of the uniqueness of the use of yourself in movement and at rest.

The workshop will offer an active and practical investigation of:

· Coordination and posture from an Alexander Technique perspective
· Modifying yoga poses
· Kinaesthesia
· Doing and non-doing
· Directing energy through the body
· Identifying and overcoming habits

– All abilities and levels of experience.

– Absolute beginners are welcome!

– Please wear comfortable clothes.

Booking is strongly recommended to insure a place. To book your place click here or contact:

Rossella: rossella (at) rossellabuono  (dot) com

David: info (at) alexanderschool (dot) edu (dot) au

Pinelopi: pinelopi (at) englishyogaberlin (dot) com

David Moore will also be offering private lessons in Berlin on Wednesday 24th July, if you are interested contact us.

ABOUT THE TEACHERS:

Rossella Buono relocated to Canterbury, UK in January 2013 from Melbourne where she had an established Alexander Technique practice. Working with a great range of people, Rossella has applied the Technique to improving the lives of people with issues such as back, neck or shoulder pain, fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s disease, sciatica, asthma, stuttering, anxiety and stress. She has also enjoyed attaining tangible posture and movement improvements for musicians, sportspeople, office workers, and the elderly. In her capacity as a care worker, she has developed strategies to improve the quality of life for people with physical and mental disabilities. She is the co-author of “For the Love of Games”, that offers a collection of more than 100 Alexander Technique games and activities to use when working with groups and individuals.

Rossella was first introduced to the Technique as a means of her own rehabilitation, after breaking her leg in an accident – and found herself benefitting greatly from the approach. After eliminating residual pain and regaining sustainable, coordinated mechanical function, Rossella decided to train as an Alexander Technique teacher. Since then she has worked to offer others the same opportunity for the elimination of pain and improvement of overall quality of life.

 

David Moore teaching Yoga and the Alexander Technique in Berlin

Photo credit: Rossella Buono

David Moore, Director at the School for F.M. Alexander Studies graduated from Australia’s first Alexander technique training course in Sydney in 1985. After graduating he spent some weeks each year for several years studying with senior American teacher, the late Marjorie Barstow.  Since then he has established private practices in New Zealand and Melbourne, run many  residential courses in Australia, Italy and New Zealand, and taught classes and intensive workshops in the UK, Germany, Japan Italy, Taiwan, and the USA. In 1999 he set up an Alexander Technique Teacher Training course which is approved by the Australian Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique. This 1600 hour training course runs over three years.​

Prior to studying the Alexander technique David did many years of yoga practice. He spent over seven years in India and Thailand, including over two years in Thai meditation monasteries, and two years in Madras studying with TKV Desikachar at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandaram. In Sydney he studied Iyengar yoga for four years with Martin Jackson from 1991 – 1994, including undertaking a teacher training course with Martin in 1994. He now teaches classes applying the Alexander technique to yoga and is the author of “Smart Yoga: Apply the Alexander Technique to Enhance Your Practice, Prevent Injury, and Increase Body Awareness”. He also has a strong interest in voice and performance, and has run numerous classes and workshops for singers, storytellers and public speakers.

English Yoga Berlin is the host of this event.  We offer Hatha Yoga classes with Pinelopi and Vinyasa yoga with Juli.  Our yoga Kreuzberg Berlin classes are open for and welcoming to beginners. We also offer Berlin business yoga, pregnancy yoga, and private yoga classes for people struggling with chronic pain.

Yoga Kreuzberg here I come!

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Yoga Kreuzberg here I am!
Yoga Kreuzberg here I am!

Hello Yoga Kreuzberg, pleased to meet you!!

My name is Clelia and I am here to learn from EYB what it takes to run a yoga enterprise committed to people and their needs – I hope to meet as many of you as possible.  But let me tell you a little about how I got here, it’s a story about how to live through limitations and transform pain into a great opportunity.

My path to English Yoga Berlin begun one day about one year ago: I had an office job, a radio show in the student radio at Glasgow university and an arthritic hip.  This meant I was spending most of my time sitting down inputting data or listening to music; anyone of you who has experience directly or indirectly in arthritic pain will know that lack of movement is going to make things chronically worse.  My only lifeline was my daily yoga practice, as yoga is the only movement based activity with no impact and enough awareness to care for my condition.  I had tried the gym, but it only left me in pain at night: I also used to swim, but not being able to move the leg meant that I was only using my upper body.  Yoga was able to tackle posture, injury-conscious movement and offered breathing techniques that relaxed all the tense muscles doing their best to cope but becoming chronically tight.

I could not afford to pay for the amount of classes I needed every week (at least five), so I practiced at home.  I confess that practicing yoga on my own felt lonely at times, and the available online yoga classes would not help me learn how to address my individual needs; as my hip became tighter and tighter, it was harder and harder to motivate myself on the mat.  Nevermind full splits, I could not even sit crossed legged!  I craved a teacher, a guide, another human to help me, and maybe other faces with me in the room to let me know I was not alone in caring for our bodies and minds.  I decided I needed to take action in far deeper ways that what I had been doing, I needed a true commitment to my health: my job came to an end, I had to find another way to make a living.  I thought “can I put these two things together? make a living and commit to my health in a supportive community?”.

The answers came: where I live in Scotland, there is a commitment from local government to invest funding for both entrepreneurs and initiatives to help tackle physical and mental health.  I looked into setting up a social enterprise, and the answers kept coming: I found out from a dear friend about Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs, a programme to support new entrepreneurs to go abroad and learn in a paid internship from more experienced entrepreneurs.  I searched and spoke to many yoga teachers, studios and organisation across Europe, until I found Kreuzberg Yoga with Pinelopi and Juli: they offer a yoga practice that nurtures and potentially empowers individuals as interconnected to each other through mutual respect, and that is proactive in making the benefits of yoga available to those traditionally marginalised from it – whether it is for physical ability, economic background, transgressive identity, ideals of body shape, perceptions of yoga as exclusively spiritual, esoteric, for experts.  It was, and is, the loudest answer to my needs I could ever hope for.

Clelia is an Erasmus entrepreneur working as an intern in learning how to set up a small yoga business such as English Yoga Berlin. We offer Hatha Yoga classes with Pinelopi and Vinyasa yoga with Juli.  Our yoga Kreuzberg Berlin classes are open for and welcoming to beginners. We also offer Berlin business yoga, pregnancy yoga, and private yoga classes for people struggling with chronic pain.

 

Wishing you peaceful connections in 2018

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English Yoga Berlin 2018

Handprint in Snow

“I’ve learned that every day you should
reach out and touch someone.
People love a warm hug,
or just a friendly pat on the back.”

― Maya Angelou

The cold winter days are upon us, when we seek comfort indoors, with warm food and good company. It’s important to remind ourselves not to take for granted that these things come more easily for some of us than others. Connection is as much a human need as are food and shelter. But family and friendship are not such simple words as they seem. Not all of us come from families who love us, and some have no family at all. Friendship is more accessible to those who spend time in places where people are open to making new friends. For those who cannot for financial, physical or emotional reasons, it’s just all the more difficult. We can connect online if we have access, but what if we don’t? In this wish for peaceful connection in 2018, there is also the wish for more meaningful connection, reaching out to people in need, being patient and empathetic with those who are struggling, and learning about others by asking gentle questions instead of making assumptions, and on the flip side, moving past the fear of asking for help or friendly company when needed. If we were to imagine how every one of us on this planet is connected, and hold onto that image, we could perhaps put it into action. What would happen if the whole world recognized our interconnectedness?

During this time, things quiet down at English Yoga Berlin. We’re taking a few days off to recuperate between the years, please take note of our schedule. We look forward to an exciting new year in 2018. English Yoga Berlin thanks you for all your commitment and support in these past years. We continue to give Hatha Yoga and Vinyasa Flow Yoga classes regularly in 2018.

Sound Healing – Nada Yoga workshop

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Did you know the Sound of your Voice is a profound healing modality?
Connect with the Power that resides in YOU!

Nada Yoga

Sound Healing through Nada Yoga

Travelling Yogi, Yes Hernandez, will offer a Nada Yoga Sound Healing workshop to help participants connect to the power of their own Voice to find balance and peace within and without.

When: August 6th, 2017, 12-3pm
How much?: suggested donation 10 – 25€

(all proceeds will go to Frauenprojekte BORA – a local org that helps people out of domestic violence)

What?: A 3 hour workshop on Nada Yoga, its history, the different techniques, and how they help. We’ll prepare ourselves with a little Yogasana and self massage for sound based practice and then move into the specific Nada Yoga practice of Vocal Toning. Once our vocal practice is complete we sit for a 10 min silent meditation before moving into Savasana for the Tibetan Bowl Healing practice.

There is no pre-registration process. The spots are available on a first-come drop-in basis. Just show up!

What is Nada Yoga?

Nada means ‘flow of sound’ and has a long history as a yoga practice. The methods use breath and vocal toning to listen to one’s own inner sound, move through obstructions and onto personal transformation. “On the path of Nada Yoga, the body is healed, the mind recovers its balance and the person becomes a fully functional individual, living with a sense of well-being. In this sense Nada Yoga works as medicine and therapy, helping a person to lead a healthy, happy and balanced life in the world.”

About the teacher

Yes is an American Yoga instructor currently based in Sri Lanka. She has trained with Anandra George in Rishikesh, India on the techniques of Nada Yoga. She works with the method of Vocal Toning- a way of creating sound using syllables- no words, no harmony- to move energy through the body and chakras, bringing balance to all systems while becoming familiar with and connecting to Voice. This practice has a purifying effect on the body and mind, cleansing us from the inside out, helping release what no longer serves us and empowering us on many levels. This practice is then followed by a Tibetan Singing Bowl Meditation, while in Savasana, to relax the body and release any tensions that may have been brought out by the toning exercises.

“As a survivor of physical and sexual child abuse, I myself had issues with my Voice, with speaking out. It took years before I was able to tell anyone of my suffering. This influenced me and my relationships in detrimental ways. Through a lot of work and practice, I broke through it and found connection to myself in Yoga. I find this disconnect to the power in our own Voice not only affects those who have been sexually or physically abused but also those bullied by classmates, and those of the LGBT community, afraid to speak out and be heard.”

On the reason for holding this workshop to raise donations for the Frauenprojekte BORA, Yes writes: “It is often so hard for women to leave these situations, and it takes a lot of courage to finally speak up and ask for help. As the workshop involves finding our Voice, the power and vibration behind, I thought it appropriate to honor those who have found some strength and have spoken up.”

**This workshop is open to FLTI* – Women, Lesbian, Trans*, Inter*, and Genderqueer folks only. 

English Yoga Berlin is a Kreuzberg yoga space that offers Community Yoga classes, with an emphasis on creating a space for those who feel marginalized by mainstream yoga classes: sliding scale prices for no- / low-income earners, queer & transfolk, sex-workers, b&pocs, differently abled, abundant bodied, etc. Our emphasis is on teaching about yoga and its healing potential. Read more about our Hatha yoga, Vinyasa flow and Restorative Yoga classes here.

What is your definition of healing?

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Photo by Gabriel Barletta

Photo by Gabriel Barletta

“Many of us define healed as the opposite of needy. Therefore to be healed means to be fully self contained, always positive, always happy, always sure of oneself, and never needing anyone. No wonder few ever consider themselves “healed”.”

  • Caroline Myss

 

In today’s western world where trauma and wounds have taken a significant place in our society, we hear a lot of the word “healing”. This is a common word used in a very wide spectrum from yoga classes to psychology to random talks between friends. Healing has taken an important place in our lives, both as a concept and as a reality we strive to achieve.

So what is emotional healing?

I think this is an important question to ask. Is healing about no longer being affected by an event of the past? Is it about the event no longer holding power over you? Is healing about being well and not ever needing anything again? When can someone consider themselves healed? Or is it an ever going process that we can never attain?

I believe that for all of us using this word, it is important to take some time and give our own personal definition to it. And once we have defined it, to look at it again and decide if this is an attainable goal or a never ending process that we are setting too high standards for.

I personally define healing as letting go of the power that a wound holds over me. I don’t need to always be happy, I can be needy, I still have the scars of the wound… but the wound no longer defines me or directs my actions in my life.

 Pinelopi specializes in Hatha Yoga. Her yoga Berlin Kreuzberg classes are open for and welcoming to beginners. She is a sivananda yoga teacher that also offers Berlin business yoga, pregnancy yoga, and private yoga classes for people struggling with chronic pain. All her yoga classes end in deep relaxation using yoga Nidra techniques.  In her Berlin Chakra course, she uses the chakras as a base line to self-explore concepts such as forgiveness, group thought, letting go, and becoming self-aware of limiting beliefs.