In yoga philosophy, the element of fire is said to live in the belly. It gives us the ability to digest our experiences as well as our food. When the fire is tended to on a regular basis, it burns bright, and we feel an inner sense of steadiness, strength and power. Both Yoga and Bellydance offer techniques to awaken to this inner fire, and many ways to embody it.

With the Universal Principles of Alignment and a rockin’ soundtrack as our guide, this practice will begin with a deep and nourishing yoga sequence to illuminate the core muscles of the body. From this internal awareness we will shimmy, shake, and undulate our way through many of the inspiring moves from bellydance. This will be a vigorous, fun, and healing practice. It is open to everyone…no previous dance experience necessary.

You may want to bring a yoga mat and hip scarf.

See Marni in a Yoga Journal video which features her as the August 2010 Cover Model for the magazine. Click here to view some behind-the-scenes action.

Date: Saturday, October 30, 2010
Time: 1:00 – 3:30pm
Cost: $25 in advance, $30 at the door

Thank you to everyone who came out on Sunday to experience the launch of the film at the Sausalito Film Festival. The beautiful Mission Bay Church at Fort Baker was filled with so many wonderful people and great energy. People were on their feet when the film ended! It was a very special day for us at the Sausalito Film Festival.

Here are some things that people said after the premiere.

“Brilliant photography, profound and heartfelt interviews…just a beautiful film.”
- Gene Teglovic, Author of Thought Management 101: Wake Up and Be Happy

“You really captured the essence of Anusara in this film. Can’t wait to share it with people in my life who are not yet familiar with Anusara Yoga.”
- AJ, Anusara yoga practitioner

“I don’t practice yoga, but after watching this film I am open to the possibilities. You did a great job at inspiring the mainstream and not just preaching to the choir.”
- JW,  Musician

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We’d also like to thank Laura Christensen for leading the jam-packed yoga class before the screening and for bringing additional excitement and awareness to the event.

A very special thank you to Antonio Capretta, co-founder of the film festival, and Abe Christensen for making this all happen. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The Sausalito Film Festival organizers were thrilled by the turnout and the positive energy that the event brought to the film festival. They are now considering making this an annual part of the Sausalito Film Festival.

Sean’s classes are playful and light, yet challenging and introspective. Each class is carefully planned around a theme and posture structure so that students can deeply explore specific areas of the body and philosophy of yoga. Sean’s classes invite all abilities, ages, etc., so don’t be shy!

Synopsis

Inspired by the stories of transformation they were hearing from Anusara students around the world, filmmakers Saraswati and Kate Clere decided to look into what makes this system of yoga so effective and life-altering. Featuring interviews with founder John Friend, Anusara teachers and practitioners and some of the most respected figures in the yoga world, this vibrant 50 minute documentary explores the development and principles of Anusara Yoga and along the way, offers a glimpse into the heart of transformation.

Featuring John Friend, Dr. Timothy McCall, Dr. Douglas Brooks, Sally Kempton, Krishna Das and a fun cast of Anusara’s most dedicated teachers and practitioners. The film is narrated by Minnie Driver with music by Shantala (Benjy & Heather Wertheimer), Dave Stringer and Ty Burhoe.

Featuring John Friend, Dr. Timothy McCall, Dr. Douglas Brooks, Sally Kempton, Krishna Das and a fun cast of Anusara’s most dedicated teachers and practitioners. The film is narrated by Minnie Driver with music by Shantala (Benjy & Heather Wertheimer), Dave Stringer and Ty Burhoe.

Featuring John Friend, Dr. Timothy McCall, Dr. Douglas Brooks, Sally Kempton, Krishna Das and a fun cast of Anusara’s most dedicated teachers and practitioners. The film is narrated by Minnie Driver with music by Shantala (Benjy & Heather Wertheimer), Dave Stringer and Ty Burhoe.

Watch the trailer here:

Visit the official film website.

Become a fan of the film’s on Facebook.

Purchase the DVD.

While she has a foundation in classical Pilates, she also has a mat certification in Physical Mind, and a reformer certification in the Stott style. She was trained to teach on the chair and cadillac by Ellie Herman.

Her class focuses on slow controlled movement, allignment and precision in order to maximize each exercise.

Yoga
• for Stress Resilience
• to Prevent and Heal Injury
• of Food, Eating, and Digestion

Yoga of Food, Eating, and Digestion •  Sunday, October 17, 2010 • 1:30-4:30 pm

Yoga has much to teach us about cleaning up our bodies and our lives. Yet stress and habitual patterns often foil our good intentions, especially regarding food and digestion.

Our workshop will include:

1.    90-minute asana practice to energize digestion, elimination and cleansing
2.    State-of-the-art review of proven nutritional science integrated with how food can support your mood, hormones, and
neurotransmitter balance
3.    Support for strengthening wise nutritional choices through inner divinity, yoga practice, the internet and community
4.    What is a sugar addict? Food addict? What are the ways of changing your relationship with food?
5.    Evidence-based ways to manifest peace and serenity around your plan of eating

Our local yogi Michael Pollen tells us to “Eat Real Food. Mostly Plants. Not Too Much.” How often do you recognize the reverence and restraint in his wise words, but can’t quite pull it off? Do you eat to soothe, numb or distract? Are you a sugaraholic? What are the hormonal and neurotransmitter drivers of altered appetite? What scientific basis do we have about how we get derailed? Do you tend toward constipation, loose stool or bloating?

How we eat is a complex mix of nature, nurture and core beliefs. It is a gateway to the bright, joyous inner divinity we all posess. Diets end; they don’t work 98% of the time. Whether you are overweight, bulemic or crave chocolate a little too much or have some other hint of food dysregulation, you will benefit from studying your relationship to food and looking through the lens of what Yoga and Integrative Medicine have to offer.

Yoga to Prevent and Heal Injury •  Sunday, November 14 • 1:30-4:30

After shoulder and lumbar/sacral injuries in her beloved Ashtanga practice, Dr. Sara began an inquiry into the proven ways to both prevent and heal injuries that we commonly face, particularly of the low back, shoulder/rotator cuff, neck, wrist, knee, IT band, hamstrings, ankle, Achilles tendon, and foot including plantar fasciitis. When should you see a doctor? How can you define your personal edge better in group classes?

Our emphasis will be on asana practice that integrates concepts that both prevent and heal injury, drawing on principles of Forrest and yin yoga, physical therapy, and both ancient and cutting-edge wisdom of how to reduce misalignment and inflammation. We’ve come a long way since the days of RICE!  We know far more about how women especially are vulnerable and can reduce risk. Come get curious about your habitual strain patterns (we all have them!) and learn how you may best unwind them.

Yoga for Stress Resilience •  Sunday, January 23, 2011 • 1:30-4:30

Resilience – our capacity to stay buoyant as we encounter stressors – is a crucial aspect of how we live sustainably in the world and thrive. Each person’s stress resilience depends on many factors, but top of the list is the adrenals: the little endocrine glands sitting atop the kidneys that are responsible for “fight, flight or collapse.” The untrained mind also can reduce our resilience significantly. In this workshop, Dr. Sara Gottfried, MD, will describe how stress affects our bodies physically, energetically and emotionally. We’ll discuss natural means of creating more resilience with yoga, nutrient-dense food and — when needed — bioidentical hormone and neurotransmitter balancing.

Michelle Cordero and Dr. Sara will co-lead your asana and pranayama practice aimed at rejuvenating the endocrine glands, particularly the adrenal and thryoid glands, and galvanizing neuroplasticity. Dr. Sara will lead a discussion of the our latest understanding of stress, how it may affect you, and possibly accelerate your aging process. Together we will review the latest data on the hormonal, neurotransmitter and lifestyle determinants of optimal resilience.

Note: All three workshops are appropriate for beginning to advanced men and women of all ages and will consist of 50% asana and 50% lecture/discussion.

Sara Gottfried, MD, is a Board-Certified Gynecologist, Certified Yoga Teacher and Integrative Medicine Physician. After graduating from Harvard Medical School, she completed her residency in OB/GYN at UCSF where she still serves on the teaching faculty. Dr. Gottfried has 20+ years of experience in integrative medicine for women. Her training and experience has been pivotal in the development of her novel ideas about “evidence-based integration” of conventional women’s health with complementary and alternative medicine. She is both top-tier physician scientist superbly grounded in the latest data and a gifted healer. Her expertise is greatest in menopausal medicine, bioidentical hormones, prevention of breast cancer and issues of libido.

Dr. Gottfried is a life-long student of ancient healing systems such as yoga, botanicals and Ayurveda. At a young age she learned yoga from her great-grandmother and has practiced daily since 1989. After discovering that her night sweats worsened with her Ashtanga practice, she developed a remarkably effective approach to managing premenopausal and menopausal symptoms with a combination of yoga, and when needed, nutraceutical, botanical and bioidentical hormone support.

Dr. Gottfried feels blessed to have studied with yoga pioneers such as Ana Forrest, Shiva Rea and Patricia Walden, all of whom have greatly influenced her teaching.

Michelle Cordero, MFA, CFYT, brings many years of yoga, bodywork and fitness experience to her yoga teaching. She is a graduate of three yoga teacher training programs and is a certified Forrest Yoga teacher. Deeply committed to high
quality instruction and to evolving her practice, Michelle continues to study with some of the most accomplished yoga masters in the country including: Ana Forrest, Shiva Rea, and Sarah Powers. A dedicated mover, Michelle also studies pole dancing, aerial rope and tissue and dances in a cabaret trio. For more information on Michelle, visit www.yogaluz.com

Dates: Sundays
• October 17
• November 14
• January 23

Time: 1:30 – 4:30pm

Cost:
• $75 for series of 3
• $35 one week in advance
• $45 at the door

Before any change is possible you have to be able to visualize, find,and access the muscles of the pelvic floor.

This workshop will cover:
- accessing/finding
- stretching
- strengthening
- softening

Find out what mula bandha is and is not. Proper work of strengthening and stabilizing the pelvic floor helps to create the correct foundation of each movement in the body – THIS is the actual “core work” we need to understand – the abdominals must come after.  The afternoon will begin with descriptions, drawings and handouts to help you retain what you learn. There will be a series of specific exercises and asanas, and a Q&A opportunity.

This workshop is open to all female students. Although helpful, no yoga experience is required. Bring your friends, sisters, mothers, and daughters. Whether you have pelvic pain, lower back, hip or groin problems, discomfort during intercourse, have to run to the bathroom too often, leak when you laugh or sneeze, are about to have a baby, have recently had one or just plain curious about the lower regions of the female body, this workshop is for you.

Leslie Howard has over 2500 hours of yoga study. Leslie has been practicing for over fifteen years in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area, including fourteen years of teaching, workshops, and annual yoga retreats. She currently studies with Manouso Manos and Ramanand Patel. She has been a presenter at the the Yoga Journal Conference and is featured in an upcoming documentary “Women and Yoga” produced by YogaKula.

Learn more about Leslie at lesliehowardyoga.com

Date: Saturday, October 16
Time: 1:00 – 5:00pm
Cost: $60 

Please call (510) 486-0264 to register

October 15th, 16th, and 17th

• Optimal health and wellness can be defined as experiencing the fullness of life mentally, physically, and spiritually. Unfortunately, this ideal is often compromised with daily exposure to toxins and stress. As a result, our bodies maintain a heavy toxic burden affecting our health, attitude, and peace of mind. Based on Seane Corn’s best-selling audio program Detox Flow Yoga, this workshop explores how to make conscious and responsible choices to help purify the body and mind. Together, we practice vinyasa flow yoga routines that:

• Cleanse through abdominal compression, decompression, and twists
• Stimulate the productivity of the liver, kidneys, and gall bladder, as well as the circulatory and lymphatic systems
• Help clear out residual toxins stored in the major body systems, specifically the intestinal tract
• Provide guided instructions for building our practice, from proper alignment and sequencing to breathing

As we examine our current habits, we gain practical lifestyle suggestions to help cultivate dietary and environmental awareness, emotional balance, and spiritual renewal.

Seane Corn is an inspired communicator, spirited yoga teacher, impassioned public speaker, and global servant. Named the National Yoga Ambassador for YouthAIDS, she also trains leaders of activism through her cofounded organization Off the Mat, Into the World®. Corn has three DVDs, Vinyasa Flow Yoga I, Vinyasa Flow Yoga II, and Yoga From the Heart, and an audiobook, Detox Flow Yoga.

View a video of Seane speaking about her teachings: click here

Learn more about Seane at www.seanecorn.com

Dates and times:

• Friday October 15 • 6pm – 9pm
• Saturday October 16 • 1pm – 3:30pm
• Saturday October 16 • 4pm – 6pm
• Sunday October 17 • 1pm – 4pm

Cost:
• Entire workshop: $185 – 7 days in advance • $195 thereafter
• Any individual class: $55 – 7 days in advance • $60 thereafter

ober 17 • 1pm – 4pmober 17 • 1pm – 4pm

From the Tantric viewpoint everything in the universe is essentially supreme consciousness. The universe is comprised of both absolute and relative worlds of existence. The entire universe can be organized into 36 levels of existence (tattvas).

These questions and more will be answered.

Why does God create?
What is the purpose of life?
How does this relative world come into being?
Why does the unlimited One embody itself into limited existence?

In this seminar we’ll make a close study of the tattvas as a system, create an understanding that makes them clear and relevant from inside the tradition; then we’ll consider the value, importance, and role this organizational model of reality has for our practice of yoga and how the tattvas can serve to enrich our experience of life.

*No previous knowledge is expected or required.

Dates and Times:

Seminar with Douglas
Friday, Oct. 8 • 6pm – 8pm

Seminars with Douglas and asanas with Abby
Saturday, Oct. 9 • 10:45am – 1:30pm
Saturday, Oct. 9 • 3pm – 6pm
Sunday, Oct. 10 • 9am – 10:30am
Sunday, Oct. 10 • 10:45am – 1pm

Costs:

Friday Session • $25
Saturday Session • $80
Sunday Session • $50
Full Event • $140 before October 1 • $150 thereafter