Yoga Blog
suzanne morrison is coming to boundless!
kelly on 1:41 pm August 20th, 2011 / Be the first to comment! »
Hi everyone,
Mark your calendars for August 28th from 2:15-3:15! A bright new author is coming to studio to tell you all about her new book, Yoga Bitch. Suzanne Morrison is being featured all over the web, and I’m honored & excited to share two more of her recent pieces here. You can view her adorable You Tubes by checking out her event description here as well.
You can read her piece on Elephant Journal here & her Huffington Post piece here.
Looking forward to welcoming her on 8/28!
check out our youtube channel
kelly on 4:43 pm August 18th, 2011 / Be the first to comment! »
listen to kim talk about resistance, fear, and compassion–
and how all 3 can guide you toward your own transformation!
check out our youtube channel here!
namaste!
kelly
work trade call!
kelly on 3:10 pm August 16th, 2011 / Comments Off
hi everyone,
boundless is looking for a few new work traders, so hit us up here if you are interested.
1) a spectacular new desk check-in person on thursday from 5-8:15 pm
2) a tech-savvy person to work on our online scheduler from home
3) sign up for select Saturday and Sunday shifts to help with check-in.
i can share our calendar with you, so you’ll know available dates and can choose at your convenience.
namaste!!
kelly
connect directly with your own experience.
kelly on 2:21 pm August 15th, 2011 / 1 Comment »
have you ever taken a yoga class only to marvel afterward at how substantially your perspective has changed? this is your own body providing you with feedback about all the information it has to offer you if you will deeply give it your full attention.
the boundless advanced studies programs are extremely transformative paths to discovering how you can continually connect with your own body’s experience in the moment. listen, there is an entire universe of external stimuli & a warehouse of memories out there (and in there) to wade through. you are ultimately learning to differentiate all of this from yourself — from what YOU truly are. & at the same time, you learn how to see all of it – everything – as a part of you.
“the harbor becomes the sea.” etc.
please email me asap if you’re interested at all in our ryt 200 or ryt express program. both of these choices will offer you a chance to view your body and mind anew– through a set of transformative tools we’ve been honing for years upon years upon years.
namaste! -kb
nirvana – it’s no big deal.
kelly on 12:45 pm July 25th, 2011 / 1 Comment »
Are you curious about what Kim Weeks shared on Friday night? Of course.
Ever wonder why you experience what you experience in life? Ever question how to create (or recreate) moments when you feel zero conflict with where you are and what you are doing?
Click here to listen to a 5 min excerpt from Friday.
Are you interested in your own transformation? Comment here or contact us for details.
Transformation starts with the body
kim on 10:45 am July 20th, 2011 / Be the first to comment! »
I’m teaching this for four Fridays in July and August. It’s a discussion and meditation group that I am leading. Boundless’s mission is to foster transformation.
Transformation that happens anywhere starts first in your body. While there are many ways to observe and assess the universal principles of organization and chaos, I will address the topic of human bodily transformation that in turn takes root in society. I want to teach you how you can learn to observe your experience in the world, which then then necessitates positive change everywhere — foremost in your life.
I am specifically teaching you about your own dharma or destiny. I hope you can make it!
From dawn to dusk
Leslie on 1:05 pm July 18th, 2011 / Be the first to comment! »
Paschimottanasana, the Boundless pose of this month, is a fun asana to explore as a way to cool down — from hot weather, a vigorous asana practice or, in any season, our stressful lives. Forward folds are inherently soothing, reflective and restorative, though this one can be challenging for those with back issues or tight hamstrings. More on that later.
I wrote about this pose on this blog nearly exactly a year ago as my teacher training course was ending. We were studying the forward folds about at the point they are typically introduced in a yoga class, two-thirds or three-quarters of the way through. I began to wonder about the name: stretch of the western aspect of the body, the back side. And its companion pose, if you like, purvottanasana, stretch of the eastern or front body — also known as upward-facing plank or “my shoulders are screaming.” I don’t know the Sanskrit etymology of the two poses, but I like to think that the extroverted purvo is the “hello, world!” sunrise pose — the sun rises in the east, and we greet the day with our front body, so I think this heart-opening move can get us charged up to do so (and certainly the bent-knee version is a good option). That would make paschimo the sunset pose. After living in our front body all day, moving into various face-to-face encounters with others and having perhaps a sense of constant forward motion, the forward fold gives us the chance to unwind and greet the dusk of the day — or an asana class. Reflecting and letting go at the same time. Turning our backs to the world in a thoughtful way.
With these compass-point poses, you might be wondering where north and south are on the body. In the “Light on Yoga” description of paschimo (pose #67), Mr. Iyengar says the crown of the head is the northern point; the feet, the southern part. But that leaves out the left and right sides of the body. So for my class this week, I am planning to emphasize side-body actions and poses with a purvo (pose #72) and a paschimo in there for good measure. To get deeper benefits out of paschimo and take any stress out of it for those with lower-back or hamstring issues, we will rest the head on a generous stack of blankets. And hold. And cool. And unspool.
kelly on 4:44 pm July 15th, 2011 / Be the first to comment! »
everyone!
i am so super excited bc i just figured out how to play a Bb bar chord on my guitar. i credit this to Leah Barr and Michael Vetter’s yoga classes which I went to this week! they totally shifted my awareness into my fingertips. i am telling you – i could not play this chord last week, and i haven’t practiced ANY guitar since my last failed attempt. yayeeee for fingertips and yoga. yay for bar chords! leah and michael are so awesome!
also i wanted to share my fave quote so far from poser which members – you should find it and start reading it for book club. it’s so awesome!!
from “Prologue: Camel”
I carefully lifted out of the pose and spoke up: “Uh Fran? When I’m doing the pose, I have this feeling in my chest, kind of a scary tight feeling.”
Fran was adjusting someone across the room. She had a way of looking like a thoughtful seamstress when she made adjustments: an inch let out here, a seam straigtened there, and everything would be just right. She might as well have had pins tucked between her lips and a tape measure around her neck. Without missing a beat or looking up, she said, “Oh, that’s fear. Try the pose again.”
Fear. I hadn’t even known it was there.
interested in becoming a teacher? comment, and i’ll reply to you. it will change your world!!
interested in membership, ditto, above.
sign up for leah and michael’s classes! and
p.s. pls come see my band play at velvet lounge on august 8th.
Fold as naturally as the sun
kim on 3:08 pm July 4th, 2011 / 1 Comment »
The thing with pachimottanasana, or seated forward fold, is that it takes almost as much stability as paripurna navasana, or boat pose. I wrote about boat pose last month. Take a minute to look at both poses in the links to Yoga Journal, especially the legs. We could accurately say that the stability in the legs is quite the same in both poses, but the (re)pose in the spine is different.
In the spine especially, we are looking for a non-doing-ness as much as we’re looking for doing. Seated forward fold shows this perhaps this best of all yoga poses other than savasana, or corpse pose. The concept in Taoism is called wu-wei, or the natural timing of any action. Inasmuch as we are lifting the breastbone and calming the breath down in boat pose, we are doing the same actions in seated forward fold. Except we do this as we elongate the torso over the legs rather than away from it into space.
Seated forward fold is about letting go, about letting your own psychology of action be revealed to you in the minute or two you hang out in this pose. Most people find seated forward fold challenging, because it’s a shape — like navasana — that we hardly ever do. Sitting in chairs, oops, is our main daily action that makes extending the legs out on the floor and folding over so hard!
I recommend spending the hotter moments in July cooling down with this ultimately nourishing, calming, and (yet) spinally challenging pose. When you hit a wall, i.e., when you feel like the only way you could go “further” in the pose is by forcing the body into more “length”, relax. Seriously, observe any tension in your shoulders (and therefore) your spine, and relax. R-E-L-A-X. Spell the word out to yourself and by the time you hit “X” notice that you’re in a different pose.
Let your body forward fold this month as naturally as the sun comes up to roast you every day.
have you read poser?
kelly on 9:51 am July 1st, 2011 / Be the first to comment! »
Boundless offers a yoga book club as part of our monthly membership. This month our yoga book is Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Poses by Claire Dederer. It’s book about how 23 yoga shapes relate to a woman’s life experience, as a mother. It’s been selected as a book of the month on Amazon earlier this year, and it continues to receive very passionate reviews.
It’s interesting to think of yoga shapes as having themes – this is the premise of the book. In my practice, a shape could have one theme one day, and the next day, another theme. I can’t, for example, say all my forward folds have a “relaxing” theme. I have days when folding forward is a humbling introduction to my own tension. Perhaps it is the paradox and the paying attention that is the theme? I like to think that finding the mystery in your poses – the points of change (and even confusion!) in your body, supports the joy of asana. I can’t wait to read Poser, and I’m very excited to offer you our member updates on the blog about book club!
