SSHY’s “The Classic!”  30 day Yoga challenge, one of the best ways to see and feel changes in your mind, body and practice!  You want to lose weight, tone up, heal chronic pain and injury, and feel a sense of joy and vitality everyday? 

Sign up at SSHY with our reception for:
•    30 days of Bikram hot yoga.
•    One class every day, excluding 2 days of grace.
•    Begins October 1st and ends October 30th, 2012.
•    Cost is $60 (Students $55), plus a $50 deposit that is refunded upon completion.

Prioritize yourself for 30 days, and feel the best you can be!  Time to get back on the mat!  Special Hallowe’en party class with potluck to follow.  Costumes optional!  

BONUS/OPTIONAL:  For an extra $40, receive a daily routine kit (includes supportive and detailed info, herbal tea, and more) to kick start every Challenge day.  Learn to use a few new tools and develop healthy habits that will leave you feeling like shiny happy people.  The world will comment and notice how amazing you look!

A special summer challenge perfect for all you yogis and yoginis who often get out of Winnipeg on the weekends!

• 28 days from July 16- August 23
• Monday - Fridays only - no weekends or holidays (ie. August 6th)
• includes 1 Twig Tea every Monday to alkalize your blood after a fun weekend away (5 in total)
• includes 1 Smoothie every Friday to energize you for the weekend (5 in total)
• free classes on the weekends if you stick around Winnipeg

COST: $108 plus tax ($96 plus tax - Student/Senior Price!) + $50 deposit

If you have an unlimited membership, 28 days will be added on to the end of it. If you have a class pass, it will go on hold until the end of the challenge. If you are a Monthly Recurring Member you will pay the difference of $8.41 or $6.31 (Students/Seniors) and the deposit.  

You can pre-order beverages on whiteboard in kitchen before classes on Mondays & Fridays.

This is a post by Colleen Rogers, current Stafford Street Hot Yoga student and experienced challenger...

My Experience During the Stafford Street Hot Yoga Challenge

I’ve been a yogi for a couple years now and I want to share with you my personal experiences during my Bikram yoga challenge.

When I began my journey I wanted to be prepared. Unfortunately, there really is no way to be prepared! I, however, would like to share some of my personal tips with fellow yogis that are gearing up for their first challenge...

1)    Stock up on coconut water. You will be sweating out water, impurities, and electrolytes (sodium, potassium).  I look for the “no sugar added” variety. I found this to be helpful to drink after class. Especially when it’s nice and cold!

2)    One word: GOMASIO. Ever heard of it? It’s a macrobiotic condiment in which sea salt is cooked with sesame seeds. During the first week I noticed that I was sweating so much during class and, despite how much water I drank, I didn’t seem to retain the fluids that I was drinking. Also, I had extreme salt cravings. So I purchased a bundle of gomasio from SSHY (it’s made on site) and noticed immediate differences. The amount of sweat lessened and the salt cravings decreased as well. My favourite way to eat gomasio is sprinkled on avocado - amazing! I made a habit of putting it on my lunchtime meals in order to allow my body to retain fluid in my body prior to class.

3)    Take it easy on the garlic and raw onions prior to your Bikram yoga class. This one explains itself. What you eat WILL come out in your sweat. Be mindful for others around you. Odours can be quite strong! Because I tend to go to the classes in the evenings, I found that eating a nice salad with chickpeas or hard boiled eggs, avocado (I used half for each meal), bell peppers and gomasio was delicious.

4)    Treat yourself to some nice yoga outfits. Yoga will pretty much become your life. (Or maybe yoga IS life hmmm), so you might as well look and feel good. You deserve it! The studio has a great selection of clothes.

5)    I personally do not enjoy hauling a smelly mat and soaking wet towels around with me. I took advantage of the towel and mat service rental and enjoyed it!

6)    Set your intentions! Every day I set my intentions for the class that I was planning to go to. Once we make up our mind it’s actually quite easy to do what we want to do.

7)    Focus on small improvements. You will struggle during the class. But that’s ok. Yoga is a practice. I found it helpful on those days to just focus on one thing. For example, flexing my toes, the sit-ups or just staying in the room!

8)    Expect challenges to happen. That is normal and completely OK. You know when the teachers say during Camel Pose “you might notice some emotions, dizziness occurring” ? There was one class about halfway through that I had injured my back and felt so emotional during and after class that I completely broke down. The teacher was kind and understanding afterwards and talked about it with me. I’m not sure what happened but perhaps something had opened up and my emotions were set free. Set free from expectations, fear, anxiety, worry. I was mad at myself that I couldn’t just perform “at my best” that day. So now I try to roll with the punches. If you have a bad day, you have a bad day. There’s always tomorrow.

9)    Visualize yourself in correct alignment. This is very useful because if we visualize us doing something we will eventually get there. So I did this during the postures. It helped me keep my focus and balance during class.

10)     Mix it up. Take classes with different teachers if you can. Although the dialogue is the same, each teacher is different. I found that I was able to pick up tips on postures and words of encouragement from each teacher.

I noticed that during my challenge my life had become yoga. I lived and breathed like a yogi. I purchased the book Bikram Yoga and read about Bikram’s life and the different postures. I am much more mindful of my breathing and grounded to the earth - meaning that I am much more peaceful and who doesn’t want more peace in their life?

In short...
The challenge changed me from the inside out; affecting all areas of my well-being.
As my strength and flexibility improved I realized how unbalanced my body was.
As my balance improved I realized how mindful I needed to be to notice this.
As my mindfulness improved I realized how much I need peace.
And as I created peace in my life I realized how necessary yoga is.

~ Colleen Rogers (SSHY student)

The next 30 Day Challenge is on! October 24-November 22

Even if you have never tried this yoga before, you CAN do a yoga challenge!  It will change your life in just 30 days!  You won't believe the benefits!  Go ahead, sign up and feel for yourself!!!

***If you have any health concerns or questions, feel free to come in a talk to us about it, we want to help you!

The details:

• Participants will be allowed 2 days grace in this challenge. Challengers have 2 days that they don't have to come, for times when they absolutely can't make class. No doubles (doing 2 class in one day to make up for a missed class) are not allowed .
• Challenge is $100 plus tax , $90 plus tax for students PLUS a $50 cash only deposit to reserve your space. The deposit will be returned upon successful completion of the challenge.
• Space is limited - Maximum 30 people may sign up for challenge.

*BONUS - all challengers also get to savour and enjoy 1 ayurvedic remedy every Sunday with Kalee Mund.  These remedies will enhance sensations of healing throughout your body.  Kalee is an Apprentice Herbalist at Hollow Reed Holistic. She studied Eastern religions, Vedic philosophy, History and Yoga at the University of Manitoba and then went on to training in Ayurveda through the Kerala Ayurveda Academy. We are thrilled to have Kalee sharing her passion for holistic healing with our challengers!

Ayurvedic Remedies will be available for purchase to non challengers at Ume's Kitchen on Sundays as well. Get more details about Kaylee and her healing here.

Any questions, you know where to find us... (front desk, info@staffordstreethotyoga.com, 204.452.7412, Facebook)