Half Moon Pose Tip

This Bikram posture will change your life!  Your shoulders are likely to burn when you work hard, this will help to eliminate frozen shoulder, heal asthma, but you need to put the work in! Keep your thighs and hips (butt) contracted -  squeeze it! Keep always trying to put your arms behind your ears, and extend first up to the ceiling. Chin up, focus one point in the mirror, and always feel EXTENSION as you bring your body down and push your hips to the side...be patient, keep working, feel the changes. What an amazing posture!

Backbending in Half Moon

Make sure to INHALE (which lifts your chest/heart towards the ceiling) and then look back, stretch back, go back, (always pushing your hips forward towards the mirror) way back and try to touch the wall behind you!  As you are progressing in this posture, you will continuously be INHALING short breaths as you gain more back bending flexibility...The inhale is what helps you to lift the chest/heart...This awareness prevents too much compression and improves the opening of the spine and lungs!

SSHY is starting Bikram yoga classes especially for the little ones! It's never too early to get started on a path of health and wellness. If anything, the earlier the better.

The kids classes will be on Sunday, from Oct. 16th - Nov. 20th

Ages 6-13

6 sessions @ $42 + GST

12:30pm - 1:15pm (Sundays)

20 kids max

Call (204.452.7412) or visit the studio to sign up. Space is limited!

Help your kids start what will hopefully turn out to be a lifelong, healthy habit.

*Note that the room will be warm, NOT hot like it is for the adult classes.*

Reminders and Events

* Check our website for Sept Long Weekend Hours, classes daily

*  Never too late to start from scratch! Annual Fall Sale begins September 1st - September 17th. Get all the details here.

*  Schedule changes back to winter hours at Equinox September 24th.

*  Check our website for dates and details of Winnipeg's only source for Macrobiotic and Raw Food Dinner Workshops!

*  Ume's Kitchen is now open Wednesday and Thursday preparing love buns, cinnamon buns and more!

*  Kids Classes now being offered - sign-up for October 16th start date!

*  Visiting teachers for September and October. Come in and enjoy the fun! As always, our Facebook page has all the information about our classes - updated daily!

*  October/November -  28 day Yoga Challenge begins Friday, October 14th - Thursday, November 10th 2011.  Only 25 spots available!

There are always layers to work through in your Bikram yoga practice.

Physical, emotional and spiritual.

When you practice, something important to remember is that you are working towards creating balance in all of these parts of you. This yoga practice is a type of healing exercise, but it can be overdone or under done like anything else in your life.

I have noticed some of you may be either feeling stuck...

• like you have hit a plateauor
• or you are cramping too often
• or your practice simply does not seem to be improving as fast as you would like or expect

Let us offer words of advice.

Go back to the breath

In every Bikram posture, concentrate on breathing in slow and exhaling slow so you continuosly develop a connection to your life force, your lungs, as you move in and out of posture. This is a process of mastery, and over time with practice, you will feel tremendous results in all levels of your practice.

If you are consistently having trouble with a certain posture, applying more breath awareness will help you to overcome. We as people have a hard time believing that it can be that simple. We have been conditioned that life is difficult, hard work, push harder. The tricky part is that you and your mind are constantly fighting, and surrendering to working on breath may seem like not doing enough. Little do we know that is what it is all about.

Your breath is the link, the power that connects all of your system's intelligence together. Just think of it -  if you stop breathing, you die. How powerful is that! How we have underestimated the power of breath.

By focusing on your breath, you will learn to quiet the mind. By quieting the mind, you will hear the answers you seek.

Concentration, determination, self- discipline, faith and trust. All of these levels of self-realization will develop within you, if you simply, apply the breath:)

namaste,
Amanda

Image source: federico stevanin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Our teacher extraordinaire Todd Miller took himself out of the SSHY studio and brought hot yoga to Gimli beach a couple weekends back.

The turnout was fantastic! We figure between 100 – 150 fabulous yogis joined Todd’s Bikram at the beach event. There were even some Bikram “experts” in attendance, who wowed and inspired with their impressive form. Something to work towards for sure!

And for those of you who enjoyed the refreshing swim after your practice… well we’re working on getting SSHY pool, haha! It never hurts to dream :)

A HUGE thank you to Todd for organizing and spiriting this event! Have we told you lately that we love you?

We’ve uploaded the rest of the pics to Facebook. Check them out here - they're gorgeous.