Zen & the Art of Movement Sat Dec 1st Retreat

Hello,

Amy has a special event going on and I just wanted to spread the word! Its nice to have options, its nice to be aware and many of us who produce these kind of events depend on word of mouth and community communication. Just one day before our craft uprising, you might enjoy this one day retreat with Amy and Nomon Tim Burnett.

Greetings in this quiet time of darkness–it feels as
though our bodies are hibernating to prepare for the
energy of the holidays. December 1st feels like the
perfect time to set aside for a personal day of
retreat. Nomon Tim Burnett and I led a Zen and Yoga
day retreat this summer and the participants left with
such a deep sense of peace, they asked for more.

If you are curious about the synergy of Zen and Yoga
or are in need of a quiet day in a beautiful sanctuary
on the waters of Chuckanut Bay, please mark Dec 1st on
your calendar.

Zen and the Art of Movement and
Stillness
A Yoga and Zen Day Retreat
with Amy Robinson & Nomon Tim Burnett
Saturday December 1st, 9am—4pm
Woodstock Farm, Bellingham

Join us for a quiet day of Zen meditation and Yoga
asanas at this beautiful new park and retreat center
on the waters of Chuckanut Bay just south of
Bellingham. The day will include sitting and walking
meditation, Zen teachings, Yoga instruction, and
mindful work practice.

If you this speaks to you, please CONTACT ME BY TUES
NOV 27th.

Blessings,
Amy Robinson
rebirthingyoga*@*yahoo*.*com
360.756.6951

Come see our Art – Upcoming Show at the Fire House

For Immediate Release:

November 8, 2007

Contact: Harold Niven, Artist
1304 14th Street
Bellingham, WA 98227
(360) 319-5640

Therese Spaude-Larsen, Artist
7465 Thomas Road
Bow, WA 98232
(360) 766-4116

When: Sunday, December 2nd from 12pm – 6pm

Where: Firehouse Performing Arts Center
1314 Harris Avenue, Fairhaven

Ten Times Amazing: a Holiday Group Show aka another Urban Craft Uprising (Bellingham version)

Ten local artists combine their individual expressions for this one-day only celebration. From whimsical, woolly, and wild to traditional, twisted and touchable, the show will delight you and someone on your holiday gift list. Warm yourself by the fireplace at the historic Firehouse Performing Arts Center in Fairhaven, support local artists and purchase an affordable original gift.

Featuring:
Andrea Fackler, pottery & weaving
Chris Pauley, metal sculpture
Dave Crabb, rustic lamps
Donald Larsen, acrylic and oil paintings
Harold Niven, batik banners, batik wear, collage magnets
Heather Smith, recycled wool bracelets
Mary Ann Dupree, wreaths
Michelle Van Slyke, hats
Therese Spaude-Larsen, wildcraft, beaded bracelets
Wayne Hagan, photographs

Natural Dyes & Sources

Today, I would like to share something about my Weaving Art.

I feel very very sad about a great loss which has happened and a crime against humanity.

Via my weavings, I have learned about how “MAMA D.O.C.”’s Logwood Project buildings and orchard have been wiped out.

4,000 poor people displaced.
Hundreds of beautiful homes destroyed.
Thousands of producing fruit trees bulldozed.
People forced at gunpoint to sign mysterious papers.
Natural area destroyed – one of the last of the coastal ecology.
Last remaining coastal Native culture genocided.

Boca Nueva, Bergantine and Los Cocos were wiped off the face of the earth on Wednesday, March 8th, 2006 and on going harm is happening as children are forced into prostitution. The bulldozing action was taken by the Central Bank of the Dominican government, one day after agreeing to grant the people the rights to their villages and their lands. The Church, human rights group, fraud investigation unit and the local governor backed the villagers who had united themselves. The day after the agreement was promised, they were forcibly evacuated whilst their gardens, trees, homes and lives were bulldozed in front of their wailing eyes.

BOYCOTT THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC !!!!!!!

Please do not support the government of this country, nor any of the mega businesses that are fulfilling their plans to turn this beautiful island and unique culture into a slave state. Please understand that tourism brings only more poverty to this country and her people: the personal story above is only one of hundreds. Children that have worked with my artist friend and dye supplier for seven years now face the reality of a life of drug dealing and prostitution (boys, girls and children), which is the truth of tourism on this island.

I long ago selected my friend at Aurora Silk as my supplier, selected for her conscious, sustaining and supportive projects with the people of the land…. http://www.aurorasilk.com/index.html

For these crimes against humanity, we ask that you boycott all industrial products, foods and meat from the Dominican Republic. We ask that you do not go to any resorts in the country. Please share this information with others. Please write to people in businesses and governments about this shame.

MAMA D.O.C. Inc., non-profit, continues to import Logwood for dye and herbs for medicines. The income generated by these small efforts is of even greater importance, for the people must now survive in a cash money economy, and there are no jobs. Purchase products, 100% of which goes to the Logwood Project, at www.aurorasilk.com and www.natural-safe-hormones.com.

Mama D.O.C. Inc. is a Portland, Oregon based nonprofit. They promote natural health in all aspects, and do limited natural health counseling and unlimited referrals. They provide services on a donation basis to low income families, mainly in Portland and Eugene, Oregon.

In the last four years they have expanded into several community development projects in third world countries. These project promote cultivation, use, and education in Natural Dyes. These dyes represent a means to return some wealth to many Third World countries, which have the perfect climate to grow these coveted dyestuffs.

Donations to Mama D.O.C. for the Logwood Project go to purchase school supplies for the children and to pay for medicines. If an Angel donor exists, land is available to purchase where some of the families could be relocated to recreate their traditional community. All donations are U.S. Federal tax deductible. Thank you for your help.

For more info on the arts, source materials, and Natural Dyes, please visit the Aurora Silk Homepage ,her tutorials_articles_faqs/ are a great resource. I am open to all discussions and would like to communicate more about the arts and their relationship to earth.

Here is a sample Article from her website: Why Natural Dyes?

In the words of a famous natural dyer from the Craftsman movement in England: Ethel M. Mairet, A Book on Vegetable Dyes, 1916, published by Douglas Pepler at the Hampshirehouse Workshops, Hammersmith, Sussex, England.

This is Mairet’s introduction in its entirety, with notes below by Cheryl Kolander.

Dyeing has almost ceased to exist as a traditional art. In this 20th century the importance of colour in our lives seems to be realized less and less.(1) It has been forgotten that strong and beautiful colour, such as used to abound in all every day things, is an essential to the full joy of life. A sort of fear or nervousness of bright colour is one of the features of our age, it is especially evident in the things we wear.

There is unfortunately good reason for it. We fear bright colour because our modern colours are bad, (2) and they are bad because the tradition of dyeing has been broken. The chemist has invaded the domain of the dyer, driven him out and taken over his business, with the result that ugly colour has become the rule for the first time in the history of mankind. It is not that chemists never produce beautiful colour. Dyeing as a chemical science has not been studied for the last 50 years without producing good results. But there is this great difference between the chemical commercial dyes and the traditional dyes – that with the commercial dyes it is very easy to produce ugly colours, the beautiful colour is rare; but with traditional dyes it is difficult to make an ugly colour, and good colour is the rule.

It was in 1856 that mauve was produced from coal tar by an English chemist, and this began a new era in dyeing. The discovery was developed in Germany, and the result was the creation of a science of chemical colouring.

The advantages of the new colours were ease and simplicity of use, general reliability with regard to strength and composition, and certainty in reproducing the same colour again without trouble. (3) With regard to fastness, to light and to washing there is practically little difference between the two. It is more the method by which they are dyed and not the dye itself (although of course in some cases this is not so) that determines their fastness. The natural dyes are more trouble and take longer to prepare. Chemical colours can be dyed now as fast as the natural colours, although at first this could not be done. Some of the chemical colours as well as the natural, are not fast to light and washing, and ought never to be used; but there are natural colours, such as madder, some of the lichens, catechu etc., which are as fast as any chemical dye, if not more so. BUT there is this general difference between the results of the two methods, – that when a chemical colour fades it becomes a different colour and generally a bad one: when a natural colour fades it becomes a lighter tone of the same colour.

Since the middle of the 19th century our colour sense has been getting rude shocks. At first came the hideous aniline colours, crude and ugly, and people said, “How wonderful, are they really made out of coal!” They were told to like them and they did, and admired the chemists who made them. Then came more discoveries, and colour began to go to the opposite extreme, and the fashion was muddy indeterminate colours -’art’ colours as they were called, just as remote from pure good colouring in one direction as the early aniline colours were in the other. We are now emerging from the mud colours, as I would call them, to the period of the brilliant colouring of the Futurist. Here we have scientific colouring used with real skill. The futurist has perhaps indicated a possible way in which chemical colours may be used by the artist and is teaching people the value of simple combinations of brilliant colour.

And yet do they satisfy the artist? Are they as beautiful as the colours in a Persian Khelim? (4) Is there a blue in the world as fine as the blue in a Bokhara rug, or a red to touch the red of a Persian brocade or Indian silk? – the new fresh colours as they come out of the dyer’s vat, not as they are after years of wear and tear, though that is beautiful enough. And yet they are not more beautiful than the colours once made by dyers in England. They are as brilliant as the chemical colours, but they are not hard and unsympathetic and correct. They are alive and varied, holding the light as no chemical colour can hold it; and they are beautiful from their birth to their old age, when they mellow, one with the other, into a blend of richness that has never yet been got by the chemical dyer and never will be.

Perhaps it is the scientific method that kills the imagination. Dealing with exactly known quantities, and striving for precise uniformity, the chemist has no use for the accidents and irregularities which the artist’s imagination seizes and which the traditional worker well knew how to use.

William Morris says “all degradation of art veils itself in the semblance of an intellectual advance.” and nothing is truer than this with regard to the art of dyeing. As a tradition it is practically dead in Britain, and is threatened with gradual extinction all over the world. It will not recover itself as an art till individual artists set themselves to make beautiful colours again, and ignore the colour made for them by commerce and the chemists.

Handicraft workers should make their own colours. Leather workers should dye their own leather, the embroiderers their own silks and wools, the basket makers their own materials, the weavers and spinners their own flax, cotton and wool; and until they do this the best work will not be done. This is the necessity for the present. If any craft worker wants sound colour he must make it for himself, he cannot get it done for him by artists. (5) The hope for the future is that dyeing may be reinstated as a craft, co-operating with the other crafts and practiced by craftsmen.

The way to beauty is not by the broad and easy road; it is along difficult and adventurous paths. Every piece of craftwork should be an adventure. It cannot be an adventure if commerce steps in and says “I will dye all your yarn for you; you will always than be able to match your colour again; there need be no variation; every skein shall be as all the others; you can order so many pounds of such a number and you can get it by return of post; and you can have six or seven hundred shades to choose from.” It is all so easy, so temptingly easy, — but how DULL! the deadly yards of stuff all so even and so exactly dyed; so perfect that the commerce-ridden person says, “this is almost as good as the stuff you can buy in a shop, it is as perfect as machine made stuff.”

What would have been the use of all this to the great colourists of the world, the ancient Egyptians, the mediaeval Italians or the great Oriental dyers? They could not get six hundred shades to order; six was more like their range (6), they did not need more, and in those they could not command precise uniformity. They knew that the slight variations caused by natural human methods add to the beauty and interest of a thing, and that a few good colours are worth any number of indifferent ones.

It is quite certain that a great many of the handicrafts that have depended upon commercial dyes would produce infinitely better work if they dyed their raw material themselves.

It may be objected that life is not long enough; but the handicrafts are out to create more life, not out to produce quantity nor to save time.

The aim of commerce is material gain; the aim of the crafts is to make life, and no trouble must be spared to reach that end. It must always be before the craft worker. Dyeing is an art; the moment science dominates it, it is an art no longer, and the craftsman must go back to the time before science touched it, and begin all over again.

The tradition is nearly lost in England.

It lingers in a few places in Scotland and Ireland. In Norway, Russia, Central Asia, India and other places where science has not entered too much into the life of the people, it is still practiced. Is dyeing as a tradition to be doomed, as traditional weaving was doomed? Yes, unless it be consciously studied again and remade into an art.

This book is intended for the use of craftsmen and others who are trying to dye their material by hand and on a small scale. Information and recipes, useful to such workers, are to be found in books and pamphlets dating from the 17th century, and in this book I have drawn largely upon these sources of dyeing knowledge, as well as upon the traditions still followed by present workers, and upon the experience of my own work.

All dyeing recipes, however, should guide rather than rule the worker; they are better applied with imagination and experience than with the slavishness of minute imitation. Every dyer should keep a record of his experiments, for this will become invaluable as it grows, and as one thing is learnt from another. The ideal way of working is not by a too rigid accuracy nor by loose guess-work, but by the way which practice has proved best; nevertheless, some of the greatest dyers have done their work by rule-of-thumb methods just as others have certainly worked with systematic exactness.

The dyer, like any other artist, is free to find his own methods, subject to the requirements of good and permanent cratsmanship, provided that he achieves the effects which he aims. But it is supremely important that he should aim at the right effects; or, rather, at the use of the right materials, for if these are right the effects may safely be left to take care of themselves. In order to develop the taste and temperament of a good colourist, it is necessary to use good colour and to live with good colour. In this book I attempt to show where good colour can be obtained. But one may begin to live with good colour which has been found by others.

This part of the dyer’s education is not prohibitively costly, even in these days of inferior colour. Indian and Persian embroideries are still to be obtained, though care must be taken in their selection, as most modern pieces are dyed with chemical dyes are very ugly. Persian Khelim rugs are cheap and often of the most beautiful colours. Russian embroideries and woven stuffs, both old and new, are obtainable, and are good in colour, as are most of the embroideries and weavings of Eastern Europe and the East. (7) What are popularly known as “coffee towels” are often embroidered in the finest coloured silks. Bokhara rugs and embroideries are still to be purchased, and many of the weavings of the far East, although, alas, very few of the modern ones are of good colour. I would say to dyers, do not be satisfied with seeing beautiful coloured stuffs in museums. It is possible still to get them, and to live with a piece of good colour is of much more use than occasional hours spent in museums.

Notes by Cheryl Kolander:

(1) Continuing into the 21 st.

(2) Not to mention toxic and poisonous.

(3) Today the big difference is in cost, and availability.

(4) Kilim, as it is usually written today.

(5) Ah! but today you can have your colours Naturally Dyed by an artist! Since 1969 this has been my business.

(6) If only six they would be: black, red, blue, green, gold, and than one of choice like orange, pink, blue green or a light blue or other shade of red. Many Oriental Tribal carpets are woven in the most intricate stunning designs using such a limited pallet, including of course, natural white. But she exaggerates. Most professional dyers in the larger cities, or centers of the dyeing art, had a pallet of dozens if not hundreds of hues and shades.

(7) This was the situation 86 years ago. Today, for Naturally Dyed textiles, look in south China and the mountains of Indochina and Burma for exquisite and unique Indigos. Africa produces mud cloths in many earth tones, as does a new American company, using U.S. mud. I have been producing Naturally Dyed silk fabrics and yarns in limited but substantial quanities since 1969, and continue to Art dye. Antique and Oriental Rug shops often have small collections of textiles, such as Paisley shawls, which are old enough (pre-1856) that you can be sure they are Naturally Dyed.

REVIEW OF YOGi WAY CLASS SEATTLE, WA

Recently I took a class in yogi nidra at yogi way. It was a free class, as it seems that perhaps not a lot of people are willing to pay for such a relaxing class. Considering how far I drive to attend these yoga classes here and there, I am very grateful for the free classes that are shared from time to time. I am already working very hard to practice, and to get there, sometimes I do not have enough to get there and pay for the class. However, when I do have it, I find joy in giving it and drive many many many miles just to practice with people, to learn more and to create special experiences.

But maybe I shouldn’t say “work”. This seems to be the western way: work, work, work. It used to be my way too, but yoga has helped me learn how to relax. Now it is not work, its “manifest”.

BUt its funny how you can still get to class and find that you need to relax. When I went to Yogi way in Seattle, I had a hard time relaxing at first. I kept thinking that I had to go to the bathroom, which is my usual feeling when I cannot relax. Anyway, we started the class with some easy movements to relax: like cat cow and some twists and prostrations. Then we got settled in sivasana. I started to relax at this point. I very gradually drifted off into sivasana, but never fell asleep. She had us make an intention, which I did. It came from a subconscious place. It seemed very deep. She talked about how making the intention in yogi nidra would make it have greater effects, because the deeper the desire driving a person, with the intention made, it would be sure to come true.

The vision I had in my eyes started pulsing, and I felt a lot of energy. After that my head started to hurt, and I got cold. When you lay like that so long different parts of your body can start hurting that don’t normally. I breathed through it and it settled. She started guiding us through visions, for example, picture yourself at a lake with the sun setting, picture the sun at noon, see yourself be a lake at midnight on the full moon, and see yourself walking in the forrest. This part was very emotional for me. In very old friend of mine was summoning me into a forrest I know very well. A place where I used to meditate underneath the boughs of a very big tree, a very sacred spot.

After that, she had us count our breathing: 27 chest goes up, chest goes down, 26 chest goes up then down, then we counted like this with our throat and our breath. This was the end of it. Shwe said it was the equivalent of four hours of sleep. I really enjoyed it, and it was actually very emotional for me. I think some things came up that I did not know were running around beneath the surface. It was very good for me. I plan to practice it when I feel sleep deprived and need assistance relaxing.

The class was worth the drive and I send congrats to Yogi Way for hosting such an event. It gives people a chance to meet new teachers and explore new styles of yoga. I believe that the more we open up like this, the more we have to share, the more we can heal each other, and the more we can relax.

A yoga teacher Cyndi Lee once talked about how some of us are hard on the outside and soft of the inside. Others are the opposite. I think that is reflected in the various Yogas people teach – very much like Coconuts and Peaches. This yoga class at Yogi Way was all peaches. I am happy to bring back the flavor, so we can make coconut peach smoothies.

Yoga Review of Flow class with Amy Robinson

Yoga Room Bellingham WA

I have not taken a class with my old teacher Amy in over a year. I was so looking forward to it, that my world became a tornado as I tore through paperwork at work, and then the streets, on my way to her class. I even got a “HEY NICE DRIVING!” yell. I showed up a few minutes late, but not too bad. Although it definately makes you question whether or not it is worth going to a yoga class, if you get so excited before it. I think the solution is to plan to arrive early, give yourself the extra value by planning to take it slow and to get there early.

Amy studied with Ana, but she also studied with someone special in India. Now after training with Ana I see what came from her, and what is just Amy. Amy has a great voice. It is very calming and introspective. She asks a lot of hypothetical questions. What I love, and know I see the influence of Ana, she asks you to feel in every pose. When we are doing balance poses, she asks you to feel that others around you and yourself are coming into balance and playing with that. She asks you to use the energy you created in your abs and reminds you to bring it down into your hips.

I missed the meditation, but after that we moved right into cobra. Cobra was an unhappy opening for me. My back is a little stiff to just jump in right away. From cobra, exhale childe’s pose, inhale back into cobra. This was to warmup the back. Then we moved into a forearm plank. I definately started feeling some heat at this point. It is an Ashtanga studio, and they keep it at 83 degrees, nice and warm. Amy also makes you hold the poses nice and long, but not so long you really suffer. Forearm plank up into dolphin, lifting legs up if you want. Then Inhale leg up, exhale, curl and bend leg, bringing into chest. This is a nice abdominal workout, and I have done this in Vini yoga classes. Last time, bring it through and come into a high lunge, with a side bend. This was a nice change; I never have done this pose. Back into down dog, then vinyasa if you please. She gives you the choice of going into vinyasa, down dog, or in child’s pose, if that’s what you need today. I like that, it is very inclusive and accepting. I could see that working really well in a mixed level class. We did a warrior sequence, warrior II, extrended warrior, to interlock if you wanted. After that we did some balance poses. The choice was either easy bird of paradise, bird of paradise, or just holding foot in front of you. After this, we did standing pigeon, in any version you wanted. We did horse, and moved into twisting horse. Then we did uddiyana, and then did a staddle. I felt really warmed up for this, more than usual. Then we did squat; and for me it was pure torture. This was the only pose that I felt we just held way too long, just kidding, but OUCH! After that we did straddle side chest opener, and then forward bend. We did pigeon and twisting from side to side. We held this for a long time. After this we did a tiny bit of abs, not much.. It didn’t feel like much to me. Then we did 3 backbends of choice. I did bridge, wheel, and bow. I didn’t feel warm enough for this. I felt really good, Amy’s classes are great. I had great focus, but I realize that realy healing happens to me when I get hot. I have to be hot to do backbends, otherwise they just hurt. I need that kind of lubrication. After that we did shoulderstand. Amy did an adjustment on me. I bent my knees and she pulled me up really high onto my shoulders. I have never been so high. It felt awesome. After that we did a hamstring strectch, then brought leg open to side, opening hip, and then across in twist. Then we went into sivasana. My sivasana was like torrid dreams, re-living all the anxious moments, and then pheeewwww blowing them all a way. I felt like I woke from a hot dream.

It was a really good class. I really needed it. It was only an hour and 15 minutes, and I definately felt that it seemed kind of short for me. Everything was shortened, shortened hot section, apex, etc. Overall it felt really good for my body.

Thank you everyone for coming to Yoga Class!

I just want to say the energy has been amazing and the turn out strong!

You have brought completion to my practice and I am grateful!

Thank you for sharing your inner work and for being strong and open minded!

Please contact me via my website to discuss your goals and any of your feelings or needs.

Thank you!

Andrea

PS. Here is the location, in case you need directions or more info:

http://homepage.mac.com/mattchristman/firehouse/index.html

Here is the calendar, good with my class times
and dates – last Published: Sat, Nov 3, 2007 | US/Pacific

http://ical.mac.com/WebObjects/iCal.woa/wa/default?&u=mattchristman&v=0&n=Classes-FPA.ics

And I created a flyer for the class here on my homepage:

http://web.mac.com/mediumisthemessage/iWeb/YogawithAndrea/Bonsai.html

Introducing Click Pop Records

Next week I will explore Soundings, or it it Planet Soundings – You know they have like 30 albums out between twenty bands that go back to the sixties… Including the Shapeshifters. Classics and on the yoga tip.

But lets start with the younger crowd and just keep it simplr for today. later I will get into detail about the artists themselves and how they sound and what they talk about.

But here it goes….

Clickpop Artist Webpages

Jenni Potts : www.jennipotts.com
Kristin Allen-Zito: www.kristinallenzito.com
Black Eyes and Neckties: www.blackeyesandneckties.com
Darin Schaffer: www.darinschaffer.com
Hakea: www.hakeahakea.com
Idiot Pilot: www.idiotpilot.com
Prosser: www.prossermusic.com
Scatterbox: www.scatterboxmusic.com
The Trucks: www.thetrucks.net
Memex Records : www.memexrecords.com

Clickpop Artist Myspace Pages

myspace.com/clickpoprecords
myspace.com/idiotpilot
myspace.com/kristinallenzito
myspace.com/prossr
myspace.com/thetrucks
myspace.com/scatterbox
myspace.com/delaytheband
myspace.com/jennipotts
myspace.com/isopal
myspace.com/darinschaffer
myspace.com/blackeyesandneckties

Memex Records on Myspace
Cumulous Artists on Myspace

myspace.com/memexrecords
myspace.com/BEAF

myspace.com/skiksmusic
myspace.com/hakeaband
myspace.com/splinters
myspace.com/bookmobile
myspace.com/rrine
myspace.com/formerselv
Our Local Scene – We Support It, Do You?

Resources:

BEAF – Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival
De la Creme Sound System
KUGS
KEXP
What’s Up!
The Corner Pocket
Radio Memeworks
The Nightlight Lounge
Bayside Recording
Rumors Cabaret
Pickford Dream Space
[West of January Records]
Estrus Records
New Regard Media
WhAAM = Whatcom All-Ages Art & Music
Bellingham Independent Music Association
Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival
Fliptracy

Graphic Artists We Work With and Love

Scott “the wiz-kid” Rickey
KeyLime Design
DoubleMRanch Design
Shawn Wolf Studio

Yoga video by Tracy of White Lotus

Hello,

I would like to introduce this yoga video for all who would like to look deeper into those who have come before me. I enjoy many styles of yoga and many stylesa of teaching yoga. Recently i felt inspired by Tracey and thought that it might be nice for some who cannot buy all the latest videos to see this free video.

YouTube – White Lotus Yoga with Tracey Rich and Ganga White

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l-muiP59vY&mode=related&search=

Please feel free to contact me, if you have any thing you would like to talk about, special positions you are have trouble with, or goals that you are working on.

Sometimes its nice to share and talk about things from perspectives that come from different practices. I like to explore and compare and relate and bounce questions off of my many friends across the world.

Also, please send me anything you have or find that is of interest to you or something that you think I should be aware of.

Review of the Shiva Rea Yoga Practice DVD

Shiva Rea Shakti DVD Yoga Practice
September 24th, 2007
Review by Drea

Select your sesh! Inhale, reach up, exhale bring it forward!

This DVD has a variety of preset classes to choose from: Basic, Solar Flow, Solar Flow II, and Lunar Flow. The Basic class is a nice class to get acquainted with Shiva Rea’s style, or for beginners. I have actually never tried this one yet, but have watched it. It looks fun and wiggly! Solar Flow is a more intensive class incorporating backbends and a few arm balances. This is a really fun class and a little more intensive on the warriors and legs then the next class, Solar Flow II. Solar Flow II is in theory the most advanced class, but I switch between the two depending on my mood. Flow II has less emphasis on legs and more emphasis on backbends. She shows a variety of arm balances. Shiva Rea has an Ashtanga background, and the practice is predominately poses threaded together with Salutations. If one is not used to this practice, it can be quite draining on the shoulders, arms, and wrists. I feel sometimes, it can be a bit boring and straining on my shoulders. I have a very strong practice myself, but sometimes repetitive chatarangas just becomes too jolting to the joints. Shiva Rea has a great “set”, beautiful Indian beach, and wonderful music. One complaint, she has very little to say besides “Inhale, Exhale”. She says a few insightful comments, but for the most part doesn’t describe the postures fully nor the purpose of them. I appreciate her worshipful devout practice. It is inspiring. I recommend the video to anyone, specifically vinyasa fanatics.

But just when you feel like exhaling and putting the video down, don’t do it before you discover the Lunar Sequences. The lunar vibe is really when the vibe takes off, maybe her vibe,maybe her style of teaching, or maybe its a nice way to down tempo from other styles of yoga or just a hard week.

The music on the video is very traditional, very spiritual and was a nice choice. I after hearing it I went looking for music on Shivas website but ended up in London where she seems to have some alliances in a crowd that is far from the vibe of the traditional music one hears on the video. Because she started doing yoga at fourteen, she got in early enough to know and enjoy spiritual music. However I am not talking about the trance dance techno stuff she is into.

But she stays clear of that techno in the lunar flows and so it is inspiring to do yoga to her video a few times, maybe on a rainy day. But then its off to the park where the air really flows, outside, yes…. In nature but without the plastic studio blocks. Why do people always take those with them on their yoga videos? Rocks and trees keep it real. But like I say, do the lunar flow and ask your nonself how it feels.

From basic to harder to next level, Shiva gives you two dvd’s for the long session in you, plus she is down with sounds true – so she must be one with the energetic rhythmic movement which happens through her.

My teaching dates for yoga @ the Firehouse are set!

Contact me about classes! I would love to hear from you and we can talk about your needs and wants. Have you had any injuries I should be aware of? Do you have a next level you would like to take your practice, maybe I can help you get there.

Have you seen my Studio Website?

I have started passing out flyers already and spent the day walking around bellingham. it was joy talking to people about the Firehouse and upcoming opportunity to share yoga.

Classes start OCT 22. Mondays and Thursdays 12-1:30 PM Only 10 classes!

Here is my homepage: http://web.mac.com/mediumisthemessage/iWeb/YogawithAndrea/Bonsai.html