Posts In: Tapas

Join Yoga One’s Amy Caldwell for an energizing and meditative 108 Sun Salutations. Celebrate the Winter Solstice and the approach of the New Year by generating a conscious and elevated energy. 

Friday, December 22nd, 6-7:30pm
$18 drop in or use your Yoga One class package/membership.

All students with a regular yoga practice are welcome to attend, register here.

This week, as the earth turns on its axis, we’ll experience the longest night of the year, the winter solstice. In the Northern Hemisphere, each day following December 22nd will have a slowly increasing amount of sunshine as we move towards Spring. It’s not surprising that so many traditions and cultures around the world have chosen this time of year to celebrate light and hope.

In both yoga and Hinduism, 108 is a sacred number, representing fullness or completion. We will perform 108 sun salutations to represent and cultivate a feeling of fullness and completion. Sun salutations build heat in the body just like the sun warms the planet and as we progress towards our goal we mirror the sun’s progress towards spring.

If you think that practicing 108 sun salutations sounds like an impossible feat, you’re not alone! It’s something many people feel they can’t do. But don’t be deterred.

The collective energy and shared purpose of the group supports the individual. And you won’t be expected to do all 108. We will modify the types of sun salutations performed and you will be encouraged to rest whenever desired. The 108 sun salutations become intentions personified, a moving meditation that helps each participant refine their awareness.

Join us for this fun and transformative practice!

The Yoga of Parenthood

February 27, 2017

by Laura McCorry

toddler walking LMcCorry

The Yoga of Parenthood

I’m a yoga teacher who doesn’t do yoga at home.

At least, not in the way many people understand yoga –
I don’t unroll my mat in the living room while the toddler naps,
even though many days I want to and feel like I should.

My yoga practice doesn’t look the same as it used to,
but neither do I. My body is not the same, nor is my heart.

My yoga is the not-so-silent meditation of watching steam
curl up from the teapot. Three minutes of breathing, of focus
while the little person at my feet repeatedly calls my name.

My yoga is a square of chocolate eaten behind pantry doors
that reminds me to stay present, that this moment will pass,
that I am still myself and sometimes, I don’t have to share.

I feel the fiery embrace of yoga, my muscles holding the pose
of grocery bags over one arm, my child held close in the other.
This is tapas, too. This is the work of daily refinement.

Yoga doesn’t care whether you move through life fast or slow
as long as you are awake for this moment, right now.
We spend forty seconds admiring some clover rooted in earth.

It takes us thirty-five minutes to walk around the block,
my child doesn’t feel time pulling with her thousand fingers.
This, the sacred gift of childhood, to grow rooted in being.

My yoga teaches me to live the way my heart already loves,
and how to choose being over doing, as many times as necessary.

 

Laura McCorry

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura@yogaonesandiego.com

Yoga One and DTO Music recently collaborated to host Yoga on the USS Midway, where an amazing 800+ yogis gathered to practice together on the flight deck! 

Amy Caldwell on USS MidwayCo-Founder and Lead Instructor Amy Caldwell discussed yoga and music with DTO, you can read the full interview on their site

Here are some of our favorite highlights:

Yoga, as we offer it at Yoga One, is non-competitive. One of the beautiful things about yoga practiced in this way is that it always meets you where you are and supports you at your level. 

Although in our modern Western culture yoga has become so much about appearances, the depth of the practice lies within.

In the Yoga Sutras, Kriya yoga breaks down into three key elements: Tapas (to heat, burning enthusiasm or conscious effort), Svadyaya (self-study or reflection) and Ishvara Pranidhana (allowing or letting go, connecting to the Big energy within and around us).

If we remove the elements of self-reflection and letting go, in my opinion, it really isn’t yoga. Yoga is not only what we do, but how we do it.

How does music benefit your guidance in a yoga class?

Michael and both share a great love of music. In fact, we met at a CD release party for the Jazz musician and film composer Stanley Clarke. I was working for Budd Carr a music supervisor who does all of the music for Oliver Stone. I helped on Twister, Natural Born Killers, Heat, Nixon, etc. Michael was working for BMI which is a performance rights society. We both got to experience first-hand how integral music is to film. A soundtrack really adds emotion and energy. Try watching some of your favorite movies without the sound sometimes.

While yoga is fantastic without music, adding music certainly can help set the mood, the pacing and an overall vibe. Music often adds to any activity and yoga is no exception. We enjoy music with our yoga so much we created the Yoga One CD which was released by Quango Music Group.

Here is a link where you can purchase a copy of the Yoga One CD for your own home practice!