Yoga: a Practice for Everyone

by Erin Ipjian

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I love the physical discipline of yoga practice - so much so that I practice it every day. When moving to the rhythm of the breath and refining the details of the poses, something magical happens. I can't always explain it, but I most certainly feel it. And I see it in the eyes of students at the end of a well-taught class. Something shifts. There is a sense of clarity and steadiness that we somehow reconnect with.
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My wish, as a teacher and studio owner, is for people to understand that yoga is for everyone. And while you may be (as most people are) initially drawn to the physical benefits of the practice, it has so many additional layers to offer, if you remain focused on the intent behind what you are doing on your mat.
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I am in love with this passage from Jon Kabat-Zinn on the purpose of yoga,
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"The appeal of hatha yoga is nothing less than the lifelong adventure and discipline of working with one's body as a door into freedom and wholeness. Hatha yoga was never about accomplishment or perfection, or even about technique by itself. Nor was it about turning one's body into an elaborate pretzel...To my mind, hatha yoga is potentially beneficial to huge numbers of people at every level of physical conditioning...
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For mindful yoga is a yoga of wholeness that has nothing to do with what your body can or can't do at any given moment, or with how your posture looks. It has everything to do with the sincerity of your effort, with how awake you are in your life, and how embodied you are in the only moment in which you are ever alive-- which is always now."

Check out our current class schedule here! We'll see you on the mat!