class spotlight: yoga

By David Beadle

Hatha yoga is a versatile and comprehensive system of physical exercise for the mind, body and soul. With the right approach it can:

- support the healing and prevention of injuries,
- help you enjoy a healthy and sensual physicality,
- lead you into meditation - cultivating peace of mind and self-healing.

Beginning / Intermediate level classes move at a methodical pace, ensuring that students will learn:

- foundation yoga poses and sequencing;
- principles for coordinating the breath with each movement;
- intelligent approaches to preparation, warm-up and alignment in action;
- techniques for calming, concentrating and unifying the mind & body;
- fundamental breathing and relaxation exercises.

Intermediate level classes are designed as a bridge between levels I and II, and use basic asanas to build more complex ones. The pacing includes pauses in order to allow time to break them down, analyze their parts, and put them back together.

Intermediate / Advanced classes are for students who want to build on the foundation of their introductory level classes linking asanas in fluid sequences that build strength, flexibility and concentration with a dynamic and continuous pacing.

Below are two examples of classes that focus on the energizing and calming effects of hatha yoga - which can be balanced and fine-tuned to suit each individual both within the group class and in your home practice. The goal of these classes is to integrate body, mind and spirit while balancing the vital, universal forces that are continually moving through us.

Yoga for stress reduction is based on the restorative practice of supported and gentle yoga postures combined with breathing, visualization and meditation techniques. Classes are designed to soothe and balance the nervous system, while guiding you into deep relaxation. This class helps to integrate breathing and relaxation skills into your daily life, reducing the impact of stressful situations and hectic schedules while cultivating an essentially peaceful state of mind.

Power-flow, or Vinyasa, is a physically challenging approach to hatha yoga training that links yoga postures in rigorous, fluid sequences to build strength, flexibility and concentration. Continuous motion heats the body from within, making deep stretches and core strengthening safe, effective and energizing. Steady breathing grounded in a deep sense of stillness calms the mind and keeps you centered, while the posture sequences move you gradually beyond your limits. In this class you learn new combinations of asanas, develop your home practice, challenge without strain and always include relaxation, visualization and meditation.

About David Beadle: David Beadle, MFA is a certified Somatic Movement Educator through the School for Body-Mind Centering, with over 20 years of experience as a dancer, teacher and movement therapist. His background brings an understanding of dynamic alignment, body mechanics, injury prevention and mind-body integration. He invites his students into an embodied engagement with the fluid nature of movement, and offers great breadth of knowledge and depth of experience in meditation practices and yoga philosophy. Influenced and inspired by the past eighteen years of study with outstanding teachers in alignment oriented and breath centered styles of Iyengar, Ashtanga and Kripalu yoga, his teaching approaches asana mindfully, gently and deeply. In his classes students embody a unique blend of intelligent movement principles and integrative breathing techniques to access the body's wisdom. He is co-director of Yoga ~ Body, Mind and Spirit; in-depth yoga study and teacher training program, and assistant faculty for The School for Body-Mind Centering Yoga Programs, and has been seeing private clients and teaching yoga in various settings since 1984.

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