Yoga Teacher Training ~ Play. Flow. Blessings.

I completed and graduated from my Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training Level 1 for over 2 years.  Since I began practicing yoga more than a decade ago, I realized I wanted to deepen my knowledge and my practice.  I had strong intensions to take a yoga teacher training... I just never knew which one!  Nor did I give any real thoughts to expectations on what I was going to experience.

I can tell you that this is life expanding experience (once I was able to surrender my mind/ego).  For me, it was a single intentional step that elevated the consciousness for the thousand+ miles journey ahead.  In the time & space of my 20's, I had already travelled extensively on our physical planet.  NOW, I found that myself on this unknown path from my navel to my heart.  This was the beginning of a journey within ME to find Myself!

Did I have a desire to change my life? Yes. Dont we all?? 

Did I hear a calling?  Initially, no.  I did hear a strong calling of my soul during childhood -- but somewhere in trying to "grow up", I got lost in the shuffle of achieving.  In the process of graduating from college, getting the $$ white collar job and living it up, I simply felt lost & empty.  Why didnt I feel joy & pride?  The real kicker was when my body physically started to revolt against this cold depression; first with tendonitis, then extreme fatigue.  It got to a point when I felt physically ill being in the office setting.  Finally, I had to tune-in inward to hear my soul breaking its silence.   

Was I prepared for the experience?  I thought that yoga teacher training was going to be fun and easy...some light reading, simple exercises and guided meditation.  If I knew how much hard work within I had to do or what kind of inner blocks I had to work through, I might have ran the other way!

My experience changed and transformed my life.  Daily, I work on living and serving with grace, love, deep gratitude, humility, reverence and joyful awareness.  My consciousness cant crawl back into the darkness of the forest.  It was shaken to a depth that would have taken me a lifetime using just my own observations.  I am now living a life beyond my wildest dreams and to my own design!

I am ever grateful to find a community of such wonderful support.  We took the first steps of happiness together, by committing to ourselves.  My tribe of fellow Aquarian yogi souls ventured forward from darkness into light.  Over the course of the 9 months training, we allowed ourselves to be fully present for this our own re-birth.

Our characters are strengthened.  Our old habits were investigated and dissected.  We affirmed our dignity.  We got in touch with the Universal Highest Divinity.  As the light beings that we are, we shine our grace.  We found the power to sacrifice, choosing Love over Fears.  

And so we march onward... expanding this continual spiritual growth and experiencing pure bliss!!

3 days to go!!

Join us this Saturday 
from 1pm-11pm!! 

UPDATE

FREE Bounce House 
+ Face Painter 
+ Balloon Twister

 from 1-3pm, 

for the kids!

Buy Tix Here

Directions to the venue 

at Business Expo Center

WSJ reports: Doctor's Orders: 20 Minutes Of Meditation Twice a Day

Researchers are exploring the 

benefits of meditation on 

everything from heart disease to obesity. 

Integrative medicine programs including meditation 

are increasingly showing up 

at hospitals and clinics 

across the country. 

Recent research has found that meditation can lower blood pressure and help patients 

with chronic illness 

cope with 

pain and depression.

While it is clear that "when you breathe in a very slow, conscious way it temporarily lowers your blood pressure," such techniques shouldn't be used to substitute for medications to manage high blood pressure and other serious conditions, said Josephine Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health. In general, she said, meditation can be useful for symptom management, not to cure or treat disease.

Recent research found that meditation can result in molecular changes affecting the length of telomeres, a protective covering at the end of chromosomes that gets shorter as people age. 


Source: Wall Street Journal

Experience limitless joy 

& learn how to meditation!

Join us 05.11 for the 

One Consciousness 

of Love & Light Festival!!

♥

Share the infinite love & light within

Drugs free, alcohol free & smoking free

Calling community business to Join us!

We still have Vendor Tables available in the 

Golden Bazaar ($66/space) & Lotus Hall ($111/space) 

for the 

One Consciousness of Love and Light Festival 

on Saturday, 05/11/2013.  

Come & join us!!

See Vendor details here!

Promo video trailer in the works... 7 DAYS TILL RELASE

And the countdown begins...  7 days till release of Promo Video Trailer

The Chakras

Below is details of the colours of the chakras and how they work and what they do. 

There are 7 main chakras in the body 

starting from the top of the head 

and ending right at the bottom of the spine.

Let your 8th chakra - Aura - 

radiate the beautiful soul that you are.

We are Atma (soul) born for a human experience; 

we are not a human born for spiritual experience. ~ Yogi Bhajan

Chakra (in Sanskrit) = Wheel / Disk

Chakras in the body are centers of exchange between the psychic and physical dimensions.  Like transformer, they change subtle prana (life energy / breathe) into physical energy flowing through a system of "nadis" (psychic channels like the meridian system of Oriental medicine).  Chakras are energy vortexes perceived as spinning discs of light situated along the spine. 

Traditionally, there are 7 Chakras and Yogi Bhajan designated the Aura (electro-magnetic field) as the 8th.  When the chakras are opened the particular talents of each are assimilated and consolidated into the character and behavior of the person.

The chakras correlate to levels of consciousness, archetypal elements, developmental stages of life, colours, sounds and body functions.

Counting down... 5 days till release of Promo Video Trailer

Happy Sunday...  5 days till release of Promo Video Trailer

Counting down... 6 days till release of Promo Video Trailer

Counting down...  6 days till release of Promo Video Trailer

WSJ reports "The New DJs: Fitness Gurus"

Group Fitness Classes Use Music
to Compete for Clients; Zumba to 'Ice Ice Baby'

People who go to boutique fitness clubs
are increasingly choosing their classes
by the music played there,
and the music industry is taking notice.

Devin Murphy loves the new remix of the 1984 Bryan Adams hit "Summer of '69." She didn't hear it on the radio, notice on iTunes or see it on a friend's Spotify page. She fell for it while sweating it out at a fitness class at Barry's Bootcamp.

Ms. Murphy, 29, chooses the cross-training classes she takes four times a week in New York largely based on how much she likes the instructor's musical taste, she says. Top-40 songs get the management consultant moving, she says, while hip-hop leaves her uninspired.

"I've bought a lot of songs that I've first heard at Barry's," says Ms. Murphy.

Fitness companies are increasingly getting into the music business. The move comes with the waning impact of traditional radio on the music-buying public, and the rise of boutique exercise classes, particularly yoga, Zumba and indoor cycling.

Fitness entrepreneurs say they are investing hours in training instructors to create compelling playlists that will help generate loyal student followings—and online buzz. Music labels are pitching their emerging talent to instructors and cutting deals with fitness chains. And exercise businesses are trying to cut licensing deals with music companies in order to package and sell workout songs in much the same way that film and television executives do with soundtracks.

"We are a fitness company, but we're a music company too," says Alberto Perlman, co-founder and chief executive of Zumba Fitness LLC, which has developed a globally popular Latin-inspired dance fitness program. The company has sold more than one million downloads of its original and specially remixed songs on iTunes, and says 14 million people take at least one Zumba class per week globally.

Universal Music Group, a unit of multinational media company Vivendi SA, has joined the Zumba juggernaut. Its new CD, "Zumba Fitness Dance Party," went platinum in France last year, selling more than 100,000 units. An American version, featuring songs by Lady Gaga and Carly Rae Jepsen, among others, debuts in early March.

"There is a great overlap of fan base between our world and what's happening in the fitness world right now," says Bruce Resnikoff, chief executive of Universal Music Enterprises.

A 'DJ Ride' class at Flywheel Sports in New York.

Zumba fans have already helped revive the career of Rob VanWinkle—better known as the rapper Vanilla Ice. Last year, Mr. VanWinkle rerecorded his 1990s hit "Ice Ice Baby" with a Latin flavor and Zumba-friendly tempo, then starred in a video featuring Zumba choreography. Released last August, the single has sold nearly 17,000 copies.

"Zumba reaches so many millions of people, it's like MTV was back in the day," Mr. VanWinkle says.

Flywheel Sports hired Scott Melker, a music producer and DJ, to help orchestrate the music strategy for its indoor cycling classes before opening its first studio in New York three years ago. Songs that Flywheel clients hear blaring in their spin classes in the company's growing number of satellite studios—which have since opened in cities like Chicago, Seattle and Dubai—are drawn largely from Mr. Melker's curated database of a few thousand new songs, as well as those he remixes or "mashes" together.

Labels and artists who want their music included in his playlists pitch him regularly, he says. Cyclists who want to know the names of songs they've just sweated to often bombard Mr. Melker and the instructors after classes, he says.

Many fitness instructors post playlists on websites like Facebook and Spotify in response to such student requests. "Instructors are the new DJs," Mr. Melker says.

At SoulCycle, a rapidly expanding national chain of spinning studios co-owned by Equinox Gyms, instructors are prohibited from sharing their playlists with students online. "The music is a part of what people come to SoulCycle for," says company co-founder Julie Rice. She says SoulCycle hopes to make a deal with a music label to license the label's library and then sell SoulCycle-branded playlists culled from it. With these playlists, the company will be able to stream classes on the Web for its clients who have purchased their own SoulCycle indoor bikes, which retail for $2,200.

More traditional gyms and fitness centers are also trying to harness their customers' interest in well-curated playlists.

Rapper Vanilla Ice, left, and
Zumba Fitness co-founder Beto Perez, center,
at one of the company's fitness concerts.

Two years ago, Gold's Gym asked its Facebook followers to share their preferred iron-pumping jams. The social media response was so great that later that year it debuted "March Music Madness," in which people go online to submit their favorite workout songs for a bracket that mimics the NCAA's "March Madness" national basketball championship bracket. Throughout March, the gym franchise's group-fitness class instructors build some of their playlists from the suggested songs. The public votes for its favorites on marchmusicmadness.com. Last year, Kanye West's "Stronger" beat out, among others, the "Rocky" theme song. This year, the company says March Music Madness will be a battle of the bands.

Some fitness buffs may even find a musical artist making a guest appearance right in the workout room. So-called live-music yoga classes and festivals are growing in popularity. David Romanelli, a New York-based yoga instructor, led a class this summer in Colorado that was accompanied, live, by the jazz-fusion musician Stanley Jordan.

Heather Velasquez has traveled twice in the past few years to Orlando, Fla., from her home in Espanola, N.M., to attend "concerts" organized by Zumba Fitness. The 37-year-old mother of two says she is drawn to the style of music and is happy to travel to do Zumba dance routines with 8,000 other conventioneers to live music performed by artists like Wyclef Jean and Vanilla Ice. "It's all about the music," Ms. Velasquez says.

Some musicians are creating their own new genres within the fitness market niche. Nicholas Giacomini, 33, is a Point Reyes, Calif.-based hip-hop musician and yoga-studio owner who loved practicing yoga to songs that had a rap vibe, but felt most rap songs contained lyrics that didn't connect with the lessons of yoga.

Under the name MC Yogi, Mr. Giacomini began writing, recording and selling online yoga-centric rap songs, such as "Be the Change," a hip-hop telling of the story of Mahatma Gandhi. Mr. Giacomini has sold more than 100,000 albums. His music is now distributed by a division of Sony Music.

Some yoga purists complain that the practice was never intended to have any soundtrack—however meditative—beyond one's own measured breath.

And while music helps distract people from the rigors of toning their muscles and improving their heart health, it may be having an adverse effect on another body part: the eardrums. For its riders, SoulCycle supplies ear plugs, free of charge.

Join our Fitness Gurus 

on 05.11 at 

in Anaheim!

 

Give the next generation inspiration to create the wonders of the world.  

It is OK to doubt what you have been taught to believe.  Sometimes we just need to change our perspective....

All things are possible with LOVE.

LOVE is the energy behind EVERYTHING.

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy
not on fighting the old, but on building the new." ~ Socrates 

 

Let children dream the impossible.  Get them to seek the unknown. 
Allow them to achieve greatness!  

 

Much yoga love & light!