BARBARA BORIS Yoga

If the requirements seem daunting and you were planning on attending, contact me and we can decide together if it’s appropriate for your level of practice.

REQUIREMENTS FOR ATTENDING:

• completion of Advanced Sadhana Course, Module #1
• complete commitment to Iyengar Yoga (no mixing of styles, etc.)
• attendance in at least 3 of Kevin Gardiner’s Workshops / or his NYC classes
• receipt of the invitation email. It’s basically “invitation only” unless I forgot about you (sorry)
• regular attendance in another class of mine that week
• Sanskrit names…. please memorize at least on a week, so I can stop translating into English! A Level III student should know them by this point.
• all the typical Iyengar propping setups: sarvangasana, chair sarvangasana, vipariita dandasana, etc.
• a regular consistent home Iyengar yoga practice
• 5 minute Sirsasana, 1 minute Handstand - getting up without help, Urdhva Dhanurasana, 5 minute Salamba Sarvangasana
• cost is $20/class or you can use your Friday class card

WHAT IS THIS LEVEL III CLASS?

• it will not be an “advanced version” that weeks class (Sunday General, Tuesday, or Friday)
• I plan to move beyond that weeks class sequence, so you should have some knowledge of it to apply to the work in Level III (if you normally come on Friday, I will give you a “Cliff Notes” version of what is going on that week in the Wednesday Level III class if it applies to what we are doing)
• we will be working towards more advanced backbends and inversions
  teachers guidance will be given, but this is NOT a teacher training class
  this class will probably only run during the summer, so COME!

The dates are set. Registration is open. Get back to me quick, I already have 20 sign-ups. Maximum number of students is 50. Click here for full info.

KEVIN GARDINER
Junior Intermediate Level 3 Iyengar Instructor

Saturday & Sunday,
July 18 and 19, 2009

2 classes each day: 10am -1pm and 3 -5pm
Cost for the whole weekend only $220.

SPECIAL FOR THIS YEAR: CHILD CARE. I have a very reliable young lady available to take your kids on a Woodstock Day Trip while you are attending the workshop. The price will be reasonable and determined by the number of kids involved. Email me when you sign up if you need her services. She’s OK with all ages.

Advanced Yoga Sadhana Students are *strongly* encouraged to attend and will get a discount. If you are considering applying for the next module of the Advanced Yoga Sadhana Course, you must attend Kevin’s Workshop. Contact me directly for details.

Oh India.

This year on my annual trip to India I missed India all together. I spent 3 weeks in Goa. I like Goa, now, since I don’t try to pretend I’m in ‘India’ when I’m there. Goa is completely different. Not India. I miss India. Every so often, someone tries to explain India. The inexplicable “Why?” Here is one recent try I read in The New York Times.

Once-Clear Thoughts Are Clouded
by Anand Giridharadas

“We write about India this way because India is beautiful — not beautiful like Paris, sumptuous and elegant, but beautiful in its distillation of the extremes of human experience. To go into a Mumbai slum or a rain-starved Rajasthani village is to know how beautiful ugliness can be.

“But description tempts us, too, because India is mystifying. Correspondents send home answers. India withholds reliable answers. Correspondents schematize reality. India waits for the schema, then cruelly disproves it. The temptation to write 1,000-word tone poems is fierce in a country easier to describe than to explain, and easier to explain than to understand.  continued… “

Nick Rosen in Hanging Sirsasana at RIMYI in Pune.
Green tile, slate floor, window bars, white blankets, trestler pony/horse…

SPECIAL EVENT!
THIS SUNDAY, JUNE 28TH, 5:45 PM
Screening followed by Q&A with Bhakta Yogi and film participant SHYAMDAS
Upstate Films
Rhinebeck, NY
1 866 FLIM NUT
Tickets available at box office in advance, $7.50

OK, there is lots to be said about this film. I still haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard. Let’s all descend on Upstate on Sunday, en masse, and see what all the fuss is about. Guruji Iyengar is there, K. Pattabhi Jois, and of course our own Shyamdas. Come and discuss it with all the other local yogis. See you there.

A Documentary Gives ‘Going to the Mat’ New Meaning

NY TIMES REVIEW
http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/movies/01enli.html

Inspired to make a documentary about yoga, the filmmaker Kate Churchill came up with a shrewd idea. Rather than focus on her own experience with the discipline, which she has practiced to great physical and spiritual benefit for many years, she enlisted a yoga novice to devote himself to it and report on its effects.

ABOUT SHYAMDAS
Shyamdas has written and translated more than 20 books on the yoga of devotion and is a recognized speaker in the West as well as in India. He recently released a CD called Beloved Chants. He has lived in India for more than 30 years and currently lives between New York and India. He originally went to India to meet Neem Karoli Baba and then continued his Bhakti Yoga studies with His Holiness Goswami Prathameshji and other lineage acharyas. Shyamdas has also studied classical Indian music and specializes in the mystic devotional poets of North India. He has given devotional teachings and has lead retreats in the United States, Europe, and India. He has sung with Sting, Mike D, Paul Simon, and Madonna.

Another interesting review from Madison, Wisconson:
Unexpected twists make for entertaining yoga documentary
http://77square.com/movies/reviews/story_456054

Summer Solstice Memorial Concert for the late Ustad Ali Akbar Khan

Saturday, June 27, 2009
8 pm, $20.00

SUBHRA GUHA - vocal
Ray Spiegel-tabla drums
with harmonium and tanpura accompaniment

Unitarian Universalist Congregation
320 Sawkill Rd
Kingston, NY 12401
(845) 331-2884
www.uucckingston.org
for further information, call: 845-679-8865

On June 18, Aashish Khan’s father, the world renowned maestro, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan peacefully passed into his heavenly abode surrounded by family at home in California. He was considered India’s greatest living musician up to the time of his passing at age 87. His legacy is far too extensive to detail here. He established the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California in 1966. Thousands of students passed through that venerable institution. The world has lost an irreplaceable genius of music, (more…)

Wednesday, June 24, 6:15-8:00 pm
Mtn. View Studio
$20, or use your class card (+$4 for hour and half cards)

Open to all Level II students, come have a super restorative time for the official *beginning* of summer! This will be a make up class for those who took this month’s course. If you’ve attended the Pranayama Course in the past you also are welcome to come for a refresher.

We will review the primary ’shapes’ of moving the breath through the body, open the chest, and work on ujjayi, viloma and kumbhaka pranayamas. We will work supported and supine and seated.
Iyengar’s Light on Pranayama will be our inspiration for this class. There are some amazing passages in there that I will read during the restorative portion. I will have copies available for purchase at class.

NOTE: Ina will be substitute teaching this Sunday’s 9 am class while I’m at ZMM.

“The whole body transcends dust and dirt…
 [sitting] is simply the peaceful and joyful gate of dharma.”
—Zen Master Dogen

I invite you to join me this weekend at Zen Mountain Monastery for: