Hello everyone! We are seeing signs of spring in the lovely blooming trees and gardens of our neighborhoods. Here at the Hive, we are collaborating with egg and nest themed collages. Younger children practice choice and manual dexterity through coloring and gluing. While older children experience planning and self expression through cutting, drawing, painting, and collage.…
We’ll meet on the beach, form a circle, set the boombox in the middle, and crank up a strength and mobility-focused workout in the sand. As the orange sun slips into the sea, you’ll be jumping, running, skipping, and playing your way to greater health and vitality. Finish with a swim as the sky fades from orange to red to purple to blue.
One of the simplest and most profound ways of “aligning with the highest” I know of. This practice was born from life experience and it’s been tested and proven by the same means. Therefor, I believe it to be sound.
In therapeutic yoga, no two sessions ever look the same because your body is always different. We’re able to be in the moment and assess the situation as it is.
You are invited to take on the yoga challenge: twenty yoga classes in thirty days. But beyond these numbers, you are invited to a second challenge. Yoga practice is more than goal attainment, it is a balancing tool, and you are invited to strike a balance between the work and play of your practice.
It’s a 4-week series, and each week we’re going to focus on the health and specific alignment of different parts of the body. This series will help women create more strength and flexibility during pregnancy, to prepare them for birth and beyond.
Kate Baldwin explains how her affordable ‘Gentle Yoga for Everyone’ classes offer unique pain management for seniors, people with chronic pain, and, well, everyone.
Instructor Dana Rivkin shares about teaching yoga to teenage girls through Yoga Union’s empowering 10-week Teen Yoga series.
Todd Vogt shares with Jenna Lynne Roberts about the history of hot yoga at Yoga Union, and the benefits of a heated practice. How did you get into hot yoga? Hot yoga is how Yoga Union got started. It was primarily a hot yoga studio in the very beginning. It was why people came to Yoga…
Each time the yogi gets a taste of union with all things, she is rewired with greater sensitivity to the joys and the suffering of the world, and her compassion grows deeper. The effect over time is cumulative. Each experience is a little more real and results in a greater appreciation for the intricacy and preciousness of life, a desire to live it with higher regard, and a passionate lifestyle better aligned with the understanding that all things are connected.
I love Anusara Yoga. Learning it has expanded my asana practice, yoga teaching, physical body, and willingness to finally and fully inhabit this world as ME. I have met John Friend a few times, even got the chance to interview him at last year’s Wanderlust Festival. He was gracious with his time, energy, and thoughts. While…
I recently found myself caught in this contradiction while driving to the Wanderllust Festival for ten days of yoga bliss in Squaw Valley, Northern California. We left a day early in an attempt to reduce potential stressors– two tweens and an eighteen-month-old baby were sure to provide enough of that. In spite of our efforts, however, a drive that map-quested at 11.5 hours and started out as a conscious act of tranquility ended 38 blood-boiling hours later.
July 23rd is coming up fast- have you been practicing your dance moves in anticipation of Yoga Union’s first ever Yoga Groove?
July brings us a new pose of the month- Setu Bandha Sarvangasana, or, Bridge Pose (setu = dam, dike or bridge, bandha = lock). This is a great pose for yogis in all stages of practice, and the benefits are extensive. The pose can alleviate stress, improve digestion and rejuvenate tired legs.
Happy 4th of July weekend fellow Yogis! Do you have plans to BBQ, enjoy the sunshine or watch the fireworks? In case you’re still wondering what to do with all this nice weather, here are some holiday happenings in the Portland area:
Chris has been practicing yoga for the past six years and has recently begun teaching in Portland, Oregon. He has been listening to music since Poison overtook his heart at age 12. Yoga and music, yoga and music, yoga and music! Jai!
Have you had a chance to check out the statue, or “Murti”, in the front of the bamboo room at Yoga Union? Perhaps you’re like me and you’ve used it as your focal point during a difficult balance sequence but don’t know much about it. In order to appreciate more than just the beauty of the murti itself, I asked Todd to answer a few questions about the dancing deity he chose for his studio.
Summer in Portland is… unbeatable. When the sun comes out, the streets fill with smiles, exposed flesh and the smell of backyard BBQs. An open patio seat is hard to find and bodies lay strewn about in parks- victims of the Vitamin D assault. We even seem to forget the 8 months of incessant rain that only just stopped yesterday. It’s on these glorious days that it can sometimes be a challenge to take our bodies out of the sun and into the studio. So instead of compromising one for the other, why not take your practice outside? Yoga is, after all, about unity. When it’s practiced in nature, your connection to the universe may feel more readily available and your sense of awareness will have room to grow and evolve.
If you frequent the Yoga Union studio, then there’s a fair chance you’ve passed by a large van bearing the name “Flying Fish Co.” on the corner of 50th and Hawthorne. But have you stopped to peek inside and see what that van is all about, and who’s actually driving that thing around Portland?
As many of you know, June’s pose of the month is Siddhasana, also known as the “perfect pose”. Already in class I’ve heard students joke about the irony of this choice, “We do this one everyday!” or, “More like pose of the year!” And it’s true! We do find ourselves in Siddhasana more often than many…