September 2023 Newsletter

Words of Welcome

YTA's September Workshop with Sherri Baptiste

Future Workshops

Important Note: Day-Of Pricing Is Back

From Our June Workshop

Yoga with Weights by Sherri Baptiste

Yoga Q&A

Community Spotlight: YTA's 2023–24 Donation Recipient

Final Thoughts

Words of Welcome

Dear All, 

As the weather changes and the heat begins to subside, we usually notice an increase of energy and optimism that fuels the programs and activities that are reactivated at this time. The burnout and crises pervading the last few years can also be channeled into a renewed affirmation and love of life by an enthusiastic return to our pre-Covid yoga practice and the great source of creativity it inspired.

It is important to our health and growth to be in a position to help ourselves handle the insidious fear buried within and the lack of confidence that follows. Our yoga practice offers us timeless insights and solutions to establish our own empowering pathways to well-being.

The YTA has planned the perfect presentation of practical programs for the fall season and the new year to guide, support, and strengthen us as we gain autonomy to deal effectively with the lingering fear, to be replaced with abundant courage.

See for yourself by joining us each second Saturday of the month from 1:30 to 4:30 pm. See and experience how strong you really are and how you can navigate toward the life and light you deserve! 

Yours in yoga,
Paula Renuka Heitzner

YTA Workshops 

Saturday, September 9
1:30–4:30 p.m.
Via Zoom

The Zoom meeting link will be sent to registrants automatically in the registration confirmation upon receipt of payment.

2023–24 Season

October 14

Empowered Embodiment

from the Earth and Ether
with Paula Heitzner
    In Person  at Club Fit    
Join our beloved master teacher  for a workshop that will provide consciousness and awareness to the parts of the body used in any given asana (As the Anatomy Allows). We'll explore the range of motion with this focus, leading to alignment and  integration and communication and collaboration of the Brain, Bones, and Breath. Learn more and register now!

November 11
Align with the Divine: Yoga

for Body, Mind, and Heart
with Todd Norian
    In Person at Club Fit    
Take a deep dive into the life-affirming philosophy and practices of Ashaya Yoga! Align your body, mind, and heart with the five elements using Ashaya Yoga's four essentials—Open, Engage, Align, and Expand.
Build inner strength, balance, and flexibility with alignment-based, therapeutic asana and quiet the mind and cultivate inner peace through Yoga Nidra. Learn more and register now!

December 9

Self-Regulation and the Bhagavad Gita: Dissecting Detachment with Cristal and Pooja Sharma 

    Via Zoom    

Lean into the wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita to implement emotional, physical, and cognitive self-regulation tools to improve your daily life both as a teacher and student. Learn the meaning of detachment and how you can apply this concept in your daily life. Learn more and register now!

January 13

So Much More Than Stretching: Teaching

Chair Yoga Stretch
with Beatrice Mattaway

February 10

Subtle Yoga: The Science Behind Slow, Mindful

Yoga Practice
with Kristine Kaoverii Weber

March 9
A Spiritual Approach to Your Livelihood and Client Attraction
with Laura Cornell

April 13
Starting Off on the Right Foot—New Perspectives on the Feet, and Why They Matter with Doug Keller   

May 11

Radiate & Return: Relating to Your Core with 

Jennifer Brilliant 

June 8
Quiet Channels: Creating a Steady Postural Base for Tranquil Asana with Aasia Lewis

Important Note: The day-of pricing (see below) that has been suspended since spring 2020 is being reinstated with our September workshop. Register early to avoid the $10 surcharge.

Unless otherwise stated, workshops are $45 members / $65 nonmembers in advance ($55 / $75 day of) and count toward Yoga Alliance certification requirements. Preregistration is highly recommended in order to guarantee a space in the workshop. Cancellation within 24 hours of a workshop may result in forfeiture of the registration fee.

From YTA's June Workshop
with Daniel Orlansky

A Standalone System

Yoga with weights is neither yoga nor weight training, but a synthesis of the two forms of exercise. It’s a higher level of conditioning. Holding the weights in your hands and bearing the weights on your ankles fires and develops your muscles. The weights sculpt and tone your body. Meanwhile, as you strike the yoga postures, you develop flexibility and a conscious awareness of your body.

Yoga with weights adds another dimension to yoga. Because you’re supporting weights, the challenges that normally accompany yoga exercise @@md of knowing which muscles to flex and which to relax during an exercise @@md are made even more demanding. The weights stabilize the body and encourage you to feel the action of the yoga practice itself. The weight helps the muscles understand where they’re supposed to be and what they’re supposed to do in an exercise. The result is a more intense, more exact exercise discipline. 

Yoga with weights also builds body self-awareness. You can think of yoga with weights as a dialogue between your mind and your body. As you exercise, your brain sends a stimulus to a part of your body telling it to move in a certain direction. Then a signal comes back to the brain saying that the body part either can move or can’t move any further, and the brain sends out another signal asking the part of the body to flex or relax a little more. This ongoing dialogue amounts to a self-exploration of your body. In a very profound way, it makes you more aware of your body and enables you to extend the physical limits that your body is capable of reaching.

For the past several years, Sherri has worked with an elderly man who had polio in his youth. Her experiences with this man showed very clearly just how beneficial yoga can be to body awareness. Yoga was able to help the man so-to-speak reconnect the muscles and nerves in his body. He can now bend over, sit up, and walk with more ease, confidence, and coordination. His muscle strength, range of motion, and overall sense of well-being have improved physically and mentally. Yoga helped him rebuild the lines of connection in his body. It helped him restore and rewire what we call the nerve highways and pathways that had been damaged by polio.

Remember: Like traditional yoga, yoga with weight emphasizes correct breathing and an awareness of how you breath. This attention to breathing gives you a sense of calm relief, a feeling of grace, a feeling of steadiness similar to what you get from a traditional yoga workout. The addition of the weights brings the very physical feeling you get from weight training. You feel your individual muscles and you get the solid feeling that weightlifters get. 

Finally, the addition of the weights makes you feel the effect of the yoga training sooner. The weights train the muscles where to be and where to go. In a beginning yoga practice, it sometimes takes a year for students to “get it.” It doesn’t take students practicing yoga with weights that long.

Should I Have Had Some Weight Training?

You don’t need to have lifted weights before to study yoga with weights. The weights are only three to five pounds and are not difficult to get the hang of.

If you’re an avid weight trainer, you may have to unlearn one or two things before you attempt yoga with weights. Sherri can’t count the number of times weight trainers and big-time body builders have told her, “I want to come to your yoga class.” But they never show up. They’re intimidated by the yoga room and they never make it over the threshold because they’re not flexible and because they’re used to being the fittest, best athletes in the gym. Stepping out of your element and comfort zone is a challenge for everybody, body builders included. But the beauty of yoga with weights is that it benefits classic body builders in new and balanced ways, allowing them to reclaim full range of motion and flexibility while maintaining their strength. This is just the thing they often need.

One of the biggest attractions of yoga with weights is being able to lift weights and still maintain your flexibility. You can get the same muscular tone you get from weight training and work on your flexibility as well. You won’t get “bulked up” or muscle-bound, but your muscles will be toned, defined, and strengthened.

Yoga-with-Weights Breathing

If you’re new to yoga with weights, you may wonder why you have to pay so much attention to breathing. In every exercise, we tell you when to inhale and exhale and how long to inhale and exhale. In between exercises, we instruct you to pause for three deep and steady breaths. We have you focus on breathing because breathing correctly helps you to feel emotionally centered, physically stronger, and mentally alert. In the full-body workout, you use the complete breath (Chapter 4 explains what that is). Breathing complete breaths is a mindful practice that will harmonize body, mind, and spirit. It’s important to remember never to force a breath into your lungs; simply welcome a full breath to move in and out naturally. Breathing consciously helps you move safely as you exercise and connect to undiscovered areas of your body. The deep rhythmic breathing you do in these exercises also improves your circulation and de-stresses your mind.

Excerpted from Yoga with Weights for Dummies by Sherri Baptiste and Megan Scott. Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana, 2006. Available wherever books are sold.

To learn more about Sherri, visit powerofyoga.com.

Yoga Q & A

What are your thoughts about classes that continuously repeat Sun Salutations?

Is this helpful? Is any yoga better than nothing or should there be a variety? 

I will address the end of the question first. Yoga is a life-changing practice and should not be reduced to a better than nothing choice. There should be variety because of the many available aspects and approaches to one’s practice, touching every part of the body, mind, and spirit.

I feel that only doing Surya Namaskar is limiting and adds to the human tendency to habitualize and to the loss of curiosity and conscious concentration to go deeper, leading to complacency.

This section is dedicated to answering your questions about yoga—as a student or as a teacher. Questions? Comments? Send them to yta_editor@ytayoga.com or go to our Facebook page to share your thoughts!

Paula Heitzner, ERYT500, is a master yoga teacher. She has taught yoga for over 50 years and has trained many others in the time-honored principles, practices, and philosophy of yoga. The “teacher of teachers,” as she is called by her students, can be found at her studio, the Nyack Yoga Center, in its new location at the American Legion Hall. 

Learn more about Paula at nyackyogacenter.com.

Photo by Hasan Almasi via Unsplash

Community Spotlight:

YTA's 2023–24 Donation Recipient

We are pleased to announce that this season's donation will help fund yoga programming in the Bedford Hills and Taconic women's correctional facilities.

Formerly coordinated through Anneke Lucas's Liberation Prison Yoga nonprofit, a small group of volunteers led by Jill Lord continues to provide yoga classes at these facilities. As stated on the Prison Yoga Project website, with the use of tools like yoga and mindfulness, "people are more likely to take personal responsibility and think and behave differently. These tools and resources are the foundation for personal and social transformation so that currently incarcerated men and women may successfully reintegrate as participating members of society."

The YTA's vision is to "create a community that taps into the power of yoga to change attitudes, lives, and ultimately the world." The life-changing and life-saving programming provided by Jill and her dedicated group is one powerful way of manifesting that vision, and we hope you share our enthusiasm in being able to support that vital service.

As a reminder, through this community investment program, the YTA is guaranteeing an annual minimum donation of $500 to an organization or individual that is furthering our mission in the community. This amount can be increased in several ways:

• with donations from individuals
  
• with proceeds from targeted fundraising events
  
• by level of attendance at YTA workshops—if we beat our financial forecast for the season, a bonus amount will be added to the $500 base

So please spread the word—invite friends and family to workshops, give a YTA workshop or membership as a gift, and as always, let us know what you think!

Every month in this space we will share some type of community news—local happenings, volunteer opportunities, member perks or news... If you have something you'd like to share, please email us.

We will continue to share YTA member workshops, special events, and trainings occasionally in eblasts. Whenever you have an event or training to share, please email yta_editor@ytayoga.com. You can also activate your profile in our directory to post your events on our website.

If you are in need of a sub or know of a teaching opportunity, email us at any time and we will get it out to our 800+ mailing list as soon as possible.

Final Thoughts

I believe we each hold within us what I call a “coin of God,” a piece of the eternal energy of the universe, the essence of Buddha nature. A coin is a minted piece of value from the greater system to which it belongs, and each living being is a priceless treasure piece, molded from our greater universe. May we each cherish ourselves and extend this kindness to all living beings with whom we share this blessed planet.

—Tina Turner

Yoga Teachers Association was created in 1979  by a small group of pioneering yoga teachers who saw the need for affordable and continuing education. Today, YTA continues as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to expanding learning opportunities for teachers and committed students in the Hudson Valley. We offer monthly workshops presented by the leading yoga teachers of our time for the benefit of the community. All are invited. Membership dues and additional contributions are deductible to the extent allowable by law.

ANNUAL DUES
$50 for individual membership
$75 for studio membership

WORKSHOP FEES
$45 members / $65 nonmembers in advance
($55 / $75 day of)

Board of Directors

President
Gina Calendar, ERYT 200, RYT 500, CEP

Treasurer
Lorraine Burton

Secretary

Elisha Fernandes

Programming Chair

Sylvia Samilton-Baker

Communications 

Terry Fiore Lavery, RYT (Editor)

Cassie Cartaginese, RYT (Designer) 

Social Media

Ayanna Ahmand

Membership 

Open

Board Member at Large
Paula Heitzner, ERYT

With the recently announced new additions to our board, we are still in urgent need of a Membership Chair. We would love to fill this position with someone interested in helping YTA attract, engage, and retain members; no formal knowledge of membership management required! Please spread the word and let us know if you or someone you know would like more information. We would love to talk to anyone interested in both sharing and developing their skills; no yoga experience required.

ytayoga.com

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Yoga Teachers Association • 18 Derby Lane • Ossining, NY 10562 • USA