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Resisting Growth – a Meditation
On Sundays in my yoga class we focus on meditation. Every week we do a different form of meditation, because people find their way to inner stillness from many vectors. Today we practiced my own system, Drawing Meditations, where we use art to find insights, inner peace, and connection. And it was a remarkable session…
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Chakra Balance Yoga
In Satoyama Yoga I honor the Spring Equinox with a theme of balance classes for the month. Many involve standing balances, we test our dynamic balance, and we also try energetic balance using the chakras as a framework. I feel about chakras the same way I feel about horoscopes, psychic readings, auras, and fortune telling…
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Receive, Release, Give
Our hands are one of the most important tools we have to connect with the world – we use them to touch, explore, grasp, work. In this Drawing Meditation we use them as a conduit for connecting with our inner world. We let the drawing distract our conscious mind so that our inner thoughts and…
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Chocolate for breakfast
Today marks the 8th anniversary of my yoga classes in Kamogawa. They started as a twice weekly practice at Satoyama Design Factory and later become a daily class first in person and then via Zoom. I never set out to be a yoga teacher, but I am glad that I did. My practice has created…
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Yoga classes upstairs
This weekend, with house guests and local friends all gathered to help us move, we did our yoga sessions together in the upstairs of 555. (Still need a name for the upstairs!) We comfortably fit five people. Plus Mamiko joined us via Zoom from her mountain cabin. She’s our best class photographer. On Saturday we…
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Yogic art and movement
Every morning as part of the Satoyama Yoga warm-up sequence, we twist our spine in a movement I call Washing Machine. It’s a direct descendent of a Kundalini kriya. Last weekend, we practiced art meditation and I unexpectedly drew the pose and I like it. I thought I’d share Washing Machine and also how to…
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Chat GPT & yoga
Yesterday, I decided to test Chat GPT in a knowledge realm I know well, yoga. I wanted a new sequence for today’s class, so I gave it this prompt: Hi, Chat GPT. I’m a yoga teacher. I teach classes online. Can you help me create a 15 minute class for my middle aged students? I…
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Distal Focus
This morning, I watched an Instagram Reel about shoulder pain that got me thinking. A Tokyo-based physical therapist, Sam Gilbert, demonstrated how the body increases or reduces pain depending on how you focus attention. If you lift your arm to test the injured shoulder, your mind is focussed on the painful part and it hurts.…
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Yoga fitness test
Do you keep track of your physical status? Many of us track our steps with a smartwatch or use an app to log weight, heart rate, and other vitals. But do you also track your flexibility, balance, and endurance? They are just as important especially as we grow older. My yoga class is mainly middle-aged…
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1000 days
Today marked 1000 days in a row of Satoyama Yoga’s online class. It has been a pleasure to lead this class every day. Without it, I certainly would not have a regular daily practice for myself. It’s hard to digest everything that’s happened in this time, but these statements are true: Personally, I taught through…
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