Living Yoga Center | Urbana, IL

What an amazing yoga moment for me! My mom came to visit for my birthday weekend and asked if we could go to a yoga class. Could we?!?! Of course! You all know my home studio, Living Yoga Center, by now, but to see it through the eyes of someone who has never done yoga, ever, is great! I'm going to let mom do the rest of the review, if I have to pipe in (because we all know I can't keep my mouth shut) it will be in italics from this point on.   

LOCATION: I obviously know where I'm going, but I imagine the first time it's a bit confusing. There isn't a large street sign to get in, and it's on the 2nd level. The easiest way to enter the studio is actually to park on the upper level of the parking garage and enter the door to the building up there. It takes you into a stairwell that you can either go upstairs or downstairs, but the door right there takes you into the studio. If you do enter from street level you walk into a foyer area where you can take an elevator up one level that, with the staircase next to the elevator also, spits you out into Green Yoga Spa's side of level two (which is shared and open with Living Yoga Center). 

STUDIO: I like it, it was nice and open. The space was self-explanatory as far as where to put stuff, where to change, where to get props or put them back. The studio was clean (I liked the shiny floors) and decorated nicely (the curtain rods made from tree branches was fun). The space was noisier than I expected, lots of footsteps outside of the room and clunking around. But that is the wood floors, I'm guessing (Living Yoga had the gas company in checking for leaks, so they were making some noise outside of the room—not a normal occurrence).   

CLASS DESCRIPTION: Gentle This gentle class eases you into yoga at your own pace.  Poses are modified to meet the needs of the participants.  Compassion is our guiding principle as we focus on increasing one’s range of motion, flexibility, and strength, while developing inner peacefulness and acceptance of ourselves. 

INSTRUCTOR: Jodi Adams, RYT, has been practicing yoga since 1991.  Jodi believes in the restorative benefits of yoga.  No matter one’s age or flexibility, she offers a practice to awaken strength, balance, and a mind/body connection. Yoga has served Jodi well through adversity and times of stress, and she is ultimately inspired to empower others to tap into their own inner strength, to find their voice, their breath, and their true Self.

CONTACT: Living Yoga Center

My daughter brought me up to Champaign to celebrate her birthday. She is a girl of many passions, but yoga was one I knew very little about and she was loving it.  It became a part of life... So thought it would be fun to learn a little of this passion with her. Off we went to my first yoga experience. This was an easy comfortable place to enter, Anni knew her way around the studio and had me all set up on the floor with the mat, cushion (bolster), and few other things that could or would make it all easier for me (two blocks, a strap, two bolsters, and a couple sand bags—the props Jodi set us up with was fun—we did one pose, Upavistha Konasana, where we used the sand bags on our upper thighs and folded over two bolsters to relax. More along the lines of yin yoga, where you hold the pose longer to get into the connective tissue, specifically ligaments and tendons in the joints and spine). Everyone at the studio was super nice and welcoming.

The class was small (which I really liked for a first time) and Jodi started us with simple sitting and breathing (guided meditation) and went into alignment and stretching (a lot of soothing neck openers) and then up on the knees (cats & cows—Chakravakasana) and all the way up to butt in the air (not the real name. Lol, that should be the name! But it was downward facing dog or Adho Mukha Svanasana). I thought the class was great, it was fun to do the first with my daughter, it was relaxing and at the same time I felt the stretch in the muscles and really loved the deeper breathing and concentration. I was concentrating so much that I didn't even notice the people around me, although I did sneak in a couple peeks at the instructor to make sure I was going into a pose correctly.  

I loved the experience with my daughter and would not be afraid to join a beginners class in my home area. Thanks to everyone who welcomed and taught me, and to Anni for sharing her passion.

Thank you, Mom, for trying something out that was out of your comfort zone—which is sometimes the best part about yoga, learning more about yourself, both in humbling and encouraging ways. But most of all, thank you for taking that little adventure with me—it means the world to me and was an excellent birthday present. Love you mom! 

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Living Yoga Center Update!

Living Yoga Center (hey! they have a newly designed site, nice!), the studio I practice at when I'm not on the road has switched owners. Deb, the founder of the center has handed off the baton (gong? yoga mat? bolster? no, she's a runner also, baton works) onto to Steve (one of the instructors at LYC) & Sharon—loving yogis that will take good care of this space and all of us.

They've made some exciting updates in the aesthetics, which I've photographed below. I'm excited to meet new teachers and try new classes (while still enjoying my regularly scheduled program). If you'd like to read a review of my first time going to LYC, you can locate that here.

Love to everyone at LYC—excited to witness this new part of the journey!
namaste

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Jim Bennitt Workshops | Living Yoga Center | Urbana, IL

LOCATION: Living Yoga Center — my "home studio," as in where I love love love to practice when I'm not traveling. 

COST: $45/workshop or both for $80

STUDIO: See my original review  

CLASS DESCRIPTION: 

Stilling the Waking Mind, 10:30a-1p

We all know that meditation is good for us. If you're looking to connect to spirit, find inner peace, or just trying to deal with the stress of modern life... meditation can work wonders. Why then do we still struggle with starting or continuing a meditation practice? The answer may surprise you. It could actually be your yoga practice holding you back! When yoga is practiced inappropriately, it could make it more difficult to find the inner stillness necessary for meditation. In this 2.5 hour class, Jim will draw on ancient teachings and parables to help you better understand "the lake of the mind." Afterward, he will lead you through a specially designed sequence of postures and breathwork that will make it effortless to be still and reap the benfits of deep meditation. This class is suitable for all levels. 

Vinyasa from a Tantric Perspective, 2-4:30p

The word vinyasa stems from the Sanskrit word "nyasa," which means "to place." The prefix "vi," in this case, means "in a special way." Thus vinyasa would mean "to place something in a special way." The word tantra translates "to weave" and refers to weaving together the material and spirtual worlds. A tantric vinyasa class is a practice consisting of postures, movemembts, gestures, breathwork, and meditation weaved together in a special way to reach a specific desired result. In this class we will first decide what our desired result will be and then practice in ana intelligent way to get there. This class will be on the more vigorous side and is appropriate for students in good health and strong physical practice.

INSTRUCTOR: Jim Bennitt began his studies in Yoga, Tantra, and Aurveda in 1997. For the next three years, he bounced around from one yoga studio to the next, until he met Paul Weitz, a teacher at Moksha Yoga Center in Chicago. Two classes a week turned into five classes a week and Jim decided he wanted to teach. He completed Moksha's teacher training with Daren Friesen, studied with master teacher Andrey Lappa, and assisted Gabriel Halpern in his therapeutic classes at The Yoga Circle. In 2002, Jim met his teacher, Rod Stryker. Rod's teaching included mantra, meditation, and elements of Ayrveda. Since then, he completed and now assists in severl teacher trainings in Rod's Para Yoga lineage. Jim is also a popular presenter at conferences, workshops, and retreats in the US and abroad and is a co-owner of Tejas Yoga in Chicago.

CONTACT: Living Yoga Center

I'm going to go on a little bit of a frustration rant here... which has nothing to do with Jim Bennitt's workshop, except that it reminded me how discouraging injuries can be. I've mentioned before that I twisted my sacrum in March 2011. After a week-long yoga retreat I came home, got in my car at the airport, twisted to reverse not realizing how much I had loosened up that spine of mine, and crunched my sacrum. Those of you who have/had sacrum issues, you know how painful this can be. Since March, I've been visiting my chiropractor weekly, getting up to walk around at work so I'm not sitting on my twisted sacrum all day, and continue to go to yoga. But my sacrum is getting worse... as is my yoga practice as a result. Last week my chiro decided to do a lower back x-ray to get a closer look at what is going on, and we discovered L4 & L5 are jetting to my right (if you're looking at me) causing my spine to curve that way and my pelvis & sacrum are twisted enough to slightly make my left leg shorter than my right leg. 

After five hours of yoga my sacrum felt so much better, but honestly... there were some poses that were so painful (I obviously stopped going into them), I just found myself at one point in tears from wondering not only when will this be healed, but just when will I start to see improvements. I love my chiropractor, and I plan to continue visits because he does help and I consider him my primary doctor, but if any of you yogis out there have suggestions—I'm all ears. One of my instructors recommended bio-something (I've lost the pamphlet, I'm so unorganized these days, I apologize), which involved moving you further into the injury so the body corrects itself. She's had sacral issues and said it does wonders... but it also costs $70/hr and when I called that therapist she said we'd need to do about 3-4 sessions before I'd see a difference. Don't get me wrong, I completely respect the cost of natural/eastern/non-traditional health care, my dad was an acupuncturist, but I can't afford that. Seriously, when will my health insurance cover the doctors I actually see?!? OK, I need to move on, step off this soap box, kick it to the curb, and apologize for barfing this internal muck on you... but maybe one of you will have ideas. 

OK... Jim Bennitt's workshops. Hooray! I was so excited to be attending a yoga workshop in my home town. We don't get them here that often... or I'm horrible at getting information on these events. Anyway, I immediately signed up for both classes when I heard he was coming here. I really enjoyed the class I took from him at the Yoga Journal Conference—which was on Shodhana: Yogic Purification (see the link to watch a video of Jim demonstrating his practice, it's absolutely beautiful). 

STILLING THE WAKING MIND: This class started off with my 15-20 minutes of talking and taking notes. Here's what I gathered note-wise from it...

It is believed we suffer because we identify with the mind—there are four functions of the mind: 

The arrows on this differ from my notes,
but you get the visual

And the goal is to 

• Calm the Manas (senses) through donating our time to others, meditation on inner light and sound, and/or spend time in nature. 

• Dissolve the Ahamkara (ego) through seva (selfless service), Bhakti Yoga (chanting), and sacred gatherings (the Sanskrit word I wrote down for this isn't popping up in google, I apologize for my inability to hear or write sanskrit properly)—like this workshop I just so happen to be in.

• Empty Chitta (memory) by noticing samskaras (mental patterns) through mantra, pranayama (breathwork), concentration techniques, and meditation. This was talked about a lot in class, because we all cherish our memories so so dearly, right? But it's not about forgetting them, it's about not letting them define you or spending time judging them. What's done is done, today is a new day. 

• Sharpen Buddhi (intellect) through concentration techniques, self study, tapas (self-discipline—an internal heat that burns away impurities, often thought of as only a physical heat created in practice but much more). 

• And all of this to connect to the "fifth quadrant" (as my awesome sister-in-law once joked in reference to something else), called Atman (your inner light/soul).

Random not written down... Patañjali says "Yoga is when the mind stops" 

After our discussion we returned to our mats. Jim chanted a blessing before we started with some sun salutations and eventually held some poses for a longer amount of time... self-discipline to create tapas (sharpen that buddhi of ours). I loved that we were asked to do a headstand, as if it were nothing. It's not common to do a headstand in my daily classes—we do them, but there's just not enough time to include an inversion at the end of every class, let alone with the instruction of doing it in the middle of the room. I opted for the wall still, but I liked the experience of being surrounded by so many talented yogis. So inspiring! After savasana we did, I believe, fifteen minutes of meditation. A practice that I would like to start incorporating into my daily routine, but I've never once done this at home. My friend later recommended, just taking 10 minutes in the middle of the work day to go somewhere quiet and meditate. Which is a great idea, and probably when I need it most. But I would ultimately like to begin and end my day with yoga and some meditation. Goals are good.

Again, whenever I write about these workshops (like I noted for the Yoga Journal Conference), it seems a bit empty. Explaining the poses we did or the techniques we learned is useful, but the best part of the class is experiencing the feeling of yoga. The mental cleansing that comes after a couple of hours of yoga with a large group (yes, you can do this alone, but there's a vibe in a group... hence the importance of sacred gatherings). I can't put it into words gracefully (or even in a fumbling sort of way), but I just want to be sure to note that while the poses are necessary, they're not important. Great lesson to be reminded of. 

VINYASA FROM A TANTRIC PERSPECTIVE: This class had very little talking at the beginning, in fact I didn't take any notes as most of what Jim responded to students' questions with was taught in the first workshop. He did talk about how when people hear the word Tantric they equate it to sex, but quickly pointed out that sex is only a small part in the large world of Tantric yoga. I also liked the fact that Tantric yoga recognizes people living in a material world (I know, I hear Madonna singing now too), and instead of us all isolating ourselves in caves somewhere with out possessions and ultimately distractions—this path of yoga teaches us to appreciate the material objects, but to not become attached to or define ourselves by them. 

This basically was a lot of salutation work, which is why I think my sacrum is feeling better... there is no better way to wake up the entire body than doing a number of sun salutations. I mentioned before that twists were my nemesis for the day, but I had an amazing accomplishment today too. I did my first Wheel Pose (Urdhva Dhanurasana) in my adult years, anyway—held comfortably, arms correct, feet flat on the ground (I do have to thank my friend, Hollis, who I met during this class. She's doing her teacher training currently—while writing her thesis for school, both major accomplishments at the same time is impressive—and she talked me through it some... "arms looks good—work your feet in more pigeon toe—point the knees forward". Thank you Hollis!). It felt amazing!!! It's funny how a pose that is so intimidating or challenging your strength or brain function, when accomplished becomes your new favorite pose and you want to do it all the time. Yep, can't wait to do my next Wheel Pose. 

The last 1/3 of the poses was really a moment for me to sit and watch much more advanced yogis work into arm balances I can't yet do. Hayli has been prepping us in class for Eight-Angle Pose (Astavakrasana), which requires a lot of arm strength because you're basically holding yourself in the position by squeezing the legs to the arm. 

I love watching people go into Eka Pada Koundiyanasana II, it's so amazing to see the body hold these positions—for the flexibility and the strength. It completely inspires me to continue nurturing my body because as Aadil Plkhivala would say, "The body is the home to your soul!" 

Book List: 

Yoga Sutras by Patañjali

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika

Gheranda Samhita

Shiva Samhita

The Heart of Yoga

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Living Yoga Center | Urbana, IL

LOCATION: Living Yoga Center is in downtown Urbana, upstairs from Crane Alley. There are two entrances to the studio, but the more common-used one is off the upstairs level of the parking garage it's attached to... you do have to pay for parking in this area, but the parking garage is only 50¢ for the first two hours.
COST: You'll have to go to their website to see the drop-in fee. I signed on for the monthly fee of $65, which allows me to take as many classes I want, along with a few other benefits.
STUDIO: A beautiful space... with two bathrooms, a changing room, a kitchen, a lobby-like area with free tea, and the studio itself is always a breath of fresh air for me. The studio is painted a happy yellow, has a wall full of windows bringing in wonderful light (and privacy, since it's on the second floor).
CLASS DESCRIPTION: The classes I choose are based on when I can make it in the middle of the day... for a while now I've been taking mostly flow classes (with one Hatha in there on Monday mornings)—A stimulating and creative practice that focuses on integrating strength, flexibility, alignment, and awareness through a dynamic sequence of asanas linked by the breath.
INSTRUCTOR: My regular instructors are Hayli and Jenna, with a dose of Mary, Steve, Deb, and Kerry when schedules spoil me. All the instructors at LYC offer wonderful instruction, but I am definitely drawn to Hayli since she as my first instructor (it's like yogic imprinting or something, lol). For full bios on everyone, please visit the site, but i will highlight Hayli in my review. Hayli Peterson has been practicing yoga since 1998 and teaching since 2003. She has trained with Shiva Rea and teaches her flow classes in the Vinyasa style, a stimulating and invigorating practice that focuses on moving the body with the breath while allowing students to work at their own ability level. She also studied and is trained in traditional Ashtanga and Hatha yoga by Yoga Vidya Gurukul in Nasik, India. This is where she derives most of her gentle yoga technique from and teaches these classes with the emphasis on maintaining comfortable, relaxing, and steady postures. She is a certified Massage Therapist with her practice on the same floor as the Living Yoga Center. She also has her MBA through the University of Massachusetts - Amherst and works with her father at Financial Synergy, Inc doing tax accounting and financial planning. Most importantly she has three amazing children and a fabulous husband that are the center of her life.
CONTACT: Living Yoga Center

When I decided to switch from The Refinery to Living Yoga Center I knew I had made the right decision just walking into the studio. The space instantly felt like home to me. What surprised me, was it never occurred to me that Hayli and Steve also feel more comfortable at LYC too. They knew their students well here, and could help the class move along at different levels with ease. It was here I participated in my first oms, my first class longer than an hour, had beautiful passages read to me at the end of a savasana, and my first steps down a lifelong journey with yoga. It's so exciting, looking back on what is probably my year anniversary with LYC.

Each instructor has offered new ways for me to learn about my body and how it should play with the poses. Each class offers me a break in the middle of the stressful work day to breathe, find joy, relax, re-energize, and just be in my own special space on my mat every day. It is here that I have found patience in myself, excitement in my short-comings (knowing I found a starting point to chart my progress), amazement in my capabilities, confidence in my true self, beauty in the people I'm surrounded by, and constant wonderment in where yoga can take the mind, body, and soul.

Yoga's Reach

It is a wonder
how a simple stretch
deepens breath,
and an elegantly held pose
grows to touch the
whole of me.

Like sugar stirred into tea,
the potency
of yoga spreads
from body into mind
and heart, revealing
an ocean of energy
that heals and opens,

holds me close
and sets me free
all in the same moment.

—Danna Faulds

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