July 26, 2012 by Diana Gould Bonyhadi

Summer Schedule Changes

I find it hard to believe we are half way through summer. But I know it must be true, because I just sent my daughter off to Camp Nor’Wester for a month, and she won’t be back till the end of August. That means there are only 6 weeks left of summer.

Earlier in the month I wrote a post about what to do in Seattle in the summer. How are you all doing with that? So far I have been to the beach, hiked in the woods and gone berry picking & made some raspberry jam. I have a lot to do in the next 4 weeks. Next month, I will cram in all the rest – summer concerts, Shakespeare in the Park, Paddleboard Yoga and a trip to the San Juans, to name a few. Did I mention I want to go on a food cart junket?

I missed Wanderlust at Whistler (the 3-day outdoor yoga & music festival) – Did any of you go? How was it?

As you may have noticed there are some changes to my teaching schedule this summer. New Summer hours:

Yoga at Swedish Hospital:
Tuesday & Thursday Noon – 1:00 Hatha Integration/Therapeutic Alignment

Village Green Yoga:
Monday & Wednesday Mornings:

9:30 – 10:45 Hatha Integration – Alignment/Anusara Inspired

Tuesday & Thursday Evenings:

5:30 – 7:00 Vinyasa Flow

The Meditation Circle will restart in the Fall.

Speaking of meditation, if you have ever dreamed of going to India to study meditation and/or yoga, there is still time to sign up for Journey to the Source – a 2 week life changing trip to India in October. Travel with Ajayan Borys (Effortless Mind Meditation)and myself to the Majestic Himalayan Mountains and the source of the Ganges River and explore the roots of Yoga and Mediation. For more information and to sign up, click here. As the date draws nearer I am getting more and more excited. Two weeks of meditation and yoga right in the very birth place of the tradition. Ajayan spent many years in this very location deep in meditation, so not will we be traveling to an amazing location, but we will be traveling with an amazing and dedicated teacher. Join us as we reach deeper into the very heart of our practice.

Have an adventuresome August.

Shalom & Namaste

Diana Bonyhadi

January 9, 2012 by Diana Gould Bonyhadi

Even Yogis Procrastinate

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that living the life of a good little yogi does not prevent me from being a procrastinator. You might have noticed that I didn’t update this blog for three weeks. Guess what, that is not the only thing I managed to put off. The list is embarrassingly long; I found the most amazing ways to avoid doing house-cleaning chores, desk work, paper work, and I even put off making my new years resolutions. But now I am playing catch-up and I thought I would share some of my New Years resolutions with you:

Resolutions for a Procrastinating Yogi

Meditate for 15-45 minutes every morning. (So far so good)
Cook a new dish every week – that would be 52 new dishes this year. Hopefully I will also teach a few of these to my kids. Here are the cookbooks and websites from which I will draw inspiration: Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi (http://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/blog/category/recipes/), Natural Cooking Everyday, (http://www.101cookbooks.com/) Eat, Taste Heal – An Ayurvedic Guidebook and Cookbook for Modern Living (http://www.eattasteheal.com/ETH_dosha.htm) , and Terrific Pacific Cookbook (http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=terrific+pacific+cookbook&tag=googhydr-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=5435336785&ref=pd_sl_39829tmzyo_e).
Study more anatomy: Wow, did you know you can watch human dissections online. Just type in a body part and the word “dissection,” and you will be amazed at what you can watch and learn. Yea, I am an anatomy geek.
Study with amazing yogis. I am already signed up for two intensives – I can’t wait till next weekend when I will be studying the anatomy of the neck and shoulders and learning some more thereapeutic yoga approaches for healing common injuries to this region. Can anyone say rotator cuff?
Try out new local activities: We have so much to do here in the Seattle Area, there is no reason I can’t try at least one new adventure per month (hiking, kayaking, canoeing, climbing, museums, wakeboarding, etc). Really I should make it 2 new activities a month, but if every one is as satisfying as this week’s adventure, I know I will be repeating them. Friday I went to the Seattle Bouldering Project and did some rockclimbing. What a blast, and a tremendous work out.
Visit a National Park: Last year I went to Yellowstone, where shall I go this year?
Nag Less, Enjoy More: It is too easy to see what bugs us first, and then try to find that which deserves celebration. My goal for this year is to spend more time celebrating and enjoying life; my kids, my husband, my friends and my community and less time focusing on the negative.
Try not to procrastinate too much…..and then don’t kick myself too hard for being a procrastinator.

Happy New Year,

Shalom & Namaste,

Diana Bonyhadi

October 26, 2011 by Diana Gould Bonyhadi

Yoga Happenings in and around Seattle

Announcements for November

My teaching Schedule:

Classes at Swedish Hospital begin November 1
Tuesday & Thursday: Noon – 1:00pm – Lunch Hour Yoga
Monday: 7:45am – 8:45 – Hips and Back Therapeutics

Schedule Updates at Urban Oasis
Monday Nights:       6:00 – 7:15pm – Alignment Level I
Tuesday & Thursday:    9:30 – 11:00am – Vinyasa Integration – Level II
Tuesday & Thursday:    5:30 – 7:00pm – Vinyasa Integration – Level II

Schedule Updates at Village Green Yoga
Sunday Salutations: 9:30 – 11:00 – Vinyasa Flow – All levels
Monday & Wednesday: 9:30 – 11:00 – Hatha Integration, Levels I – II

Events and Classes in and around Seattle:
There are many fabulous studios in Seattle. We are lucky. And some pretty awesome teachers travel through here bringing us their wisdom and perspectives on yoga. November seems to be a hot month for traveling yogis, and some of my favorites are coming to town. This is by no means a conclusive list, but I just thought I would let you know:

Jin Sung of Oakland, CA is an amazing Iyengar teacher and he will be at 8 Limbs Yoga, November 11 – 13. Here is a link for that workshop

Krista and Brock Cahill will be out at Shakti East November 5-6, teaching us some flying skills and monkey business. Check out this video of them in motion. The beginning is a little intro to who they are, but at the end – wow watch them move.

Kelly Rush of Two Rivers Yoga will be leading a workshop on Hips, Neck and Shoulders, the first weekend of December. Kelly is an awesome teacher, and you will learn a ton at this one.

Sara Powers is coming back to town. She is a most powerful and insightful yogini, and it is always an honor to work and study with her. She will be at 8 Limbs in February.

Okay, I know there is more, but this enough for today. Make it a good one.

Shalom & Namaste

Diana Bonyhadi

February 24, 2011 by Diana Gould Bonyhadi

Dancing with the Divine – A review of my weekend with Jon Friend

Dancing With The Divine

Last weekend I flew down to San Francisco to attend the opening of the Dancing with the Divine Workshop and training with Jhon Friend founder of Anusara Yoga. I love my Anusara yoga teacher (Jean of Village Green Yoga) and have been considering training to become an Anusara Inspired Therapeutics teacher. So, I thought why not go to the source and take a workshop with John Friend.

I found my way to the JCC in San Francisco. Parking was easy. I was early. There were a few people milling around. But as the time to start the workshop drew near, the lobby filled with hundreds – yes I said hundreds – of totally cosmic, happy yogis. Most seemed to be in their mid thirties, and all of them were glowing with yogi bliss. Closing my eyes, I could easily transport myself back to my early days of being a Deadhead in San Francisco; the clothes were much the same, as was the buoyant, sparkling energy. The only thing missing was the smell of marijuana.

Fast forward to the training. Imagine a ballroom, with 250 yogis lined up mat to mat, all simultaneously chanting and om-ing, accompanied by two musicians playing wind instruments and drums. The room was positively vibrating with energy. And there it was again, that feeling of being at a Dead show – is everyone here a groupie?

John is a masterful teacher. His instructions are clear and concise, and interwoven with yoga wisdom and humor. He carefully builds the heat and energy within the body, encouraging the students to tap into the divine energy of Shiva-Shakti. Before I knew it, I was entering poses that had here-to-fore been unavailable to me. Maybe it was the collective energy of the room, or the letting go into the divine, but either way I appreciated the opportunity to drop back into a urdhva dhanurasana (backbend) from standing and then to rise back up to tadasana. It was also great fun to wrap my foot around behind my head and balance on one hand and the edge of my foot. Who thought I would be going there?

Anusara is all about opening into heart energy and manifesting the divine. No wonder there were 500 yogis coming to share this experience. According to John, there are about 250,000 people practicing Anusara yoga in over 100 countries throughout the world. I appreciated John’s encouragement to use this great energy to create good in our world. In our final session we were each given a seed ball that has been made with concentrated energy of positive intention. We were to practice with this seed ball, focusing our energies for healing into it, and then sometime in the future we are to plant the seed ball somewhere that is in need of nurturance, care, and a bit of green. I picture all those happy yogis going out and tossing cosmic balls of love and healing into their neighbors’ yards – “here you go, have a ball of grace – you noisy, polluting so and so.”

So, I am back in Seattle, loving our snow covered world. My practice in enlivened by my experience. My students will appreciate some of the teachings. But I don’t think I will be joining John’s merry band of yogi pranksters (his name for it – without acknowledgment of Dr. Ken Kesey). John is clearly a masterful teacher, but I am not a groupie. I don’t believe I need to add another 500 hours of training to become a certified Anusara teacher. As a yoga enthusiast and teacher, I believe we should all study the wealth of knowledge of yoga. Thousands of years and thousands of teachers, all shedding their light on this sacred tradition, this is what makes yoga more than a physical practice. It is a wisdom tradition that touches all of us and encourages us to find our own path within in it. I am grateful that John has opened the door for so many and that he encourages students to make their practice of yoga resonate from a space of intention. I will continue to study Anusara yoga, but I will also study ashtanga, iyengar, kundalini and all the many other paths that form the whole of hatha yoga – the yoking or joining of light and life within and about us.

Shalom & Namaste,

Diana Bonyhadi

February 10, 2011 by Diana Gould Bonyhadi

Inspired by Andrew Harvey

Andrew Harvey & Karuna Erikson

Heart Yoga in Seattle

It’s been over twenty years since I had the pleasure to participate in a workshop with Andrew Harvey. It is no understatement to say that he is a wise man of great proportions. I remember clearly the sense of wonder at his gentle ways and his immense wisdom. He is perhaps most famous for his translations of Rumi, and his gentle rendering of other great sufi teachings. He is in short a modern mystic; a man capable of leading all of us towards the deeper turnings of our souls.

Monday night, as I participated in the live teleconference, a precursor to the Heart Yoga workshop to be held here in Seattle at the end of March, I was again struck by Andrew’s intense intellect and deep commitment to helping us find our path to the sacred through Heart Yoga. To hear the full content of the teleconference, click on the following link: download the recording here .

If you are interested in deepening your yoga practice, and strengthening your commitment to your life’s work here on earth, I encourage you to consider this fabulous opportunity to spend 5 days with two amazing teachers of yoga and mystical traditions.

Heart Yoga and Sacred Activism Registration: click here

Syllabus: click here March 28 – April 1, 2011

Logistics (transport, rooms, meals, map, etc.): click here

Eight 1-hour prep videos by Andrew & Karuna: click here (from Daily Om)

From the Syllabus: “This initiation will open your heart to love, strengthen and infuse your body with light, and deepen and inspire your yoga practice (whatever your level of experience) as well as your commitment to sacred service. You will experience the profound union of the radiant body with the awakened heart, and the love, peace, and sacred passion that is birthed from this marriage.”

January 5, 2011 by Diana Gould Bonyhadi

New Year Events and Commitments

Hey Everyone,

Hope you are enjoying 2011. Did you make any resolutions for the New Year? I did. I want to do more of the things that I know bring me joy. Instead of looking back and regretting what I didn’t do last year, I want to honor all that I did do that made me feel good. And I want to do more of all of those things that make me happy. I should probably be able to keep this resolution. That is as long as I remember to stay present.

I am hosting a workshop this weekend at Urban Oasis in Sammamish, WA. The workshop is entitled Ten Essential Poses and runs from 1:30 to 4:00pm on Sunday. Come and learn what 10 poses would make up your essential practice. We are all different, so not everyone needs the same ten poses, but all of us need to have a few posses we can do every day that will bring us back into the light and help to ground us, so we can move forward in peace in the moment.

Hope to see you Sunday, and Happy New year to Everyone.

Shalom & Namaste,
Diana Bonyhadi