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New Fall Schedule

Dear Yogis & Yoginis,
I hope you have had a marvelous summer. Truly, summer in the Northwest is a wonderful thing.  And now with the rain pouring and the skies filled with thunder and lightning, it officially feels like Fall.
I have spent the summer meditating, yoga-ing, gardening, going to concerts, berry picking, making jam and pickles, reading, and enjoying my family. I  also traveled to Cannon Beach to host a workshop on core movement. It was a sold-out success, so there is a very good chance I will offer it again here in the Fall.
I am returning to my regular teaching schedule in September, along with a couple of new additions. While I enjoyed my “mini-sabatical,” I have missed being with my students on a more daily basis.  However with the Jewish High Holy Days beginning this week, it will be a couple of more weeks before I resume my morning classes.  A big thank you to the most wonderful Bonnie Dike for nourishing my classes while I was on leave.  Isn’t she amazing?
I am very excited to announce that I will be teaching alongside my dear friend Inga Rouches at our new endeavor River Tree Yoga at Tree House Point in Fall City. Come out to the woods and experience the beauty and magic that is River Tree Yoga, a studio dedicated to inspiration, connection and growth. River Tree Yoga is conveniently located on the Preston Fall City Road, minutes away from Sammamish, Issaquah, Fall City, Snoqualamie & Carnation. Click here to see our beautiful new website, get our class get schedule, or find directions.
River Tree Yoga, Fall City, WA
Wednesdays
5:30 – 7:00pm     Hatha Integration

7:30 – 9:00pm    Yoga Bliss

 
Village Green Yoga, Issaquah WA
Tuesdays & Thursdays

Noon – 1:00pm    Midday Bliss

5:30 – 6:45pm     Hatha Flow

Sundays:

9:45 – 11:15am Hatha Flow

 

 

KharmaBellaYoga, Sammamish, WA

Private, small-group, corporate, and offsite yoga services designed specifically to meet your yoga needs.

Call to schedule – 425-765-3173

I Look forward to seeing everyone soon.

Shalom & Namaste

Diana Bonyhadi

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Core Strength & Core Values

Moving from the core means more than just using your abdominals to instigate movement, it also means moving from the essence of your being.

When you hear there is a workshop focused on the core, does it make you cringe and say to yourself, “no way am I going to take a 3 hour workshop on abdominals, that’s crazy”…Guess what? I hear you, crunches suck and in all honestly I wouldn’t want to spend 3 hours doing that either.

But when you hear that there is workshop focused on connecting to the essence of your being – how you do you feel?  Hopefully, intrigued.

Because next weekend I am hosting a workshop in Cannon Beach designed to help you connect to the core of your being.

Imagine being able to:
move from a place of connectedness, a place of wholeness, a place of inner strength; imagine the infinite possibilities of movement.  Truly, when we move the core of our being all things become possible.

Join me Saturday August 17th, 1:00 – 4:00pm at the beautiful Cannon Beach Yoga Arts studio to find out how to tap into and move from the core of your being.

This three-hour workshop will include  asana, pranayama, meditation and lecture.  We will examine all classes of asana including, standing poses, inversions and backbends.

Hope you are having a great summer.

See you August 17th at the Beach.

Namaste,

Diana Bonyhadi

 

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Summer Workshop in Cannon Beach

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Discovering the Heart of Yoga

Dynamic Sequencing for Stability, Strength & Intentional Alignment

Moving from our core not only stabilizes our practice, it also invites us deeper into our selves.  Core strength refers not only to the strengthening and toning of the abdominal muscles which hold us in standing poses and allow us to float gracefully upward in inversions, it also refers to our ability to connect to the emotional essence of who we are, so that we may stand in our essence and act from our heart.

This workshop will help you discover the strength and stamina you need to live and move from the center of your being.  We will explore a  range of asanas, including backbends and inversions, as well as breath work (pranayama) and meditation.

Saturday, August 17th, 1:00 – 4:00pm

Cannon Beach Yoga Arts

$40, pre-registration strongly recommended

Workshop limited to 15 students

Register online at:

Cannonbeachyogaarts.com

(503) 440 – 1649

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Summer Sabbatical

 

Summer is here and for me that means change.  I will be spending a lot of time this summer taking care of my family, both local and extended.  I also will be spending time taking care of myself and studying – yoga, of course.

Starting July 1st, I  will be taking a sabbatical from teaching my morning and evening weekday classes.  I will continue to teach my Midday Bliss classes at noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays as well as my Sunday Salutations class at 9:45.  Both classes will be offered in the Blue Room at Village Green Yoga.  As always, you can sign up ahead online by clicking here, or you can just drop in.

I look forward to seeing everyone on the mat.  And yes, you might even see me in the back of the studio, practicing right along with you.

Enjoy your summer.  Take time to play and time to rest.  There is so much to do here in the Pacific Northwest, I know you will have no problem finding things to do.

Be Well, Have Fun, Play Safe, Practice Gratitude.

Shalom & Namaste,

Diana Bonyhadi

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Happy Spring & Happy Backs

250px-Chinese_Wisteria_BlütentraubenHello Yogis and Yoginis.

Happy Spring.  We have had so much sun here in Seattle it almost feels like Summer.  But I’m not fooled, I know we will get a bit more rain to ensure the lushness of our gardens and forests. Oh but isn’t it beautiful here in the Springtime. This picture is of the Wisteria in my garden – Wow.

And in case you are one of the many who has suffered from allergies this Spring, the hot sunshine these past two weeks should have helped to clear out the last of the pollens, and you should be feeling much better.

A big thank you to my students for their support and understanding last week when my back decided to bail on me.  Getting out of bed, off the floor and out the door was almost more than I could handle, but your kindness nourished me and I thank you. Once again I am so grateful for my yoga, as I know that is what helped me move and return to wellness so quickly. Well that and plenty of rest and ice.  For those of you who also suffer from periodic low back pain/trauma here is the yoga sequence I used.  I did this cycle gently at least twice a day.

Low Back Care Sequence:

  • Low back massage while lying on your back, knees drawn to chest, move knees in small circles, first one direction, then the other, and then in opposite directions.
  • Pelvic lifts while lying on your back with feet on the floor, gently curl tailbone up towards ceiling.
  • Alternate leg extensions while lying on your back with knees into chest, reach one leg away, lower slowly towards the earth (stop if it hurts), pause, then change legs.
  • Arm extensions while lying on your back knees bent, feet on the floor, reach arms over head.
  • Supported low bridge with arm extensions. The first couple of days I just used a book, then as my back began to recover I moved up to a block.  I also explore lifting my legs in the air for a variation of shoulderstand.  At first I could not lift my legs, but after a couple of days, having my feet in the air was very restful.
  • Cat-Cow – very slowly.
  • Supported child’s pose – put a bolster under you and rest with a softly rounded spine.
  • Leg extensions from neutral hands and knees.  Extend one foot out behind you keeping the foot on the floor, toes tucked, reach through heel. Perhaps even extend opposite arm forward.  Continue to draw belly towards spine.
  • Supine thread the needle. Lie on your back, bring both feet off the floor, knees over hips, cross left foot over right knee, reach through legs, and gently draw right thigh towards you while pushing left thigh away.  You can also extend the right leg straight up. towards ceiling. Do both sides.
  • Happy Baby. Lie on your back, bend both knees and draw them into the body and then beside the body, hold onto the soles of your feet with the soles of your feet facing the ceiling.  Extend back body along the ground.
  • Plenty of rest on your back with legs resting on bolsters, knees bent, and/or legs up the wall.
  • Ice ice baby

Summer News:  Starting July first, I will be taking a semi-sabbatical from teaching for two months.  We have found some wonderful subs to cover my weekday morning and evening classes at Village Green Yoga.  Meditation Circle will continue on Thursday evenings at 7:00.  So do keep your practice up and check out these amazing teachers.  I will continue to teach my:
Sunday Salutation Class         9:45 – 11:15,
Midday Bliss Class,                  Tuesdays & Thursdays noon – 1:00pm.

Enjoy these glorious Spring days.  I look forward to seeing you on the mat and around town.

 

Shalom & Namaste

Diana Bonyhadi

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Sunday Morning Salutations

Tomorrow is Earth Day.

Time for Sun Salutations to celebrate and honor our beautiful, amazing, inspiring, and nourishing mother earth.

Class will start at 9:45 in the Down Stairs studio at Village Green Yoga.

Join us for a very special class designed to celebrate our connections to the earth, each other and our deepest wisdom.

Shalom & Namaste

Diana Bonyhadi

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Passover – Traditions which inspire and transcend

Hello to all my favorite yogis.

Sorry, I have not written in a while.  Seems that keeping a proper blog is not in my constitution.  Oh well, I can let that go.

Tonight begins the Jewish Festival of Passover.  Like all good Jewish traditions, this one centers around food.  But it is not just any food, this is a meal, and a week of meals that is designed to remind us that we were once slaves in Egypt, and by the grace of G-d we were able to escape to freedom.

Tonight we will gather around our tables and tell the story of our escape from enslavement.  We will eat foods that will remind us of the tears of our ancestors, the hard work they did building pyramids, and the bread they were unable to finish baking in their rush to leave.

Passover provides us a unique opportunity to remember that we are not the only ones who have suffered slavery.  And more importantly, it encourages us to work to end the slavery that exists in  world today.  Yes, people all over the world are enslaved; children in sweat shops, children in the sex trade, adults in unsafe jobs with unfair/negligible wages, indentured servitude, battered spouses, and unfortunately the list goes on.  We don’t have to dig very deeply to find the ugliness of physical slavery in every corner of the world.

And our enslavement is not only physical. We are trapped by our computers, TVs and cell phones.  We are preyed upon by advertising which makes us think we are incomplete without the newest, latest, greatest whatever.  We suffer hunger, sexism, racism, global warming, etc. We are trapped by our childhood tapes of what it means to be good.   Spiritually and psychologically almost all of us are held by something.

And so here is Passover, and we get a chance to look about and within and choose once again to fight against slavery.  We get to rededicate ourselves to fight for freedom.  Freedom from the shackles of both physical and emotional bondage.

So, here is the work.  Look around and help out.  There are many programs out there that fight against modern-day slavery.  Pitch in, lend a hand  or send a dollar.  To quote  a favorite musician,  “none of us are free if one of use is chained.”

And also look inside, and see what are you willing to let go of this week?  Select something that is holding you back from living fully as your wonderful self.  How are you enslaved, and by what?  I know this is hard work, and it takes a brave heart to begin to let go of those chains.  Even the Israelites were reluctant to leave.    Slavery wasn’t good, but at least they knew it.  Change and freedom is scary, it is the unknown, and in the land of the unknown, we need to reach deep into our hearts for strength.  But isn’t it better that we live lives of wholeness, lives of connectedness, even if it means stepping into the wilderness.

In my classes this week, I will be encouraging my students to use their yoga practice to find the strength to touch their points of constrainment, to use their asanas to open their hearts, to become flexible enough to open the places that were closed within before.  We will be exploring backbends and their counterposes – opening our hearts and stepping into moments of awakening. And then from these moments of awakening, we can connect and be powerful in our openness and our oneness, and walk the path of yoga beyond the mat.

Shalom & Namaste
Diana Bonyhadi
Issaquah, WA

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Early Morning Inspiration

Good Morning.

I was wondering what to write about today.  Vacation?  Yes, I highly recommend it.  Family?  Definitely worth cherishing.  Yoga?  Keeps you limber and strong, is good for your blood pressure, joints, and mood. Meditation?  Yes, do it every day to find out more about yourself and to help you deal with the challenges life throws at you.  Okay, covered those topics, what to write about?  And then I found this video of a young woman in South Africa.  She brought smiles and tears to my eyes.  I hope you enjoy her as much as I did.

http://youtu.be/BPszAxLjFSs

 

 

Our Greatest Fear —Marianne Williamson

it is our light not our darkness that most frightens us

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other

people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

—Marianne Williamson

 

 

Shalom & Namaste

Diana Bonyhadi

Issaquah, WA

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Happy Valentines Day

Valentines Day is still a couple of days away.  That means you still have time to nurture your own inner Valentine.  Let your practice this week be all about love. 

  • Fall in love with yourself
  • Spoil yourself
  • Send yourself love letters 
  • Listen to romantic music
  • Practice devotion 
  • Practice compassion
  • Practice empathy
  • Open yourself to Grace
  • Fall in love with yourself

Here are a view asanas to support your journey into love.  Hip openers and wide-legged stretches to release all that emotional stuff that gets gunked up in the hips.  Mountain and Warrior Poses to reminds us that we are strong and powerful.  Backbends to help us open our hearts.  And svasana fully propped to help nurture the quiet restful spaces within us.

  • Eka Pada Rajakoptanasana – Pigeon
  • Prassarita Podattanasa -Standing wide-legged forward bend
  • Upavista Konasana – Seated wide legged forward bend
  • Mountain – Standing Tall with Arms overhead
  • Virabradrasana I – Warrior I
  • Setu Bhanda  Sarvangasana- Bridge
  • Urdhva Danurasana – wheel
  • Svasana – Queens Pose with bolsters, eye pillows and blankets
  • Chant – Lokah Samastah Sukino Bhavantu – May all beings everywhere be at peace

Now that you have your practice poses and intentions for the week, I offer you this love poem by Rumi.

A lifetime without Love is of no account

Love is the Water of Life

Drink it down with heart and soul!

 

Shalom & Namaste

Diana Bonyhadi

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Martin Luther King Day and the Path of Yoga

My goal in teaching yoga is to help my students to live their yoga beyond their mats.  Yes, yoga will make you stronger and more flexible.  A regular practice will help you to heal the pains of your body. A regular practice can help you to overcome illness and recover from injury.

And, I firmly believe that yoga is more than just an aerobic practice.  It is more than just exercise.  Through yoga we learn to reach deeper into our true selves.  We sweep away the fog from our awareness and find our own paths to strength and truth. We allow ourselves to soften so that we may ease our way into the fundamental strength of our core of true being.

If we allow ourselves to become more flexible upon our mats, then don’t we also find a way to be more flexible in our daily lives?  If we allow ourselves to become stronger on our mats, then don’t’ we also then find more strength to live our daily lives?  If in our practice we find we have more endurance, more will power, more self-awareness, then don’t those also walk with us beyond the studio?

  • What is your dream?
  • What are you willing to stand up for?
  • What are you willing to sacrifice for?
  • What is your truth?
  • Where is your strength?
  • Where can you be more flexible?

As you practice today, let these questions be at the forefront of your awareness.  As you step onto your mat, ask yourself, why am I here?  What is important to me?  What truths do I hold to be self-evident.  Where am I willing to apply my strength?  Where am I willing to soften and be more flexible?  What can I give to bring peace and healing, not just to my self but to my greater community.

As you practice today, reach out to the strength and vision of those who have come before us and shared with a vision of peace and community.  Allow yourself to be inspired.

Shalom & Namaste,
Diana Bonyhadi
Issaquah, WA