The new studio has a larger practice space with lots of natural light, high ceilings, brand new cork floors, and an open reception area. We are working with local artists, designers and friends to bring in familiar touches from the previous location as well as custom pieces for the new space. We can’t wait for you to see it. The initial work is almost done.

Here are the details on the transition:

Monday, May 7th: Last day of classes at 461 Cortland Ave. Please Join Jacqui at 7:30pm for the last class.

Tuesday May 8th: No Classes

Wednesday May 9th: No Classes

Thursday, May 10th: New Studio at 908 Cortland Opens: (Regular class schedule resumes.) Please join Carlin at 7:00am for the first class at the new location.

We are having an open house on Saturday, May 12th from 6:00-9:00pm. The event will feature live music, specials on class passes and other goodies. We hope you will come by to help us celebrate.

Once we get settled in, we will be expanding our yoga and wellness program with a variety of workshops and trainings as part of the committed focus of the studio to provide diverse, interesting and healthy offerings.

We will keep you updated as the transition finalizes. We hope you are as excited as we are to see Bernal Yoga grow.

(Sneak Peek of Practice Space Floor)

If you have any questions, please get in touch with us:
info@bernalyoga.com

Who would have thought you could perform an aerobic exercise and breathe through your nose, I didn’t. Now I do it regularly and there is less panting from my corner. There is also the quiet times at the beginning and end of practice where you focus on how your body feels and your breathing. Savasana is the coolest pose ever. I practice it whenever possible to perfect my technique. In yoga one has to be an expert at relaxing, and I’m trying. I’ve also learned that by working on pranayama I’ve been able to relax my body with just the breathing techniques I’ve learned. This can be really a life-saver when I’m riding on BART (because they’ve closed all their bathrooms since 9/11).

I’ve learned to develop an intention with each practice. My intention doesn’t vary much. It is usually to work hard, improve my practice, and relax. When I started my intention was to lose weight, lower my blood pressure, and reduce the stress in my life. I believe the practice has influenced my behavior towards others and I try to be considerate, gentler, understanding and less judgmental nowadays. Before yoga those thoughts weren’t present, now I work at good thoughts. I’m enjoying my evolution.

Since I started there have been several “ahah” moments. When I could finally grab my feet in Happy Baby was the first. Others were when I was first able to grab my feet in bow, when I did a forearm stand (without the wall), and last week when I easily moved into Camel (for the first time). Most of the movements and adjustments are gradual. Like when you stop worrying about where your next gasp of breath will come from, and you relax into straightening your leg, or pressing the outside of your foot to the floor (during Warrior II), or relaxing your body while in a difficult pose.

Another thing I’ve learned is that you can do the same pose several times during a practice. Each time it change because your body undergoes changes as you progress through your practice. Downward Dog at the beginning of practice feels much different that Downward Dog at the end of practice.

Now my goal is to go to practice, and gradually improve. I’m not n a hurry. I enjoy practice and love the way my body feels when I get done. I keep trying to breathe correctly and relax when I enter a pose. I’ve also began to understand that yoga is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s something I intend to work on until I die because I’ve liked the changes I’ve seen in my body and in my head. Peace.”

Dear Bernal Community,

Sending you the sweetest of blessings during this whirling time of holiday celebration and reflection. It has been a powerful year for many of us and for our beloved planet. As we turn our hearts and intention toward the new year, let’s do so with spaciousness and grace and with as much ease as possible (because growth doesn’t always have to be hard!).

As we flurry about the holiday season spreading our hearts in the form of thoughts, song and gift, it is equally as important to make space and time to cultivate joy and gratitude for all that we have been blessed with in this life. Please join me in practice, for my last two Saturday classes at Bernal Yoga, on December 24th and December 31st, (9:45am-11:15am).

These two classes will be a place to bring your hearts, release your struggles, and call forth all that you wish to cultivate in the coming year. It will be an honor to practice with you and I look forward to seeing you on the mat! Pre-registration is highly recommended as space and class schedule is limited.

In Love,
Carlin ૐ

By Rachel Lanzerotti, September 2011

One of the students in the Intro to Mindfulness class I taught at Bernal Yoga in August described meditation practice as, “just one yoga pose held for a really long time.” Turning it around, another way to look at this is that all yoga poses and movement can be meditative, or mindful.

What is Mindful Yoga? This is the open question that guides my new class at Bernal Yoga, on Friday afternoons from 2:30 – 4:00 PM starting September 9.

The class is based in Hatha Yoga, focusing on slow, alignment-based asana, with restorative and yin poses, as well as breathing practices (pranayama). Each class allows time for guided meditation on the body and breath, based in vipassana (insight) meditation, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), and iRest® yoga nidra.

To experience Mindful Yoga, come to class and check it out for yourself. But here’s a short answer to stir your interest, for now:

Mindfulness is about paying attention with intention, and Mindful Yoga teaches this through movement and meditation with the body and breath.

Yoga is a method for learning to be deeply attentive to our embodied experience in the present moment. Practicing mindfulness in yoga—as simple as paying attention to sensation, for example—can draw our attention inward. Mindfulness offers an approach to waking up to experience, with kindness toward whatever is happening now.

While teaching, I sometimes hear the question from students: Am I doing this right? And I may ask them, directing them inward in response: How does it feel?

Once we’ve found alignment in a pose that’s safe and appropriate for the body, any asana offers a universe of sensation, varied actions, and focal points. Noticing how we direct attention in the practice and how the practice feeds our capacity for attention — this is Mindful Yoga.

Focus on your embodied experience in yoga practice. Go deeply into familiar yoga postures, and access your curiosity and presence in daily life.

Curiosity. Presence. Attention. These are qualities of mindfulness that are embedded in yoga. They can be found within the myriad forms and styles of yoga. Yoga cultivates strength, balance, and flexibility — in body and mind.

How can we pay attention to the body and breath? What happens when we do, or when we don’t? How does body awareness deepen our practice of asana? In what ways does movement practice support formal meditation? And what, when it comes right down to it, does this have to do with how we approach everyday life? These are questions that underlie the exploration of Mindful Yoga.

I first heard Rumi’s poem, The Guest House, at Bernal Yoga many years ago, shortly after the studio opened. In some ways, this poem, and especially the lines, “This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival…. Welcome and entertain them all,” still captures the essence of mindfulness practice for me. With awareness, we gain resiliency and capacity to meet life events with responsiveness and equanimity rather than reactivity.

If you come to class toward the end of the month and into October, I’ll be just back from silent retreat at Spirit Rock’s Mindfulness Yoga & Meditation Training program. Meanwhile, Hatha Yoga instructor Katy Fox teaches the Mindful Yoga class in my absence, on Fridays September 16 & 23. Class starts Friday September 9, 2:30 – 4 PM.

With great excitement and pleasure, I am writing to announce the return of former Bay Area senior instructor, Leigh Evans. Many of you remember her during her tenure as a teacher at Bernal Yoga. I was fortunate to meet Leigh after she left the Bay Area and moved to New York City. Her extensive knowledge of the body, and the history and philosophy of yoga inspired me to delve deeper into my personal practice—to explore the wide-ranging aspects of yoga that just can’t be covered in a regular class format. Always encouraging and vibrant, Leigh enables her students to grow their awareness and transfer positive changes made on the yoga mat to life at large. So when it came time for my big change, leaving New York City for San Francisco, Leigh told me that I should visit Bernal Yoga, that it was a very special place. And so I came to this studio … and so I stayed.
Leigh Evans returns to Bernal Yoga the last weekend in July. I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to attend one of her workshop classes. Workshop topics include Yoga Sutras and Chanting, Ayurveda, Inversions, and Shakti Prana. And, if you want to attend all the workshops, you can sign up for the full weekend immersion: Shakti Shala Yoga (7/30-7/31).

It’s going to be a fabulous weekend of exploration and growth. I’m going to be there, and I hope you will, too.

Why is Yoga for Athletes a good idea?

I have always tended toward athleticism, but yoga has been an incredibly difficult practice to incorporate due to extreme inner resistance. As is often true when such inner resistance is present, yoga has dramatically improved the quality of my life, athletic and otherwise.

How yoga has helped me athletically:

Yoga has brought forward the subtleties of presence that I had effectively ignored.

Yoga has improved my intuitive balance and spatial awareness from a state of calm that I can now take with me into competition or chaos.

Yoga brings up the inner monsters that take me off track in my sport of choice. I get to address them on the yoga mat, where it is quiet (and I beat them).

Yoga has strengthened my body in ways I cannot replicate in the gym or in martial arts. This type of strength has improved my lifts and fighting style. Slow chatturanga has increased the amount of weight I can bench.

How athleticism has helped me with yoga:

Athleticism teaches that improvement comes with practice. There is no yoga standard to reach. Practice effects change.

Athleticism has given me the courage to be more present with myself. Yoga requires presence without an external opponent, which means there are no distractions from self.

Athleticism has given me lessons from loss. I learn more when I lose. Recognizing the lesson at hand leads to growth.

Athleticism requires persistence. The work is always in progress. A great performance is not the end of the story.

Athleticism has toughened my skin. Being slightly less sensitive has given me the courage to go again, then one more time, and then another, and another. Eventually I grow beyond my perceived limits.

Again, why this is a good idea:

The labels of yogi or athlete are not important. Deepening the relationship with self and physical experience makes life better, physically and emotionally. Exploring this relationship from two nicely counterbalanced perspectives enriches the experience. The strengths of the yogi and the strengths of the athlete are strengths for living.

-Carey Rockland
Personal Trainer
careyrockland.com

So this is what I learned: when you are in plank and about to go down for chatarunga, your wrist has to be essentially at a right angle so where you place your hands is super important. Otherwise, you can really jeopardize your wrist and can cause some damage in the future. So that’s the first thing. Look at your hands, wrist and arm when in plank. Make sure they are at a ninety degree angle. Also, the eyes of your elbows should initially face each other and then they should face their respective thumbs (so a slight angle).

Finally, when you start going down—elbows in, chest open, legs straight, pace slow—you don’t need to go too far down. We often think we almost have to hover. That’s not the case. You just have to go down half way (or about that). Then, keeping that chest nicely open, move through the arms and into upward facing dog. Remember, it’s a sun salutation, and when we’re in the sun, we want to be open to it, feel its warmth and open our hearts. Same with chatarunga.

So next time you’re in chatarunga, think about your wrists, the angle, the amount you go down and how open you keep your chest throughout.

At the same time, there are moments in class when we are invited to go through salutations or positions at our own pace and it’s amazing to see how different each person practices. This is important because one of the foundations of class is really being aware of your body, the way it moves, and what it needs. Often in class you’ll hear the invitation to go at your own pace rest when you need to and just listen to the messages your body is giving you. No need to be at the same pace as others, or to even follow exactly what the teacher is saying. Really listening and being aware of your own pace can help you on and off the mat.

Bernal Yoga Music Salon

From Ann Lam, Bernal Yoga’s Assistant Studio Manager:

April marks my ninth month as a resident of San Francisco, and already this city feels like home. In July of 2010 my sister and I drove across the country, from New York City to San Francisco. I had left my corporate job in Manhattan in order to focus all my energies on yoga and music, and I felt that the best place to do this would be San Francisco. I didn’t have a concrete plan of action, but through a stroke of fate or perhaps just plain dumb luck, a friend pointed me in the direction of Bernal Yoga. I must admit that the direction from my apartment in the Mission was more uphill than I would have liked, but after stepping foot into the studio, I knew I had stumbled upon a special place. When Shelley decided to take me on as her sidekick in managing Bernal Yoga, I knew I had been given a lucky break, but I didn’t realize then how fortunate I really was.

It was impossible for me to have known how many warmhearted, talented, and creative people I would meet … as they came through the front door of the studio with yoga bags slung over shoulders, wearing smiles that led to personal story sharing over cups of tea across the street at Progressive Grounds. And so the idea of the Bernal Salon was born: an evening of creative expression and sharing among the amazing artists and residents of Bernal Hill. What actually transpired on the evening of our first salon on Saturday, March 26th, exceeded all expectations. A full house showed up to hear Erin O’Briant, local author and Bernal yogi, discuss her journey into the self publishing world and read from her book, Glitter Girl; as well as witness the joyful exuberance of the Sugar Shakers (featuring Bernal yogis Alanna Taylor-Tobin and Jay Doane), ukelele-kazoo virtuosos with a penchant for rousing audience members into song. I was also fortunate to play a short piece on my violin, but mainly I was thankful for the chance to express my gratitude at being a part of this wonderful and generous community of yoga practitioners, who I now consider my Bernal Yoga family. (That evening we raised a substantial amount of money, which was donated to the Red Cross Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami Relief Fund.)

At the end of every yoga class, I try to dedicate a moment to honor the people who I have had the privilege of sharing my practice with. We come to class and we leave class sometimes without saying more than a few words, if any, to our practice neighbor, but there is an unspoken kinship at 461 Cortland Avenue … the kinship of yoga and Bernal Hill. The Bernal Salon provides a chance to tap into that kinship and learn more about the talents and passions of our neighbors and friends in the Bernal community. Chances are you’ll find out you have much in common, much to discuss, much to share. I know I have. Like I said, I have truly found my home on this special hill of San Francisco.

The next Bernal Salon will take place on Saturday, April 23rd. Back by popular demand, the Sugar Shakers perform all-original works, and our very own Megan Windeler discusses her love of music and her blog entitled Words. I hope to see you there.
Warmly,
Ann

But Aum also refers to the universal sound, the sound that encompasses and reflects everything. And that is an amazing thing because by encompassing everything, it unifies everything, it allows everything to connect, if even for just a breath. And with all these extraordinary things happening in the world these days, and the ripple effect they have, the more and more we begin realize how connected we truly are.

I love it when in class we do a bunch of asanas that seem independent of each other but in reality they are all connected. Aum is kind of like that. It brings us all together and all that is around us together. And it is a reminder that we are about to do something, engage in a practice that isn’t independent but is part of a greater whole. We practice yoga to feel good but we also practice so we can be better humans in the world.