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WORKSHOP Yoga Wall: Beyond the Essentials

With: Sonia Osorio
Next session: Friday, Nov. 4, 2011 from 18h00-20h30
Location: Naada Yoga
Contact: Sonia Osorio: 514-495-1691 or Naada Yoga: 514-510-3274
Cost: $40
Note: It is recommended to register early since space is limited.

This on-going series of workshops offers experienced yoga students more options for deepening their practice using the Yoga Wall. These classes are appropriate for students with a regular yoga practice who have already attended Naada's Yoga Wall classes and/or have previous experience using such props. We will explore variations on standing and seated poses, inversions, backbends, forward bends and twists. Some basic principles of sequencing and determing when, how or if one should go further will also be discussed. The class is limited to 13 participants to ensure individual attention and allow each person to explore the poses within their limits, so please register early.

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WORKSHOP Balancing Flexibility & Strength

With: Sonia Osorio & David Flewelling
Next session: TBD
Location:Yoga du Village 1412, rue Panet
Contact: Sonia Osorio: 514-495-1691 or David Flewelling: 514-499-2935
Cost:

Discover how to increase flexibility in a safe, effective way. Learn to balance flexibility with strength and stability. Explore new ways to release hamstrings, calves, shoulders, back, and learn how to prevent overuse injuries.

Using techniques based on Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF), an advanced form of flexibility training, and Iyengar-based approaches to yoga, this workshop will allow you to move more deeply into poses with increased awareness. Originally developed as a form of rehabilitation, PNF can help increase flexibility and range of motion in those who are less flexible, as well as offer people with more flexibility, the opportunity to feel their internal alignment and release into stability. This allows us to explore poses at various levels: balancing the desire to go deeper or push harder with respecting limits, challenging what we perceive as limits, and acknowledging what our breath and body are communicating to us at all times.

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WORKSHOP Meditation Series: Dynamic Stillness, Living Balance

With: Sonia Osorio
Next session: Mondays: March 5-26, 2012, from18h00-19h15
Location: Moksha Yoga NDG 4260 Girouard, 3rd Fl
Contact: Sonia Osorio: 514-495-1691 or Moksha Yoga: 514-544-YOGA
Cost: $55 reg; $45 students and early registration (before Dec. 20)

In this continuing meditation series, we will delve more into how meditation can help to both create balance and also show us when things are out of balance in our lives. We will continue our exploration of how to sustain a practice, given the circumstance and realities of our lives in a way that helps create a dynamic, living balance that comes from a place of introspection and stillness. This session will involve more seated meditation as well as discussions on how to move from and into stillness, and how stillness and "not-doing" helps to create a foundation for balance. 

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WORKSHOP Releasing the Ties that Bind: 8-Week Meditation Training

With: Sonia Osorio
Next session: Fridays: Oct. 14-Dec. 2, 2011 from10h00-11h15
Location: Moksha Yoga NDG 4260 Girouard, 3rd Fl
Contact: Sonia Osorio: 514-495-1691 or Moksha Yoga: 514-544-YOGA
Cost: $125 (no one will be refused if funds limited), incl. printed material & private consultations

What do we need to let go of to live life more fully? What ideas, roles, patterns define your life? What do you believe can be taken from you? In this 8-week training we will learn how to direct attention to the actual experience of living life, instead of putting effort into what no longer serves us. This, however, means first exploring our long-held beliefs about who we are and what we need to be doing, and then learning to die to those notions that have come to define how we are in the world. In this way, we learn to face our life exactly as it is, to struggle a bit less with what presents itself, and to more consciously decide how our actions and our practice can enliven us. Previous meditation experience is required.

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WORKSHOP Meditation & Yoga: Inner & Outer Explorations

With: Sonia Osorio
Next session: Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011 from 9h00-12h00
Location: Moksha Yoga NDG 4260 Girouard, 3rd Fl
Contact: Sonia Osorio: 514-495-1691 or Moksha Yoga: 514-544-YOGA
Cost: $45 reg; $35 students & early registration (before Nov. 1)

Any balanced approach to yoga recognizes the inherent impermanence of the techniques, so that the technique is simply a means for us to start to explore and question: What are we aligned with? What does balance and imbalance feel like? What do we resist and what do we open to? Using the movements of breath and body, we will explore how a meditative experience can emerge from an asana-based practice. We will experience the "inner vinyasa" (flow) within - as well as between - poses, moving from and with awareness, moving from the inside out and the outside in. As we connect to these very natural movements of breath, body and mind, we can begin to better understand how these reflect the larger movements in our lives. In this way, our concept of what yoga and meditation are can expand, so that all experience can become an opportunity for practice.

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WORKSHOP Natural Cycles & Rhythms: the Fertility Awareness Method

With: Sonia Osorio
Next session: Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011 from 18h00-20h30
Location: 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy; 1500 de Maisonneuve W., Rm. 404
Contact: Maya: 514-937-2110
Cost: Free lecture & workshop; space is limited, so please confirm attendance by Sept. 16
Also available as private consultation: Contact Sonia for details
Email Sonia/ 514-495-1691

Curious about a completely natural form a birth control, free of drugs, devices and worry? Do you want to know how can you accurately determine when you're ovulating? When can you safely make love without fear of pregnancy? Or, when is the best time to conceive? Wondering what the effects are of different hormones, or what happens when you're transitioning off the Pill?

The Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) is a very precise form of birth control - and a way to naturally understand your cyclic changes - based on scientifically proven research. It's absolutely not the inaccurate "Rhythm Method", and it's designed for mature and responsible individuals who can appreciate the natural cycles of their bodies - and of their relationships. This workshop will outline the basic notions of FAM, clarify misconceptions about the practice, and explain when it is and isn't an ideal method. It is open to both women and men interested in learning more about how FAM can offer new insights into their own and their partners' bodies and their sexuality, and in how cyclical changes are related to other aspects of our lives. Printed documentation included.

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WORKSHOP Arm Balances & Shoulder Stability

With: Sonia Osorio & David Flewelling
Next session: TBD
Location: Yoga du Village 1412, rue Panet
Contact: Sonia Osorio: 514-495-1691 or David Flewelling: 514-499-2935
Cost:

Arm balances are poses that can help us connect with our capacity to find balance, strength and stability. They also teach us how to work with skill, both exploring and respecting our limits. Most importantly, the poses teach us how to approach this exploration in the spirit of ease, calm, and confidence - moving from a place of inner strength. This workshop will focus on shoulder stability, so that we can safely and confidently explore both the musculoskeletal and organic effects of such poses as handstand, forearm balance and headstand - along with variations on these. Preparatory poses and specific sequencing will also allow for a deeper experience of these poses, based on each individual's process.

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WORKSHOP Yoga for Women: Practice In-Harmony with Your Body & Your Life

With: Sonia Osorio
Next course: TBD
Session:
Location:
Contact: Sonia Osorio: 514-495-1691

From adolescence to womanhood, from motherhood to menopause and beyond, a woman’s body undergoes a variety of changes that affect how she relates to herself, others, and all aspects of her life. Yoga can help support these vital changes and nourish a woman's overall health and well-being. Using principles of natural health care and yoga, this workshop series will offer an introduction to how women can better understand their body’s natural rhythms, and how they can develop a yoga practice in-harmony with their own body at every stage of their lives. Mothers, daughters, friends - women of all ages are welcome to participate.

Topics covered will include: how to practice during different phases of the menstrual cycle, practices for peri-menopause and menopause, approaches for special issues that participants wish to explore (e.g. PMS, heavy or painful periods, lack of periods, fertility/infertility, pregnancy). Please contact Sonia in advance to discuss any topic you wish to have covered.

Please bring a yoga mat, notebook and pen. Printed documentation provided.

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WORKSHOP Awakening the senses: Introduction to mindfulness and touch

(Also available as a private consultation)

With: Sonia Osorio & David Altmann
In this introductory course, we'll discuss and explore the principles of mindfulness and touching with awareness and skill. This hands-on clothes-on workshop will incorporate exercises to bring you into more conscious contact with yourself and others in ways that are simple, nonjudgmental - and fun! Using techniques ranging from basic breath-awarness and movmeent exercises, to simple massage principles, participants will be guided to become more aware of a wide range of sensations through movement, touch, breath and stillness. This class can serve as an introduction to a more intensive training in massage and body awareness. Participants must bring pillows or cushions, water, loose, comfortable clothes, and not be wearing any perfume or strong scents.

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WORKSHOP Massage Basics

(Also available as a private consultation)

With: Sonia Osorio & David Altmann
This workshop will teach the basics of how to give and receive a simple massage using principles of mindfulness and conscious touch. Using a combination of deep stretching, breathwork, tai chi and yoga-based moves, and acupressure, this massage helps to ease tension, increase flexibility, and work with the body on a physical and energetic level. You will learn some basic massage moves, in both sitting and reclining positions, to show that when we're mindful of each movement and each moment, we encourage a deep sense of relaxation and release for those who receive our touch. The massage is performed on a floor-mat, fully clothed without oils, so please bring whatever you need to be comfortable working on the floor (a mat, two large towels, and a pillow or cushion). You are encouraged to bring a partner, though it is not required to participate in the training.

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WORKSHOP Massage Intensive: Deepening the Massage Experience

(Also available as a private consultation)

With: Sonia Osorio & David Altmann
This workshop will introduce the fundamental principles of an oil-based massage, including basic massage strokes, contraindications and breathwork. We will explore the principles of giving and receiving touch, and of developing an awareness of how physical and emotional stress affects the vital energy flow in the body, as well as recognizing these areas of tension in our own and another's body. The principles and techniques introduced can form the basis of a more advanced professional massage training or be used with friends, family and partners. You are encouraged to bring a partner, though it is not required to participate in the training. Oils and creams will be provided, but participants must bring two sheets, two large towels, water and comfortable clothing.

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