Tag Archives: Amy Weintraub

Author of Yoga for Depression and Life Force Yoga founder, pranayama

A new face and name for an online resource

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I tapped into a resource that helped me under­stand my body better.

I’ve been a fan of Yoga Spirit as it pio­neer the use of online audio and webi­nars with lead­ing yoga teach­ers and other experts, like Amy Wein­traub, Leslie Kaminoff and Judy Han­son Lasater. It dis­ap­peared from the web for a while only to come back to life as part of YogaTherapyWeb.com. In Jan­u­ary, the site turned itself into Yoga U. Most con­tent requires pay­ment for down­loads, but there are a lot of free resources that can wet an appetite for the for-​​pay material.

I signed up for Tom Myers‘s two-​​session webi­nar: Fas­cial Fit­ness – An Emerg­ing Rev­o­lu­tion in Move­ment Sci­ence (Jan­u­ary 25 and Feb­ru­ary 1). It also comes with other mate­r­ial, includ­ing some videos of fas­cial fit­ness rou­tines. He wrote Anatomy Trains: Myofas­cial Merid­i­ans for Man­ual and Move­ment Ther­a­pists, 2nd edi­tion and I plan on read­ing it as soon as I get through the dozen other books piled up on my desk. That’s why I signed up for the webi­nar — I can cap­ture the essence of what Myers is teach­ing in a cou­ple of hours. The first ses­sion clar­i­fied in my mind that I am on the right track in try­ing to deal with my periph­eral neu­ropa­thy. He has an ele­gant com­pelling con­cep­tual frame­work for pars­ing the body and its inter­nal matrix, backed up by the lat­est sci­en­tific research on the role of fas­cia. In this webi­nars, he is tai­lor­ing his mes­sage specif­i­cally to yoga instruc­tors and giv­ing sug­ges­tions for opti­miz­ing sequenc­ing to improve fas­cial fitness.

This webi­nar, along with other webi­nars and inter­views, will be recorded and avail­able for pur­chase at a later date at YogaU Online.

First quarter 2011 yoga events

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Some big names are com­ing to the DC area in the first three months of 2011. For more details (sched­ule, costs, require­ments), go to the web­site of the host­ing yoga stu­dio. I don’t mean to down­play other work­shops and events that are tak­ing place dur­ing the first quar­ter, but when high-​​profile instruc­tors pass through the DC area, it’s worth­while to spot­light them. You will notice that March 10-​​14 is shap­ing up to be week-​​long over­dose of qual­ity yoga. I will update this list as more infor­ma­tion becomes available.

Jan­u­ary

  • Stu­dioDC Yoga Cen­ter: The Pur­suit of Happy Hips: The­ory and Vinyasa (3 hours) and Super­flow Surf Yoga : A trans­for­ma­tive + unique move­ment prac­tice (2 Hours) with Eoin Finn,  Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 22

Feb­ru­ary

March

Although I was not plan­ning to men­tion events beyond March, I wanted to high­light two events: Stu­dioDC Yoga Cen­ter – For­rest Yoga Mas­ter Classes with Ana For­est, May 18-​​19 and Wil­low Street Yoga – Yoga of Ful­fill­ment: Yoga & the Path of Des­tiny with Rod Stryker, April 9-​​13, which is an yoga immer­sion course.

Yoga Month in September

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Photo: Desiree Rum­baugh in handstand

National Yoga Month is Sep­tem­ber around the coun­try, and there will be Global Mala events all around the DC area, plus work­shops by high-​​profile teach­ers. Many events will revolve around doing 108 sun salu­ta­tions or other per­mu­ta­tions as an offer­ing or garland.

  • Inner Reaches (Gath­ers­burg) is offer­ing a “108-​​minutes of yoga” ses­sion on Sep­tem­ber 20. It’s 12-​​5, but the yoga starts are 2:00 pm. This flyer has more details or go to the website.
  • Amy Wein­traub will give a work­shop on her Life­Force Yoga at Cir­cle Yoga on Sep­tem­ber 11.
  • Yoga Aid will be stag­ing a two-​​hour event in down­town DC, start­ing at 10:00 am on Sep­tem­ber 12.
  • As you might expect, Lucy stores will be spon­sor­ing mul­ti­ple events. Check with the local story.
  • Faith Hunter will lead a ses­sion at Shakti Mind­Body Stu­dio on Sep­tem­ber 6.

Yoga Month is spon­sor­ing a one-​​week of free yoga pro­mo­tion at par­tic­i­pat­ing stu­dios. It’s a great chance to sam­ple a dif­fer­ent stu­dio. Other events will be com­ing up, and I’ll try to point to them here, if pos­si­ble, but you can also check with your home yoga stu­dio to see what’s hap­pen­ing there.

More books

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I am cur­rently read­ing Stephen Cope’s Yoga and the Quest for the True Self (Ban­tam Books: 1999). It’s a very breezy read — at least so far — about a man’s dis­cov­ery of yoga. It’s very much in the line of another yoga book that I enjoyed, Amy Weintraub’s Yoga for Depres­sion because both are writ­ten with a jour­nal­is­tic flare, seri­ous schol­ar­ship and a deep com­mit­ment to yoga. Both write most of the book in the first per­son so there is a per­sonal imme­di­acy in the nar­ra­tive. Cope was/​is a psy­chi­a­trist so he is sen­si­tive to the whole human spir­i­tual dimen­sion of yoga. He also hap­pens to be giv­ing an account of the Kri­palu Cen­ter, which under­went a major upheaval after its guru was dis­cov­ered to be dab­bling with some of his female fol­low­ers. Both Wein­traub and Cope were at Kri­palu together and acknowl­edge each other in their respec­tive books.

I had been plan­ning on read­ing this book for years but never both­ered to order it. Last week, I put in an order for other mate­r­ial at Ama­zon and I said to myself, why not. I should also pick up his other book, The Wis­dom of Yoga: A Seeker’s Guide to Extra­or­di­nary Liv­ing (Ban­tam Books: 2006), but I can’t pos­si­bly han­dle both at the same time, plus all the other read­ing that stacks up on my desk and shelves.

A lapse in yoga blogging – like six months

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Amy Weintraub at Spiral Flight YogaI have been lazy in putting up my pho­tos and com­ments on sev­eral yoga ven­tures that I’ve been involved in. For instance, as announced here, I went to an Amy Wein­traub work­shop at Spi­ral Flight Yoga (no longer exists) on Wis­con­sin Avenue in Wash­ing­ton. This was back in — shock — March. It was a four-​​hour ses­sion called Life Force Yoga to Beat the Blues and Amy (her photo is on the right) kept the par­tic­i­pants actively involved through­out the whole show at a pace that would have been daunt­ing had not most peo­ple already been acquainted with her work from her book, Yoga for Depres­sion: A Com­pas­sion­ate Guide to Relieve Suf­fer­ing Through Yoga, or from her CD. But there’s a big dif­fer­ence going through all the pranayama exer­cises, chants, visu­al­iza­tions and yoga pos­tures with her lead­ing the way, rather than just pic­tur­ing them in your mind and try­ing to imi­tate them.

Amy Weintraub signs my copy of her bookI went to the event with my daugh­ter, Stephanie. The prac­tice room was full, per­haps as many as forty peo­ple. There were wall-​​to-​​wall mats as a way of defin­ing per­sonal space dur­ing the talk and exer­cises. Although we did not do any vinyasas, you still need an area to spread out in. At the end, Amy spent as much time as pos­si­ble talk­ing to peo­ple and sign­ing her book. I got her to sign my copy, dog-​​eared, under­lined, com­ments in the mar­gins, tagged with col­ored flags.

While putting this entry together, I noticed on the Spi­ral Yoga web­site that Amy will be repeat­ing this work­shop in March next year, which I rec­om­mended to any­one wish­ing to deepen their pranayama prac­tice or acquire skills for man­ag­ing their emo­tional bal­ance. She has a com­pelling approach, and this is a very acces­si­ble form of yoga with imme­di­ate pay-​​off.

A refresher course

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I am tak­ing a work­shop at Spi­ral Flight Yoga (no longer exists) in George­town on March 19. Amy Wein­traub will be lead­ing her Life Force Yoga To Beat The Blues. This is the first time that I’ve seen her offer a sem­i­nar or work­shop in the DC area.

Amy wrote the book Yoga for Depres­sion and really opened my eyes to the power of yoga. Her sched­ule is posted on her web site.

I have never been to Spi­ral Flight Yoga. It is just not con­ve­niently located for me. It does have a strong sched­ule of classes, work­shops and ser­vices, espe­cially on alter­na­tive heal­ing ther­a­pies, like acupunc­ture and reiki.

Dial-​​a-​​guru

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Yoga Spirit [web­site has van­ished with­out a trace] offers lec­tures by top-​​knotch yoga instruc­tors via the phone at a mod­est cost (about $20 per hour):

Yoga Spirit’s tele-​​classes are live, inter­ac­tive train­ing classes con­ducted over the tele­phone through state-​​of-​​the-​​art tele­con­fer­enc­ing bridge sys­tems. You will receive timely knowl­edge, tools and tech­niques over the tele­phone that can ben­e­fit your life, teach­ing, prac­tice and busi­ness immediately.

Among the teach­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing are Judith Han­son Lasater, Amy Wein­traub, Elise Miller and Paul Gril­ley. Lat year they had Shiva Rea. Some of these lec­tures are for fel­low yoga teach­ers who want to get insight into teach­ing cer­tain tech­niques, but I could see any yoga prac­ti­tioner get a lot out of the classes. If you are in a region that does not have many big-​​name teach­ers com­ing through your area and you can’t afford to go to a retreat or a yoga con­fer­ence, then this would be a great chance to hear some inter­est­ing yoga experts.

If you can’t make it to the lec­ture at the appointed time, you will still pick up the class by lis­ten­ing to a recording.