Himalaya Yoga Valley Centre are delighted to announce the return of one of Cork’s most popular outdoor weekly events. Yoga in The Park for Cork Simon Community kicks off again on the 4th June 2016 at Fitzgerald’s Park.

Every Saturday, yoga enthusiasts and novices will stretch it out in aid of Cork Simon Community to help fight homelessness through yoga. We will host this weekly by donation yoga class every Saturday morning at 10:00am-11.15am in front of the bandstand. Last year, each weekly class saw up to 150 people join the Himalaya Yoga Valley team for yoga in the park and we hope to make this year an even greater success!

More great news! We are adding Yoga for Kids class this year.  Suitable for Kids aged 4 years upwards, from 11.30 to 12.00 each Saturday.

Yoga in the Park has been a resounding success since Himalaya Yoga Valley Centre started hosting it in 2014 raising over €10,000 to date. Himalaya Yoga Valley clients have continued their support of Cork Simon Community with ‘Meditation by Donation’ classes during the winter.

We welcome you to join members of the Himalaya Yoga Valley team, Cork City Council and Simon Community at the launch of this wonderful fundraising initiative Saturday 4th June 2016.

Event:  Launch of Yoga in the Park for Cork Simon, Summer 2016

Location:  In front of the bandstand at Fitzgerald’s Park

Date and Time:  Saturday 4th June, 9.45am

RSVP: By Thursday 2nd June to info@yogacorkireland.com or by phone to 0214279696

If you require any more information, press or media details in relation to this event please contact Anne Marie Ruby on the above RSVP details.

We look forward to seeing you at the launch of this wonderful community program!

Health talk by Fiona McDevitt, Chartered Physiotherapist of Posture Matters Ltd next Thursday 19th May from 6-6.30pm

“Stretch or Strain? And How the correct bra fit affects both”

Discover the important difference between stretching and straining, and how the correctly fitted bra can instantly make you look, feel and move better.

Ayurvedic Yoga Massage Level One Training

Ayurveda Yoga Massage Training- Level 2 

Adam’s Bio

Adam Divine is the anatomy teacher on the Himalaya Yoga Valley Centre teacher training. His interest in anatomy started with his study of massage in 2005 and he has been working as a body mechanic ever since. Adam is ITEC certified and has studied Anatomy Trains courses, as well as training with Ayurvedic doctors in India and monks in Thailand. He has been practicing Ayurvedic Yoga Massage for nine years.

Goddess of Yoga with Viriam Kaur

Sunday July 3rd  10am – 6pm

Workshop fee: €65

Connecting to our Heart’s Desire – Sankalpa

In our morning session, we will work with Kundalini Yoga and meditation to remove blocks and limiting beliefs – Yoga as an un-doing – a clearing away. When we clear away, we create space to again connect to the joy of our heart.

In our afternoon session, we will delve deeper into our heart’s connection with meditation, mantra, sankalpa and yoga nidra. Sankalpa is our heart’s intention – a more profound version of a New Year’s Resolution – we will work to go beyond any limiting language we use and create a conscious affirmation – Sankalpa. We will use meditation to take us into a place where we can listen and be reminded of our heart’s desire, we will work at creating our Sankalpa and then in the sacred space of yoga nidra, a state of profound relaxation and clarity, we will implant this conscious intention into our being.

“An intention introduces focus, not limitation. It should awaken and open you to the possibility of revelation and surprises. Yoga has been since earliest times a spiritual practice by which we can attain greater spiritual self-awareness. Discoveries and insights come as unexpected gifts, as moments of grace.” Doug Keller

Yoga and Strutural Awareness Workshop with Adam Divine and Viriam Kaur
Sunday 17th July, 10am-6pm
Workshop fee: €65

Tune into the dynamics of breath with expansive yoga, conscious anatomy, fascial release for the PSOAS and diaphragm, meditation and yoga nidra. We will use yoga and meditation techniques to tune into where we hold tension and limit our breathing. Adam will then share techniques and assisted stretches to open us up and create space to breathe fully – he wants us to learn to breathe from our PSOAS and walk from our diaphragm! Viriam will share a yoga nidra based on the Himalayan Institute tradition focusing on breath for integration. Although translated as yogic sleep, nidra is about awakening and clarity – a profound healing state.

Adam Divine is the anatomy teacher on Himalaya Yoga Valley Teacher Trainings and has been working as a massage therapist and body mechanic for 12 years. Since being gifted the Anatomy Trains book ten years ago, he has trained with James Earls on Anatomy Trains courses and has studied with osteopaths and breathwork practitioners. He specializes in body reading, therapeutic bodywork and myofascial release. He has lived in India for over ten years and plays music with Viriam as part of their band Mantrica. Check him out at www.structuralawarenesstechnique.com

Chakra Healing Training with Viriam  Kaur

Join Viriam Kaur for an experiential journey through the Chakras. Viriam will guide you around the Chakra Map and how to navigate your own healing journey. With Kundalini Yoga and Meditation as a foundation, you will explore the Chakra system from a physical, emotional and spiritual perspective.

As well as creating your own healing journey, you will learn a simple hands-on healing technique to give healing to others. In order to fine tune your own healing wisdom, you will work at building intuitive sense and our pranic energy through meditation, mantra and breath. Intuition is the key to healing ourselves and others.

We will also learn to use sound, crystals and create guided visualisations for our own healing sessions. Viriam will also share the profound healing and clarity of yoga nidra. On completion of the course, you will receive a manual and certificate.

Viriam’s Bio

Viriam Kaur is a yoga teacher and writer who has lived in India for the last eleven years. She trained with the UK with SKY School of Kundalini Yoga in 2003 and teaches around the world. She also teaches Yoga Philosophy on an International teacher training and has devised her own Chakra Healing technique running regular trainings. Viriam also works with breath and the healing power of yoga nidra. She has just released an album of sacred mantra with her band Mantrica.

For more information, please visit www.kundaliniyogaindia.com and www.mantricamusic.com

Senior Teacher Lisa Fahy and Business Manager Anne Marie Ruby with Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh
photo: Michael English

It was a true privilege to participate in Cork SportsAbility Day 2016 on 9 April at the Mardyke Arena UCC.  Hosted by the Cork SportsAbility Forum and Cork Sports Partnership, this annual event promotes sport and inclusion for people of all abilities.   Over 450 people were in attendance.

IrishTV paid us a visit last month and ran a great piece featuring the centre on their Cork Matters program.  While here, they took part in a class led by Mary Kelly, interviewed our Business Manager Anne Marie Ruby and spoke with a couple of our students about how yoga benefits them.

Click here for the link and fast forward to the 12.00 mark to check it out!

Asana Intensive with Lalit

Friday 8 – Sunday 10 July 2016

BACKBENDING WORKSHOP with Lalit

Learn to backbend with strength & integrity in this workshop with Yogacharya Lalit. Find more space in your back bends whilst developing safe preparatory back bending skills that you can incorporate into your own practice.

A combination of heart opening and lower backbending postures that build strength and flexibility whilst invigorating. This  will include chanting, pranayama and plenty of interesting backbends! Lalit will assist students who are open to receiving adjustments into deeper poses. Please note that Lalit’s workshops fill quickly and spaces are limited so book early to avoid disappointment!

Backbending Workshop Level 1

Date: Sunday, 15th May, 2016

Time: 11.00-13.00

Backbending Workshop Level 2-3

Date: Sunday, 15th May, 2016

Time: 14.00-16.00

Price: €25.00

Please book online or call the centre 021-4279696.

Payment essential to reserve a space for these workshops.  Workshop fees are transferable and non-refundable.

Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation

When: Saturday 25th June

Time: 14.00-16.00

Price: €30 per workshop

The daily pressures of life can leave us feeling overwhelmed, tired, stressed and ‘off-centre’. Relax and unwind as you feel tension melt away to reveal a sense of wellbeing and connectedness. Discover how stress and ‘busy-ness’ affect the body mind and can stop us from feeling at ease, content and happy with life. This workshop will include deeply soothing body and breath sensing and guided yoga nidra meditation.

This workshop focuses on stress (which everyone experiences to some degree!) and how the particular elements of breath and body sensing in a yoga nidra practice activate the relaxation response in the nervous system.  Its basis is neurophysiology.
Yoga Nidra workshops are appropriate for people new to, or experienced with meditation/yoga nidra. For experienced people it’s a chance to learn something new about the practice with a different teacher and for new people the practice is very accessible.

The Ease of Being

When: Sunday 26th June 2016

Time: 14.30-16.30

Price: €30 per workshop

Yoga nidra is a complete meditation practice of mindfulness, welcoming emotions and thoughts and experiencing yourself as awareness, your true nature. It is suitable for experienced meditators and complete novices alike.  It is especially great for anyone who finds sitting still and ‘emptying the mind’ impossible.  This profound practice is amazingly simple and without even trying you’ll find yourself in a place where deep healing can take place. It is in that place of neither asleep nor awake where you discover your true nature and a sense of wellbeing that is always there. Come away with tools for meeting the challenges that life presents you with and connecting back to the awareness of who you truly are.

This workshop gets deeper into the practice of Yoga Nidra, looking at each of the stages and why it is a complete mediation practice. The focus is on the experience of abiding in True Nature as non-separate Being, which is the feeling of connectedness. Its basis is philosophy.  Yoga Nidra workshops are appropriate for people new to, or experienced with meditation/yoga nidra. For experienced people it’s a chance to learn something new about the practice with a different teacher and for new people the practice is very accessible.

About Olena

In 2011, Olena found herself in Dharamsala, India on Himalaya Yoga Valley’s foundation teacher training programme.  A believer in life guiding you to where you need to be, she now teaches full time with a special interest in trauma, mental wellbeing and end of life care.  Her aim is to enable people to discover the part of themselves that is always whole, perfect and at peace no matter what circumstances life presents.

On beginning her yoga journey, Olena says, “I started experimenting with meditation in my late teens and went to my first yoga class at an Iyengar studio in Canada in 1993. I felt out of my comfort zone and stuck with it for only a few months. It wasn’t an immediate love affair with the practice I’ll admit and over the years I tried several different styles of yoga.  However, yoga creates a sense of ease in my body and mind and that was the reason I kept coming back.  Now it’s my life.”

Experiencing and learning through your own physical challenges is the greatest teacher. Olena explores this through the mind-body practices of ashtanga vinyasa and gentle yoga, pranayama and yoga nidra meditation.  It was a running accident in 2012 that led her to yoga nidra, and her teacher James Reeves, as a means of dealing with the emotional turmoil that a traumatic brain injury brings.  Very much a blessing in disguise, she credits this life-changing event with her passion to spread the joy of this simple yet profound method of self-inquiry.

Committed to personal and professional development Olena has attended workshops, trainings and retreats with specialist teachers, including iRest yoga nidra founder and non-dualistic scholar Richard Miller, anatomy and fascia experts Gary Carter and Jill Miller and international ashtanga teachers Lucy Crawford Scott, David Swenson and David Garrigues.

Olena currently teaches to drug and alcohol rehabilitation clients, private clients and the public through a variety of classes in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. She supports her partner in running their studio, Akarmalife, and teaches on Yoga London’s 200 and 500 hour yoga teacher training programmes.  You can connect with Olena on Facebook and Twitter through www.yogaswaha.co.uk.

Spice up your Yoga with our themed focus classes that will take place once a week during regularly scheduled New Beginnings Level 2, Lunchtime Express, Bridge to Peak and Peak to Power classes. The first seven-week round will begin on Monday, February 15 with a focus on hamstrings and continue weekly every Monday.  We’ll begin all over again with the classes happening on another day for seven weeks, and so on!  There are no extra charges for these classes because we like to keep it fresh for free, but pre-booking is advised!

Hip Opening Workshops with Lalit

Lalit will take students through a series that includes standing and seated hip opening postures that release energy and tension in this area. The hips hold tension and become tight from daily repetitive activities such as sitting at office desks and driving- tight hips can lead to lower back pain and imbalances throughout the rest of the body.

By exploring hip opening postures and deepening our existing hip opening poses we can release this area and improve our overall asana practice. This workshop will include chanting and pranayama and deep hip opening poses. Please note that Lalit’s workshops fill quickly and spaces are limited so book early to avoid disappointment!

Hip opening Workshop level 1 : 

Saturday 23rd September, 2017  14:00-16:00

Hip opening Workshop levels 2-3 : 

Sunday 24th September, 2017  14.00-16.00

Price: €25 per workshop

Payment is essential to reserve a space.  Workshop fee is transferable but non-refundable.

Book online or call the centre to reserve a space 021-4279696