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 u
s 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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
Find your inner peace with our Meditation, Chanting & Pranayama class. This is a donation based class for Cork Simon Community. The breath, the body and the mind are very closely linked; an action or change in one brings about a change in the others. By developing control of your breath you can rejuvenate and revitalise your body, balance your emotions and create a clear thinking mind.
We are delighted to announce the arrival of Maya Devi Georg next month to Cork!! She is a well renowned international yoga teacher & writer and is coming to Cork for the first time ever! Her workshops will be inclusive of all levels so beginners are more than welcome! To quote Maya: “My workshops are geared to challenge people, not break them!”. More information on Maya available on her website: http://www.brahmalokaorbust.com/
Getting Twisted: Accessing Twists & Binds-OPEN TO ALL LEVELS
When: 30th January 2016 2-4pm
Price: €30 per workshop
Twists are often the most challenging of poses. They require flexibility in our shoulders, hips, and entire spine. Twists are also the most beneficial of yoga asanas. They keep the spine healthy, massage internal organs, and keep us regular. In this workshop you will learn the necessary steps to safely build the flexibility and strength necessary to make both twists and binds accessible in your everyday practice!
Let’s Do the Splits-OPEN TO ALL LEVELS
When: 31st January 2016 12-2pm
Price: €30 per workshop
Splits require us to take extend our legs, stretching them out to the side, or one leg forward and the other back. This requires loose legs and hips, and a range of motion that combines elements of forward and backward bending.
No, they are not impossible – they just need some work! This workshop will give you the techniques needed to build the strength and flexibility to come safely into splits (hanumanasana) and straddle (side splits).
Maya’s Bio
Maya Devi Georg (ERYT-500, RPYT, RCYT) is a yoga teacher and writer. A native New Yorker living in Germany, she was lucky to have studied extensively with Swami Bua, Swami Jnanand, Dharma Mittra and Swami Chetanananda, as well as having been initiated into many practices by Yogi Gupta (Swami Kailashananda).
Taking the many teachings she received from her teachers she developed, with her partner Chris Kourtinatos, Kenosis Yoga – a deliberate form of yoga asana that is deeply meditative and precise. In Kenosis Yoga each movement and posture is unpackaged in a sequential manner to help prepare students for the next level of practice, rapidly developing the body and mind to go beyond preconceived limitations and attain a true yoga practice.
Teaching since 2002, she has taught throughout North America and Europe in universities and elementary schools, synagogues and community centers, studios, gyms, and conference rooms. She has taught adults, children, seniors, and expectant mother, as well as professional athletes, dancers, and gymnasts, that were recovering from injuries. She has been assisting in teacher trainings since 2004, and began conducting her own trainings in 2009. She continues to teach with her partner all over Europe and the United States.
Immerse yourself in traditional practices in Spain with expert yoga teacher Lalit Kumar. A retreat to help practitioners of all levels to deepen their practice under Lalit’s guidance. Daily classes will be Vinyasa flow and Ashtanga Primary Series yoga.
Daily Schedule
7.00am: Chanting Pranayama Meditation
7.45am: Tea & Fruit
8.00am: Yoga – Full Primary Series
10.00am: Breakfast
1.00pm: Lunch
4.00pm: Yoga – Mixed Level Flow
Accommodation and facilities
Shared accommodation is on site at the retreat centre and is perfectly appointed for relaxing and practicing yoga. The retreat centre has a plunge pool and delicious cuisine.
Price:
695.00 Euro – includes 6 nights’ shared accommodation, half board of two meals per day and yoga classes. Flights are not included.
795.00 Euro – includes 6 nights’ single accommodation, half board of two meals per day and yoga classes. Flights are not included
Booking: Email info@yogacorkireland.com