Minimum Meditation

Hello Yogis!

Happy Friday! How are you? Coming to class?

We start the Friday class with a short meditation – just 10 minutes. It is, after all, one of the Eight Limbs of yoga which includes Yamas and Niyamas/Dos and don'ts, Asana/posture practice, Pranayama/breathing exercises, and Dhyana/meditation. Full Eight Limbs here.

How much is enough? I like 10 minutes. It’s doable and it doesn’t cut too much into the class. A teacher called Stewart Gilchrist had us practice for 8 minutes in his classes – he said that’s what you need every day. Even after eight or ten minutes there is a feeling of being refreshed. That’s probably because, some studies say, it takes five-eight minutes for the mind to calm down.

This article from the Melbourne Meditation Centre says: ‘It takes about twelve to fifteen minutes for stress hormones to wash completely out of the blood stream, so a meditation of twelve minutes or more seems to lead into states that feel calmer, quieter and more ‘meditative’.’

Anyway, come and have a go!

Classes

I’m so happy to see new yogis coming here to class each week. Monday classes seem to be the most popular and Tuesday classes seem to need the most TLC. (Come and have a Tuesday stretch!!!) Wednesday is in the middle and Friday morning’s Ashtanga class is up and down and up and down and up and down. If you can make it to a morning class, you won’t regret it! You can book classes here. I’m attaching a leaflet about classes. Please pass it on if you know anyone who might like a go.

Yoga In The News

WMDT has: Yoga Rescue, the cop who does yoga. ‘Yoga was an interest he says not only saved his life but had the potential to save those just like him, first responders; those who live in a whirlwind of constant stress. “Every time somebody contacts you, every time your radio goes off and every time you have to go somewhere, somebody is having the worst day of their life,” says Row. “They’ve been taught for a very long time that they’re supposed to suck it up and whatever it is, push it down and it’ll go away, it doesn’t.”

TV Blackbox has: ABC to premiere four new contemporary films targeting young. ‘Creator Ravi Chand draws on his experiences with Namaste Yoga, about Shiv, a 12-year-old Indian-Australian boy who hates being Indian. Shiv struggles with internalised oppression, whereas his 8-year-old sister Kaali is proud of her culture and immerses herself in it. Shiv experiences his culture being taken, commercialised and “taught” back to him, and learns to reclaim his culture on his own terms through his practice and connection with the true essence of yoga.’