Yoga is an ancient science practiced for thousands of years. Though yoga offers many health benefits, it is much more than exercise: it is a comprehensive system designed to bring you to a place of deep and lasting happiness. It is not necessary to be flexible or strong to begin a yoga practice; an open mind and a willingness to explore your own experience is all that's required. By skillfully combining movement and postures with breathing, relaxation, and meditation techniques, yoga offers both practical and profound benefits to your life.

Some Benefits of Yoga Builds strength, flexibility, and balance Improves immune, circulatory, digestive, nervous, and respiratory systems Increases physical and mental energy Balances glandular activity Reduces stress and enhances ability to relax Focuses and calms the mind
What Level Are You? Level 1-3: mixed-level class for beginning and intermediate students. Level 2-4: class for continuing beginners and intermediate-advanced students. More advanced poses and inverted poses are practiced.

Class Descriptions
(call instructors for more information)

Ashtanga Yoga is a vigorous flow style of yoga, linking breath with movement. It is designed to strengthen, align and purify the entire body and mind. In the Ashtanga Yoga class all levels of practitioners are welcome to attend. The Led Primary class is for students with prior Ashtanga experience. It will include all poses in the primary series and will be taught in a continuous manner without stopping. Both classes will encourage greater focus, endurance and flexibility.

Beginning, Beginning/Intermediate and Intermediate Yoga classes are informed by various yoga traditions, including Iyengar-style yoga, as well as a broad range of body-mind disciplines. Emphasizing an internal understanding of the yoga postures, these classes offer a fluid practice to develop flexibility, strength, body awareness, and relaxation. Meditation may be included.

Full Moon Practice provides a way to ease into your weekend and recalibrate your nervous system with a luxurious practice of mostly passive, long-held postures inviting deep opening, ease and release-the perfect remedy to a stressful week. Dress in layers and bring an eye bag if you have one. Space limited.

Hatha Yoga Vinyasa consists of preparatory warm-ups and standing poses with rhythmic leg and arm movements, called karanas, which prepare one for the seated postures, asanas. When integrated with mindful breath work, the practice aligns and refines the subtle energy (prana) for meditation. Prior yoga experience highly recommend . Visit www.shunyatayoga.com for more information.

Learning to Listen: Insight Meditation Group
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to this sitting group. If we have not yet met, my name is Jonathan Reynolds. This sitting group is composed of new and old students to meditation - each wishing to practice and embody the twin principles of wisdom and compassion in their life. Whatever the reason for your curiosity, again, welcome.

The intention of this group is three-fold: it is an introduction to the practice of insight (vipassana) meditation in the Buddhist tradition; it is a place for experienced meditators to sit regularly in community - ongoing friends and friendships will surely grow around this group's regularity; and lastly, these meditations are an opportunity to pause, reflect, and to notice the passing of our previous week, and to skillfully recharge for the days and week to come.

Our time together will be guided primarily by Buddhism's Four Foundations of Mindfulness - body, sensations, thoughts/emotions, and dharmas. At times our meditations will also be informed by Buddhism's Brahma Viharas (Heavenly Abodes) - loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. You need not be a Buddhist to attend, as these practices appear in one form or another in all great wisdom traditions.

The evening begins with some instruction in the practice of seated meditation - this helps to inform our 40-minute sit. Following the meditation there is an open forum for reflection, sharing, and questions. Also, if you find it difficult to sit on the floor, please bring what you think you may need: meditation cushion (zafu), meditation bench, or chair. Let us sit for a bit. $5-$10, Sliding Scale Donation.

Intro to Mysore class is designed for students interested in learning the traditional method of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. This class is suitable for the absolute beginner, those making the transition from other Yoga disciplines, or more experienced practitioners willing to go back to the basics to shift practice habits and patterns. Instruction will be given during the on-going daily Mysore classes to which you are being introduced. In Mysore-style classes, students of all levels progress silently through a series of postures performed to the rhythm of one's natural breathing. Postures are taught one at a time, based on each student's breathing, flexibility, strength, and dedication to practice. This traditional method of Ashtanga Yoga as taught by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois of Mysore, South India fosters self-reliance and independence while developing a personal yoga practice. This four-week course (2-3 times per week) will cover the basic principles and foundations of Ashtanga Yoga as it was taught by Sri K Pattabhi Jois. You are guided step by step in a clear and concise manner, building on the previous teachings each week to encourage you to develop a safe and fulfilling practice. Commit to one time (2-3 times per week) which you can attend consistently (see Mysore schedule). Enrollment is open and students may start anytime during the month. Call Vance at (510) 301-6747 to enroll, or see www.ashtangayogeberkeley.com for more info.

Iyengar Yoga Yogacharya BKS Iyengar brought his revolutionary style of yoga to the west in the 60's, and his legendary book has become the bible of yoga for generations since. Iyengar has been called the "Michaelangelo of Yoga," and was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people.

Alignment, awareness, and consciously directed change are the marks of Iyengar Yoga. Iyengar's precise focus on alignment and breath immediately centers the mind and empowers specific therapeutic knowledge of one's own body. This enables students of all ages, conditions, and body types to cultivate strength and balance wisely and intelligently. Props allow longer stays in the postures and fully support tight, weak, or injured areas, retraining proper joint action and muscle tone, and relaxing the emotions. Through the innovative approach of this method, students can shift their body structure dramatically and penetrate beyond the physical layers to the full integration of mind, energy, and spirit.

Led Primary Series class is one in which the teacher calls out the postures and vinyasas (counted movements linking the postures with the breath) of the Ashtanga Primary Series. The group moves and breathes together in sync. These are focused, highly energetic classes and recommended for experienced students. This method of teaching is effective in flushing away unconstructive self-practice habits such as a wandering mind, losing the connection with the breath, or fidgeting between postures, and it provides an opportunity to refine your practice by following the "count" as it is traditionally prescribed.

		Prenatal Yoga is taught by an experienced teacher and mother and prepares pregnant women for labor and delivery through postures, breathing exercises and relaxation.
Postnatal Yoga, like Prenatal Yoga, is oriented to the special needs of new mothers. Babies of pre-crawling age are welcome to this class.

Restorative Yoga will renew your body, mind and spirit! Spend time relaxing and listening to the deep wisdom of your body. Classes will focus on resting deeply, allowing the body to settle, release and heal. Come and discover how lying in stillness can give you exactly what you need. All levels welcome.

Shadow Yoga, founded by Zhander Remete, is a Hatha Yoga system that consists of circular and spiraling movements, warrior stances, and sun salutation forms preparing one for the more advanced asanas, or seats. Shadow Yoga utilizes rhythmic breathing, bandhas (energetic locks), and the marma system (vital junctions) to free the peripheral body of its energetic obstructions to ignite our inner fire, or agni. These Shadow Yoga Series run for 3 weeks on Wednesdays and Fridays (six classes total). Visit www.shunyatayoga.com for course dates, prices, and details. Wednesday mornings are held in studio 209 at BYC and Friday mornings are held at the Finnish Hall, 1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley 94702, just 2 blocks away from BYC. To register, email Scott & Chandra at shunyatayoga@gmail.com.

Vini Yoga is a style of yoga made available in the West by T.K.V. Desikachar. The primary way that it differs from other styles in its emphasis on tailoring the practice to each individual practitioner. It is characterized by repetition of simple movements, one at a time, with the breath. When the breath and movement are in harmony, the breath supports the movement, and the movement supports the breath, which helps to stimulate a clear, steady flow of prana, or life force, in the system. This in turn prepares us for the seated practices of pranayama (breath control) and meditation. Regular students to this class will also receive private instruction.

Vinyasa Flow classes offer sequences of poses designed to stretch and strengthen muscles while opening the body to increasing challenges. Focus is on remaining aware of the importance of breath and core strength. There is ongoing encouragement to find an interior steadiness in the face of external exertion. All levels welcome but some yoga experience is helpful.

Yin/Yang Yoga provides the benefits of a balanced practice of Yin and Yang styles of yoga. The Yin style of long-held passive poses opens the body to more flexibility and chi flow through the subtle channels while also engendering a more contemplative, non-reactive quality of mind. A more active, dynamic, Yang style of vinyasa will follow, strengthening and invigorating the body and mind. Each class will conclude with meditation.

Yin Yoga is an inwardly drawn practice of long-held seated and reclining poses. Through inward looking, we have an opportunity to balance our predominantly outward-focused attention with gentle, compassionate inquiry into what we find in our bodies, minds, and hearts. Physically, this practice stimulates our connective tissues (ligaments, fascia and soft tissue) which creates more flexibility in our actual joints as opposed to muscles. Energetically, we are stimulating meridian systems through which chi (prana) flows. Emotionally, we are training an ability to stay with our experience as it is. Each class will conclude with meditation.

Yoga and Meditation is a gentle and dynamic yoga class followed by sitting meditation. Yoga sequencing will be designed to cultivate a relaxed and alert attention in preparation for meditation practice.

Yoga for Basic Stress Reduction addresses the issue of stress, which has become an epidemic in our society. This class will focus on reducing stress physically, mentally, and emotionally through the practice of yoga postures and breathwork.

Yoga for Every Body is a slow, deep practice using body, breath and relaxation as a doorway into the vaster field of awareness, which is always unchanging. You are invited to sense your body, as a movement in awareness. You are encouraged to welcome emotions and thoughts as a movement in awareness, opening the door to the Ground of Being. All levels welcome.

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Please check the schedule for availability of classes and instructors.