Bring a friend along to our December Retreat, and get a FREE 45-min Massage + a Yoga Mat, courtesy of Iyogaprops! Easy-Grip Yoga Mat in Purple or Blue (180 cm x 60cm x 4mm).

HURRY! Promo ends 15 November 2009.

Our bodies go through cycles like the changing seasons, and we often miss the warning signs when a detox or “spring-clean” is much needed. Much like how bad food blocks our system, overstimulation blocks our energy on many (if not all) levels – emotional blockages, which manifest in physical tension, stress, anger, frustration, poor health, or low energy – all these are a build-up of information we can’t process.

It is important to do some maintenance on yourself – and choose supportive activities and conditions to regain your focus and feeling of centredness.  You can reduce this ‘overloaded’ feeling in several ways:

1. Spending some quiet time. Meditation can provide much needed quiet time and reduce the “mental chatter”
2. Shifting your diet towards lighter, non-stodgy foods to allow your digestive system to release unwanted toxins
3. Having a relaxing massages to allow your muscles to release imbalances and toxic tension
4. Practicing non-aggressive exercises such as yoga that allow the body to sweat out toxins

Retreats are an excellent and cost-effective way to detoxify and experience all the above benefits over the course of a weekend.  You get to experience all this in a supportive group setting.

ReConnect Yoga offers weekend retreats.  Our next retreat is 4-6 December (4:30pm Friday to 4:30pm Sunday) at Kanimbla View in Blackheath. Click Here for info on our 4-6 December Retreat!

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With over 30 years of practice and  study of Yoga tradition, Western psychotherapy and Yoga therapy both in Australia and India, Sal Flynn is a renowned Sydney yoga teacher, psychotherapist, educator and coach.

Her work and passion is around supporting individuals  on the integration of powerful Eastern Yoga wisdom into daily western life.

At our upcoming 4-6 December Yoga Retreat at Blackheath, Blue Mountains Sydney, Sally will be holding a morning experiential-talk on “Stilling the Mind/ How Yoga is Relevant to Daily Life”. This session will combine discussion and practice to inquire into what it means to practice yoga, both on and off the mat.  We will refer to body-mind integration as an evolving process and look at how it influences and supports our lifelong relationship to stillness. 

CLICK HERE for more information or to Register Online for the December Retreat.

More About Sally…

Sally began her career working in graphic design and television where she spent many years inspired and exhilarated. Twenty years after she began, Sally became responsible for the coaching and pastoral care of the actors and presenters of a television network.

Today Sally is a psychotherapist, educator and coach. Her approach is Transpersonal so her intention is to support her clients balanced development of the various aspects of their life; intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual and creative.

“With the challenges and pressures of daily life it’s not unusual for us to feel lost in the world and lost within our selves. Whether the challenges appear in the form of life transitions or unexpected change, therapy can help us to step outside our usual ways of perceiving things, into an expanded view of the world.” – Sally Flynn

Her introduction to Yoga practice was through the long established Gita School in Melbourne.  Sal later studied with Shanti Gowans, a student of Swami Gitananda whose teaching emphasised the importance of Deep Relaxation, Meditation, Pranayama and Philosophy. Through Shanti, Sal met her mentor, June Michaelson and it was with June’s encouragement that Sal undertook teacher training.  She left her career in media and did her basic teaching certification with The Australian Yoga Teachers Network.  On completion of her course she studied at Swami Gitananda’s International Centre for Yoga Research and Education in India.  Later, back in Melbourne she practiced and collaborated with teachers from the Iyengar method, and participated in an Intensive program with TKV Desikachar.  She was introduced to Ashtanga Yoga in an intensive with the late Derek Ireland in Goa, India.  Her Ashtanga practice was advanced and refined over a 12 year period guided by Dena Kingsburg, a senior student of Pattabhi Jois.

After teaching for some years Sal continued to be fascinated with the notion of how to integrate these powerful practices into busy western lives.  Her interest saw her study Counselling, Art Therapy and Hypnotherapy.  She began to apply this combination modalities to working one to one with her clients and students, catering for a range of special needs.  During this period Sal returned to India to study Yoga Therapy with Indra and AG Mohan.

Sal resumed full time Yoga teaching in 2004 when she was appointed Yoga Therapist at Sarah Key Physiotherapy, a specialist spinal care clinic  in Sydney.  Around the same time she joined the Faculty of the Advanced Diploma of Yoga Teaching, the first fully government accredited Yoga Teacher Training program in Australia, delivered at Nature Care College of natural therapies.

She completed Teacher Training with Donna Farhi in 2005 and is now a Senior Associate on Donna’s teaching faculty, assisting Donna on workshops and teacher trainings.  She holds a Bachelor Degree in Psychotherapy and Human Change from Jansen Newman Institute and is passionate about finding ways to integrate the knowledge of modern psychotherapy with the ancient wisdom of Yoga.  Sal now has a private practice in Yoga Therapy and Psychotherapy; she trains and mentors Yoga Teachers and runs courses, workshops and retreats throughout Australia.

Sal has been exposed to a great many influences during her 25 years of yoga practice and 15 years teaching.  Today her personal practice is essentially drawn from the tradition of Sri Krishnamacharya and the principals of Classical Ashtanga Yoga as outlined in the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali. Sal is guided by her ongoing work with Donna Farhi and inspired by her long standing friendship with Dena Kingsburg.  She continues to explore the vast depth of Yogic understanding through asana, meditation, pranayama and the study of the mind.

If you are interested in Sally’s work, and would like to join us in our next upcoming retreat, CLICK HERE for more information or to Register Online for the December Retreat.

For more information on Sally’s beautiful work, go to www.creativecounsel.com.au.

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These days we face problems of sensory and auditory overload.  We often find ourselves zooming in-and-out of traffic, checking emails, spending hours in front of a computer-screen or the television, and not to mention stress-eating and juggling the roles we play in our relationships.

It is sometimes hard to quantify how much we over-stimulate our minds and bodies.  However you can easily tell the overall experience of too much negative activity – usually through feelings of flatness, dullness, or low mental or physical energy.

Bad food clogs up the body with toxic materials, blocking the channels through which we absorb vital nutrients. And similarly, much like how bad food blocks our food absorption channels, poor sensory and auditory input can block our energy.

When this happens we can create emotional blocks, which are a build-up of information we can’t process.  This information gets shelved in a psychological “holding zone”, but eventually we need to deal with it.  In the meantime this backlog can manifest in anger, frustration, poor health, and low energy.

To detoxify your body, you can choose to eat quality food, and allow time for your food to digest after eating.  Similarly for your mind, allow yourself time to assimilate and process all the sensory and auditory input – information, emotions, noise, sounds, tastes, and colours.  This will allow the body to “catch up” with it’s natural sense of wellbeing, centeredness and focus.

As we move from cooler Winter to the warmer Summer months, your body will naturally seek to detoxify.  By doing some maintenance on yourself, you can build supportive conditions that allow you to thrive in the overloaded experience of living our busy day-to-day lives.

You can do this in several ways:

• Spending some quiet time. Meditation can be a significant tool in cutting down the impact of sensory overload. It can provide important and much needed quiet time, which allows us to tone down the “mental chatter”.
• Shifting your diet towards lighter, non-stodgy foods to allow your digestive system to release unwanted toxins.
• Going for relaxing massages to allow the body to expel any imbalances and toxic tension.
• Practising non-aggressive exercises such as yoga, tai-chi or chi-gong that allow the body to sweat out toxins.

Seasonal transitions are a perfect time to go on a retreat.  Retreats are also an excellent and cost-effective way to detoxify and experience all the above benefits over the course of a weekend.  You get to do this in a supportive group setting.

ReConnect Yoga offers weekend retreats (4:30pm Friday to 4:30pm Sunday) at Kanimbla View in Blackheath.  Their next upcoming retreat is on 4-6 December 2009.  The retreat costs $650 and includes food, accommodation, classes and activities.

For Blue Mountain residents, there is a reduced rate of $350 (over 45% off the standard rate), which excludes accommodation.

Click Here for more information or call 0414 985 800.  Places are limited.

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“A tree is no less perfect because it is a seedling. A tiny infant is no less perfect than a grown-up. It is perfection itself. Because it cannot do a thing, does not know a thing, that does not make it somehow less perfect. A child makes mistakes. She stands. She toddles. She falls. She stands again, a bit wobbly, hanging on to her mommy’s leg. Does that make the child imperfect? I tell you it is just the opposite. That child is perfection itself, wholly and completely adorable. So, too, are you.”

This passage reminds me of the yogic concept of wholeness – being whole. And the divinity that is in each one of us. In this material-focused world, it is easy to identify with one’s mind, one’s body, and feel less whole by not knowing something, or not “looking right”, or being deemed “less capable”.

I feel it is wise not to confuse the process of learning and exploring ourselves in this life time with our own true, pure, divine nature.

Namaste – “The Divinity in me bows down to the Divinity in you”

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Yoga Retreats Spring-Summer 2009

Our next retreat is on 4-6 December (Friday to Sunday) 2009, at Kanimbla View Clifftop Retreat, Blackheath in the beautiful Blue Mountains. Click Here for more information.

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This usually isn’t the most conducive environment for anyone to find out who they are, and what they really want to do in life. This is particularly true for teenagers who invariably find themselves with huge amounts of pressure – finding their own sense of identity in the midst of exam pressure, peer pressure, and other competitive sports and activities.

In a world that is constantly speeding up, providing teenagers with the space to grow and understand more about themselves at their own pace is often overlooked.

We see common problems that arise from this environment around us everyday – frustration, anger, or a lacking sense of purpose, manifesting in road rage, vandalism, depression, boredom, and unemployment.

There is a need for more holistic activities where the individual can just relax, and get to know more about themselves in a fun, safe environment.

Yoga provides a non-competitive space where individuals can learn to relax and stay focused. Apart from providing a perfect outlet to address these problems, yoga is a great way to get fit, improve self-confidence and self-esteem.

Many of the health benefits from yoga come from learning to take yoga off-the-mat. Yoga postures are like artificial tension introduced to you on your yoga mat. If you can learn to breathe through the pose and stay relaxed and present, you can take it off your yoga mat into your daily life – such as exams, job interviewers and other stressful situations.

Yoga offers many invaluable tools to support teenagers to handle the pressure that come with adolescent life.

Reconnect Yoga is passionate about inspiring our youth through yoga, and is starting classes as part of an initiative to support our youth in Sydney’s Blue Mountains. A special offer of $5 a yoga class is available for anyone under 20 years of age (just present your ID).

Yoga classes commence on 9 August at the Wentworth Falls School of Arts (Monday 7:15pm and Tuesday 10am), and on 19 August at the Bullaburra Progress Association Hall (Wednesdays 10am). All classes are open to people new to yoga or regular practitioners, and run for 1 hour 15 minutes.

For more information visit www.reconnectyoga.com or to book a class call 0414 985 800.

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It was interesting for everyone at the retreat to find out what their archetype (called dosha in Ayurveda) is.

Ayurveda is a sister-science of Yoga that deals with health from a perspective of relationships – our relationship to the food we eat, in accordance with our relationship to the earth and the seasons, etc.

Read any article on Ayurveda and you are likely to see some mention of the three doshas, Vata, Pitta and Kapha.

What exactly are doshas and what do they have to do with our well-being?
According to ayurveda, the five fundamental elements that make up the universe are:

1. space (akasha)
2. air (vayu)
3. fire (agni)
4. water (apu), and
5. earth (prithvi)

These elements also make up the human physiology.

How do these elements work within us?
Look at the elements from the point of view of what they do in the physiology, rather than what they are — ayurveda describes three biological profiles/ constitutions/ or psychophysiological energies called doshas.

There are three doshas, called Vata, Pitta and Kapha, and each is mainly a combination of two elements:

1. Vata dosha – is made up of space and air
2. Pitta dosha – is a combination of fire and water
3. Kapha dosha – is made up of water and earth

The combination of the three doshas that you inherit at conception is called your prakriti or original or birth constitution. While it is not unheard of for people to have nearly equal proportions of the three doshas or just one very predominant dosha as their prakriti, most people have two doshas that are more or less equally dominant, with the remaining one less dominant

Thus, there are ten classic types of prakriti possible—

1. Vata-Pitta-Kapha, Vata (where Vata is much more dominant than either of the two other doshas)
2. Vata-Pitta-Kapha, Vata-Pitta (where Vata and Pitta are the two major doshas with Vata being slightly more dominant than Pitta)
3. Pitta-Vata-Kapha, Pitta-Vata (where again Vata and Pitta are the two major doshas, but Pitta is slightly more dominant than Vata)
4. Vata-Kapha-Pitta, Kapha
5. Vata-Kapha
6. Kapha-Vata
7. Pitta-Vata-Kapha, Pitta
8. Pitta-Kapha
9. Kapha-Pitta
10. Tri-doshic

Of course, each of us has a unique doshic thumbprint, and an ayurvedic healer performs an ayurvedic pulse assessment to discover that unique doshic make-up and the exact nature of imbalances in order to recommend a very individual program (diet & lifestyle) for restoring balance.
For good health and well-being to be maintained, the three doshas within you need to be in balance. That does not mean they need to be equal, unless you were born with equal doshas. It means that you need to maintain your original doshic make-up or prakriti through life as much as possible to maintain good health.

Unfortunately, factors such as the dietary choices you make, the lifestyle you lead, the climate where you live, levels of environmental pollution, the work you do, the nature of your relationships with people and even just the passage of time can cause one of more of the doshas in your prakriti to increase or decrease from its original level in your constitution, creating vikriti or imbalance. If this imbalance is not corrected, you eventually loose your good health. That’s why restoring balance is the central theme of the ayurvedic approach to health.

While it is ideal to follow a personal program of balance laid out by an ayurvedic healer after an ayurvedic pulse assessment and a question-answer session designed to discover your precise needs for balance at a given time, a well-designed questionnaire can help you assess for yourself if you need to balance one or more doshas, and diet and lifestyle tips and herbal formulas can help maintain or restore balance.

We applied these principles and answered a Dosha-Determining Questionnaire at our weekend retreat. After which, we had a look at what implications this had in terms of what type of foods we’ve been eating too much of which causes the imbalance and how we can respect our original birth constitution by gravitating towards other types of food. Similarly, we got to examine and assess our lifestyle choices.

This was a wonderful experience which I have personally found to have great impact on my personal food and lifestlye choices. If you are interested in this workshop, you can come and learn with us at our weekend yoga and meditation retreats.

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Location: Killcare Beach NSW

Link: Yoga and Meditation Retreat

Description: We are pleased to annnounced another amazing Retreat weekend at Killcare Beach. This Retreat is over three days / two nights and will relax your mind and rejuvenate your body. You will have the time to de-stress and find that sense of inner balance that we all seek (and don’t find often enough). You will get to practice yoga and meditation, go for beach swims and nature walks, eat yummy organic food and do some creative activities. Interested? Book online now.

Start Date: Friday 13 March 2009

End Date: Sunday 15 March 2009

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Here is an image of the article and you can download a PDF of the article by clicking on the image.

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Namaste – Monica

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