Baby Bhay Yoga 22.5 Weeks and Growing!

Ruah Yoga Prenatal Flow at Reebok June 26th 3:30-4:30pm

Reebok Sports Club, 160 Columbus Ave.

Members: $25

Non-Members: $40

TO SECURE YOUR PLACE IN THE WORKSHOP PLEASE CONTACT Anne-Sophie Rodriguez at REEBOK:

ASRodriguez@reeboksportsclubny.com


Enjoy a two hour personal retreat to encourage a healthy pregnancy for you and your baby.
Learn useful guidelines and techniques to practice yoga safely throughout your entire pregnancy and delivery.
Prenatal Ruah Yoga Flow guides you through a sequence preparing you for a peaceful, happy, healthy pregnancy and birth:

Flowing movements to relieve tension, energize, strengthen and open the body;
Mindful breathing techniques to improve the nervous system for you and your baby (pranayama) and help prepare you for later stages of pregnancy and labor;
Relaxation/meditation methods to relieve your mind of any anxiety or distractions.

Ruah uses her experience of teaching yoga for nearly a decade as well as her own pregnancy (she's expecting a baby in October!) to guide you into to feeling deeply connected to the best part of yourself and to your baby. You will leave with a sense of being refreshed, invigorated and peaceful in your mind, body & spirit; ready to welcome your child into the world.

Ruah Detox Yoga Flow at Yogaworks May 16th

Sunday, May 16th 1:30-4:30pm
Yogaworks East Side 1319 3rd Ave., 2nd Floor

Release stress and detox your entire mind & body through intense flowing movement, mindful breathing, guided relaxation. Detox Yoga Flow © maps out a simple union of three essential yoga practices:

• Asana: intense flowing yoga postures to strengthen and open up the body;
• Pranayama: mindful breathing to improve the nervous and digestive system;
• Dhyana: meditation techniques to effortlessly guide yourself into deep relaxation.

Detox Yoga Flow© enhances the hypometabolism (oxygen consumption), stimulates the hypothalamus (body's ability to react/fight or flight response) and improves the nervous system (breathing, digestion, cell rejuvenation).

This three hour personal mini-retreat will leave you feelingl balanced and healthy in your body, mind and spirit.

Detox Yoga Flow© All rights reserved Ruah Bhay 2009.

TO SECURE YOUR PLACE IN THE WORKSHOP PLEASE CONCTACT YOGAWORKS:

Email: hollyr@yogaworks.com

Ruah Reviewed in Beauty Logic!

For the full article click:

http://www.beautylogicblog.com/2010/04/foxy-fit-mommy-prenatal-yoga-yoga-works.html

Foxy Fit Mommy Prenatal Yoga - Yoga Works

In the early nineties, when Mommy got sick with cancer, she started to turn to a healthier lifestyle, and began Yoga. Because I was always with my mommy at the time, at the age of twelve, I was practicing Yoga right alongside with her. As I grew older, and into my own life, I stopped doing yoga, but then when I hit my early twenties, I began again. The benefits of Yoga are amazing. Not only does it physically help you, but I feel such a sense of calm and wellness as I do it. Anyway, after finding out about Little Mr. DE, Yoga Works, blessed me with a free prenatal yoga session, and I must say that’s just what the doctor ordered. Many of my friends practice at Yoga Works and have given it rave reviews so I was really excited about going. The location I went to was in Soho although Yoga Works has a few other spots throughout the city. My instructor was Ruah Bhay. It’s so important to feel comfortable with your instructor, and I immediately loved her. Her voice, spirit and energy were all so comforting and warm. My session was an hour (although it was going so great that it went way too fast for me), and during the hour, Ruah taught me so many positions. Ones that I really liked were the Balsana Child pose which relieves tension in hips and back, soothes the mind and restores energy to the body. When you’re 7 months pregnant, back pain is a common problem, and this position really helped alleviate the stress on my back. We also did the Seated Cow, which helps create space in the spine and hips and stimulate the mammary glands to prepare for breast milk, (I plan to breast feed my little squirrel) and to improve the immune system. All in all, the poses I did helped me feel amazing. When I walked out of the place, I hadn’t felt that good, well since before my pregnancy. Ruah is a great instructor, and Yogaworks is a place that I will def be making another prenatal yoga appt for.

Balasana Child’s Pose (1 minute)
 Big toes to touch, knees as wide as your torso (or wider for tight hips), point your toes.
 Lower the forehead to the floor or onto a block.
 Extend your arms to straight reaching your hands as far forward as you can.
 Hands shoulder distance apart, fingers spread wide, palms flat and pressing down into the floor.
 Lift the arms up as you press the hands down.
 Inhale, find length in the spine
 Exhale, find depth in the pose.



Seated Cat/Cow. (1-5 minutes)
 Still seated on the blankets place the soles of the feet together about a foot from your pelvis, knees out to the side and hands onto your shins with straight arms.
 Inhale, open the chest and draw the shoulder blades down the back.
 Exhale, round the spine spreading the shoulders on the back and tucking the chin into the chest.
 Add one arm lifting up on the inhale and lowering on the exhale and then switching.
 Add both arms.


For more info on Yoga Works Log on to. www.yogaworks.com
For more info on Ruah log on to her page at http://ruahyoga.blogspot.com/ or follow her on twitter @ruahyoga

Spring Greetings!

"As the sun shines upon my heart, may my heart shine upon the hearts of others!" - The Upanishads

Dear Friends,

I hope that this finds you happy, healthy and delighting in the beginning of spring!

What a miracle change is! Transformation happens so quickly this season as the warmer weather and moist air brings along all of nature's budding beauty. It is in the air, more change is certainly on the way!

This season of change in Ayurveda (the science of the body) is called kapha, a time when our bodies and minds tend to be slow and even sluggish in the process of awakening out of our hibernation from winter. Now is a time to get to bed early and arise at an early hour to avoid the feeling of heaviness that often comes with sleeping-in during this time. Drink hot liquids with spices like ginger and cinnamon and be sure to include daily exercise to cleanse the body and mind. Create a plan and pave a path for your body and mind to spring into a healthy and happy you! I hope that you will join me Sunday, May 16th for Detox Ruah Yoga Flow workshop at Yogaworks and also please read below for some very special news!

In gratitude, peace, joy, love and good health.

Namaste,

Ruah

Compassion, Love & Transformation

This coming October, with the grace and miracle of the universe, I hope to experience the new joy and blessed occasion of sharing a new sense of compassion and love as a mother!

I have always known that I wanted to be a mother. I grew up loving kids spending my entire young adult life babysitting, playing with children and being a summer camp counselor. It always just felt natural and was what I loved. Now with the actual prospect of becoming a mother to my own little one, I am overwhelmed with excitement, anticipation, fear, and wonder! While I understand that we can never know what the universe holds up ahead, I do feel that this new experience is meant to be exactly as it is, to teach me so many things and hopefully be able to share this miraculous experience with others.

I once attended a wedding where the priest spoke of the Hebrew word for compassion, rechemet, which derives from rechem, which is Hebrew for womb. The miraculous existence of the womb is so clearly connected to how we as humans are able to share compassion with ourselves and with others. In order to be compassionate and to love others, we must first be compassionate to and be in love with ourselves.

As much as it is difficult to fathom, we all lived inside our biological mother's womb at the beginning of life. Our own form as we are now started out barely the size of a poppy seed, growing over time inside of her as we slowly transformed into the physical foundation of who we are today. During this special time inside of our mother's womb, we were equally dependent on our own health as we were on the health of our mother. Likewise, she was dependant on her health as well as ours in order to survive.

As tiny human beings growing at an amazing rate inside our mother's womb so many years ago, we were already in motion to developing into exactly who we are right now. Our mother also experienced the transformation of her body and life as she discovered this entirely new identity that she also learned to accept and love as her new self. This rhythm continued for 40 weeks as we both intimately integrated as one being and eventually gave us life on this earth - capable of passing on that love and compassion we experienced in the womb with others.

So as this new chapter of life develops, I am reminded of the priest's advice, love yourself first and the divine energy within you, then you will best be able to love another. As our bodies, minds and life continue to transform in ways beyond our imagination, it is important to do our best continue to love exactly who we are in each moment (even if your favorite yoga top & jeans don't fit and you can't jump back into chatturanga ; ), so we can focus on sharing the love that we cultivate within ourselves right into the heart of loved ones.

What Next?
In case you are curios, my plan is to teach! I expect to teach as far along through this as my body and this beautiful little one growing inside me will allow and return to teach a few months afterwards with hopefully plenty of new lessons learned. Fortunately for me and other mom-to-be yoga teachers, many inspirational yogini teacher moms have pioneered and paved the path to doing it all - Gurmukh Khal Khalsa, Shiva Rea, Rainbow Mars, Anita Goa and many more. I hope to follow in their footsteps and continue my path as a yoga teacher. We will see what the universe has in store and I will be sure to continue with more updates.

Breath Meditation for Wisdom, Happiness & Peace

Sit comfortably with your eyes closed and spine erect and lower back supported if you have tension (if you become uncomfortable, feel free to adjust your body and find stillness again).

· Inhale for a count of 4-8 and Exhale for the same count.
· Notice the natural retention or pauses between the inhale and exhale.
· Continue to follow the breath up your spine as you inhale and down your spine as you exhale.
· If distracting thoughts come, acknowledge them and then use the breath to draw you back from any distracting thoughts.
· Allow the breath to become more and more effortless and shallow with each passing moment.
· Once you feel a sense of ease, draw your awareness back to the breath.
· As you inhale, visualize a sense of peace and happiness expanding from within you.
· As you exhale, visualize letting go of any physical tension or gripping.
· Allow yourself to care about absolutely nothing, letting go of last moment and freeing yourself from the next.
· Be fully present in your breath and sense of peace & happiness from within.