Sunday, March 30, 2008

Barking Buddha

Doggy Door Pose. This week in my people classes we worked on hamstring and hip openers. Something I'll bring into today's Barking Buddha Yoga class at The Humane Society.
Forward bending poses help open the hips and hams and also cultivate patience while calming the nervous system. I have a puppy in my current series who is also helping me cultivate patience. He is very active and vocal during class. I'm working with his person to discover new ways to introduce a puppy to the class so we are all cultivating patience and working together to learn. This dog is the youngest dog I've ever had in a class so it's been a fabulous learning opportunity for me as a teacher. With a few positive reinforcement training tools he's starting to "get" it. He's really cute and if it's o.k. with his mom I'll try to get a picture of him today to post on the blog. Happy Sunday!

....Still don't have the teacher training dates, although we've decided on either July or November. Sorry, I'm usually not this flaky with stuff, but it's a new endeavour that's taking more time then expected to figure out.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Zen Mind/Puppy MInd

This is such a cute story! Click on the link to check it out...

Zen mind, puppy mind At a Zen Buddhist temple in Japan, even the dog prays. Mimicking his priest master, the Chihuahua joins in daily prayers, sitting up and putting his front paws together before the altar.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23774245/from/ET/

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Muttley Mudras


Mudras are used in yoga and meditation to redirect the prana/life force in the body. The most common mudras are hand mudras, like the one people do all the time to imitate a yogi by bringing the index finger and thumb to touch. Check out the puppy paw mudra above. Use this mudra with the intention of grounding you and your dog in your practice, joining your intentions.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Possibilities















Dogs help us open our hearts to the possibilities of relationships that we may have difficulty learning or accepting from other humans. Something about that connection with our dog allows us to draw out the qualities in ourself that we may otherwise have difficulty connecting with: unconditional love, letting go, being present, to name a few.

Our yoga practice teaches us about connection to ourself so that we can bring that connection beyond our yoga mats into our daily life.
But what if we bring our dogs onto our mats with us? We can let their natural healing abilities encourage our ability to connect by first connecting with them, approaching the desire to connect in a new way. For some this is a more helpful way or just a more fun way. A yoga class should be a practice that encourages this kind of transformation no matter what style someone uses to get there.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

We're ready for our close-ups Mr. DeVille...



















My husband, Brad was in charge of the picture taking at The Jewish Community Center Dog Yoga demo. Big sigh...



As you can see he became more interested in artistic expression than actual dog yoga demo shots. Can't blame him, who can resist these caninetastic close-ups!


I present to you our artist's models: Magnet (black lab), Lucy ( russian wolfhound), Gus (small mix), Honey (larger, jowly mix).


P.S. Just sent some class photos to ABC Nightline for a Dog Yoga story they're working on, look for us and let me know if you see the story! Also teacher training dates TBA by the end of next week!