Yoga Arts & Crafts, Sundays in December!

(Power Bottles from Yoga Arts & Crafts 12/4/11 Class)
Make a wish, give it power and allow the universe to provide!

Bring your creative energy to the mat and explore self-love through Yoga Arts & Crafts!

Calling All Artists, Yogis and Self-Loved Ones!
Sundays in December, I am offering a three part class dedicated to the creative spirit and yogi inside each of us. Each two hour session will allow time for fun heart opening arts & crafts and yoga dedicated to our creative selves.

What is Yoga Arts & Crafts?Yoga Arts & Crafts was inspired by a need for something more artistic and creative during my yoga process. Art inspires yoga and yoga ignites the creative energy within. So why not create the space to combine the two? Yoga Arts & Crafts allows the space to create and be crafty while offering a place to be present with your yoga practice.

Who is Yoga Arts & Crafts for?Yoga Arts & Crafts is for anyone with an arts practice, creative thinkers, those who dream and laugh, and/or those with a yoga practice who want to go deeper through personal creativity. *

What does Yoga Arts & Crafts look like?The class runs for three weeks; the first three Sundays of December. It’s a two hour class where one hour is dedicated to creating art and one hour is dedicated to a yoga class for ALL levels.
Arts & Crafts activities include:
-Accessorizing our Warrior(ess)
-Painting/collage our own path – honoring the life and death of 2011, into 2012
-Sequencing the Spirit (movement/dance)
-Making magic potions, scented oils …and more

Details
Sundays. December 4^th, 11^th, 18^th

4:00pm - 6:00pm
Come to one class or all three!

Healthy snacks will be provided.



December 4th:
Studio Valencia
455A Valencia St. @ 16th
San Francisco, CA

(Ring doorbell)

December 11th:
Wellness 264
264 Dolores St. @16th
San Francisco, CA


December 18th: 
Studio Valencia
455A Valencia St. @ 16th

Donation-based $7-$12 per class. No one turned away! RSVP highly encouraged, please.
*This is an adult class and childcare cannot be provided at this time.

Magic, Yoga and Music!

Yoga for School Teachers

I am offering free yoga classes for school teachers on Mondays at the Red Poppy Art House. As I am getting my footing as a certified yoga instructor I am offering this service to all of my amazing friends who are educating young minds in the city.

I am collaborating with a fellow yogi instructor and good friend, Michelle Grambeau, who teaches the most magical sequences ever! She is definitely inspirational. The class is a Vinyasa flow class and because of my Iyengar training influence we do hold the poses for quite a while lunging deep into our bodies and mind.

Last week a good number of my amazing friends who teach at El Dorado Elementary came to the class. This class is also open to all school teachers in the city. Last week our intention was "service" and the focus was serving ourselves. Next Monday our intention will be "imagination" and how we can create reality out of what we imagine.

I hope to see more teachers in the class!

Yoga for School Teachers
Red Poppy Art House
2698 Folsom St. @ 23rd St. - SF
Mondays 4:30pm - 5:30pm
Free for school teachers!

If you would like to know how you can support this project by donating or volunteering your time please email: danceartyoga@gmail.com

New Series of Expressive Arts Classes in October

During the month of October Dance Your Art Out will be offering a new series of expressive arts classes for children called Yoga. Dance. Art. Play. which will be held at 264 Dolores on Sunday afternoons 1:15pm-2pm. The space at 264 Dolores is amazing. It has spacious hardwood floors and I could practically feel the potential of vast creativity that could happen in that room. Since the entire floor of the building is primarily used as a wellness center it's walls hold a sweet calming energy. Plus, the location of the studio is in a sunny and green neighborhood right next to Dolores Park. It's pretty fresh!

Here's the plan for the next three Sundays:
Oct. 2nd. - Play session #1: Exploring the Space - dance, movement and tea time.
Oct. 9th - Play session #2: Improvisation - puppets, paint and yoga poses.
Oct. 16th - Play session #3: Creativity Salad - poems, pictures and smoothies.


Location: 264 Dolores St. SF @ 16th (ring bell for entry)


All classes begin at 1:15pm. Early arrival is appreciated. Classes are donation based, $5-$7 suggested per class. However, no one is turned away for lack of funds! Children ages 4 to 7 will mostly enjoy these classes. It's a drop-in class but an RSVP would be lovely. 

Spoken Word Yoga Blog Post #2... And Birkram Writing??

The Challenge:
For the past two weeks I've been facilitating my Spoken Word Yoga class in the auditorium of Glen Park Elementary. But rewind back to the past four weeks- They had me hopping around from the cafeteria to the kitchen space on the lower level of the school; not an ideal space for yoga, dancing, playing or creating. Along with the inconsistency and constraints of the space come behavioral issues. This is expected. Outbursts and boundary testing are just a few issues that come with the lack of a warm and consistent environment, but it can be seen as a positive thing as well. Immediately, I had to tighten up on my structure, classroom management and clarity in my facilitation. I also grew very aware of the various personalities in the class, fast. Oh, they made sure I knew who they were and if I didn't pay attention and meet their needs with more opportunities to build on creativity then they would inadvertently ask for it. With that, I took notes, adapted to the environment and recreated my lesson plans.

The Final Play Space:
However, the yoga goddesses saw my struggle and graciously provided me with one of the most beautiful spaces I have ever worked in (you can see the picture below). The hardwood floors shine, the huge windows allow for the sun to play among us, the ceilings touch the clouds and the windows invite a view of the entire Glen Canyon, which is an amazing sight even when the fog blankets itself over the hills. All of the hard work and energy in the cramped spaces of the kitchen paid off immensely and I feel like the students and I are finally finding a groove. I guess I had to do a little grunt work and go through some kharma initiation. We finally got a workable play space and I'm pretty psyched about it!

The Class:
Imagine a huge auditorium space, large enough to fit an entire elementary school. Intentionally, there are no chairs, no tables to sit at, no desks, no books, no pencils, not even yoga mats, yoga blocks or even a dry erase board on an easel in this space. Nothing. Just the space. Now imagine walking in, taking off your shoes, sitting on the floor and being a part of a circle with about fifteen other students. This is how every Spoken Word Yoga Class begins and this is what the class is all about - a routine into the unexpected. What comes next? Maybe some improvisation acting, dancing (mostly with the kindergarten), writing, puppet shows (mostly second and third grade), a lot of talking things out (mostly the fourth grade) and some music happening at some point. It's pretty much an open space to think and be creative as one pleases.

Inspiration:
I have a friend who created a performance skit about people using the expressive arts without knowing it. For example, husband makes wife a mixtape of their favorite music - expressive arts. Or, child sings a song on the radio but incorporates her own words to the melody - expressive arts. Or, the many fusions and evolution of yoga paired with an art-form such as Bikram and writing - expressive arts. Earlier this month I attended an amazing writing class called Bikram Writing taught by Liz Worthy. I met Liz through a very talented good friend of mine, Ryan. Ryan participated in a show called The Art of Buttons back in July, a ceramic buttons art show at Ruby's Clay Studio. The show was super cool and unique but meeting Liz was even cooler. After chatting a bit she mentioned her monthly Bikram Writing class. Intrigued, I felt that I had to attend. I thought the only person crazy enough to combine the practice of writing and yoga was me. But Liz proved that I wasn't alone in my creative processes. For the most part, it's predominantly a writing class. It borrows from the discipline of Bikram Yoga. There were many moments of being active and moving the body but we always came back to the paper to bend our minds into poses. Rather than dripping sweat I was dripping words profusely onto the page.

Currently, in my facilitation of Spoken Word Yoga, I have easily adapted many of the writing exercises that I learned from Liz and tailored things for my much younger audience at Glen Park. I am excited to attend her upcoming classes for more inspiration and to also further develop my personal writing practice as well.

Gifted with this new inspiration cultivated by Liz's class and Spoken Word Yoga's new play space at Glen Park, I feel like the energy is rolling and I am going forth in this creative process with limitless ideas!

With Light,
eric

Adapt and Recreate!

If you know my style of facilitation it is nothing close to being gender specific. Never have I offered a to lead groups or classes specifically for boys or girls. It totally goes against my philosophy of inclusion and can promote gender specific roles and characteristics. But that's a different blog post. Moving on, I feel like the gender universality of Yoga Dance classes make it the unique class it is. However, it just so happens that most of my participants who come to all Yoga Dance classes are mostly vibrant little girls who are well versed in ballet, yoga and scarf dancing. Fun, right? Like any group leader my instincts are to adapt to my population, target their strengths and figure out new ways to enhance creativity through the activities I lead. Which for a long time encouraged me to embrace the feminine. This has applied to my style up until recently. Last Sunday I found myself looking around during opening circle and I realized that all the child participants were boys. And these were boy types of boys. Like Ninja Turtle/ Ironman type of boys. Now, I have no problem with considering to the new population that has emerged but I usually have time to prepare myself, which in this case I had barely a few minutes to come up with something other than ballet types of yoga poses and scarf dancing. Luckily I had planned to teach wall poses and inversions with parent participation, but I definitely felt a shift in my facilitation style during opening and closing circle. I found myself challenged trying too hard to get the boys to participate and talk about how they felt during the activities. Light bulb!! Boys are socially pre-conditioned to NOT express their feelings and I was absorbing that energy directly. Yes, it's a sad reality but it is what it is. So what's a Yoga Dance leader to do? Adapt and recreate! There's a balance between giving the group their individual space and finding some cohesion and I feel like this group asked for that through their actions and reactions. I had to learn to back off in my style and be more of an observer but I also learned how to push the participants more to gain success. I'm still learning and feel as if the learning never ends but this class was a wake up call for me. I am realizing that my activities call for more flexibility and that gender energy in the rooms can have a great impact. The challenge is trying to create balance and hold a space for exploration outside of our social gender roles. I'm excited to proceed!

With Light,
eric

Lion Pose!!

Thank you to my lovely sister, Tiffany, for joining the class and volunteering do some cool face painting!!

Thank You, Longfellow Elementary!

It's always truly exciting visiting a friend's classroom and seeing them in total teacher mode. Mr. Futol and I have been good friends since we were kids. Leading a class in his first grade classroom at Longfellow Elementary felt like such a reflection of the growth and progression in our friendship and professional lives. Ever since college, I've witnessed Mr. Futol's positive influence on the community. Through both of our journeys we've stayed connected sharing similar views on important issues such as education, culture and Hip-Hop. With impeccable knowledge on issues concerning social justice and community building it is so refreshing to see him inspiring young minds at Longfellow. When trying to explain our friendship to his first grade class it occurred to me that we've known each other for about seventeen years. I am so happy that we get to share each other's work with one another still till this present day.

His students are super chill and were so receptive to Yoga Dance and I hope to visit soon again. The pictures below show some of the highlights of my visit.

                                                              Swingin' our elephant trunks!

                                            Stretching our hearts to the sky in banana pose!

   Dancing it out!

Cooling down with a story...

Relaxing in child's pose (their favorite pose, surprisingly)!

Thank you, Mr Futol and the first grade class of Longfellow Elementary! Keep shining!

Thank you, Sherman Elementary!

It's not every day I walk into a school and receive smiles from everyone I pass in the halls. The people are so welcoming at Sherman Elementary- the students, the teachers and even the principal took time to smile and greet me! I had a feeling that this was a happy kind of school and the second grade class taught by Ms. Stolz and Ms. Steinfels proved me right. This class of twenty bright, playful and energetic children reminded me of how much I love leading Yoga Dance expressive arts.

However, there are certain challenges when leading a large class of children and I tend to immediately go into hyper-awareness mode. My eyes are constantly scanning the group, my energy rises and my body often moves about the room like an ant on a hot rock in attempts to engage every child among the excitement. As I was scurrying around the classroom I realized that the children were actually taking to the yoga very well. Their postures were amazingly strong and they were following the sequences of movements very willingly. The most important thing was that they were having fun! They were laughing, falling all over the place and so connected to their bodies. My favorite part was when we were all in downward facing dog and I looked up only to see all the kids laughing their brains out toppling all over each other. Classic moment!

Thank you, Sherman Elementary's second grade class for the joy and happiness that you are cultivating in that classroom. Ms. Stolz and Ms. Steinfels must be doing something right. Whatever it is, keep doing it. Those kids are something special!