Family Yoga Classes at Healium

We are thrilled to announce that this term we'll be offering a new exciting class:

Family Yoga - from pregnancy through to four-year-olds!

This is a yoga class where the parents get to enjoy yoga's many benefits for body and mind, along with their young children. Our sequence is specially designed to support pregnancy and post-partum, as well as make it possible for participation on those days when a little one might need constant body contact. For these times, we recommend using a sturdy baby carrier that holds the child safely against the parent's body (a soft structured ergonomic carrier, a long wrap or a mei tai, on either the parent's front or back). These kinds of carriers places the weight evenly on the wearer's hips, enabling him or her to get into correct alignment.

These classes are designed to include and excite the children with an animal theme, to enhance the parents' bonding with their babies, and support each child's development. They have been planned specifically for each child to meet the goals of the principles and strands of Te Whariki, the New Zealand early childhood curriculum. Te Whariki means "the woven mat," which represents how the principles and strands, learning outcomes, dispositions and everything else in the child's life intertwine and are all dependent on each other.

These classes are held at Healium on Tuesday mornings from 10 to 10.45 am, beginning Tuesday, 6 May, and are taught by yoga instructor, early-childhood educator and mother Isa Pike.

Pricing is per family: $15 for drop-in or $48 for four consecutive weekly classes.

We look forward to meeting you and your families and doing yoga together!

On Hiatus: Pregnancy, Postnatal and Fertility Yoga Classes

Our special women's-only yoga classes - Pregnancy, Postnatal and Fertility Yoga - are on hold until further notice. We have some exciting new things in the works for these offerings, but we need a bit of time to get them all sorted. We'll let you know as soon as they're ready!

And rest assured that all of our yoga classes remain prenatal appropriate. If you have any questions please let us know!

Yoga for Women: Fertility, Pregnancy and Postnatal Classes

After working with so many amazing women in our all-levels classes this past year, I decided it's time to set up some specialized classes that serve the unique needs of women.

Everyone is quite used to pregnancy yoga, but there are many other ways in which yoga can facilitate women's unique experiences. To meet these needs, I'm now offering three new classes at Healium: Fertility Yoga, Pregnancy Yoga and Postnatal Yoga.

Fertility Yoga

One great barometer of a woman's health is her fertility. Whether you're just past menarche, in the prime fertile years or heading towards menopause, maintaining your hormonal health is key to maintaining your total health.

In this class, we'll explore postures, breathwork and meditations that can support the balance of hormones, prevent anxiety and depression, as well as build muscle and bone.

This class if great if you are working towards pregnancy, have endometriosis or other menstrual conditions, or are heading into peri-menopause or have reached menopause. While this class is not designed to be a "treatment" or a "cure" for these issues, it is designed to support your process and bring about better health in an environment that is open and supportive.

Pregnancy Yoga

There are many styles of pregnancy yoga available, and many ways to teach and practice yoga for pregnancy. However, my perspective on many of them - when I was pregnant - is that they didn't do much to help me with pregnancy or prepare me for labor and birth.

So this class is designed to do that. We already adjust our usual, all-levels classes to suit prenatal needs, but this class allows us to explore in greater depth how the sequences facilitate a comfortable and healthy pregnancy as well as a beautiful labor and birth experience.

We'll work on specific postures that help the body adjust through the different trimesters of pregnancy - so that you have fewer aches and pains in your day-to-day life as your body adjusts to new physical demands. We'll also develop deep concentration and physical endurance to give ourselves opportunities to experience the sorts of intensity that we often encounter in labor and birth - a sort of specialized training for this unique life experience.

And, every few weeks we'll have a special class on breathing alone. According to traditional midwifery, a woman can "breathe out her baby" - no pushing, just a gentle process. We'll work on how to breathe most effectively to help access this capacity to prepare for the birth.

And of course it's a great complement to our other yoga classes, which are also (still) prenatal appropriate! So, you can take a number of classes during the week to work on these techniques that we develop in this special Pregnancy Yoga class.

Postnatal Yoga.

I remember what happened to my studio practice after I had my baby. I also remember how my back, hips and stomach felt afterwards. Babies weren't allowed in regular classes, and most of the classes weren't designed to handle my unique post-baby needs.

So, I did a home sequence, and now I'm offering that sequence to other mums!

In this class, we'll focus on realigning the hips, strengthening and aligning the pelvic floor (as well as getting ride of the mummy tummy!), creating strength and flexibility in the spine and releasing tension in the neck, arms and shoulders. And bring your babies (up to one year old) - because I know it's tough to take a class AND find a sitter!

Hang with other mums, and we'll also tell our birth stories and share some laughs about what it is to be a new mum (for the first, second, third or fourth time - or more for that matter!).

See you soon!

55 Monkeys!

A great big Thank You to everyone who participated in our yoga survey! The information you provided and your unique insights have given us a wealth of information on how to move forward. Today's post is the first in a series of blogs that we'll publish over this week and next to let you know how we are implementing your suggestions.

For me, the most exciting development is how we are expanding the class schedule. It's not simply expanding into new times, but really responding to a common sentiment: more diversity!

Foremost, everyone wanted more lunchtime offerings. So we are expanding from the current 5 lunchtime sessions up to 12.

I know, right? From 5 to 12? How can that be?

We're adding four classes at 11:15 am and opening two former classes to the pubic. And, our Feldenkrais - Awareness Through Movement class will now be open to you under the current concessions, rather than being a separate course.

Two of those 11:15 classes will be Gentle Yoga, and the two other 11:15 classes will introduce Chi Power - a blend of conditioning techniques and movement exercises from karate, qi gong and tai chi that provide a powerful energetic boost!

To diversify the Power Yoga classes, three of the lunchtime sessions will be Power Yoga Basics. These classes will take our normal all-levels Power Yoga and provide more detail on the practice. It's perfect for beginners, but those of you who have been doing yoga with us for awhile will benefit too!

The remaining four lunchtime yoga classes will be our all-levels Power Yoga classes - adding in more postures, trying new directions and sequences, and essentially providing a more diverse, fun practice!

In addition, we'll be starting our family-focused classes. Monday mornings at 10:15 am, we'll be starting our Antenatal Yoga class for new mothers to come and practice with their babies. Wednesday mornings at 10:15 am we'll hold our Prenatal Yoga class for those mums to be! And finally, on Friday mornings at 10:15 am, we'll hold Fertility Yoga - a class designed to support fertility and a place for those women trying to conceive to come together and share their experiences.

The diversity doesn't end there! We are bringing in new teachers as well! Al, one of our amazing massage therapists and energy workers - as well as a karate sensei - will be teaching Chi Power. Valerie Love will be taking on Gentle Yoga - but because of her extensive travel schedule I will be sharing the class with her until July, when she takes on the class full time. Elissa will continue to teach on Mondays at 5:30, now leading Elemental Yoga, an exploration of the energetic elements of Air, Water, Fire, Earth and Ether through yoga postures that release, invigorate and rejuvenate the whole person!

But, wait! There is one more class we are adding to the schedule!

With a great deal of gratitude, I want to give something back to those of you who have been here and supporting us over the past year. I feel very grateful to have each of you in my life - those new to us and those who have been with us from the beginning.

As a further opportunity for you to explore the yoga practice in more (and intermediate!) ways, I am offering a FREE once-a-month yoga class for students who have been with us for more than six months (if you started coming to us with the the last Groupy deal from October of last year or before) and who are currently on an active class card (or a regular drop-in). It also includes those of you who are corporate clients!

These free classes will be held the second Saturday of each month from 9:00 to 10:15 am. Classes are one hour and 15 minutes so that we have enough time and space to really explore and have some fun with our postures. We'll also get a longer relaxation time and a bit of time to go deeper into the practice - how yoga works and why we practice!

If the 9:00 class fills (you'll need to let me know that you're coming - we won't be using ezybook since we pay per booking), then we'll hold a second class from 10:30 to 11:45 am on the same day. If the first class doesn't fill, then there's no second class. Just let me know as soon as you know that you want to come!

So when are all of these things starting?

The new schedule begins the first week of April, with the first FREE class on 14 April. Look out for our new printed schedules - as well as the updated timetable on our blog and website (coming soon!), as well as on ezybook so you can make your bookings!

I hope you are as thrilled as I am - and look out for more blogs about our new developments right here . . . based on your suggestions!