august podcast: dan leven on movement, dance, and healing

Movement is essential for living an integrated life, and nothing celebrates the power of being embodied quite like dance. In this month’s podcast, Daniel Leven, cofounder of Kripalu YogaDance™, discusses how dance engages the brain, opens the heart, and fosters vitality in people of all ages, backgrounds, and levels of experience.

August 2010 podcast Movement, Dance, and Healing (listen now, download an mp3, or subscribe via iTunes or RSS feed). Daniel Leven is teaching at Kripalu September 19–24.

yoga adventures in nature

Take your yoga and self-exploration off the mat and into the natural world with three unique programs that fuse spirit, adventure, and new discoveries.

Guided by the experimental dance troupe Dance Monks, experience prayerful movement on the sacred grounds of Kripalu in Body Prayers: Dancing with the Land, August 6–8.

Feeling a little adventurous?
YogaSlackers Summer Camp Retreat, August 8–13, blends yoga with Thai Massage, acrobatics, rock climbing, biking, and classes on a slackline.

Broaden your palate and your mind in
Take a Hike Into the Wild: Hiking, Edible Plants, and Medicinal Herbs, August 20–22.

self-renewal for women … yes!!!

Renée Peterson Trudeau specializes in empowering women to prioritize self-care. The author of The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal, Renée describes herself as an “advocate for balanced living” and has helped thousands of women create lives that engage rather than drain them.

Sound like what you need? Read Renée’s Eight Insights for Balanced Living. Need a few more tips—and practice trying them out? Join Renée at Kripalu August 13–15 for Reflect, Reclaim, Re-Balance: A Women’s Self-Renewal Retreat.

lift your voice in song

Come together with leading musicians for singing experiences that will touch your soul, unleash your creativity, raise your vibration, and leave you dancing with the joy of life.

Join Aisha Kahlil and experiment with rhythm, tempo, and pitch in Vocal Essence: African Songs, Chants, and Movement, August 13–15. Or, meet fellow music lovers in Roger Treece’s
Circle Songs, August 29–September 3, a collaborative, improvisational approach that will allow you to explore your creativity and discover new avenues of vocal expression.

who says you can’t combine business with pleasure?

Get your CE credits at Kripalu! Integrate your life, your career, and your practice by taking approved workshops with expert faculty who teach innovative ideas and practices not found in most career-development programs. Credits are available for psychologists, nurses, social workers, physical therapists, athletic trainers, and massage therapists.

View a listing of all programs eligible for CE credits.

new yoga break: stand and revitalize

In this Yoga Break, Kripalu Yoga teacher Danny Arguetty incorporates standing Sun Breaths and standing twists in a movement flow that brings more oxygen into the body and revitalizes the nervous system.

Celebrate the warmth of the sun from the inside out with the newest of our Kripalu Yoga Breaks (guided 5-minute yoga sessions).
Stand and Revitalize.

love our recipes? get the book!

Hot off the presses, Kripalu Seasonal Menus: Summer 2010 features 63 healthy recipes from Kripalu’s Executive Chef, Deb Morgan, organized into 13 delicious summer menus. Accompanied by mouth-watering photography, as well as practical and inspirational tips on cooking, shopping, and nutrition, this book is a treat for the mind, body, and soul.

Order your copy today (or send one to a friend!). Kripalu Seasonal Menus: Summer 2010

healthy living recipes

The dog days of summer call for refreshing, easy-to-prepare dishes that are just as delicious in the morning as they are on a hot summer’s night. Kripalu Executive Chef Deb Morgan offers up three of her favorites, and nutritionist Annie Kay tells us why breakfast really is the most important meal of the day.

August Healthy Living Recipes
Fruited Yogurt
Zucchini Mint Frittata
Kripalu Chai Tea

desktop wallpaper

Enjoy the beauty of the Berkshires every day with Kripalu’s desktop wallpaper. Available with and without a calendar.

Easy to download.

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Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to teach the art and science of yoga to produce thriving and health in individuals and society.

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welcome

Life is an adventure—whether you’re shoooting the rapids, taking your yoga out into nature, or shaking your body and soul with dance and song. Celebrate everything under the sun this August as you journey through your inner and outer landscapes. Plug into this month’s podcast to learn how movement can be a powerful gateway to healing. Check out Kripalu’s unique singing programs and outdoor yoga experiences. Bring the warmth and vitality of the sun into your practice with our newest Yoga Break. And read Renée Peterson Trudeau’s simple yet powerful tips for making self-care a priority by listening to deep inner wisdom.

the way of the river

a conversation with Johnny Snyder

He looks and talks like the quintessential California surfer dude, but world-class kayaker Johnny Snyder actually grew up a stone’s throw from Kripalu and did his first paddling in the Berkshires, on the Stockbridge Bowl and the Housatonic River. Since then, he’s ridden rivers through at least five continents, paddled competitively in international races, and owned and operated a kayaking school on Africa’s Zambezi River. Johnny spoke with Kripalu Online recently about channeling the power and serenity of the river both on the water and in daily life—wisdom he shares with participants in the Yoga and Kayaking programs he teaches regularly at Kripalu with yoga instructor Greg DiLisio.

KOL What first drew you to the water and to kayaking?

Johnny I always loved the water growing up, and I really wanted to see the earth. Once you learn the river language and how to ride different flows and gradients, you can cross any border. You may not know the language of the culture, but you know the language of the river. I’ve been on expeditions in the Himalayas and the Andes, all over the United States, in Canada and Central America, in New Guinea and Australia, and throughout Africa—once you have that knowledge, you can go there and see these beautiful and remote places.

KOL What does it feel like to be in the zone on a really intense river?

Johnny When you journey on this moving force of life, you learn how to coexist with it and use its power. When you connect with the river, you’re connecting with the blood of the earth, the essence of life itself: water. I dance on the rivers—it’s my meditation. I call it floating meditation, even when I’m paddling Class 5 whitewater. I’m best when I’m relaxed and I’m allowing my body, the vehicle, and my spirit to guide me on the powerful, moving water. I love big, flooded rivers—when a river gets flooded and no one wants to go out on it, that’s when it pulls me even more.

Especially with kayaking, there’s a lot of attention to fear and if you can use that energy in a positive way, then you don’t take away from your strength. It’s about slowing down and relaxing, right when you’re supposed to be supercharged. When you’re running super-hot whitewater, it’s almost like you’re in slow motion. It’s a lot like qigong. When I’m in a really good meditation, I’ll get out of my kayak at the end of a run and wonder what I’ve just done. What happens on the river is you always move with the flow. You never fight the river. You add your power to the river’s power and that makes a superhuman power. When you connect with the turbocharger of the river, it’s like a jet taking off. It’s addictive. You wonder why you’re not out on it all the time.

KOL You have two young children. How do your experiences out on the river get integrated into your daily life with your family?

Johnny I certainly bring a lot of calm to my family life and my day-to-day life, because I know that if my life isn’t being threatened and my family isn’t being threatened, how important is the little stuff? I try to bring a consciousness to family life that I’ve learned through the discipline of the river, the discipline of yoga, and also through my practice of qigong.

KOL How did you discover yoga?

Johnny It wasn’t until I came back to the Berkshires in about 2000, and my wife joined the BKC [Berkshire Kripalu Community] that I tried yoga. I found the right teacher, and it was the balance that I needed to be in better shape now, at 43, than I was at 23. At 23, I was certainly risking my life more on a day-to-day basis, and maybe not having to stretch as much or not realizing that would help. Then I started wondering, what would five, 10 percent more flexibility do for my athleticism? I’m always stepping back and reflecting on how I can improve. I’m still very involved with Class 5 whitewater, and you don’t go out and make those decisions unless you know your body can give a thousand percent.

KOL Have you had some life-transforming moments on the river, watershed moments, so to speak?

Johnny I think some of the most powerful moments for me have come out of education, helping people go further. I started a school in Africa because I saw there were a lot of people trying to learn [to kayak], but they weren’t getting the right information, taught in a compassionate way. There’s a lot of testosterone in the river industry, especially in whitewater. It’s such a great thing to take someone with no knowledge and see how high you can throw them and how far they can get. We get all levels in our program at Kripalu, and we can adjust to all of them. The same techniques that I teach on flat water are what I use in the most dangerous parts of the earth. It comes down to the breath, seeing with new eyes, and allowing yourself to change your view from time to time. It’s about connecting, using your whole body, and being relaxed, which is a natural fit with yoga. If the guests could take away just one thing, I’d want them to take away the idea that when you connect with the water, you’re connecting with life.

KOL Do you see riding the river as a metaphor for life?

Johnny To quote one of my African friends, life is like the River Zambezi—it’s always best to go with the flow. There are always rapids in life, and calms, and pools, times when you need to be a little more physical and times when you can relax and take it in. I will say this: I have definitely lucked out in life by taking this journey. This little plastic kayak has allowed me a life full of adventure and travel and great people and very, very interesting cultures. I’ve paddled through places that other people just can’t go because the whitewater has been guarding these chasms. Once the plastic kayaks came out, along with techniques for running steeper and more dangerous rapids, it opened up whole lands and whole new opportunities for someone with my skills. I was in Nepal once doing video documentary work on the river and I heard this music. I came upon this little village and they were dancing on the beaches. It was a wedding, and I pulled up and got out and danced with these people. They thought it was such a good sign that this guy came out of nowhere, like a space traveler.

Johnny Snyder is a master kayaker who is featured in the extreme whitewater DVD The Black Book and the PBS documentary Paddling the Roof of the World. He now guides trips in the Americas and leads excursions for Berkshire-area resorts.

Catch the wave in Yoga and Kayaking, with Johnny Snyder and Greg DiLisio, September 3–6 and October 15–17.

spreading the word…

Living Yoga: The Movie
Swami Satchidananda, christened “the Woodstock guru” after his opening remarks at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival in 1969, was one of the first teachers to bring yoga to the West. Living Yoga, an award-winning documentary film by Joshua M. Greene and Shiva Kumar, looks at his life as well as the impact of yoga in the United States, and features interviews with a host of yoga teachers, practitioners, and celebrities, including Larry King, Russell Simmons, Sharon Gannon, David Life, and artist Peter Max, who was among Satchidananda’s earliest American students.

Find out more about Living Yoga: The Life and Teachings of Swami Satchidananda at www.livingyogamovie.org.

The Magazine of Yoga™
This new online publication invites open-minded curiosity about yoga and life. From the website: “We believe the life you’re living is the yoga you’re doing.” Created by popular Kripalu presenter Susan Maier-Moul, it’s a great place to wander around and find posture information, articles and book reviews, thought-provoking ideas, fresh new yoga voices, and more.

Visit www.themagazineofyoga.com.

Yogathon 2010 to Benefit Children
Yogathon 2010, a daylong event of yoga practice, live music, demonstrations, and meditation, featuring yoga teacher Ana Forrest and musician Wade Imre Morissette, is set for September 19 at Gillette Stadium’s Field House in Foxboro, Massachusetts. The event, sponsored by the nonprofit groups Yoga Reaches Out and Global Mala Boston, will benefit Children’s Hospital Boston and Yoga for Single Moms, with the goal of improving the health, education, and well-being of children.

Get details and register for Yogathon 2010.

quote of the month

Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.
—Epictetus, Greek philosopher

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Corrections We make every effort to ensure the accuracy of our information; however, errors do occasionally occur.