Welcome! 
Leave your shoes in the hall, pull up a mat, and relax: it's time for yoga! My classes are invigorating and happy, with a focus on alignment, mind-body connection, and HUMOR! I believe that laughter is the best pranayama (breath work), and hope that you will join me for a lighthearted, yet introspective experience. I may lead the class, but your own body is the real teacher.
My schedule is on the left. I teach at Charm City Yoga Midtown and Federal Hill, and I am available to teach private individual and group sessions as well. See you on the mat!
Namaste, Lauren
Thoughts from the Mat, August 23, 2009
The Value of Nothing
It is easy to get impatient with the less active parts of a yoga practice. Particularly when we are new to the practice, or at times when we are full of vibrant energy, the slow breathing and centering activity at the beginning of a class and relaxation at the end can feel aggravating. It's time to DO yoga! Get moving! Burn calories! Flush out the toxins! Go, go, go!
These are precisely the times when it is important to take a few moments to do nothing. As we center ourselves before the practice and relax at the end, it may very well be the only time in the day or week when we are not only permitted, but asked to do NOTHING. Just sit there and breathe, as an objective observer of our own bodies as the breath moves in and out.
When we do nothing but sit and watch the breath, it automatically changes whether or not we intend in to change. Likewise, when we observe the turnings of the mind in sivasana, the act of objectively watching the thoughts that rise and fall in the mind -without engagement- changes those thoughts. Not by an act of will, but simply by becoming aware, everything changes. The breath, and in turn the body, relax. The mind begins to quiet.
We know this same thing about the outer world through quantum physics; the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle tells us that the act of observing subatomic particles changes some properties of those particles. The observer becomes part of the observed system. As it goes for subatomic particles, so it goes for the breath and the mind. How very valuable it is to do nothing; those few moments of nothing during the day help us to move through all of the somethings in our lives with greater ease and clarity.