Posts Tagged ‘lululemon’
Part one just wasn’t enough (for us at least)! Join Chris, Sean and Laura for more yoga mat reviews, mat recycling ideas and other “deep” thoughts!
Yoga for Skiers and Snowboarders – with Chris Courtney, E-RYT
Prepare to hit the slopes!
Find out how yoga can enhance your skiing or boarding season!
Never done yoga but love to ski or snowboard? No fear – this workshop is for anyone looking for a way to improve their skiing through yoga. The only requirements are curiosity and an open mind.
Interested in finding core strength, body awareness, and balance that will help take your skiing to another level? Tired of dealing with tight hips or sore lower back muscles after a weekend on the slopes? Want to learn how yoga can help prevent skiing-related injuries?
With this 2 hour workshop, you’ll learn how you can use yoga to improve your strength, flexibility, stamina, balance and breathing to improve your skiing and boarding. Whether you want to prevent injury or take your skiing or boarding to the next level, this workshop can help you on the way to achieve your goals!
This workshop consists of three parts:
- Identifying where you need stability and agility – we’ll highlight the key areas of the body and explore how they relate to increasing performance, improving balance and control over your skis/board, building endurance, and preventing injuries.
- Improving stamina, building strength and increasing flexibility – we’ll move through a sequence for overall conditioning and strengthening which addresses the target areas we identified in part one.
- Learn effective pre- and apres- ski sequences to speed recovery time after a day on the slopes.
Taught by yoga teacher, avid skier (Alpine, and Nordic) and mountaineer Chris Courtney, RYT 500
To book this workshop at your studio or ski resort, please contact Chris at kirancourt@gmail.com
I’m happy to offer classes which enable you to link your breath, mind and body – allowing you to stay focused, calm, aware and steady.
My classes vary but my style is generally a vinyasa-based mix infused with humor and generous helpings of kick-your-asana power flow sequences.
I also offer specialized classes such as yoga for climbers, skiers and runners. Private lessons and workshops are always available!
You can contact me via email at kirancourt@gmail.com
Namaste,
Chris
~
Check the “Classes” link above for specific times and days.
Give up to grace
The ocean takes care
of each wave
Till it gets to shore
You need more help
than you know
-Rumi
It was just over a week ago while driving to attend yoga teacher training with Doug Swenson at Lake Tahoe that I decided it was time to overcome a nagging fear I’d had for years. Neither climbing frozen waterfalls in Switzerland nor having a child soldier in Africa point a machine gun at my chest caused as much fear in me as a simple handstand (adho mukha vrksasana).
Five years ago, I’d crashed from a handstand, dropping my head straight onto a tile floor and leaving me with a mild concussion and a sore neck which lasted for months. Ever since that time, I’d been wary to even kick up against a wall, fearing another drop onto my melon and the ensuing months of pain. I always dreaded a yoga teacher announcing that we were going to do the handstand and did my best to muddle at the wall waiting for everyone to finish so we could move to the next asana (pose).
For some reason, I never found a teacher willing to help me try it again and in one case, encountered a rather dismissive one who remarked (as she turned her back and walked away), “oh, I see you have some fear issues.” So, somewhere between Albuquerque and the Eastern Sierras I figured that if I was going to be a yoga teacher, I needed to overcome this fear and get some part of my handstand mojo back. Upon arrival in South Lake Tahoe, I found myself with an incredibly supportive teacher in Doug Swenson, not to mention my fellow students. So, I figured it was time to give it a go. At first I thought it would take the entire month to get past this barrier of fear but on the second day of training, with the help of my roomate Simon Moseley and a few other fellow students providing me a good bit of lift, I got into a (supported) handstand for the first time in five years.
I got up into it a few more times (against a wall) and my fear of the handstand started to fade as our first week of training came to a close. This got me thinking about fear and how vital it is to have support to help us overcome it. It seems the independent Aquarian in me was slow to realize that sometimes we need help to bridge the mental gap between thinking you can’t do something and believing you can. With the help of a supportive community, we can fill that gap.
It also etched into me a lesson I hope to remember as a yoga teacher, to sense when a student is dealing with fear issues and to provide them the support to help them overcome it, just as my classmates have done for me. And perhaps even more importantly, to apply this same lesson in life every day.
This article originally appeared in Elephant Journal on May 16th, 2010
