Atma Yoga - Brisbane, Australia

Bushfire Wednesday at Atma

Remember that this Wednesday is Bushfire night at Atma - all proceeds are going to help the bushfire victims in Victoria, so come along and support the cause doing yoga.

Here’s some exciting news: the Melbourne Hare Krishna temple is doing food relief at the Whittlesea Bushfire Crisis Relief Center. We’ll be supporting their efforts, so your yoga will go to providing nutritious, hot vegetarian meals for the people affected by the Bushfires.

Come along on Wednesday, and drag a mate along with ya!

2009 Bushfire Appeal Yoga Class - Wednesday 18th February

Everything that we collect from the yoga class on the night of Wednesday 18th February is going to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire appeal, so come along and help out by doing yoga.

It’s $18 ($15 conces.) for the class and dinner afterwards. You can give more if you like. 100% of the proceeds will go to help the bushfire victims, some of whom have lost everything, including close family members.

We’re saving every cent for the new studio at the moment, but we also think it’s important to come together as a community to support our neighbours in their time of need.

The Australian Red Cross has announced that money is what’s most needed, and no administration costs will be deducted from donations, so that’s how we’re going to do our little bit to help.

Photos from the recent retreat

You can check out some photos that Donna (I think, or Megan) took at the recent retreat.

31 photos in total, over on Flickr.

Atma Yoga Albert St Studio Closing in February 2009

OK, this is going to come as shock to some of you, and as sad confirmation for others….

Our lease expires on the Albert St studio in February and we are not renewing it.

The Albert St studio is a place that we’ve all come to love, and many of us have come to consider it a home away from home - a place to meet friends, to hang out, to hear some wise words, to do some yoga, and to get some great food. We have a lot of fond memories from the past three years there.

A key lesson from this for me is that life, and everything in it, is transitory. One great King, Yuddhistira, once observed that we all live as if we were never going to die. Then one day, even when we least expect it, it just happens. Grab on to it and make the most of now.

The Albert St space has been such a big part of our lives for the past three years that we are definitely feeling it.

Keep in touch!

Hey, let’s miss the space, but let’s not miss each other!

After the studio closes down we’ll be looking around for another place. There are a few ways that you can stay in touch once the studio closes.

Firstly, I encourage you to come to the Australia Day Retreat, the Kirtan Retreat the weekend after, or even both!

Secondly, once Albert St closes while we’re looking for a new place we’ll keep updating this website with news about how the search is going, and also with other information. We’ll also have a video podcast on here.

Thirdly, we’ll be teaching some private classes in the evenings, both yoga and cooking. Get in touch and give us your email / cellphone # so we can SMS or email you to let you know the details.

Last, but not least, if you can get a few people together at your workplace then we can come to you and teach a lunchtime class there. Param is already teaching where I work on Wednesdays.

The Closing Party

The last program will be a closing party on Saturday, February 21st. Until then, for the rest of January and February the class timetable is as usual (apart from a few classes around the retreats).

Kirtan Retreat

Kirtan Retreat

We’re holding a Kirtan Retreat on the weekend after Australia day, at Springbrook.

It goes from Friday evening, 30 January, 2009, to Sunday afternoon, 1 February, 2009. We’ll be doing lots of kirtan, there will be music workshops, and a drumming / dancing circle.

Cost is $135 for the weekend, including meals and accommodation.

Call on 3210-1183 / 0431 929 675 or write info@atmayoga.com.au for more information or to book your place.

Australia Day Weekend Retreat

There are still some spaces left for the Australia Day Weekend Retreat next weekend.

Four days, three nights of yoga, bush walking, music, laughter, great company and great food.

Call us on 3210-1183, drop an email to info@atmayoga.com.au or grab Prem or Param at the studio to secure a spot.

5 Pointers to help you lose weight and gain body tone

A common New Year’s Resolution is to lose weight. As well as dropping in overall weight a common goal, especially after the Christmas and New Year season, is to tone and sculpt your body - converting fat into muscle.

Maintaining good physical fitness is important for overall health and well-being. While you’re working on maintaining a good body weight and tone, as long as you’re doing it sensibly, you also strengthen your immune system, regulate your hormonal system, and balance your lifestyle.

Here are five pointers to help you achieve your goals for weight and body tone for this year:

1. Learn the science, then experiment on yourself to develop the feel for the art.

   You should read a few different books or articles on nutritional and exercise advice, and talk to different people about it. The reason there is so much conflicting advice is because different people are… well, different. There is no “one size fits all”. At the same time, the same principles are in play in everyone’s bodies - it’s just that they play out differently for each of us. Exactly what you need to do is something that you need to discover through intelligent trial and error. Your program will need to be fine-tuned over time to suit your body and your lifestyle. Your body will also change over time and you’ll need to keep realigning your program to your current situation and needs.

   I say this first off, because the following points are things that I’ve discovered about my own body through this very process of acquiring some knowledge, trying it out, making my own observations and changing it to suit me. You’ll need to do the same thing.

2. Figure out your optimum sleeping pattern.

   For me it’s going to bed between 7pm and 8pm and getting up at 2am - 3am. That gives me 7 hours of sleep in a night. If I do this I can do 3 - 4 hours of exercise the next day like it was nothing. On the other hand, if I sleep from 11pm - 6am I still get 7 hours of sleep, but I struggle to get through a 90 minute yoga class the next day.

   According to the Ayurveda, the ancient Indian “Science of Life”, the hours before midnight are worth twice as much as the hours after midnight for sleep. If you think about it, without electric lighting it makes sense for us to go to sleep soon after the sun sets.

   There is an old saying: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a person healthy, wealthy, and wise“. The two hours before dawn are particularly powerful for cleansing and meditation. Getting up before the sun and seeing the sun come up will strengthen your immune system and raise your overall mood.

3. Realize that nothing tastes as good as Good Health

   “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” - it’s a fact. Unhealthy foods may give us a momentary pleasure, but the overall effect is to drag us down into depression and fatigue, which is very unpleasant.

   As we develop better health and better healthy eating, our tastes change. It may be difficult in the beginning to drink a green juice made from juiced green vegetables or triple green blend powder (Spirulina, Chlorella, Barley Grass) every morning, but that’s because we’ve become used to tasting only with our tongue, and we’ve developed some unhealthy addictions. Once we start to taste good health the feeling of aliveness and the invigoration of the cells of the body gives us a higher taste for good health and good living that makes the fleeting pleasure of unhealthy food pale in comparison.

   In the beginning do it with determination and a sense of duty, and your tastes will change. Let me say it again: Nothing tastes as good as Good Health.

4. Reduce your carbohydrates, especially processed ones.

   If you want to convert fat to muscle, or lose weight overall, then reducing carbs in your diet is one of the best things you can do. Roughly speaking carbohydrates provide energy or fuel for our muscles to work, while protein provides us with material to build the muscle. Carbohydrates are stored by our body first of all in our muscles as glycogens. When the glycogen capacity of our muscle is reached, excess carbohydrates are converted to triglycerides and stored as fat.

   If you want to lose fat then you reduce your carbohydrate intake and do exercise. You need to exercise to the point where you exhaust your glycogen stores in the muscles and the body starts burning the triglycerides, stored as fat, to power the muscle. If you reduce your carbohydrate intake (things like pasta, bread, sugars) at the same time, you will encourage your body to use the energy stored in fat to power your exercise.

   Australians have become more obese, statistically, than Americans, so statistically speaking you’re unlikely to unbalance your diet by cutting out some processed carbs. Take some advice from a nutritionist or spend some time reading up on it if you’re worried, but again - experiment with it and see how it makes you feel.

5. Don’t be afraid to work hard!

   Lots of times I see people scrambling for the window during a class, to let in air and to lower the temperature. Assuming you want change, then you want to use environmental conditions to change your body - not change the environmental conditions to suit your body. You want to sweat! You want your body to heat up and become more flexible. You want to work - you want your cells to start screaming out for oxygen. When this happens your body starts to become stronger at the cellular, physiological level. Every cell becomes more efficient in a quest to deal with the situation. Cell walls will become stronger and more resistant to penetration by viruses and bacteria. Your immune system will increase the production of T-cells. Blood flow and respiration at the cellular level will become more attuned. That’s why high-level athletes train at high altitude - to encourage their body to become more efficient.

   The more efficient your body is, the leaner your build will be and the higher your power-to-weight ratio. Work it!

So there are five pointers to help you reach your goals with weight loss and body tone. Yoga is a great discipline and exercise for developing mind and body integration, and developing intelligent muscle to replace dull, flabby fat.

See you in the studio!

Holiday Closure

We’re closed from December 24, 2008 - January 4th, 2009, inclusive.

So the last class for 2008 is Tuesday December 23, 6pm, and the first class for 2009 is Monday January 5th, 12:15pm.

Thanks for spending 2008 with us, have a safe and happy holiday, and we look forward to seeing you in the New Year.

Don’t forget about the Atma Yoga Australia Day weekend Yoga Retreat next year!

“Perfect Escape” - the legendary Atma Retreat

Perfect Escape - the legendary Atma Retreat

Spend 3 nights at the beautiful Theosophical Society Retreat Center in Springbrook for an energising and rejuvenating weekend of yoga, meditation, bushwalking, cooking and relaxing. Exquisite vegetarian meals provided.

Australia Day long weekend - Friday January 23rd - Monday 26th, 2009.
Cost: $300

Limited spaces - see Atma staff, or call 3210-1183 to secure your place.

Le Carnaval Espirituel - One Night Only in Brisbane

Fresh from their brilliant European Tour, Le Carnaval Spirituel returns to Australia this summer to celebrate their 30th anniversary.

Established in France in 1979, this fascinating troupe of international artists have for three decades delighted audiences worldwide with their colourful “joie de vivre” performances, bringing the stage to life with their mystic blend of ancient eastern spirituality and truly contemporary theatre.

Street performances will precede each of the stage shows, so the whole community will get the chance to glimpse a vibrant world – a world that has enriched and deepened the lives of millions of people for more than 50 centuries.

“….a cultural and artistic undertaking on a very high professional level…”

“…a wonderful atmosphere, delivering a great cultural experience.”

I saw them in Brisbane last year, and it was an amazing concert.

This year they are performing one night only in Brisbane, and like last year entry to the concert is free - unbelievable!

Make sure you get there early because it is going to be packed.

Date: Thursday, January 8, 2009
Time: 6:30pm - 9:30pm
Location: The Ithaca Auditorium, City Hall
Street: King George Square
City/Town: Brisbane, Australia

Check out the event, with posted videos, in Facebook.