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Fall colors in Colorado By Sonja Bjelland

This week the folks over at the Wanderlust Festival announced their adding a third location – Colorado!

The music and yoga festival is bringing on an in between venue to it’s original site in Lake Tahoe, Calif., and last year’s addition of Stratton, Vt.

Of course, now that I live in Colorado this makes me pretty excited and apparently this is the place to be considering there are two other yoga festivals and a Yoga Journal conference.

Joshua Tree at sunset By Sonja Bjelland

The annual Wanderlust Festivals blend the most popular yoga teachers with leaders in the green community and top musicians. It’s hard to get more hippy but it also sounds like fun.

A few of the big names in the lineup announced Tuesday for the inaugural Colorado outpost include Ziggy Marley, Anusara yoga founder John Friend and Deepak Chopra.

Hopefully, I will have money before all the tickets sell out. Advanced tickets go on sale Jan. 24.

If you can’t come join me at Wanderlust Colorado July 5-8, here’s some of the other major yoga festivals going on this year:

BaliSpirit Festival March 28-April 1: The fifth annual event that led the world yoga festival scene is doing it up big this year and many favorite teachers will be returning. This festival gets more of an international flare because musicians and yoga teachers don’t have to hassle with American immigration. No seriously, that’s what they told me when I interviewed them last year.

Shakti Fest Joshua Tree, Calif., May 11-13: A pairing with the fall Bhakti Fest, the first incarnation of the spring version has gotten some big names including Shiva Rea and Saul David Raye.

• Hanuman Festival, Boulder, Colo., June 8-10: Yet to announce it’s 2012 lineup, last year’s event featured the festival regulars Seane Corn and MC Yogi.
• Wanderlust Vermont June 21-24: The lineup at this one includes musician Ani DeFranco and yogi Rodney Yee as well as Twee Merrigan, whose class I enjoyed at last year’s BaliSpirit Festival.

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  Los Pinguos performing at the BaliSpirit Festival By Sonja Bjelland

  Telluride Yoga Festival July 12-15: A smaller scene from Wanderlust, this year’s festival will include a brother and sister coming from India to teach Sanskrit, yoga philosophy and chanting.

• Wanderlust California July 26-29: Similar to the Colorado lineup with a few changes, it’s the original.
• Evolve Music and Yoga Festival, Vernon, N.J., Aug. 31-Sept. 3: This will be the 5^th annual for an event that last year boasted 50 bands and 30 yoga workshops.
• Bhakti Fest, Joshua Tree, Calif., Sept. 6-9: Still a ways out for a lineup, this is the biggest such festival in Southern California. The festival’s base is in kirtan and chanting but organizers have added more asana (pose) classes as it has grown.

Life in Vietnam's Mekong Delta By Sonja Bjelland

Today’s horoscope said it would be good for me to plan travel. But where should I go?

My 2011 wanderings took me to Germany, France, Thailand, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore, (Layover in China), California, Illinois, Colorado and Canada, California again and Illinois again. Whew!

No, I’m not going to be quite that ambitious for 2012. Heck, I don’t even have a plane ticket purchased or method of paying for one figured out yet.

While my current housing in Colorado opens up many yoga possibilities, I also keep reading about great opportunities south of the border. So in a perfect world with a growing bank account, here are a few places I’d hit up in 2012. Where will you be heading to? Be sure to let me know, I might have found some yoga there.

1. Aspen, Co. – Every summer there are a variety of outdoor yoga options and I’m hoping to tackle at least one of them this coming summer. The Aspen Center for Environmental Studies had a few classes last summer that I’m hoping they continue this summer. One included a hike with a naturalist mixed in with yoga.

2. Wanderlust Colorado  – The popular yoga festival that already has events in California and Vermont will be adding a Colorado venue from July 5-8 at Copper Mountain this year. I’ve wanted to go since these started but haven’t lived as close to one as I do now. Tickets go on sale Jan. 24 so I’m hoping they don’t sell out before I can raise the money to go.

3. Arches or Zion national parks, Utah – My love of places such as Death Valley and Joshua Tree have me itching to check out the scenery in southern Utah. Ideally, this would entail meeting my SoCal peeps for a camping outing. But they would then have to indulge my photographic side that makes me a pretty slow hiker. And yes, I’ll be tracking down yoga there.

4. Costa Rica – Pretty sure I could spend several months searching out yoga retreats and vacation spots in Costa Rica. The country’s focus on eco-friendly and sustainable tourism has been met with a flood of yoga destinations. Fortunately there’s a website, CostaRicaYoga.org, to help narrow down the choices.

5. Montana’s Feathered Pipe Ranch – This place has captured my interest for a long time. I’m pretty sure any retreat I could go to there would be worth it. The Wisdom to Renew… Living in Luminosity retreat caught my eye because it mixes photography and yoga. That’s pretty much my version of bliss right there.

6. Yak and Yoga in Illinois – Somehow the timing just didn’t work out for me last summer to do the kayaking and yoga trip done by Fever River Outfitters based in Galena, Ill. Hopefully this next summer I can fix that.

Overhead view of Colorado's ski region from a recent flight By Sonja Bjelland

This last weekend I was finally able to pull my ski boots out of storage.  Soon maybe I’ll even get to use them. Until then I’m doing lots of yoga that will help me get ready.

Yoga poses help improve balance and hip flexibility, good for snowboarding or skiing. And it helps you learn to control individual muscles and groups of muscles, also a plus. They’re so good together that several places have created designated ski and yoga retreats.

This is beyond the hotels and resorts that offer onsite yoga classes. The ones I’ve picked out below have a little something special and are spread across the U.S. Or at least the parts of the U.S. that have skiing. There’s so many in Europe that’ll just have to be a separate post.

• At Big Sky Yoga Retreats in Montana cross country and alpine skiing mix for a yoga retreat at a lodge designated just for the group. Other highlights include a sleigh ride dinner as well as evening discussion about meditating and before bed yoga.
• Utah’s Alta Lodge takes yogis out in the backcountry with a multi-day retreat including two days of guided backcountry skiing in addition to five yoga sessions. Better be in good shape for that one but what an adventure.
• Alpine Meadows in California incorporates yoga into its three-day women’s camps.
• On the East Coast, one of the country’s top yoga centers, Kripalu, has organized two ski, snowboarding and yoga retreats.
• The yoga and meditation center in Northern Michigan, Song of the Morning, is holding a ski/snowboarding and yoga retreat featuring yoga by the fireplace, vegetarian meals and meditation.

Lighted tree near Heidelberg, Germany By Sonja Bjelland

It’s already getting busy. Weekends are filling up and it never seems like there’s enough time to get everything we want done for the holidays.

I’m even listening to some Christmas music to keep the spirit up. “Scarlet Ribbons” to be exact.

All add up to good reasons to give yourself a holiday yoga break.

It’s not likely most of us have time to enjoy a little weekend retreat right now, but many studios are having special holiday restorative classes. A great way to regroup after being on your feet shopping all day and get your head out of all that holiday anxiety.

I know in the past I had this massive list – cookies to bake, presents to buy. I’d get myself organized starting after Halloween and work my way through it. I happen to love the excitement of the holidays and being busy so this wasn’t something bad to me.

Economics and location have meant a scaled back version this year and a focus on continuing the holiday spirit without so many trimmings. One of the many special holiday classes allows yogis to come back to that sense of joy and warmth that shopping and hassles can diminish.

This Saturday, Yoga House in Pasadena, Calif., will continue its tradition of holiday restorative classes and mix it with live music. As noted on the website, many cultures see winter as a time for “introspection and hibernation.” Our body wants one thing and we’re forcing it to hit shopping malls and make small talk at office parties. A restorative class brings you back into hibernation mode if even just for an hour.

Stuttgart Christkindl market By Sonja Bjelland

The following weekend, Rasa Center for Yoga and Wellness in Meford, Ore., will hold a Holiday Restoration class on Dec. 10. Using supports such a heavy pillows called bolsters it’s a type of yoga that lets your body stretch and release without all the sweat.

Now if you are able to head overseas, NataRaj yoga in Cambodia is doing a yoga and trekking retreat. Mixed with a 5-hour jungle hike, the yoga and meditation program is run by an organization that I practiced with when I was in Cambodia that helps teach yoga to victims of sex trafficking.

If come Christmas Day you’re in need of more release, all across the U.S., CorePower studios is having customers post on its Facebook page what they do to give back and then Christmas Day yoga classes will benefit certain charities.

Maybe you can all at least find one such class or have a mini-restorative class at home to bring you out of anxiety and into holiday bliss.

In those days after Thanksgiving, yoga studios around the U.S. gathered some of us to recenter ourselves and think about others. OK and maybe work off a few of those sweet potatoes.

That sent my friend Shirin Parsavand to a yoga fundraiser benefiting Haiti and allowed her to meet the people involved. She’s written a guest post for us today to learn more about it.

Living in inland Southern California, I knew the tall pines and rustic wooden buildings in the mountain community of Idyllwild provide a welcome change of scene from the congested cities nearby.

I learned Friday that among the approximately 3,000 year-round residents is a tight-knit group of people who are quick to pitch in on each other’s projects. At the center of one such group is Kate Sirkin, the owner of Idyllwild Yoga Studio.

Sirkin got an immediate response when she planned a benefit to raise money for building a school in Haiti, a country still devastated from last year’s massive earthquake.

Outside of Idyllwild Yoga Studio with items for a silent auction during a fundraiser Friday to benefit Project Edeline, an effort to build a school in Haiti. By Shirin Parsavand

“The minute I put the call out, people were right on it,” Sirkin said Friday, as the fundraiser to benefit the school got under way.

Businesses donated artwork, jewelry and gift certificates for a silent auction. She also got ready offers of help from fellow yoga instructors. Judi Way, who owns a Pilates studio next door, and instructor Sandi Fulcher joined Sirkin to offer yoga classes throughout the day.  Donations and sales at the fundraiser added up to nearly $1,300 to go toward Project Edeline, named after earthquake survivor Edeline Felizor.

Felizor hopes to run a free school in Haiti, where many children do not attend school because their families cannot afford the fees and supplies. Felizor worked as an elementary school teacher in Port-au-Prince and before the earthquake was studying to become a high school teacher. She was in a building that collapsed during the earthquake and was trapped for several hours in the rubble with a broken neck and five fractured vertebrae. It was more than a week before she received surgery on a U.S. military hospital ship.

Felizor and her sister Isemene now live near San Diego, thanks to Byron Shewman, who met Felizor in Haiti while working as a translator for a medical team. Shewman is managing Project Edeline through his nonprofit, Youth Without Borders, which works on Haiti relief.

Shewman, who knew Felizor would not get the physical therapy she needed in Haiti, arranged for humanitarian visas so the sisters could come to the United States. He also found a physical therapist near San Diego willing to treat Felizor at no charge.

Edeline in the snow near Julian, Calif., early this year. Photo courtesy of Byron Shewman

Sirkin met Felizor through that physical therapist, Stephanie Hoffman. Now, the community of Idyllwild, about two hours from San Diego, has developed a connection to Shewman, Felizor and the school project. Early this year, Felizor came to Idyllwild for a monthly forum where she sang and told her story to about 75 people.

Lou Bacher, a friend of Sirkin’s, was at that talk and said he was deeply moved. He spent Friday running the silent auction outside the yoga studio for Project Edeline.

Bacher is president of the Idyllwild Help Center, which provides food and other services to local people in need. He said he understands the difficulty of aid work in places like Haiti but still believes in the school.

“Yes, it’s possible. If enough people get behind it and the organization stays legitimate, absolutely, it can be done,” Bacher said.

So far, Shewman said, Project Edeline has raised about $20,000 of the estimated $200,000 needed to purchase land, build the school and run it for the first year. Plans call for the school to begin small, starting with three kindergarten classes of 25 students each, and expand gradually. To learn more about Project Edeline, visit Youth Without Borders at http://youthwborders.org/.

Ceiling of Venue 515, host of the Manitou Springs Thanksgiving yoga class

More than 50 people showed up this morning in a stone and barn like art studio grateful for a pre-turkey yoga class.

I’d expected an easy, general class. Some light stretching and a couple warrior poses.

But the Manitou Yoga teacher, Patrick, didn’t let us off easy. He knows his regulars can handle it and figured we needed some ab work today.

I watched as the gray-haired, paunchy man next me floated his right hand and leg in the air for a side plank pose, like a cartwheel on your side. Now keep holding it.

He ended class telling us rest our brains today because we should lead with our hearts.

It’s something to remember all year round, but especially during the holidays when we spend a lot of time around family and people tend to stress out.

To hold on to this sense of heart and gratitude, studios across the country are holding Thanksgiving weekend events.

IIdyllwild Yoga Studio, in inland Southern California, will be open for free yoga classes Friday as part of a benefit to raise money for building a school in Haiti. Thanks to BlissPassport friend Shirin Parsavand for letting me know that the school is the dream of Edeline Felizor, a survivor of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti who now lives in the San Diego area. Studio owner Kate Sirkin got to know Felizor and decided she wanted to help with that dream.

Haiti's tent city By Jessica Kang

Sirkin told Shirin she chose Thanksgiving weekend for the benefit because that’s when the small mountain community of Idyllwild draws many visitors. Along with yoga, she’ll have food, entertainment and a silent auction featuring jewelry, artwork and other items.

In New Jersey, Onyx Mind Body is doing a 90-minute session with class members separating into slow and a hot flow before coming back together for a relaxation session. Depends I guess on if you’re feeling like working off those calories or just feeling a little better about it.

The Yoga in Common studio in Myrtle Beach, S.C., is holding a whole three days of yoga starting with Friday’s energizing and metabolizing class followed by a harmonizing class on Saturday and a restoring and renewing class this Sunday.

Nearby on Pawley’s Island, Island Wave Yoga is holding multiple events. Celebrating and countering the in-store frenzy, their Black Friday event focuses on “restoring your sanity” by having yoga classes, massages and a sale on gear and gift certificates. Following that, their weekend intensive honors this busy time of year with classes are only three hours on Saturday and Sunday.

Similar such events are taking place in cities and villages across the U.S. so think about  Googling them in your area and clearing your mind to reset your goals and attitude on entering this holiday season.

Downward dog is one of several immunity helping poses By Susan Gill

A series of yoga poses meant to boost immunity can be especially important during these winter months.

Even some yoga retreats focus on revving up your immune system.

If you question the physiology, it really only matters that you believe it will help your immune system considering placebo remedies are sometimes as much as 50 percent effective. If we can think ourselves sick, we can think ourselves well.

For an at-home immune session, Yoga Journal has an online sequence that lists 10 mostly supported poses that you hold for at least 2 minutes each. The aim is to get your lymphatic system doing its job and helping out your other efforts to stay healthy. Because you’re eating your fruits and veggies right? To get your lymphatic fluids going this requires your body enjoys play and keeping your head and feet in positions far from standing upright.

Me by one of the A-maze-ing Laughter statues in Vancouver. Looked like a laughter yoga class. By Doug Quan

Now after you’ve stood long enough on your head, it’s time for the easy part of being well. It’s time for a belly laugh.

Yes, science is still debating how humor affects immunity. But I found it hilarious how seriously one study on the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s website handles laughter.

“This finding indicated that only the subjects who laughed out loud during the humor video had significantly increased immune function following the intervention,” the study stated. “Persons who just smiled or did not have observable responses to the humor video did not have positive changes in immune function.”

I’m bummed to not have a laughter yoga group in my immediate area but I will have to check out the ones in Denver and Boulder at some point.

These are easy and cheap remedies but a good yoga retreat or longer ayurvedic trip for India’s healing side of yoga can be the ultimate immunity enhancer.

In western Massachusetts, Kripalu is holding an immunity and yoga retreat Dec. 16 to 18. The weekend includes lecture and discussions about low immunity as well as ayurvedic tips and restorative yoga with an intention of uplifting participants while also being restful.

SwaSwara yoga resort near Gokarna, India. One of a few yoga and ayurveda resorts. By Sonja Bjelland

Farther afield, India has all sorts of ayurvedic resorts and retreats. Many yoga places I visited from Parmarth Niketan to a Sivananda ashram also have ayurvedic clinics on site. One of the traditional immunity boosting methods is to have a hot oil massage. Just remember you’re out of the West so make sure you pick a clean place and if it caters to Westerners that may help. A traditional version is not for those nervous about their bodies and quite frankly wouldn’t be legal in the U.S.

The hotel group CGH Earth owns one purely ayurvedic resort in India and another that focuses on yoga and meditation as well as ayurveda. These are full on resorts so the accommodations are Western vs. the ashrams though they offer the same healing and services for those wanting to be healthy in style and comfort.

Mount Rubidoux, Riverside, Calif. By Sonja Bjelland

In some pockets of the country it’s easy to forget we’re at war.

I don’t happen to live in one of them.

In Colorado, deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan come up in casual bar conversation. A metal leg may stick out from cropped yoga pants on the woman in front of you in line.

As more and more service men and women return from the Middle East, yoga is helping them transition back.

Studios around the country have special programs for veterans and several of them will be donating profits from Friday’s classes to a project called There and Back Again, click to find a studio.

For yogis, we know the benefits. And more and more of the troops are finding out too.

Red Rock Canyon, Colorado By Sonja Bjelland

Former Marine Corps Capt. Anu Bhagwati founded Yoga for Vets NYC. In an essay on The Huffington Post, she described the difficulty she had being in a yoga class and the peace it now brings her.

“I remember sitting bolt upright and storming out of a class while doing a guided relaxation in savasana, the restful pose that normally ends a traditional yoga class,” she wrote in the article. “My mind simply could not tolerate lying down and being still. It felt like someone was suffocating me, while anxiety, fear and chaos swirled around in my head.”

Teaching yoga to people who have suffered traumatic experiences requires a little more training for instructors. But recent studies have shown it’s worth it. The Harvard Medical School and the Department of Defense worked together on research that demonstrated how yoga eased PTSD symptoms in veterans from the Vietnam war to more recent deployments.

Now several military bases have yoga instructors and various groups are leading classes in military and veterans hospitals. The following groups can help guide you or a veteran you know to a yoga class or provide training for yoga instructors who want to better connect with this element of the community.

• Yoga for Vets is signing up yoga studios and gyms that will offer the first four classes free to veterans.
  

  Red Rock Canyon, Colorado By Sonja Bjelland

• The Veterans Yoga Project connects yoga resources for vets and the teachers who work with them. They also have specialized yoga therapy trainings.
• Yoga for Vets NYC, as mentioned above, has a weekly class taught by a veteran that’s free to vets and their families.
• Exalted Warrior has a yoga instruction program for wounded veterans. Their work at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other military and veteran hospitals has led to helping patients with amputations, spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries.
• There and Back Again runs a program using yoga and wellness techniques for helping service men and women reintigrate to their lives stateside.
• Warriors at Ease offers yoga instructor training for people who teach in military areas. Born out of work done in conjunction with Walter Reed, the training focuses on what teachers need to be aware of when working in these communities and dealing with students who have suffered trauma. It’s even done by teleconference so more teachers can attend.
• Yoga Warriors is a program designed for veterans with PTSD and offers training for teachers in working with veterans with amputations.

Warrior II pose by Susan Gill

Before I get started on today’s post, I wanted to offer an update about my earlier post on feeling awful after a yoga class.

Turns out I’m not alone in this and it might just have to do with the type of yoga your personality needs.

The Colorado Springs Gazette yoga columnist, Jen Mulson, wrote about this very topic today.

She wanted yogis to ask themselves, how do you want to feel when you leave class and base your practice choices on that. Knowing yourself and the different types of yoga will help you find a good match. This paragraph from her column had me laughing outloud.

“Maybe the style of yoga you’re doing isn’t ideal for your body type. For example, if you know your ayurvedic dosha (body type) is pitta, which is a composite of the elements fire and water, then Bikram (hot) yoga might not be your best bet, especially at high noon on a July day. That’s a fireball waiting to happen.”

Fireball indeed. You might remember that the class I had so much trouble with was a hot yoga class over the lunch hour. And oh yeah, I’m pretty pitta. It all makes much more sense now. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, India’s ayurvedic system of medicine sorts people by three body types, pitta, vata and kapha. Imbalances in the body are considered the root of all ailments.

Sunset in front of the Agama Center on Koh Phangan By Sonja Bjelland

But that question about what do you want in the end can be applied now in another way. We’re in the waning days of 2011 and if you want 2012 to start differently maybe it’s time to schedule a new years yoga retreat. Each has a focus on healing from the past year and creating new intentions and goals for 2012.

The multitude of options only represents the number of people who want to put themselves on a new path. There are enough options to find one that’s as personally intense or relaxing as you choose.

The Agama center where I studied off the coast of Thailand does an annual retreat and New Year’s Eve is spent meditating in a way that harmonizes with the different time zones as each one enters 2012.

On the neighboring island of Koh Samui, the Samahita Retreat spends one week on asana or pose practice and another on philosophy.

For something lighter on the internal and more toward relaxation and luxury, the Australian outfit, Yoga Health Retreats is taking a group to Bali. That would be one way to beat any winter/holiday blues.

For some cheaper options closer to home check out these below:

A sunset view from the Mount Madonna Center By Sonja Bjelland

• Teen meditation retreat at Spirit Rock in Saratoga, Calif. Teens 15 to 19 are taught meditation in half-hour sessions between time hanging out and playing music. What a gift that would be to give teens coping skills that would last their lifetime.
• Vipassana on Salt Spring in British Columbia. I haven’t tried a Vipassana retreat yet but I hear they’re amazing. Typically it’s multiple days of not communicating. That’s right, not speaking, not journaling. Forcing yourself to handle all emotions within yourself.
• In Nevada City, Calif., Expanding Light participants have guided meditation to offer introspection to 2011 and setting goals for 2012.
• Not so far away at the Mount Madonna Center, their staff will help guide visitors into the new year with an Ashtanga yoga retreat.

It’s almost the end of Yoga Month, did you add more yoga to your life?

I think I did fairly well reminding myself to be present when I’m listening to people. I’m human so of course I slipped up some. But it was good to set that as a goal because then I was reminded of it more often.

Before the month’s end, the folks behind Yoga Month want yogis all around the world to practice yoga at 7 p.m. in their time zone on Friday to create a “wave of yoga” across the globe called The Time for Yoga.

This sense of gathering and supporting yoga will continue through October with events on both sides of the pond raising money for yoga charities.

So what’s a yoga charity? It’s a non-profit follows yogic principals or teaches yoga to people who could benefit from the way a movement meditation such as trauma victims.

On Saturday and Sunday, studios from Miami to Sacramento will be holding fundraisers for the Yoga Aid Challenge. Each participant gets to choose their charity with hopes of raising $200,000. Some of the yoga charities people can donate to for Yoga Aid include one that helps incarcerated teenaged girls and the Africa Yoga Project.

Later in the month, London will host the OM YogaThon. Twelve teachers, 300 yogis, 108 sun salutations. Participants are encouraged to get 108 £, $170US, in sponsorships to help support groups that provide yoga to children as well as building yoga programs in prisons.

The London event corresponds with the 8^th Annual Yoga Show. Anyone can pay a few pounds to get in and attend workshops and free yoga and Pilates classes. Sounds amazing to me. I might have to check in with some of BlissPassport’s London correspondents and see if anyone’s going.

A three-day pass is only 22 £, $34 US. By contrast, a three-day pass for Yoga Journal’s San Francisco conference this coming January runs $695 at the early bird rate, without accommodations. A direct flight from San Francisco to London on Virgin Atlantic on a few random days I picked in October is running about $627 without taxes and fees. Just sayin’.