Details for Sunday’s major event:
9:30-10:30am
327 Grant Avenue, San Francisco…the very generous lululemon. Make sure to thank Megan!

The story so far…
The Epic Workout is Yoga for your Hero’s Journey: Yoga, Functional Movement, Primal Patterns, and Consciousness. The Epic Workout enhances training by developing core capacities in body and mind, from breath, to strength, to optimal recovery.

This master class will be an adventure of strength, movement and awareness, leaving you feeling refreshingly sweaty, focused and primed for life.

We will cover poses and movements that address the biggest areas of improvement for yogis and athletes. You will flow through pushing, leaping, crawling, stretching, posing, inverting, breathing and meditating. We will develop awareness, body and breath for effortlessness, efficiency and enjoyment of heroic proportions.

“I can honestly say that this was the best exercise program that I have had. I’ve done a lot of different things in the past. None of these compare to the positive experience I had with your class.
I took a chance and I have not regretted it. Your class is positive, motivating and respectful of members’ individual strengths. The only yardstick for achievement is that each member tries to improve their own performance and not a competition among the participants. No one is ever made to feel bad. It is a credit to how you have designed the program and in particular the people who taught it. Thank you very much.”
- Clark

David Nelson and the Yoga Garden SF have vastly expanded their yogic offerings to the community. The Epic Workout will be featured at 1009 Page Street three times each week. Get your Epic flow on!

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. 
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” 

—Howard Thurman

Much of my work is in bridging yoga, or what yoga is at its core, with fitness and coaching clients. Ultimately, Yoga is about paying attention. Do you pay attention to what you’re doing when you dance? Then, how much do you notice? Do you notice the subtle differences from hip to hip, from twisting left to twisting right? Do you notice elation and frustration, sensation, pain, and lightness?

Yoga is not about the asana. To paraphrase David Nelson of Yoga Garden San Francisco: asana is one part of hatha yoga, which is but one part of a full and integral system of yoga. Do not try to categorize yoga.

And please, do not try to turn off your mind.

Turning off the mind, as an act, simply does not work all that well. Instead, consider your experience of those moments of awe and beauty when someone you love catches your eye. That’s yoga. Feeling. Connecting. Yoga on the mat is a small, small part of the bigger practice of paying attention and loving all of life. For many, it is the gateway into an experiential understanding of connectedness. A yogic practice, or process, can start by being service-oriented, people-oriented, or body-oriented as in a modern yoga class or a class based on Yogic Conditioning or Yogic Warrior Conditioning.  (see www.epicworkout.com).

Regarding your physical practice, consider this: I help people stop trying to fit their minds and bodies into classes and fitness routines, and rather, to take ownership of your body, your practice (and in many ways, your life) by starting with you, your intentions and attentions, and design your program from the inside out. What that depends on, depends on you.

Every athlete wants to be faster, stronger, more powerful, and more injury prone. This is especially true for triathletes who swim, bike and run great distances. You demand speed, require strength, and need to save time. Tools and methods that increase your foundation of strength and speed are extremely valuable, and every edge counts.

This article reviews the benefits of using kettlebells from the perspective of Yogic Warrior Conditioning and is designed to give the triathlete the possibility of greater outcomes in exchange for your valuable energy and time spent training.

On Kettlebells:
Buy the hype, just don’t believe it. (in other words, get your kettlebell but own your movement).

Kettlebells are simply stimulators and enhancers of multi-functional training of natural human movement.

You already have all the weight you need to create phenomenal strength and power for your purposes and your life. Kettlebells add a level of challenge, skill and learning that support many specific sports, yet the basics are the same. The basic skills of running, jumping, leaping, pushing and pulling are what take you across pavement and through water.

You already know how to build your endurance and train your psyche to succeed for the race. The advantage you are missing is the buildup of your fundamental baselines. This is the level where kettlebells add a concrete and immediate benefit: build your baselines of strength, power and mindfulness and your race time will decrease as you enjoy it even more!

The three skills that most directly transfer to your triathlaon success.

1. 1 and 2-Arm Swings
2. Swing/Hi-pull/Gunsling
3. Snatch or Rack & Push-Press

Thus, DO

• Improve your baseline foundations through appropriate intensity.
• your training needs by balancing the lowest volume required and greatest intensity possible.
• just less (than you think you can), and you’ll progress faster.

And DON’T

• Ignore your breath. It’s your greatest coach, so follow it and heed its lessons.
• Focus on learning too many skills. Push intensity and mastery in core skills and build your baselines.
• Do endless sets and reps. With functional work, build capacity through intensity. Then go practice your race skills.

This article in a sentence:

Follow your breath and maintain awareness as you practice your maximum intensity and effort.

@ The Sports Club/LA San Francisco

The Sports Club/LA San Francisco, the city’s premier club, is offing three specialty classes in April. All are open to SCLA members and non-members. Take one, two, or all three!
747 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94043 (google map)

Tune In/Tune Up: Set yourself up for the most success.

Discover and use an effective process for preparing your joints and musculature to reap the most benefit from your exercise and yoga practice. We’ll use familiar techniques in new and fascinating ways to get more out of exercise. This class includes an active and mindful workout for all yogis and fitness enthusiasts.

Monday, April 13
5:30-6:30pm
Studio 2

Genius in Action: Place yourself at the center of your transformation.

Harness the energy of the group plus your own internal focus and learning to get more out of your training, practice, and life. We’ll use familiar techniques in new and fascinating ways to get more out of exercise. This class includes an active and mindful workout for all yogis and fitness enthusiasts.

Monday, April 20
5:30-6:30pm
Studio 2

Edge into Action: Create effortlessness and efficiency in challenging exercise.

Learn to ride the balance between effort and ease to recover more fully while you make faster progress in strength, flexibility and cardiovascular endurance. We’ll use familiar techniques in new and fascinating ways to get more out of exercise. This class includes an active and mindful workout for all yogis and fitness enthusiasts.

Monday, April 27
5:30-6:30pm
Studio 2

Yogic Warrior Conditioning: Expanding the Heart of Yogic Movement

with Alex Iglecia

Sunday, April 19, 2009
2:00 - 3:30pm

Yogic Warrior Conditioning® is a comprehensive health and fitness system that combines Yoga, Functional Training, Conditioning and Restorative Techniques to create strength, effortless movement, and deeper awareness of body, mind and spirit.

Mindful, natural movement and creativity transform our tissues and nervous system for better health and fitness, reduced stress, and enhanced coordination and clarity.

Yogic Warrior Conditioning® makes exercise more than exercise, and helps launch one’s yoga practice off the mat.

Yoga Garden San Francisco
286 Divisadero St, SF, CA 94117  (google maps)
(415) 552-9644

Sign up online today

It is the concrete, specific awareness of one’s own act of moving which is so satisfying. Something more is needed than simply body mechanics, that the feelings hidden in the body, the source of all its movement, must be involved.

- Mary Starks Whitehouse, Authentic Movement

Original examples of Conscious Movement include Feldenkrais, Alexander Technique, Tai Chi, and Yoga. Today’s clubs and fitness industry are moving in the direction of conscious movement, but are they going to get it right? For example, should a class with yoga postures + boxing + loud music be considered conscious movement? What is the difference, ultimately, between the vertical inclusion of meaning and the horizontal inclusion of body techniques? I want to offer four distinctions, or criteria I believe are necessary to help frame the conversation about what makes a session or class, Conscious. These points are found in all the great mind-body programs. Does yours meet the standard?

• Intention: intention to transform and explore what meaning might be found in meeting the upcoming challenges.
• Learning: expanding one’s repertoire, nervous system, brain wiring (and however else you put it) creates new connections. Transformation and consciousness are interested in new connections.
• Inquiry: You, the you that inquires, must make deep and meaningful connections with the observed (your body, your relationships, your thoughts and emotions)
• Awareness: What you are capable of being aware of, or your ability to ware, must expand.

With these points in place, you can be assured that the exercise you are sharing with others or practicing yourself is indeed more than just exercise. Yogic Warrior Conditioning is but one expression of Conscious Movement, one that happens to explore the relationship between yoga, functional training and transformation. Now go move, learn, heal, and transform!

A Few Words on Fitness

With Epic and Yogic Warrior Conditioning, you take exercise vertical with depth and meaning, inquiry and transformation. Yet the fitness world is also changing horizontally, meaning that the techniques, methods and processes are being rearranged, improved, and evolved. Despite the idea that there new rules, I suggest instead that we are returning to the essence of our lives with new distinctions. Where are we going? What needs to be included in today’s fitness program, exercise plan, or yoga practice?

Mobility and Movement Preparation: There are techniques and methods that dramatically surpass ’stretching’ to optimally prepare your body for the movement you choose to train. Flip your mind and Tune In / Tune Up before your training, yoga asana and even meditation.

Corrective Exercise: Injuries of all shapes and size come as a consequence of our lifestyles and training patterns. More of the same is rarely the path out of pain, while noticing your experience often is. You can make the body resilient through intentional, purposeful movement that has the power to improve the way your body works at a deeper level.

Speed, power and elasticity: Remember that power has to do with time, and is not the same is strength. Consider power and strength with speed. Power is lost faster than strength, as easily demonstrated by a long-time yogi returning to a high-impact kickboxing class. Yet for all populations, there is the need for the ability to move and react quickly, and power is critical for getting through life effortlessly.

Core Training: Ab crunches are definitely out, and functional core work is in as we focus on training a body to respond and be active in the world. Whether the lessons come from athletics, martial arts, somatics or yoga, the truth about core is the same.

Resistance Training: A foundational aspect of every practice, we need to focus on function, linked system strength and real world strength. Isolated strength is an illusion, and the key is to practice with appropriate frequency. Strength is about full body connection and coordination towards a purpose. Strength comes from within, and should be trained with the end in mind.

Metabolic Training: Evolutionary cardio - Intensity vs volume is the name of the game, so the the ability to do higher levels of work and maintain output over time will take you where you want to go. Riding the edge of effort and ease will get you there faster.

Recovery & Regeneration: No matter your training modality or the features of your practice, recovery and nourishment - physical and emotional - is a must. This can be done at the gym, on the mat, or at home, and should not be ignored.

Thanks to Alwyn Cosgrove, who framed these concepts, then adapted by Epic Workout for a yogic perspective on exercise and transformation.