YOGA FESTA 2005
CIRCLES and TRIANGLES
An Adjustment and Balance Workshop with Ken Falzon
When: SATURDAY DECEMBER 10th, 7:30-9:30pm
Where: Sun and Moon in Meguro
Have you ever stopped to notice that many poses have a circular flow of energy to them? Or that whether you are doing a headstand, handstand, or arm balance such as crow, many balance poses involve a triangular base?
Join Ken as he explains how to work with shapes in your yoga practice, taking you through a series of yoga poses and showing you how to use various shapes such as the triangle to create a more solid foundation, or the circle to invite a flow of energy through your postures. Students will also be given individually tailored adjustment techniques to work with the body’s natural energies and foundation. Take your body out of the box!
Please register by December 4th to insure a spot.
Cost: \3,500
Limit: 14 people. Workshop is mainly in English with some Japanese.
About the instructor: Ken Falzon is a long-time Ashtanga yoga practitioner and certified Sivananda yoga teacher. He teaches Ashtanga and Sivananda yoga regularly at Sun and Moon Yoga, as well as at several other centers around Tokyo.
To register, please register in person with Ken or Leza at the studio, or email Leza at: yoga@lezalowitz.com. * This workshop is not appropriate for those menstruating, pregnant, or with neck injuries.
WORKSHOP with ACO
“What is the ‘Yogic’ Way to Eat?”
Saturday, November 26
19:30-21:00 at Sun & Moon Studio (Lecture in Japanese)
Do you have to become a vegetarian or vegan to do yoga? Do you have to eat only raw food or fast?
The answer is NO. But there are some guiding principles to a cleansing diet that are central to keeping your system clean and your mind clear.
ACO, a vegetarian, does a detoxifying cleanse and fast three times a year on a regular basis. In this workshop, she will talk about her relationship to food, explain some principles of healthy eating, and she will also introduce you to her detox plan.
Question and Answer period after discussion.
Please email ACO to register at: acoyoga@ybb.ne.jp
Please register by November 23rd to insure a spot.
Fee: \3,000 (Payable at Workshop–Class cards not permissible
JOINING IN YOGA?PARTNER YOGA WORKSHOP
Partner Yoga Workshop with Leza Lowitz and June and Yukino Myers
Where: Sun and Moon Yoga, Meguro, Tokyo
When: Monday, October 10 (another National Holiday)
Session One: 1:00-3:00
Session Two: 3:30-5:30
Cost: \5,000
LIMIT: 14 people per workshop
Yukino Myers, Leza Lowitz and June Myers
Yoga is about integration. After all, Yoga means “union” in Sanskrit. What better way to join together than by doing partner yoga? Linking your yoga posture to another persons’ movement and breathing is the ultimate way to find harmony and balance. Partner Yoga is also a wonderful way to connect with your sacred self and connect with the best in others.
In this workshop, we will practice a partner yoga sequence that helps you to bring new levels of awareness, focus and balance to your yoga when you share it with someone else. Breathing, seated, standing and balance poses will be explored.
Yoga poses can be challenging, playful, and deeply meditative and calming. With a partner, those sensations can be doubled. Doing yoga with a partner requires great attention because if we waver, our partner will be affected. But, if we are strong and help our partner grow, that will also help us grow. Yoga with a partner is a wonderful demonstration of how to give and receive support, and how to surrender.
Can you keep your own balance even when your partner is imbalanced? Can you receive support if you are not able to hold a pose well on your own? Partner Yoga is an excellent example of how our actions affect others. It is like seeing karma in action. This workshop will help you deepen your relationship to giving and receiving. We will also have fun together! Portions of the sequence we will practice appear in the Yoga Beauty III DVD. We will also do other artner poses too.
Couples, friends, and individuals welcome!
To register, please call Yuko Iwamura
at Freerun Company on 03-5823-8331
(Weekdays only)?Japanese and English OK.
OCTOBER YOGA BOOGIE ? with Guest Instructor Kelley McCarthy
Sunday Mornings 9:00-10:30am October 2nd, 9th, 16th & 23rd
Special Vinyasa Flow class focusing on inversions.Kelley McCarthy, affectionately called “Kell Dogg” by her students for her playful approach to life, lives in San Francisco, where she teaches yoga. She fills her yoga classes with surprises to make you smile. Kelley is well known for her compassion and endless energy in teaching others. Her humorous approach to practicing yoga provides a non-intimidating way for all levels to learn. Students adore her encouragement to create their own unique grace and natural self- wisdom to go with the flow.
Kelley began teaching dance and tumbling at the age of 14, and has been practicing yoga since 1999. She currently teaches yoga at 24-Hour Fitness Club in San Francisco and has taught yoga for 4 years, recently earning the title “Favorite Yoga instructor” among the students for the past 4 years. She is also a well-known kickboxing, dance, cycling, Tae Bo and hip-hop instructor who has traveled around the United States teaching Hip Hop Dance classes as 2003 Group X Idol. She has danced Hip Hop and Breakdance professionally. She has studied several styles of martial arts, tumbling, and dance–all of which influence her teaching style.
In her yoga classes, Kelley hopes to offer a magical adventure, teaching you fresh methods of body expression, untangling your mind, unraveling your emotions, healing your suffering, opening your heart, and breathing the sweetness of life.
Join Kelley on Sunday Mornings at 9-10:30 in October at Sun and Moon for a special Vinyasa Flow class focusing on inversions. Class cards accepted. First-come, first served.
About this class, Kelley says:
“Life sometimes makes us feel a bit upside down. So let’s change our perspective. The world can make us feel off kilter. So let’s balance. You fall on your face sometimes and that’s okay. You’re here. You’re trying. You’re loved no matter what your pose looks like. It’s the effort that counts. It’s this moment we all get to experience together. Come fly and play!”
Kerala Pen Project
Thanks to everyone who contributed ballpoint pens or donations to schoolkids in India on behalf of Sun and Moon Yoga. We had over 1000 pens and they were so appreciated by the children in Kerala, Southern India. Here are some pictures of the kids and their teachers, taken by Charles Huschle.
Golden Week Mountain Retreat: The Yoga of Sacred Connection
Commune with the spirit of nature and find rejuvenation for your own spirit in this retreat high up in the mountains just 2.5 hours from Tokyo. May 3,4,5, 2005.
Join Leza Lowitz (Hatha/Vinyasa), Tarik Thami (Ashtanga) and Ann Marie Sheridan (Kundalini) for a yoga retreat at Komadori Sanso, a 2000-year-old Shinto shrine on Mt. Mitake, a sacred pilgrimage for centuries.
The shrine is having a celebration for the Year of the Rooster (held once every 12 years) and displaying its “inner god” for public view.
Golden Week Retreat at Mt. Mitake
Practice: 3-day, 2-night retreat includes daily morning and afternoon yoga classes (your choice of Ashtanga/Vinyasa/Kundalini), and daily evening sessions (meditation, chanting, partner yoga, restorative). We will hike up the mountain and climb to a sacred waterfall for an early morning “puja” (purification) ritual with a priest.
Early morning “puja” (purification) ritual with priest
Rest: Communal lodging?4 to a ryokan room, tatami style. This serene mountain ryokan has panoramic views of the ocean, mountains, and Yokohama cityscape. Two meals daily with mountain vegetables and river fish. The inn has two cypress hot tubs.
Access: Take the JR Chuo Line to Tachikawa. Transfer to the Ohme Line. Get off at Mitake Station (about 110 minutes). Take the bus to “Cable-shita.” Change to Cable Car. Ride CC up the mountain for 6 minutes. Then enjoy a 15-minute walk to Komadori Sanso. 0428-78-8492.
Enjoying mountain vegetables & fish
Meditation, chanting & yoga
Cost: 35,000yen per person (not including transportation, about 3500yen r/t). Waterfall Ritual is additional 2,000yen.
Registration: Space is limited, so sign up early. To reserve your space, email Leza Lowitz at leza@sunandmoon.jp or Takeshi Amano takeshi@sunandmoon.jp or call 03-3280-6383. Deposit of 10,000 yen is required at the time of registration. Deposits are non-refundable except in the case of illness or emergency. Please make full payment either in person or by bank transfer by April 29 to ensure your space. Deposit to Mizuho Bank, Meguro Branch (194). Sun and Moon Yoga, Regular Account #8062151.
Beginners welcome! Bring your own mat, but leave your worries behind!
Shiatsu Workshop
Self-Defense Workshop: Fending off Drunks, Perverts and Other Annoyances with Shogo Oketani, Karate Buff and Gentleman
Four Saturday Afternoons 5:30-7:00pm May 14, June 4th
Learn Self-Defense Skills in Natural Way Using The Power of Ki
Ki is the life-force energy of the cosmos that also exists within each of us. We have a power source or life center in the body called the “Dantien” (Japanese: Tanden) located at the hara, three finger-widths beneath the belly button. In Japan there is an expression, “Put your power in the Sokka Tanden (under the belly button).” This means to gain equanimity and composure by focusing your energy on this point. When we integrate the energy of the Dantien using special breathing, we can manifest our potential power. This power is called ki. The power of ki is the cornerstone of martial arts, and will be the focus of this course on self-defense.
The Advantage of Using Ki
Japan used to be considered the safest country in the world. While that is still mainly true, there are reasons to be on guard. Many women are now interested in self-defense and have considered learning Karate or Judo, but hesitate to do so because of the “hardness” or “Yang” qualities of those disciplines. The truth is, when we use the power of ki, we can master the skills of self-defense without stress to the body or joints. When we focus on ki, movement becomes flexible and fluid without utilizing or encouraging excess energy, lessening stress to the body. Also, with special breathing methods, we can balance the body and enhance concentration through exercise. In this class, we will learn:
? How to work with and harness the power of ki
? Breathing techniques to strengthen focus and concentration
? Breathing techniques to replenish (store) and utilize (expel) ki
? Work with the Dantien to encourage core power, grounding and self-confidence
? Practical self-defense techniques like punching and kicking
? Shaolin, Karate and Jujutsu Submission Techniques
? Simple stretches to warm up the body and energy body
\10,000 for 4 sessions. Advanced registration required by 5/6. Limited to 15 people.
Register at: shogo@sunandmoon.jp or call 3280-6383.
For map and location, see www.sunandmoon.jp
Class taught in English and Japanese. Men and women both welcome! No martial arts experience necessary. Pay on first class. Drop-ins okay if space permits. (3,000yen)
About the Instructor:
Shogo Oketani was born in Tokyo and graduated from Keio University with a degree in Philosophy and Literature. He studied Judo and Kendo from childhood, and began studying Karate as a teenager. Later, he received his black belt from the Gensei School of Karate in Tokyo, where he also taught Karate. (He is a Third Degree Black Belt). He also studied North Shaolinquan Martial Arts from the Japanese master Ryu Meiko who was born and grew up in Taiwan. In 1995, Oketani moved to Northern California with his wife, Leza Lowitz. In 2003, he moved back to Tokyo where he works as a freelance translator and writer.
Inversions Workshop 2005
Literary Legend Donald Richie reads from his “Japan Journals 1947-2004″ at Sun and Moon Yoga, 2005.
Creating Abundance?Money as Flow
A One-Day Intensive Course in Energy Flow and Manifesting
with Leza Lowitz at Sun and Moon Yoga
Future Date to be Announced. 20,000 yen for the day.
Money, like everything else in the universe, is a form of energy. It has certain spiritual laws of flow.
Creating Abundance Workshop
What is your attitude towards money? Where did it come from?
Do you give yourself permission to have abundance? Do you feel guilty
having plenty? How do you approach giving and receiving? Do you love
what you do? Does something always seem to stop you from pursuing your
dreams?
This workshop will help you understand and transform your relationship to money and flow,
ultimately helping you find your life’s work and realize your natural
state of abundance.
In this workshop, we will use:
? guided meditations
? journaling
? manifesting techniques
? partner work
? magnetizing techniques and more…
To help you understand and transform your beliefs about money, listen to your intuition,
and draw opportunity and possibility to you in ways that support you and
the universe. If you have been looking for a way to expand your horizons
and potential, this special workshop is for you. Please register by
email, phone or in-person by March 15.
This workshop will be held in English.
Japanese Cooking for The Rest of Us:
10 Minute Dishes with Shogo Oketani
Learn how to cook quick, simple, natural, and nutritious Japanese dishes!
Even though they look great on the table and taste terrific on the tongue, these classic Japanese dishes are not really difficult to make. (The secret is in the broth). Inspired chef, writer and martial arts instructor Shogo Oketani will lead this creative culinary journey in which you will make classic Japanese dishes like:
? Terrific Miso Soup: Delicious variations on the classic. Think adding anything that crunches– carrots, potatoes, kabocha, etc. Also yuzu.
? Oyako Donburi (Chicken and Egg over Rice)
? Seared Tuna Steak Supreme
? Veggie side dishes with organic vegetables
? A great bowl of rice
Then, we’ll eat together. Shogo will also explain ingredients, how to read Japanese labels, how to look for organic products and chemical-free contents, etc.
Daikon Sesame salad
Seared Bonito with Sweet Vinegar Soy Sauce
Sauteed Konnyaku
In the future, Shogo will also be offering Special Cooking Classes:
Easy Chinese Cuisine
Ma-Po Tofu
Ma-Po Eggplant
Lotus Root Chili Saute
Green Beans with Chili Sauce and Pine Nuts
Indian Curry Fest
Spinach Curry
Chicken Curry
Seafood Curry
Classic Paella
(Speaks for itself)
All classes taught in English. Each course will run approximately 3 hours (including eating time). Course cost?5,000yen. If you are interested, please email us and we will let you know more details about location and dates (to be announced). (Held in Magome, Shinagawa-ku on Asakusa Line, in Fall/Winter 2004/2005).
BOOK LAUNCH PARTY WITH SHAKUHACHI MUSIC
Come Celebrate with Us!
Leza is pleased to announce a book launch party for her new book of poetry, “100 Aspects of the Moon,” and her latest book of fiction, the award winning “Green Tea to Go.” Also launching his book, “The Single tone” will be the Shakuhachi Master Christopher Yohmei Blasdel, who will regale us with his beautiful shakuhachi music (All these new books are published by Tokyo’s own Printed Matter Press!)
Come celebrate with us at the Pink Cow in Shibuya on Sunday, February 27, 5-8pm. The Pink Cow will have great food (salads, sandwiches, burritos, etc. in its famously generous portions!) and drinks, as always, available to order at the bar.
For more details, see www.thepinkcow.com
Entry fee: \1500 includes book of your choice.
Sun and Moon Yoga Opening Party
Pt. Reyes Books, Pt. Reyes Station, California, 2003.
Readings from Yoga Poems: Lines to Unfold By with Leza Lowitz
Yoga by Amanda and Nicolas Giacomini
Oakland California and Pt. Reyes, California
City Festival for the Arts, Oakland, California, 2003.
****************************************
PAST WORKSHOPS
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005 and Prior