Author: jillelkin

New iRest®️ Series starts in April

by jillelkin

Join Certified iRest®️Teacher, Jill Elkin, in a series to explore well-being through the evidence-based practice of iRest. This practice is integrative and restorative. iRest provides you with tools to help you relax deeply, release stress, increase resiliency, improve your interpersonal relationships. iRest nourishes qualities such as joy, peacefulness, and empathy towards yourself and others. People who practice iRest report reduced depression, anxiety, insomnia, stress and chronic pain, as well as a greater ability to enjoy life and increased inner peace and well-being. 

For the greatest benefit, please attend all four weeks of the series. You will receive a workbook with this series on the first week. Each week, wear comfortable clothes and bring the workbook and a pen, if possible. If you have physical limitations that keep you from comfortably being able to get up and down from the floor, please contact Jill at OnandOfftheYogaMat@gmail.com 

iRest is a guided practice and requires no meditation experience. 

Preregistration required. To register, follow this link:

Register

“Am I Doing This Right”?

by jillelkin

Yoga teachers are often asked this question in class. When you are beginning a practice, it often takes a while to feel confident in what you are doing, particularly when there is a lot of attention being brought to a visual of “what the pose should look like”.

Here is a new way to try out your practice: what if instead of trying to make your body fit the yoga posture, you FEEL into your body, and explore how the posture fits within your experience?

Ask yourself questions during your practice- does this feel safe in my body? Where do I feel strong/stretch/stable? What do I notice as sensation? How might I adjust my body to feel safer or more comfortable or more stable in this shape? Asana is not about achieving a perfect downdog, but rather about experiencing the body and all of its connections to how we see ourself and the world we live in.

A more restorative take on reclined thunderbolt, creating safety for knees.

Message from a Hummingbird

by jillelkin

This morning I was pondering what theme I might want to bring to my gentle yoga class. I looked through Judith Lasater’s book “Living Your Yoga”, and was caught up in a favorite section about Letting Go…. But realized I needed to get going!

As I rushed into the bathroom to brush my teeth, I was very much in my thoughts and ego…. What will I share today? What can I offer to the students this morning? Then, looking into the mirror, I saw a hummingbird just on the other side of the window. For a moment, all was forgotten as I marveled at it hovering there- completely taken by its beauty. But, of course, mind stuff took over. I just had to see it directly, not through the mirror! As I quickly turned my head to face the window, it flew away.

For a moment, I thought, ‘I missed it!’. But then I realized something- I didn’t miss it at all. I laughed to myself, silently thanked the hummingbird for its presence. When we are in the present moment, there is nothing to lose, nothing to miss. It is only the mind that attaches to the experience, creating the idea of having missed out….. such is life: a never ending cycle of remembering and then forgetting ourselves.