The Yoga Experience at Yoga Body and Balance:

As you walk in. . .the music, the aroma, the colors will immediately make you feel welcome. Notice the calmness and the balance around you. Someone at the front desk will greet you with a warm smile. Find your way to the changing room or stop by the prop closet making sure to pick up whatever you feel will support your practice--props, a mat, a towel. If you're not sure, ask around! Either a staff member or a practitioner will be happy to assist you. Enter the yoga practice room and feel the peace, the serenity of the room, and notice the friendly faces. The soft background music will make you want to close your eyes and fly away. Find a comfortable sitting posture and allow yourself to adjust until you can commit to stillness with ease. Gently close your eyes, relax your jaw and lips and shoulders . . . breathe . . . that's the heart of the practice. Let our voice guide you into a beautiful inner journey. Discover your "SELF" and embrace it . . . find your home.

Before we begin to move, we salute ourselves and we find an intention--one word-- simple and clear. We chant om' (A-u-m). Make sure you pronounce every little bit of it. Let the sound come freely from the center of your abdomen, and feel the vibration as the resonance increases in the room as well as within you. Stay relaxed and start moving following your breath through the warming up sequence. Let the body soften and the breath be fluent, consistent like waves of the ocean. Pay attention to the body's alignment, but give more attention to how it feels. Let go of the "trying," and embrace the "being" of the postures.

Yoga is not something we do. It is something we become. Challenge yourself as you work safely in and out of the postures. Feel the body generating heat or "prana" as we call it. Hug the muscles onto the bones and continue breathing. Before you know it, you are open, light and full of joy. Thoughts have dissolved, and all there is, is beingness. Continue to breathe and then start cooling down.

As you lie down on your back, you close your eyes and relax in savansana or corpse pose, separating legs and arms from the body, palms to the sky. The surrounding space is peaceful and sweet. The pace is slow. You've been invited into a meditative space. From head to toe you relax starting at the feet. You inhale the pure essential oils, and settle down, surrendering to the massage of your forehead and melting down of the ears. You become your breath, let go and dissolve every part including every hair from root to end. And you remain in pure relaxation. You become the witness behind the breath--absolute peace. . . Then, the bells, sounding three times bring you back into the space around you as you embrace the journey in a big stretch and roll to the side. You remain.

We acknowledge how we feel, who we are. Gently we find a comfortable sitting posture and with our hands in prayer position we chant an "OM," and we are so grateful that we gently bow forward--chin to chest. We share a moment of grace, and we send this grace, this great energy, into the people around us, family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, community and the entire world. And we say, "Namaste!" (which means the highest in me honors the highest in you).