Spring Rejuvenation Yoga, a Special Class in NYC

Hello there, long time, no hang. I’m still around, and busy as always, prepping up for hosting a Yoga retreat St. Lucia, teaching classes, and wrapping up an ayurvedic detox/cleanse.
The cleanse has put me in the rejuvenation state of mind, body, and spirit, and inspired me to offer a very special Yoga workshop with this exact theme. Bonus: my retreat co-leader, Charlie, is co-teaching this weekend’s workshop with me.  If you’re in NYC, you should totally join us!

Join Bria and Charlie for a refreshing session of postures and breathing techniques that will cleanse, rejuvenate, and relax body and mind. Embrace a deeper connection of heart and soul, with aromatherapy delights to intensify your bliss. If you liked our recent Yoga for the Curious event, or weren’t able to make it, now’s your chance. You’ll love our latest Spring-y offering!

Saturday, May 4, 2013
4-6 PM

At Asali Yoga Center in Harlem
Asali is located on 135th St, between 7th and 8th Avenues (closer to 8th)  C train to 135th Street

$18 pre-paid

$20 at the door

Keep pre-payment easy breezy by using this secure link:

Pay here now via PayPal

We look forward to seeing you all there!

Wishing you all a fabulous weekend 🙂

Shanti,
Bria

 

 

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Kiarostami Film and Talk in NYC This Saturday

In New York City this weekend and looking for something interesting to do?

Groundbreaking Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami will be in town on Saturday, October 6, screening his 1990 film “Close-Up” at the Modern School of Film at 2 p.m..Afterwards, he’ll be discussing the film.

I have a lot of respect for Kiarostami’s work. He also directed “Ten,” one of my favorite films of all time.

From Wikipedia:

Renowned Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami. He reportedly wears dark shades not just to appear cool, but because his eyes are sensitive to light.

Close-Up (1990), narrates the story of the real-life trial of a man who impersonated film-maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, conning a family into believing they would star in his new film. The family suspects theft as the motive for this charade, but the impersonator, Hossein Sabzian, argues that his motives were more complex. The part documentary, part staged film examines Sabzian’s moral justification for usurping Makhmalbaf’s identity, questioning his ability to sense his cultural and artistic flair.^[21][22] Close-Up received praise from directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, Jean-Luc Godard, and Nanni Moretti^[23] and was released across Europe.

Kiarostami was one of the few directors who remained in Iran after the 1979 revolution, when many of his colleagues fled to the west, and he believes that it was one of the most important decisions of his career. He has stated that his permanent base in Iran and his national identity have consolidated his ability as a filmmaker:

When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit. And if it does, the fruit will not be as good as it was in its original place. This is a rule of nature. I think if I had left my country, I would be the same as the tree.-Abbas Kiarostami^[8]

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Early Summer Scenes, New York City

Some recent early summer scenes:

Starting out with cupcakes in Brooklyn on Memorial Day Weekend:

Coconut cucumber cupcakes. You read right! They were amazing.

Continuing on with some amazing music, courtesy of Kristin Hoffman. Think Fiona Apple minus the crazy, Tori Amos minus the loopiness, Nora Jones minus the snoozefest…and you have captured a fraction of what this talented lady offers up:

Kristin Hoffmann.

Kristin Hoffmann and band.

Let’s move on to the hipster wedding I recently attended in Brooklyn:

Can you spot the bride in this picture?

Wedding bells!

Of course we have to have a couple of gratuitous cat shots:

Deli kitten.

My cat.

We’ll finish with a self-portrait. I am reeallllly concentrating here, trying to get the shot to work. Ha!

That intense look of concentration? That’s the look of me trying to work the camera.

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I Couldn’t Make This Up if I Tried. . . .

Spotted this rather interesting display on a recent Sunday morning in Harlem. Looks like quite a party happened, doesn’t it?

In front of a building, safely tucked behind an iron fence, we have quite the post-party collection of liquor bottles. Impressive. But what really gets me is the toy SUV propped atop the bottles. Must've been SOME night.

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Random Rainy Stuff

Maybe I'll catch up on my reading...Photo courtesy of Stock.xchng.

 

It took a hurricane to get me to finally update this blog. Ha!

As you may have heard, we on the East Coast are fixin’ to get walloped by Hurricane Irene.

For some people I know, myself included, it takes a major storm and a shut down public transit system to get us grounded and to spend time in relative stillness.

As much as I love lounging, I typically work a lot on the weekends and am often social as well. But not this weekend. All of my classes are canceled, and New York City transit isn’t running.

Let me say this now: I’m safe, prepped, and have coordinated with my neighbors and friends so that we can help one another out should the need arise. So please, no one worry! And no, I’m not in an evacuation zone. Thankfully!

I was slated to teach one class this morning, near an evacuation zone, no less, but once I got there (miraculously on time!), it quickly became apparent than no one was showing up to take the class. So I worked out instead.

I'm getting this top soon. Can't wait to work out in it. Red, cheetah print, black, and with a criss-cross/lattice back? Yes, PLEASE! To see the back view, click here: tinyurl.com/3u8x95c

Why not work out, I figured. I was already in a gym setting, and it was quiet. Love that. Here’s what I did :

Bria’s Hurricane Workout

• 30 minutes on the elliptical, hill intervals
• 10 minutes of Yoga, with a simple flow: Down Dog to Down Dog Split to Warrior One,Warrior 2, Reverse, Triangle, Revolved Triangle, Warrior 3, Warrior One, Vinyasa. Repeat on the second side.
• I practiced a bit of headstand and handstand as well.
• Then 20 pushups (10 regular, 10 narrow hand position)
• Hyperextension: 20 reps
• One set of Pilates hundreds, some oblique crunches (16 per side)
• A few cool-down stretches. Done!

This all took about 45-50 minutes

And now I’m blogging.

As I said before, I’ve definitely put this space on Summer Hours for the past few weeks. It’s just been busy in my life, plus I’m cooking up some ideas on how to make this blog better. Perhaps much better.

Yoga has definitely helped keep me calm during a crazy week.

What a week!

Wanna hear my earthquake story?

Tuesday, I was teaching Yoga, in the MetLife building no less, during the earthquake tremor/aftershock. Really!

The room shook, and I saw and felt it move, but thought “Maybe there are window washers outside, and they’re working too vigorously. And also, those goons in the weight room really shouldn’t throw around their weights so much that it causes the entire floor to shake.”

I'll be watching lots of this. But where are my Law and Order marathons on a stormy weekend like this? Picture courtesy of Stock.xchng.

A few minutes later, a voice came on over the loudspeaker when my students were in Warrior 2, saying “We’ve had reports of the building shaking, and are investigating.”

A few minutes after that, we were evacuated. I ended up walking home, because no WAY did I want to be underground on the subway if another aftershock came through.

Fast forward a few days, and I’ve noticed that some of my friends don’t know what to do with themselves with all of this downtime as we wait to feel the full effects of the hurricane.

I say, get grounded. Have some fun. Maybe even be productive, but in a low-key, meditative kind of way, not a frantic, deadline-meeting, stressing ourselves out kind of way. Know what I mean?

Steak! I cooked one of these for dinner tonight. Photo courtesy of Stock.xchng.

Squeeze in a mini workout. Cook. Can food (like make quick pickles or preserves). Clean  house. Watch movies. Cuddle. Breathe and actually tune into that breath!

I typically have no problem keeping myself entertained. I love downtime, alone time, and quiet.

My plan is to do some or all of the following. This isn’t so much a to-do list as a list of options:

• Meditate
• Organize a bookshelf I recently got
• Put up some laundry (never-ending chore!)
• Attend to some other assorted light household tasks
• Lots of lounging and napping
• Plan upcoming trips (Montreal, Toronto, and I’m jonesing for a Winter island trip)
• Drink tea. And hot chocolate. And my homemade kombucha! (posting my recipe for kombucha soon)
• Catch up on reading; I just re-read “On the Road,” and think I have a crush on Jack Kerouac
• Yoga and maybe some Pilates, too
• Watch TV (but where are my Law and Order marathons when we NEED one? Wall to wall news coverage gets old when nothing NEW is being said.)
• Watch movies. My friend Athena Lee has assigned me to re-watch Wedding Crashers. Gladly!
• Pray the electricity holds. (Power outages and blackouts aren’t fun. Yes, I lived through the New York City blackout of 2003).
• Cook. Not bake. Ha, too dangerous to have bunches of fragrant, gooey goodies lying around  😉

Anyways, forgive the light tone of this post. Yes, the storm is serious. I get that. I just really hope that everyone stays safe and makes the best of the present moments, even if they’re not what we expected for our usual weekend dabblings. Breaking the routine can be a good thing.

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