Class Descriptions

Eye Openers
EYE OPENERS! Start your day with a good stretch of body, mind and spirit! Prepare yourself to experience your day more fully, calmly and focused. 6:45-8:00

Beginners Yoga
New to yoga? Our Beginners Classes focus on the fundamentals of yoga: alignment, breathing, and relaxation.

Private Lessons
Need a boost in your personal practice? Feel like you've hit a plateau? A private lesson could be what you need to help bring your practice into a deeper and more intense level.

Bodhisattva All Levels Yoga
Perfect for all yogis! All Levels Classes are perfect for students with minimal to masterful experience in yoga.

Power Hour
Power Hour Classes are fast paced vinyasa classes. Sun salutes are used to move into and out of postures. With an emphasis on breath and timing, power hour classes are a great way to re-energize the body and mind.

Advanced Yoga
Advanced Yoga Classes are designed for students who have been practicing regularly. Poses are held longer, new and varied postures are introduced, and breathing remains an essential part of the practice.

Yogalates
Yogalates combines the best postures and positions from both yoga and pilates. These classes will concentrate on achieving long, lean, abdominal, arm, and leg muscles. You will learn and practise easy and quick at home postures to incorporate into your life.

Bodhisattva Guided Meditation
A fantastic way to still the mind, find peace, and relax. Guided Meditation offers the opportunity to withdraw from your senses and find stillness within through pranayama (breathing exercises), chanting, and sitting in silent stillness.

Candlelight Yoga
Enjoy an evening practice surrounded by candlelight. A relaxing practice with minimal vocal cues from the instructor; the soft light and silence help relax and renew.

Yoga for Runners
Monday, 8:00 pm. Our Yoga for Runners class incorporates yogic breathing techniques (pranayama) and gentle stretching, via Sivananda Yoga-based postures (asanas), while offering healing for the hips, hamstrings, calves, shoulders and lower backs. We ease the day's tension with deep relaxation and meditation at the beginning and close of each session. This special yoga class helps to reverse the effects of running and keeping runners healthy on and off the road.

 

Bodhisattva Yoga

Bodhisatva - Kiss of the Divine
Yoga in sanskrit is defined as "yoke" or "union." This union is of the atman, or big SELF and the little self---big SELF meaning god-consciousness and the little self being who we believe we are. But who are we? What is the answer to the question most often asked of rishis, sages and seekers? And, how do we find out?

As Patanjali cited over 5000 years ago in his second sutra on yoga, "yogas citta vritti nirodha"--the purpose of yoga is to control the mind. So first we must quiet the restless churning of our chaotic thoughts. All thoughts are based on the past, leading us to remain stuck in the past. Yoga provides us with the perfect tool to rein in the thought---the breath--for when we really focus our awareness on the breath, there is no room for thoughts.

So, we begin to bring our thoughts under control through watching the breath and in the following silence. That silence is an ever-present, never changing background, allowing us to discard every aspect of our impermanent self---name, age, health status, profession, impression of ourselves, others' impression of us, who we want to be and who we don't want to be. Stripping all those layers off our true selves, we can begin to see ourselves as we truly are, as we have always been, and how we will continue to be.

When we have discarded the final illusory veil and go willingly and deeply to drink of this silence, we experience the "Kiss of the Divine". Once you have tasted this kiss, an insatiable thirst for truth cannot be denied. Yoga has everything one needs to realize and manifest this "Kiss of the Divine!"

 

Various Styles Taught at DCYoga

Astanga (Ashtanga)
The Astanga (Ashtanga) yoga system is a rigorous practice comparable to the training of an elite athlete. Consisting of 240 postures done in six successive series (vinyasa) linked by the breath, Ashtanga yoga represents the most intensive form of hatha yoga. The purpose of this continual flow of action is to create heat which produces a cleansing or detoxifying effect on the body. Ashtanga places equal emphasis on strength, flexibility and stamina. Many fitness enthusiasts who thrive on intense workouts like this style. This style is often called "Power Yoga".

Vinyasa Flow
A uniquely integrated approach blending many styles of Yoga and catered to the needs of the student. Poses flow one to another, breath is a main focus, creating a feeling of peace and serenity for the student.

Sivananda Yoga
Yoga means 'union' in Sanskrit - and while many people think this refers to union between body, mind and spirit, the traditional acceptance is that it's the union between one's individual consciousness and the Universal Consciousness - the Divine. The five points of Sivananda yoga are proper exercise, proper breathing, proper relaxation, proper diet and positive thinking and mediation. Postures are adapted for the needs of the individual. Tuesday, Friday, and Sivananda yoga incorporates a five-point method of practice, which includes proper exercise, breathing, deep relaxation, vegetarian diet, positive thinking and meditation. Following a standard format, Sivananda hatha yoga classes are based on a routine of breat! hing exercises, sun salutations, a series of 12 classic yoga postures and relaxation. A short mantra chant and prayers begin and end each class.

Thai Yoga Bodywork (By Appointment)
Thai Yoga Bodywork uses gentle rocking and stretching movements to lull the body and mind into a profound state of relaxation. Clients remain fully clothed. By Appointment - 1, 1 1/2, or 2 hour sessions

Private sessions are available. Please call or e-mail in advance to reserve an instructor and time. 202.232.2926 or dcyoga@yahoo.com