Author Archives: The Branches

Formerly Queen Street Yoga Yoga & movement. Rooted in community. We’re here to create a better world with Yoga as our common ground. We lead down-to-earth classes, expert teacher training, and an engaged intergenerational community. We opened our doors in 2005, and have become known for our highly experienced teachers, our innovative approach to movement, and our efforts in community care and social justice. Our aim is to make the practices of yoga and meditation more inclusive, more accessible, and more relevant for your day-to-day life.

Take Your Yoga With You – A Guide to Practicing on the Road

This post is by Aimee Morrison, one of our wonderful yoga teacher trainees. Aimee travels a lot for work, so she wrote this post to share what she’s learned about bringing yoga along on her travels.

Summer time is travel time! Maybe you’re at the cottage, or visiting family. Maybe you’re taking a big road trip or going camping or waiting to see which city has the best summer festival to go to. If you’re out of town, you can’t come practice with us at the studio. And it’s hard to maintain a home practice when, well, you’re not home. But you can still incorporate yoga into your travels, no matter where you are.

I travel a lot for work, taking between five and ten trips a year, and I’ve discovered I’m a lot happier (and less kinked up from air travel) when I do yoga. There are a lot of ways to do this, from studio practice to self-practice. Here are some of the ways I incorporate yoga on my travels–and some ways that you might, too.

Find a studio

I like to practice in at least one studio in every city I visit. Most studios in most places accept drop-ins, with rates from $15-25, depending on location. Some studios even have introductory pricing, like first class for $10, so this can be pretty inexpensive.

Continue reading “Take Your Yoga With You – A Guide to Practicing on the Road”

Looking Behind the Drama Curtain: A Path to Resilience

This blog post is by Danette Adams, who will be facilitating a workshop on “Building Personal Resilience” on Sunday August 10 at Queen Street Yoga. Explore how the beliefs behind your drama curtain may be impacting your life choices and experiences without your awareness . You will leave with practical strategies that you can implement even before you leave the workshop. Read on for some ideas on beginning to look behind the “drama curtain”.

Summer Stress in the Self Check-out Lane

The pace was summer slow on this particular summer day when my sister and I wandered through the grocery store near her home. Once we agreed that we had all we came for, my sister indicated that she was going to go through the self-check lane with her items. Without even taking a breath, I scrunched up my nose and told her that I was going to go through the express lane where a tired-looking cashier was distractedly checking out a customer in front of me. “The self-check option is too stressful”. My sister lifted her eyebrows and twisted her face incredulously at me and said “Seriously! How do you make it through the day?”

I am peculiarly sensitive to stress and work hard to avoid it even though I absolutely know that some stress is completely natural and even beneficial for me.

But what was interesting to me was how reactionary I was to this insignificant event and so unaware of the process behind the scenes. It led me to consider how indicative my quick and unprocessed reaction was of how I handle more compelling situations that hold more meaning.

Continue reading “Looking Behind the Drama Curtain: A Path to Resilience”

Teaching Yoga in Public Spaces: The Power of an Outdoor Practice

A Post by Leena Miller Cressman

Taking Yoga Outdoors

Practicing and teaching yoga outside is a big highlight of my summer. I love to take my own practice to the park as soon as it gets warm, either by myself or with friends. I love how soft and forgiving the grass is when playing around with new things like arm balances or handstands. I love feeling the breeze on my skin and looking up at the tree tops while I’m in a pose. To me yoga is about relationship and connection, and in practicing yoga outside the feeling of connection to the environment and the world is more palpable and sweetly profound. I’ve been teaching yoga outside for the past few years (partnering with the City of Kitchener for Wednesday classes, and sharing Queen Street Yoga love on Sundays) and I love sharing the practice of awareness, breath and movement with new people.
Continue reading “Teaching Yoga in Public Spaces: The Power of an Outdoor Practice”

Handstands Don’t Lie

A Post by Emma Dines

“Is handstand the ultimate yoga pose?”

A yoga student recently asked me after class, “Is handstand the ultimate yoga pose?” This really surprised me because I try to say plainly in all of my classes that practicing yoga isn’t about achieving shapes with your body — it’s about being in a learning relationship with yourself and your body-mind’s capacities and limitations. In a recent class I described yoga as “truth-telling” and as “a practice of paying attention to the way that our physical and personal truth can shift and change from moment to moment”. The poses help us tell the truth to ourselves. Early on in the practice, or at the beginning of working with a pose, the truth is more black and white; either you are doing a handstand or you are not. Continue reading “Handstands Don’t Lie”

Is it Any Surprise that Massage Therapy Really Works?

In case you had any doubts, a new study from the University of Illinois at Chicago found that massage can relieve muscle soreness and improve general blood flow. The researchers noted that until now, no studies had actually validated what this investigation focused on – whether massage therapy is beneficial for aching muscles after exercise, and if the intervention improves circulation. For the study, healthy but inactive adults were asked to exercise on a standard leg-press machine until their legs were sore. Then half of the participants received massage on their lower extremities while the other half did not. After completing 90 minutes of therapy, the participants in the massage group reported no continuing soreness, while those in the the group that did not get massages were still sore 24 hours later. Continue reading “Is it Any Surprise that Massage Therapy Really Works?”

Establishing a home practice, not always as easy as it sounds

No matter who you are, keeping up a home yoga practice can be difficult at times. Heck, even our Yoga Teacher Trainees struggle with it sometimes! We showed our YTT’s this article on 10 Tips and Tricks to Establishing a Regular Home Yoga practice and asked them what they thought. Continue reading “Establishing a home practice, not always as easy as it sounds”

Prenatal Yoga – What’s it to you?

Are you or a friend interested in practicing yoga during pregnancy? Here’s what our prenatal instructor Julie Zettel has to say about why she thinks yoga is helpful for women during their pregnancies.

Prenatal Yoga has become a huge draw for many women looking to stay healthy and vibrant throughout their pregnancies. Pregnancy is an ideal time to begin a yoga practice under the guidance of a certified yoga teacher. These classes are a great environment for the first timer to learn basic postures in a safe manner and experience the incredible healing effects that the practice has on body and the mind.Continue reading “Prenatal Yoga – What’s it to you?”

Madison’s Canine Connection

We’re super excited to bring to you this fab article that was written up in last month’s edition of GRAND magazine about the amazing work our CranioSacral Therapist Madison is doing! Madison has been busy in the community helping people with therapy dogs. Check it out below to learn more about her inspiring story!Continue reading “Madison’s Canine Connection”

Building Fires: A reflection on a cozy yoga retreat

When I thought about what a retreat was, I thought of it as an individual endeavour, where one went off on ones own, sat in silence away from the world and came back with some answers or a better understanding of things as a result of that time away. While the building fires retreat was indeed away from the hustle and bustle of the city and the demands of our day to day lives, it was not as solitary as I imagined a retreat to be. Together, there were 21 of us: a handful from Queen Street Yoga, and an equal number from a studio in Toronto known as Kula.Continue reading “Building Fires: A reflection on a cozy yoga retreat”

Yoga and Action – Beginning to Bridge the Gap

This blog was written by Emma as a reflection on the Sacred Justice Workshop from last weekend, and thoughts on where to go next as a community.

Leena and I have long contemplated the intersection of yoga and world issues. We have asked ourselves, how can spiritual practice be an integral part of working towards a more beautiful and inclusive world? How can it support and sustain us in growing our awareness and understanding, and how can it energize us towards action? And how might we view outward action as necessary and integral to spiritual practice? Continue reading “Yoga and Action – Beginning to Bridge the Gap”