The Branches

Yoga Tips from QSY – Align Your Shoulders in Downward Dog

Shoulder alignment can be a tricky part of Downward Dog. You might feel like the instructions from your yoga teacher are telling you opposite things. In some ways we might be telling you opposite things, because in a drop-in class we are trying to give alignment information for lots of different types of shoulders (from very mobile to very stable). In this video we get explicit about how to align your shoulders if your shoulders are more stable and have the tendency to “tent” forwards and how to align your shoulders if your shoulders are more mobile or tend to “collapse” downwards.

Have an alignment question about a particular pose or particular are of the body? Leave a comment and we will try to make a video to answer your question!

Tips for Going Upside Down — A Handstand Post from Aimée

I love doing handstands. I love kicking up and feeling my heels tap the wall. I love pressing down through my hands and up through my tailbone and my feet. I love the way the reversal of gravity feels on my spine. I love how free my toes feel. I love that feeling of trying out my (very wobbly) balance and feeling the whole length of my legs balancing from my pelvis. I love that a tiny wiggle of one of my fingers can send me all the way over to one side or another.

I do handstands as often as I can, just for the sheer joy of it.

I used to take gymnastics when I was a kid (I was never any good at it at all, ever, but I LOVED it) and as a result was always doing cartwheels and somersaults and wheel poses and handstands at the wall in my living room during the commercial breaks of TV shows. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t do this. I know I was still doing it in high school–here’s a picture of me doing a headstand against the wall that somehow wound up getting taken and ultimately placed in a family album.

Continue reading “Tips for Going Upside Down — A Handstand Post from Aimée”

Canada Day: It’s Complicated. Celebrating and Remembering at the Same Time

Leena shares a reflection about Canada Day, complexity and how the practice of yoga can invite us to lean into bigger questions.

This week, life has been inviting me again and again to embrace complexity and paradox.

If Facebook asked me to set my “relationship status” to my participation in representing yoga in the media, to practicing and sharing yoga, and to being a resident and a citizen of Canada, the status would read “It’s Complicated.”

Monday, the local Grand magazine hit the shelves, with me on the cover. I feel excited and honoured. I appreciate the amazing opportunity to tell my story and to share the story of our Queen Street Yoga community. I also feel conflicted. The title of the article is “Yoga for Everyone” and the story speaks to the diversity and inclusivity that we are trying to nurture at QSY. I’m proud of the ways that we’re already doing that, and there’s more work still to do.

As I see it, one of the barriers to the yoga community being more inclusive to all genders, races and classes in our community is that similar types of bodies are portraying yoga in the media over and over- in yoga books, magazines, advertisements, etc. If you line up every magazine with someone doing a yoga pose on the cover, I would venture that over 90% of the people portrayed are thin, young, able-bodied, cis-gendered, flexible and female. The vast majority of them are white.

Continue reading “Canada Day: It’s Complicated. Celebrating and Remembering at the Same Time”

A Summer Sequence for Strong Shoulders- FREE Printable Download

For me, a summer in Ontario isn’t complete without at least four or five days of back-country canoe camping in Killarney Provincial Park. Killarney is about five hours north of Kitchener-Waterloo on the north side of the Georgian Bay. It boasts some of the most beautiful lakes, scenic mountains and dramatic rock faces that I’ve had the pleasure of canoeing and hiking along.

If you’ve never been canoeing, let me teach you a new vocabulary word: Portage (noun or verb). I’m glad Canadians are at least bilingual enough that you can pronounce it the more elegant way en francais up here. Honestly, Americans butcher this word. Pronunciation aside, when you hear portage think carrying a huge pack on your back and a canoe on your shoulders for anywhere between a few dozen meters to a kilometer or more! Given that I’m only 5’3” and the canoe is 17’ and about 50lbs, a little extra prep for my shoulders and upper body before heading on a trip is super helpful.Continue reading “A Summer Sequence for Strong Shoulders- *FREE* Printable Download”

Bring Me Little Water [Emma’s Savasana Songs + Free Download]

This song is called “Bring Me Little Water Sylvie” and was written by American folk and blues musician Lead Belly. It has been performed and recorded by many groups. Some of my favourite recordings are by Sweet Honey in the Rock and The Wailin’ Jennys.

I love the quality of soft yearning this song evokes. I usually sing it at the end of classes when there is a strong quality of stillness. I hope you enjoy my version of this song!Continue reading “Bring Me Little Water [Emma’s Savasana Songs + Free Download]”

Finding Your Soul-Mat: a guide from Queen Street Yoga

Sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun! I hope this post is a helpful guide to finding the mat of your dreams.

A quality yoga mat that suits your preferences can really enhance your practice. Ideally, if a mat is serving your needs, it should be functional and supportive enough that it becomes unnoticeable, so you can focus on enjoying your practice.

We carry four different types of mats at QSY and choosing the mat that is most suitable for you is really up to personal preferences and priorities. In this post, I’ll give what I consider to be the pros and cons of the mats we carry, so that if you’re in the market for a new mat, you can find one that feels like the best fit for your needs.Continue reading “Finding Your Soul-Mat: a guide from Queen Street Yoga”

Dreamy-Creamy Coconut Chickpea Curry

This recipe was created by Leena, and she thought it was so easy and delicious that it might be worth sharing with the QSY community! This dish is very allergy friendly, which makes it great for potlucks… It’s vegetarian, dairy free, gluten free, nut free, but still super delicious!

image (1)

Continue reading “Dreamy-Creamy Coconut Chickpea Curry”

Yoga for Your Voice?

We are excited to be hosting music therapist Sarah Pearson at Queen Street Yoga for a new workshop called “Voicing Your Practice”. She will be collaborating with Emma Dines to bring yoga and voice work together. In this blog post she shares about her passion for exploring the human voice, and how adding sound to our yoga practice might deepen our self-awareness and growth.

The voice is a universal human instrument. Almost all of us speak, and many of us sing (even if no one’s listening). Voices are also personal and emotional: like our bodies, they reflect our values and culture, our self-perceptions, and the ways we want others to perceive us. Using our voice is as mundane an activity as, say, reaching for a jar of almond butter. We do it without thinking. But our voices, like our bodies, are also shaped by habits. By bringing awareness to those habits, we can determine what habits we want to release, in order for free expression to flow through us.

What I love most about yoga (if I really had to pick!) is how it tunes me into a deeper awareness of what already is. If it wasn’t for yoga, I wouldn’t know that I happen to have relatively tight hips but really flexible shoulders, or that I tend to tighten my jaw when I go into a backbend. I wouldn’t feel the connection between my fingers and my toes when I reach for that jar of almond butter. Yoga has cultivated this awareness, and through it, habits have begun to be released, and more flow has entered my life.Continue reading “Yoga for Your Voice?”

Eating with Your Hands – A Practice to Explore

We are intending to explore mindful eating at our upcoming Weekend Yoga Intensive, Rooted in Practice. Rooted in Practice is intended to be a mixed-level, urban yoga retreat and a chance to dive deeper into the practice and conversation of yoga. Read more about Emma’s experience with mindful eating in this week’s post.

I generally try to avoid starting stories with the sentence “When I was in India…” because I’m a yoga teacher that tries to show that not all yoga teachers fit the stereotype of yoga teachers. What’s the stereotype? You know: did their teacher training in India, is a vegetarian, wears mala beads all the time, drinks smoothies, basically everything in this hilarious video. I try to drink coffee and eat meat in public, and wear something other than yoga pants, and talk about things other than yoga. But, I have been to India (though not for my yoga teacher training), so sometimes I do need to start stories with the sentence “When I was in India…”. So here we go.Continue reading “Eating with Your Hands – A Practice to Explore”

Embodied Teaching

This post is by English professor and yoga teacher, Aimee Morrison. You can find Aimee teaching a rocking drop-in Expanding Flow Class every Sunday at 7:45pm starting in May!

Before class, I changed my shirt–I was just reviewing my lesson plan and I could see that what I was wearing was going to work against my teaching.

In class, I got a student to come to the front of the room. We linked arms and sat waaaaay back. People partnered up and swayed together.

“Watch me,” I said: “Can you see the curve in my low back?” And then: “Put your hand on your lower back–can you feel a curve there?” And then, turning around, “Now look–watch my shoulder blades come together when I move my arms like this.” (This was why I switched to racer-back tank top from the Internet t-shirt I had on originally.)

Continue reading “Embodied Teaching”