Self-serve Yoga

Six Degrees has created a new “self-serve” yoga and movement studio to magnify its on-going community health activities.

The mandates for this project include: making health resources accessible to more people, promoting and supporting self-awareness and self-care as preventative medicine, and providing resources for personal and professional development in holistic health and well-being.

Six Degrees Self-Serve Yoga Studio is being intentionally created as a space where:

• yoga is taught in a safety-first, anti-oppression and mind-body-spirit framework;
• teachers have credentials or experience in holistic health care such as TCM, Ayurveda, MBSR, Osteopathy etc, and are values-aligned regarding inclusive community health;
• and students experience increased wellness and inspiration to support unique and balanced life pursuits.

All studio programming will be offered for fees on a sliding-scale, by-donation or pay-what-you-can basis, encouraging students to attend to their practice as a normal, regular health resource, rather than as a luxury of a certain lifestyle or as an entertainment activity.

drop-in class descriptions

PALE FIRE morning sessions (the class and the mysore time) are opportunities for yogis to learn or practice Gentle Ashtanga.  This includes modifications for mindfulness, tridoshic balance and joint safety.

Lunch time yoga classes are short, thematic sessions. It is 45 minutes of simplistic yet thoughtfully sequenced restorative and warming hatha, vinyasa and pranayama.

Punk Rock Yoga This is Hatha yoga with a twist, featuring a contemporary musical soundtrack and taught with a beginner's mind, for fun and challenge. It offers an open-minded and straight-forward approach to yoga philosophy while embracing the ancient yoga tradition of Do-It-Yourself. This drop-in class is ideal for beginners, and is taught in a safety-first, anti-oppression and mind-body-spirit framework. Punk Rock Yoga was created "to scrub the elitism and rigidity out of modern yoga."

Kung Fu (also Gung Fu) is a compound of two words combining Gong meaning achievement or merit and Fu meaning man.

A literal translation could be "human achievement". Originally to practice Kung Fu did not apply specifically to the martial arts, instead it referred to the process of ones training, the strengthening of the mind and body, the learning and perfecting of ones skills through great effort rather than what was being practiced. In this class it is this "process" which is emphasized.

Praying Mantis Kung Fu was the last complete system developed at one of the North Shaolin monasteries in the 17th century. Its built upon the basic stances and striking techniques of North Shaolin Kung Fu, the oldest known system of Kung Fu (aprox. 475 AD), and incorporates sticking, hooking and grappling techniques modelled after the movement of the praying mantis. It also uses the sensitivity and circular principles found in Tai Chi to re-direct oncoming force to one's advantage, making it an ideal system of self defense against stronger opponents.  Those who appreciate challenge will likely find joy in this practice and leave Mai's class feeling energized and relaxed.

Esther's pilates classes are taught from the perspective of the Alexander Technique.

These classes will offer the opportunity to develop a practice that one can truly call their own as one learns from a personal experience of moving, breathing and being. In finding out about how to use the support system we have from the ground and our breath, we can cultivate a practice that develops mobility, stability and wholeness. Both classes offer a space in which to engage in a process of self discovery, self reflection and self healing at a pace that is self determined.

Julie's Deep Release Yoga is a combination of hatha yoga and yin yoga in which primarily floor poses are held for a longer amount of time to encourage both deep opening, and core strength in the body. The postures are taught in conjunction with mindfulness practices, breath awareness and information about energy pathways in the body including meridians, acupressure points and chakras.

DaoYin 導引 is a gentle form of Chinese Mind-Body exercise involving breathing, meditation, vocalization and movement techniques to lead breath energy within the body. Practiced to reduce stress, prevent illness and promote longevity.

Proceeds from this class go to The Daoist Foundation (Daojiao jijin hui 道教基金會) a non-profit religious and educational organization dedicated to preserving and transmitting traditional Daoist (Taoist) culture.

The first part of the class is spent on refining a carefully choreographed 60 minute basic Daoyin sequence designed to harness Qi as well as expel pathological Qi. During each class, the instructor will introduce refinements in this basic DaoYin sequence to build on foundations accumulated in previous classes. The remaining 30 minutes of the class is devoted to the more self-contained sequences listed below. Poney will share his insight into these rare DaoYin sets, based on his knowledge in Classical Chinese Medicine and Taoist Inner Elixir Alchemy. The course objective is to enable students to gain a comprehensive DaoYin learning experience and be empowered with the skills needed for self-healing and self-discovery.

Introductory Curriculum:

• Dance of the Meridians
• Acu-Pointing QiGong
• Dragon Gate Six Healing Sound
• WuDang Five Animal DaoYin
• Taoist Eight Section Brocade
• HuaTuo's Five Animal Play

Intermediate Curriculum:

• WuDang Five Element Walking Form 
• Taoist Standing Postures
• Taoist Talismanic QiGong
• Dragon Worship DaoYin
• Dragon Gate Nourishing Life DaoYin

course descriptions

TAI CHI 24 - National (Yang) Style, with Mary-Anne Labelle

• 8-wk course for beginners Sundays, 4-5pm
• Register in advance for eight weeks on a sliding scale $75-90

Tai Chi is a martial art practiced for centuries in China and has gained popularity in the West as an exercise that promotes health and peace of mind. Tai Chi, a series of interconnected flowing movements, can strengthen the heart, lungs and immune system, improve circulation and ease stress. The “24” form, designed for beginners, is for people of all ages and physical condition. As we progress through a simple combination of postures, we will explore some of the basic Tai Chi principles.

Gentle Hatha Yoga, Seasonal Practices for the Spring (from an Ayurvedic perspective)

• Thursdays, May 17 - June 21, 6 - 7:15pm, with Sairupa
• Register in advance for 6 weeks on a sliding scale $75-100

A 6-week Gentle Hatha Yoga course influenced by Ayurvedic Seasonal Yoga practices, which focuses on rejuvenation of energy, cleansing the body, and bringing calmness to the mind. This course will focus on a sequence that especially honours the moon: (Chandra Namaskar). With pre-registration you will also receive a handout of practices that you can do at home.  A few drop in spaces are available (by donation).

MBSR Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

• Tuesdays May 1 to June 19, 7-10pm
• Mindfulness Everyday is a non-profit organization and is offering this 8-week course on a sliding scale at Six Degrees only $250 - $440 plus HST
• There is also a materials cost of $40 plus HST (book, workbook, cds)

Mindfulness Everyday is a dedicated team of teachers with formal mindfulness training who are highly experienced in conducting MBSR workshops in Toronto. Mindfulness Everyday offers a number of programs based on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), first developed in 1979 by Jon Kabat-Zinn, founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Mindfulness is the ancient practice of present moment, non-judgmental awareness of one's life experience.

Dr. Kabat-Zinn describes mindfulness as an approach to life based on the understanding that: “the present is the only time that any of us have to be alive – to know anything – to perceive – to learn – to act – to change – to heal”. MBSR programs have helped thousands of people transform their lives. The course is challenging and life-affirming.

Through a series of 8 weekly sessions, participants learn and integrate mind-body techniques, designed to uncover and strengthen resources that are already within them. Several studies have shown that MBSR can lower stress and increase vitality and well-being.

Love Affair with Planet Earth

Love Affair with Planet Earth is a series of 3 workshops that looks at the role yoga plays in how we move through the world. It explores our relationships to the ground and gravity, to thinking and our senses, and our relationships with ourselves, each other and the environment.  It is created and taught by Esther Cieri.

Workshop #1 Yoga: Wholeness in Action

Sunday March 25, 10am-1pm, $65 plus HST

In this series, we will explore how to develop a yoga practice that remains true to the principles of a wholistic approach to well being. We will journey through different possibilities of engaging in a yoga practice as a whole person that lives in a body which is a self coordinating system for movement and healing. This wisdom will offer us a new experience of being in a dynamic state of balance.

Wholeness of the human being is the foundation of yoga, but in asana practice we often over-emphasize details of positioning, alignment, and methods of correcting "problems", at the expense of a whole person perspective. As a result we become “parts-focused” rather than being “whole person oriented”. In this workshop, we will rediscover how to honour the body as a self coordinating system for movement and healing.

This work helps us understand how to make our practice more efficient and safe by observing what we may be thinking and doing that interferes with our body's design for movement. It aims to help people learn how "to get out of their own way" by exploring their relationship to gravity, the ground and their breath as well as their intention and attention in their yoga practice, from a wholistic perspective.

This workshop is for anyone who is interested in developing a yoga practice that will prevent injuries. Most injuries, whether from yoga or any other daily activity, are due to repetitive strain and are preventable. Often they occur because of mistaken or misguided ideas we have about our relationship to gravity and what we think is "good posture". Usually when we have a problem, we take a myopic approach of trying to fix it rather than on allowing our body’s wisdom to show us how it functions well and guide us to act and move according to its needs.

In this workshop we will develop the learning skills necessary to be able to accurately interpret our “symptoms” and the signals we are sent by our body’s intelligence. In this workshop we will:

• explore how gravity and the ground can "spring us up" rather than pull us down
• examine how some of the ideas and “rules” we have about posture actually prevent us from having a sense of ease and effortlessness in movement or stillness
• and uncover how our inherent self co-ordinating system can work for us and explore ways to have a new experience of our whole, integrated self
• learn 5 guiding principles that will help you cultivate a yoga practice which you can call your own
• learn how to move into, stay in and move out of a pose in a way that supports our flexibility in a safe range of motion
• we will move through the 4 spinal movements of forward bending, back bending, side bending and rotation

Cultivating Balance 6-week Workshop

The goals of this workshop include: balancing energy levels, increasing circulation, calming the nervous system. Each class includes these practices:

• Mindful breathing and meditation
• Self massage
• Meridian stretching
• Acu-points for various health conditions
• Gentle yoga and Qi Gong based exercises
• Gentle massage techniques and pressure points

Sliding scale, pre-reg: $70-90

Taught by Kim Dunlop and Lori Eisler, both Registered Massage Therapists, practising shiatsu therapy and cranial sacral therapy as well. 

Please register through Six Degrees by email or phone: info@pokeme.ca or 416 866 8484.  For more info please contact Maggie by email: maggieoc@gmail.com.