Indiana & Yoga Magazine Summer 2017 Issue

SUMMER 2017

Veterans Programs

Supporting Our Local Heroes

Chip Ganassi Racing

Yoga for Motorsports

Hoosier Yogi: Barbara Kennedy

CONTENTS

In this issue Editor's Note 3

Family

Our Contributors

Karma Summer: Kids Yoga

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56

Opinion The Yogarazzi 6

Community Hoosier Yogi: Barbara Kennedy

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Indiana Artist: Craig Whitten

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Monumental Yoga

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Standup Paddleboard Yoga

18

2017 Hoosier Farmers Markets

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58 Physical Yoga Team Practice at Chip Ganassi Racing

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Reap the Benefits of Forward Bends

62

Self Study

26

Heart-Centered Mudras

64

What to Expect from an Iyengar Class

66

10 Titles on Inspiring People

68

Sanskrit: Asana 70

Food A Farmer's Market Picnic

26

Stress Eating

29

Mel Butler

72

Directory of Studios 74

Meditation Practical Tips for Meditation

How Yoga Changed Me:

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Conscientious Life Harvesting the Sky: The Headwaters Wind Farm

34

Preserving Indiana Forests: Politics and Action

38

Local Honey Buzz

42

Indiana Made

44

Poetry 80

42

Health Yoga Therapy in Practice

48

FEATURE: Yoga Education and Service to Veterans

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EDITOR'S NOTE

Editor's Note Uniting the World This big beautiful planet of 7.5 billion individuals often feels like it’s shrinking. Between the Internet and 24-hour news, we are more aware of what’s happening across the globe.

Many feel bombarded by the negative news stories. But remember that despite social unrest, armed conflict and individual tragedies, billions more people are quietly outside of the spotlight, falling in love, raising families, overcoming hardships and living peaceful lives.

Yoga is about more than stretching our physical bodies. It’s about how we learn to live with intention. Yogis also strive to see the forest through the trees, in a manner of speaking, simultaneously noting each individual leaf.

I often meditate and speculate on yoga’s historical and future importance.

Can yoga, which is often said to mean “union,” bring us all together?

My peace starts with me, my search for enlightenment, but I perceive the larger world is slowly awakening as well. While cultural divisions tear us apart, and issues like poverty, overincarceration and climate change threaten societal wellbeing, yoga and mindfulness are growing in popularity. Yoga has traveled far from its Indus Valley roots, east and west, with practitioners from all types of religious and nonreligious backgrounds.

Yoga—hot and cold, religious and secular, physical and spiritual, yin and yang, severely “traditional” and overtly westernized—is spreading in places like Europe, Kazakhstan, China, Uruguay, Mexico and right here in the heart of the Midwest. While globalization continues to propel competing interests into serious conflicts—and these conflicts do wear our consciousness thin—through yoga, everyday people of all cultures under-

take an effort to overcome suffering in all forms. These are the stories we seek out in Indiana & Yoga Magazine.

I doubt there will ever be universal enlightenment for the whole human race, but yoga and living a mindful lifestyle may enlighten enough of us for the common good. We shall overcome our more destructive natures. I have faith in this: Humanity will not only survive these troubling times of globalized confusion, but we will come out on the other side—wounded and shaken, but wiser, evolved from this adolescent state of civilization.

In the meantime, breathe, and practice a fully engaged compassion for yourself as well as your friends, family and neighbors. Despite our differences, we are all united in the pursuit of true happiness.

- Ryan Baggett

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CONTRIBUTORS

Our contributors Betsy Alt On pages 8, 56

Betsy holds a master's in public relations from IU and works as a freelance marketing-communications strategist. She is passionate about helping businesses and individuals tell their unique stories. A yogi since 2003, she earned her 200-hr YTT with Nancy Schalk at All People Yoga Center in 2005 and has taught off and on in the years since. Betsy lives in SoBro with

Mindi Epstein On page 64

Mindi Epstein is the owner of Peace through Yoga in Zionsville, Speedway and Danville. Self-identified as a “corporate refugee,” Mindi credits her yoga practice with helping her manage the stress of her former position as a senior vice president of a large non-profit organization. The right people and opportunities converged to propel Mindi into her new path, helping

her rescue dog, Romi.

those seeking peace within.

Dana Darr

Michelle Jarvis

On page 66

Dana Darr has practiced within the Iyengar Yoga system for over 20 years and attends a minimum of 70 teacher training hours per year. Her principal teacher is Manouso Manos.

Her studio, Asana Yoga Center, has been a mainstay in Valparaiso, IN

On page 42

Michelle is a photographer with a passion for trying new foods, experiences and places. An Indiana native raising kids with her husband in Indianapolis, she enjoys yoga as a novice and meeting new people within the community.

since 2005. She laughs a lot and thinks you should too.

Anne Laker On page 38

Kaitie Delgado On page 29

Kaitie Delgado MS, RD, CD, ACSMCPT, attended Ball State University and furthered her education from Indiana State. She is a Certified Personal Trainer by the golden standard ACSM. She helps her clients manage their nutritional

A lifelong camper and canoeist, Anne has 25 years’ experience working in the nonprofit cultural sector as a project manager, event planner, and writer. As Director of Communications at the Indiana Forest Alliance, Anne manages the IFA brand and messaging, inspiring Hoosiers to engage in the movement to preserve Indiana’s wild nature for the generations ahead.

needs and weed through the murky waters of nutrition misinformation.

Kaitie can help you understand how to make lifestyle habits related to nutrition stick for the rest of your life.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Purvi Lippincott On page 70

Purvi is from a small town in Michigan. She is a Ball State Alum with a Bachelors of Science in Psychology and Criminology. She is E-RYT 200 + 500 certified, teaches in Indianapolis area and co­leads a 200 RYT program at Practice Indie. Family, community and the sense of being a lifelong student are very important to her. She loves music, animals, dining out with friends and a good glass of red wine.

Kristy Simpson On page 59

Kristy, E-RYT 200, started her yoga adventure with a simple invitation to a heated slow flow class. As her practice evolved, she knew her passion for yoga had a natural next step, the world of teaching. Bringing yoga to people in their workplace has been very rewarding. She is an Indiana native, loves cats and is married to her amazing husband, Stephen.

Ellen O'Connor On page 6

Ellen M. O’Connor, “The Yogarazzi,” is a local Indy yoga enthusiast. Yoga is her passion, community, and world view which dovetails well with her hobbies of iPhone yoga photography, social commentary, accessorizing, and chatting up yogis at various Starbucks locales. Roll out your mat next to hers. Hit her up on social media. Namaste.

Katarina Svabcikova On page 34

Katarina only recently moved to Indianapolis. Originally from Slovakia, she has lived in the United States for over eight years. She is currently undertaking an RYT 200 program to enable her to pursue her dreams. Her other passion is

Alyssa Pfennig On page 62

tackling energy and climate issues. She has many years of business experience in the energy industry.

Alyssa Pfennig, CAE, E-RYT 200, RYT 500, is the owner of Embarque Yoga Therapy + Wellness and a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT). For the past two years, she has assisted in research studies using yoga to manage chronic pain and PTSD with veterans in conjunction with the VA Medical Center in Indianapolis.

Nancy Schalk On page 50

Nancy began practicing yoga as an IU Bloomington art student in the 70's, and it’s been a faithful companion ever since. She is a certified yoga therapist and loves sharing yoga with veterans through her YES to Vets program and research studies at the VA. She also enjoys gardening, reading and studying

Tony Wiederhold On page 30

Tony Wiederhold has been leading yoga classes and guided meditation for his colleagues at Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis since 2013.

He also co-facilitates free community meditation sessions on Saturday mornings at An Lac Buddhist Temple in Indianapolis. He enjoys demystifying meditation and yoga, and acting as a tour guide. Read more at relflectability.com.

mental health and brain function.

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OPINION

The Yogarazzi

By Ellen O'Connor

Summertime and the Yoga Is Easy.

My early yoga career consisted of watching Living Yoga (later Gaiam/Yoga Journal) VHS tapes filmed in scenic outdoor locales, like a Maui beachfront or an Arizona desert. While I was captivated by the yoga, the backdrop was equally stimulating. Clearly, the location inspired the movement. How wonderful to be reaching for a clear blue sky while grounding into soft warm sand.

Naturally, living in Indiana severely limits the amount of time available for outdoor yoga. Not only is it not a four season outdoor activity, it is usually a half season (spring), one season (summer), half season (fall) activity. The seasonal beginnings and endings can be problematic. The terrain also limits ocean and mountain views. Still, there is no shortage of yards, decks, parks, fields, lakes, rooftops, monuments, museums, trails, and other locales. These places can be inspiring in their own right. Further, Indiana does not lack for sunrises and sunsets that can take your breath away.

Between cold and rainy weather, tornadoes and wind shears, and hot and dry or hot and humid weather, there is that sweet spot of summer. Placing a mat on uneven ground while feeling the breeze, soaking up the sun or the stars, smelling the flowers and the trees, and watching the birds and butterflies is so delicious. It’s satisfying enough to overlook the ants, bees, and mosquitoes, as well as the pollen and the grass stains and the mud.

sible for almost anyone, especially the spots where it devolved into group hugs and dancing.

While I initially thought this is nothing more than a few downward dogs and lunges with lots of hand waving, I soon became captivated by the High Camp mountain top and the Tahoe pines. Because I visit Lake Tahoe almost every summer, it was easy for me to close my eyes and conjure up the intoxicating smell of those pine trees. From there, I drifted to the blue sky and the majestic vistas. I was able to transport myself to my favorite vacation spot. By the time they were ohming and namasting, the class felt like the quintessential summer experience, just like a vacation.

Even glued to my computer in Indiana, I was able to tap into that experience. I was not surprised that my friends totally loved this class and it was not because they spent any time perfecting scorpion or grasshopper.

Many of my favorite yoga memories are outdoor practices around town. Because the opportunity is seasonal and rare, I cherish the practice in a different way than I do a regular weekday studio/gym class where I recalibrate from that everyday world. In my yoga routine, I generally end up in a good mood after class, but I don’t always start there. Outdoors, happy is my default. I feel light and open to an all encompassing sensory experience. I might think I’m way too hot or too cold, but I never think that I’m too tired or too stressed. I never feel reluctant or self conscious about locking arms with my fellow yogis or dancing with abandon.

This type of class can seem silly inside, but it feels just right in the great outdoors.

The joy these outdoor summer classes engender can be dampened, not by the rain, but by the yoga teacher who takes herself way too seriously and deliberately works to deny that summer vibe. I’ve been present at outside classes where the instructor was visibly and vocally annoyed at laughter and spontaneity. I’ve been at classes where the instructor constructed an intricate, complicated class that would be challenging for anyone but the most advanced yogis in a studio, but it was impossible to follow with the outdoor acoustics, not to mention the asana was too exacting to attempt on the sloping grass of the park or on the cement next to the fountain. It’s easier to evade a bumble bee from downward dog than from headstand. It’s cool enough to place a mat on a closed off city street. That experience does not need to be augmented by asphalt burn.

In fact, the breezy summer, outdoor yoga class is the wrong place to expect a rigorous, intense, highly structured class.

A few years ago, some friends attended a class at Wanderlust at Squaw Valley. I watched the live stream to try to get a glimpse of them more than to watch the celebrity yoga teachers. Yet, while watching, I was struck by how simple the class was. It was not highly technical, nor full of detailed instruction. It most certainly did not consist of advanced poses where the teachers could wow, the type of thing you come to expect in a celebrity class. It was definitely acces-

I love yoga in my yoga classes. I love the experience, comfort, discipline, and growth of a regular (indoors in Indiana) yoga practice class. I love learning from a skilled teacher over time. I love the camaraderie of regular matmates. That is my everyday reality. Because of that routine and stability, I love and appreciate the rare and existential experience of an outdoor yoga class. I really wouldn’t care to do only three poses and waive my arms a lot while singing a catchy pop refrain on a weekly basis, but as a one off on a lovely summer’s day, what could be better? ■

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PUBLISHER & CREATIVE DIRECTOR Candice H. Baggett EDITOR IN CHIEF & PUBLISHER Ryan Baggett GRAPHIC DESIGN & MARKETING CONSULTANT Autumn Martin Glambeau Design glambeau.com PHOTOGRAPHER Michelle Jarvis Image Haus Photography Services image-haus.com BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Katarina Svabcikova ADVERTISING ads@indyyogi.com Nathan Gauf nathan@indyyogi.com Hannah Lane hannah@indyyogi.com CONTACT US Indy Yogi LLC P.O. Box 68223 Indianapolis, IN 46268-9998 yogi@indyyogi.com (317) 620-1191 Indiana & Yoga Magazine is published quarterly with the four seasons: Winter (December), Spring (March), Summer (June) and Autumn (September).

The magazine is distributed throughout Indiana at yoga studios and other local businesses.

Subscriptions are available throughout the USA at iymag.com. ©2017 Indy Yogi LLC All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.

COVER IMAGE Image Haus Photography Services image-haus.com

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Hoosier Yogi: Barbara Kennedy

By Betsy Alt

Tucked away on the second floor, in a wing of Northwood Christian Church, in the Meridian-Kessler neighborhood of Indianapolis, is one of the most welcoming and soothing yoga studios in the city. It’s not trendy and sleek. There is no retail, nor a reception area. The floor isn’t gleaming hardwood or the fancy“floating” type. Time-worn windows that let in ample natural light can also be drafty at times. But, this is clearly a sacred space, a space given great care and attention. In many ways, with its oriental rugs, mod-

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est practice area, real candles and “just right” amount of art, it is to me an ideal studio. I instantly feel at home, despite never having been here before. And I know within mere minutes that the studio will become a regular place of practice for me. It is the dedicated practice studio of YOGAworx, run by veteran teacher Barbara Kennedy.

I’ve known Barbara since 2002, when I met her as a student in the classes she taught through Arthur Jor-

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I can remember being very young and asking metaphysical questions, sometimes ones that would get me into trouble during Sunday school.” dan YMCA in Nora. She literally was my very first teacher and the one who instilled in me an unwavering appreciation for classic Hatha yoga. She is also one of a handful of yoga teachers who set the foundation for yoga practice and studies in Indianapolis. As is the case with many of those fellow teachers, hers is a story involving decades of study, practice and teaching.

And it’s a story of the proverbial “fork in the road.” It’s a story of love.

Barbara Kennedy has been teaching yoga in Indianapolis for more than twenty years. Her classes include regular weekly practices at her studio and offsite classes for organizations as diverse as Dow Agrosciences, a financial services company, a senior living facility, and the Metropolitan School District of Washington Township (MSDWT). In fact, it was through MSDWT that Barbara began teaching yoga in Indianapolis. She was already connected to the school district as a substitute teacher and teacher’s aide.

When MSDWT started a wellness program for faculty and staff, Barbara took that “fork in the road” and offered to teach yoga after school.

Barbara’s formal education and early career revolved around music. She is

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Barbara Kennedy as a model for the first issue of Yoga International Magazine

a North Central High School and Ball State University alumna and earned a B.A. in piano and an M.A. in French horn. For 11 years, she taught in West Lafayette schools and performed with the Lafayette Symphony. By all accounts, she was accomplished in her field. But, from a very young age, there was always something else apart from the music that was tugging at her heart and mind. “I can remember being very young and asking metaphysical questions, sometimes ones that would get me into trouble during Sunday school,” she says. “I didn’t ask my parents much, because I knew they didn't have the answers, but I kept wanting to know

why I was here.” She says a particular quote from A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe really sums up her personal experience growing up: “What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?”

Barbara began to get some answers to that all-encompassing question when she discovered meditation. She started traveling down from West Lafayette on Tuesdays to meditate with Rose Getz at the local branch of the Himalayan Institute at 52nd Street and Keystone Avenue. As she says, “I knew when I found that practice that I would finally get the answers I’d been seeking.” She relates that de-

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In the Himalayan Institute Kitchen

spite having made the rounds to various churches and to synagogues and other places of spiritual devotion and study, she’d never been able to get her answers. “And you know, back then nobody was talking about these things out in the open.”

At the same time that she was traveling to meditation class at the Institute and teaching, Barbara started to notice the people coming into her life. Some were vegetarians. Some were proponents of chiropractic care. The one common thread she noticed was “…that they were healthier.” She became intrigued and wanted to learn more, especially since she’d been very ill as a baby and undergone intense treatment that left her immune system compromised for many years.

Eventually, Barbara relocated to Indianapolis and took a teaching job at Park Tudor School. The move made it easier for her to dive deeper into meditation and also introduced her to yoga. She started filling up her schedule with as many yoga practices as possible and also managed a visit to the Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. “I was quite intrigued by everything going on at the Institute, and when things didn’t

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Setting up for an event at the Himalayan Institute

work here in Indy, I opted to move there for three months to just practice and study a bit,” she says. “That stint turned into a three-year residency during which I took the teacher certification course and held three different staff jobs while also teaching music at the Montessori school on the grounds.”

One of the things Barbara most appreciated about her residency at the Himalayan Institute was the challenge. The program was intense and heavily structured, encompassing all eight limbs of yoga. Just getting into the yoga teacher certification program, for example, required proof of at least two years of personal practice. Additionally, there was a mountain of “homework,” self-guided research and experimenting. For example, students were required to keep a meditation journal, conduct a diet experiment and keep a journal for that as well, and written and oral tests were the norm. Barbara laughs at this point, telling me that her diet experiment was to simply eat once each day at the “silent” table—something that was very enjoyable for her. “Of course, the hard work and focus inspired some of us to find creative and fun outlets,” she says. “Believe me, People magazine was a hot commodity in the women’s dorm, and going

into town for a grilled cheese sandwich and chocolate shake was a favorite pastime. Our dining hall meals were all very healthy and vegetarian with little variety, so those trips were such a treat.”

Barbara also talks about being one of the jokesters on staff. “One of my favorite targets for a practical joke was Petra, who was German and managed the kitchen.

She was a bit intimidating to most people but not me,” she says. She laughingly recounts the tale of the Christmas lights, when she surrounded Petra’s door with several strands before taking off for a two-week vacation. What was meant to perhaps leave Petra scratching her head with annoyance over the mystery decorations completely backfired. Barbara returned to the Institute to find that almost everybody had gotten their own lights and put them up! “The other thing I did regularly was to post pages from a “cartoon-a-day” Far Side calendar on everybody’s doors,” she says, laughing.

“People would walk down the hall, reading each page and just chuckle…it really brought some much-needed lightness to our day.”

What began for Barbara as a personal quest to discover her true self at the Himalayan Institute changed her life

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Broad Ripple Martial Arts Staff

Barbara with Swami Veda Bharati

forever. She not only earned her yoga teacher certification—and then some— she also met the love of her life, Ted. “He is Irish, and he’d come to the Himalayan to live as well,” she says. “He showed up on scene when I was at the end of my second year and was actually planning to leave, but we got on quite well, so I stayed another year!”

Barbara and Ted became husband and wife. They settled for a bit in Chicago to be closer to family. She found work teaching at the Old Town School of Folk Music, but devoted most of her time to Center for Holistic Medicine in Glenview. “The Center is no longer, sadly, but back then it was on the grounds of what had been the Himalayan Institute’s first location, prior to the one in Pennsylvania,” she says. “It was a great place, staffed with board-certified physicians who practiced alternative modalities, as well as yoga teachers who taught pranayama, relaxation, diet and nutrition, and prepared herbs and homeopathic remedies.” Barbara sighs and says it was her favorite job ever. “I just loved my job, my co-workers and our mission to help people,” she concludes. But eventually Barbara and Ted needed to move yet again, this time back to Indy, to be closer to her parents.”

At the end of 1994, Barbara and Ted settled back in the city and she landed with MSDWT and the familiarity of teaching. “But honestly I never could get back

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into full-time teaching at that point,” she states. “When I moved to the Institute, yoga and meditation took over and became my top priorities.” The universe must have also realized this, because Barbara soon found herself at that fork in the road: She needed to step fully into life as a yoga teacher.

Shortly after starting her yoga classes within the MSDWT wellness program, Barbara decided to leap. She quit her teacher’s aide job to teach yoga fulltime. “I was offering class everywhere I could….churches, gyms, clubs, anywhere that would have me,” she says.

“Frankly, it was tough at times as some classes, especially the corporate ones, would only last a few weeks because people were so busy that they’d quit coming.” She remembers how hard she had to work to build her business, spending hours on the phone simply returning calls to people who had questions about yoga. “You know, this was happening before we had websites, email and social media and such,” she says with a smile.

Over time, Barbara’s dedication and persistence rewarded her. She and Ted formed YOGAworx in 1997. She does the teaching and he serves as graphic designer, photographer and chief advisor.

YOGAworx was a traveling yoga studio for many years—and still is—with classes in a variety of locations. Northwood Christian Church was among those locations since 2002. Three years ago, a

Barbara teaching at Broad Ripple Martial Arts

room on its top floor became available and the official YOGAworx studio was born. “I love it here. It’s just such a nice comfy space,” Barbara says with pride.

“We even have a little hideaway kitchenette, so I can make tea, and closets for our props…It’s just so cozy and inviting.” I nod in agreement with her. The YOGAworx studio definitely has hygge, that Danish concept of what we might sometimes call “the warm fuzzies.”

Life at the Himalayan Institute was rich and rewarding for Barbara, and she learned practices there that she enjoys and shares to this day. She eats seasonally, favors homeopathy and herbal medicine, and incorporates Ayurvedic practices into her lifestyle to help her keep her Vata-Pitta dosha in balance.

She even busts out the music on occasion. “Thirty years ago, I auditioned with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and made the cut as an extra horn,” she recalls, “but then when they needed me,

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circumstances kept me from being able to perform. Over the years I wished I’d had the chance to perform with such a great orchestra.” And last year, she did.

In November, after a 30-year hiatus, and with only two months to prepare, Barbara Kennedy joined other adult musicians onstage with the ISO. They participated in one rehearsal and then gave a performance. “It really happened, and it means more than I can ever describe,” she says. “I know that yoga and meditation came together to help me prepare for that amazing experience.”

Barbara leads class at Northwood Christian Church

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After our interview concludes, I settle onto my own mat for Barbara’s class. Other students begin to filter in and roll out their mats. Barbara introduces me and there is light, easy conversation amongst the group. Then, we practice. It is a wonderful practice, ending with a delicious Savasana enhanced by candlelight. I am reminded why I loved Barbara’s classes all those years ago. Her teaching is a yogic opus, melding all she’s learned and practices herself since she started to ask life’s toughest questions.

Barbara Kennedy’s full class schedule and contact information are available on her YOGAworx website: www.yogaworxindy.com. ■

yoga studio + school

Be Nourished info@bloominglifeyoga.com INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

30 South Elm St, Zionsville

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Indiana Artist: Craig Whitten It is well known that the ancient art of yoga promotes health and wellbeing, but an important “side” benefit of regular yoga practice is that it opens and supports creative expression. Craig Whitten is living proof.

expression he needed through owning a landscape firm, so he turned to henna. As he hoped, henna proved to be a form of non-stressful, creative expression, an opportunity to just explore.

“There is a direct correlation from my beginning to practice yoga and the reawakening of my interest in painting,” Craig says. “Yoga is at the root of my art.”

Tina Janssen, the owner of Sunshine Yoga Wellness Spa in Lafayette, Indiana collaborated with Craig to host evenings of yoga and henna. This became so popular that people would wait for hours to get Craig’s original, elaborate henna body art. Working with henna inspired Craig to return to his love of painting, and he began painting watercolors.

Art has always been an integral part of Craig’s life.

Woodworking, jewelry design and photography are a few of the media used by the artist. A degree in Landscape Architecture from Purdue University led to a career that combined a love of art and nature.

As owner of a business and single dad of three, Craig didn’t have much “down time.” He began practicing yoga in an effort to relieve stress and support his mediation efforts. The unexpected bonus was that yoga led to a reawakened interest in the fine arts.

At the time, Craig wasn’t getting all the creative

"Nouveau Lotus"

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The paintings often begin with an abstract watercolor wash, with no end image in mind. Craig likes to let these sit around his studio until an image becomes clear to him. He describes the process as, “the painting finding its path.” Once that happens, he is able to complete the painting. It was on a whim, Craig first decided to apply henna to one of these completed watercolor washes. He began experimenting with various application techniques. With henna, Craig now creates mandalas, floral explorations, and other intricate designs. Painting on beautiful handmade paper adds to the trademark texture and dimension of his work.

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Craig Whitten working with henna

His art proved to be therapeutic and further the flow of creative juices, but what to do with the paintings that began to fill his home studio? With urging from friends, Craig entered his first art show in a lovely setting on the Wabash River. The response from that first show surprised Craig and lighted an unexpected path forward.

paints in an historic building in downtown Lafayette where he shares space with other artists. His art can be seen at Bindery Artist Studios in Lafayette and in juried art shows throughout the Midwest and South.

Find Craig Whitten’s work online at craigwhitten.com and indianaartisan.org. ■

Yoga did indeed relieve stress and aid in his meditation practice…and so much more. From henna to watercolors to art shows, it soon became clear that Craig was on the cusp of a career change. Eventually Craig closed the landscape design company and an avocation became a new career. In 2015 Craig was juried into the prestigious Indiana Artisan organization that recognizes the best artisans in Indiana.

Craig’s paintings are often described as contemplative, balanced and Zen-like. In fact, his mandala paintings are often used for visual meditation. The recent “Forest Series” is a good example of why other artists praise his understanding and skillful use of negative space.

Craig and his wife, Catharine, live in Lafayette, where the adult children often visit, and one spoiled Chocolate Lab always welcomes everyone home. Craig currently

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Selected work from Whitten's 'Bird Series' 15

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Monumental Yoga 2017 June 21st is the International Day of Yoga and

the 2017 summer solstice. In the heart of Indianapolis, starting at 4pm, yoga mats will overrun Monument Circle and transform the streets into the largest free yoga class in Indiana. Organized by the Athenaeum Foundation, yoga instructors from several local yoga studios help teach the class, and dozens more volunteer to assist the crowd of about 3,000 people who may need individual attention on their yoga mat.

Experiencing a yoga class of this magnitude is aweinspiring. Plus there will be educational "mini-classes" as well as performances by musicians, the acroyoga community and many others.

Registration is free, but donations are being gathered to benefit Mighty Lotus, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization

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that brings yoga and mindfulness programs to underserved populations in Central Indiana, such as Indianapolis Public Schools. Visit monumentalyoga. com to register for the event or to donate.

This year’s Monumental Yoga event takes place on a Wednesday. At 4:00pm the Yoga Village opens to the public where you will find booths of local businesses promoting health, wellness and more. Other classes will take place before the yoga class itself begins at 7:00pm, suitable for beginners and experienced yogis alike. A special section for Family Yoga scheduled to begin at 7:15 will be led by Peace through Yoga for parents to participate with their children ages 6 and over. â–

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The Schedule 4pm-8:30pm Vendor Village 7pm-8pm Donation Based Yoga Class 7:15pm-8pm Family Yoga Variety of "Mini-Classes" 4pm-7pm Visit monumentalyoga.com for more details and to register for the event!

Photos courtesy of Monumental Yoga INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

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Ready to Buy a Standup Paddleboard?

A standup paddleboard, or “SUP,” can be quite expensive. They may look like fun toys but are considered watercraft, like a canoe or speedboat. They come in many styles and sizes. Picking out a proper board for your yoga or fitness needs is not easy for newcomers. Here are a few guidelines to consider when selecting a board for you.

The Right Board for You Take into account length, width and thickness when purchasing a new standup paddleboard. A larger board offers more stability for taller or heavier people. A smaller board is easier to manipulate and transfer between its storage location and the water. If you

hate the chore of lugging a giant board around land or mounting it to your car, you might be less inclined to use it. Some SUPs are made of lightweight materials, or are even inflatable. These are easier to carry, but may not be as durable over months and years of use. ...and for Your Activity Want to do yoga on the water? Then look for a long wide board that reminds you of a yoga mat, with blunt ends and lots of anti-slip surface. Want to go far and fast over smooth ponds, lakes or canals? Find a longer board that is narrow, with a sharper nose and substantial fins. These designs make it easier to “track” in the water. Smaller

paddleboards that are shaped like surf boards act more like surf boards. They are best for playing off the waves and maneuvering through flowing water.

Don’t Forget Your Paddle Not all paddles are created equal.

Length, materials and design make a substantial difference in functionality and ease of use over the long run. The shaft of the paddle needs to be a bit longer than you are tall, by about 8 to 10 inches. Longer is good for distance and speed, but shorter is better for waves and rivers where maneuverability is key. The weight of the paddle is most affected by material. People pay more for lightweight carbon fiber so they aren’t lifting those extra pounds for hundreds of strokes in the water.

Stiffness of the paddle blade is also very important. The cheaper paddles are made with plastic, which is flexible and wastes the transfer of energy from your arm muscles to the water. Stiffer blades will be made of fiberglass, carbon fiber or even wood. You will also notice the different shapes of paddle blades. In general, wide blades offer more contact with the water for speed, and narrow blades allow ease of use on choppy or flowing water.

The standup paddleboard has come a long way from its Hawaiian origins.

But with all the modern variations developed by many reputable manufacturers, you can enjoy them in many waters of Indiana. Paddle safe, and remember to wear your board leash and a personal floatation device! ■

Maria Barrera & SUP Indy 18

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

COMMUNIT Y

SUP Yoga Indiana There are many opportunities to get out on the water, make new friends and practice SUP yoga this summer.

SUP SHINE Paddleboard Yoga

SUP 101 Lakes

Morse Lake Noblesville, IN Sundays 10am Sign up: shineyogawellness.com

Eagle Creek Outfitters and Peace Through Yoga Eagle Creek Reservoir, Indianapolis Thursdays June 1 - August 31 at 6pm Sundays June 4 - August 27 at 8am by appointment minimum of 3 peacethroughyoga.com

SUP 101 Lakes

Crooked Lake, Angola Sign up: 260-624-2878 or Email SUP101Lakes@gmail.com

IndyBalance

Hazel Dell Landing Park Carmel, IN Sign up: indybalance.com

Monon Community Center

5:30pm & 6:45pm Tuesdays 1235 Central Park Dr E Carmel, IN Sign up: carmelclayparks.com

Maria Barrera and SUP Indy

Eagle Creek Outfitters & Peace Through Yoga

Monon Community Center

Sunday's 11-12:15pm Somerset Lakes Apartments 79th Street Gate Indianapolis Sign up: 317-506-4861

Nomad Yoga and SUP The Willows Broad Ripple White River Indianapolis

Lake Maxinkuckee Culver, IN Sign up: nomadyogandsup.com

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

SUP 101 Lakes

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COMMUNIT Y

Summer Events Calendar Find more Mindful Events at indyyogi.com/calendar

Ongoing

June

Yoga in the Park

Saturdays 9am Wicker Park Highland, IN p. 219-718-9856 Sandra Tomera

Summer Fitness Series June 10 - August 30 Wednesdays 8am The Gridiron South Bend, IN downtownsouthbend.com

Yoga on the Beach

May 17 - September 30 Weds, Thurs, Sundays 6:30pm Sat. 10am Washington Park Beach Michigan City sacredduneshealth.com/shop

Sunrise Yoga on the Canal

June 7 - August 31st Wednesdays from 6am - 6:45 Vermont Street Plaza on the Canal Indianapolis Free, but reserve your space invokestudio.com

Yoga in the Outfield June 4 11:30am Victory Field Indianapolis

Yoga at the Vineyard June 19 6 - 8:15pm Two EE’s Winery Huntington, IN powersofone.com/pricing

Monumental Yoga June 21 4pm - 8:30pm Monument Circle Downtown Indianapolis Monumentalyoga.com

July Yoga at Oliver Winery

July 2 11am - 1pm Oliver Winery Bloomington, IN nourishingheartyoga.com/calendar

Breathe Festival July 6 - 9 Spencer, IN Discoverbreathe.com

Yoga in the Outfield July 16 11:30am Victory Field Indianapolis

Sacred Dunes

August Indiana State Fair

August 4-20 Indiana State Fairgrounds Indianapolis indianastatefair.com

Heartland Film Festival Cultural Journey August 17 - 20 Indiana Historical Society Indianapolis heartlandfilm.org

Gencon

August 17 - 20 Sunrise Yoga in the Spa Room Indianapolis gencon.com

Yoga at the Vineyard July 17 6 - 8:15pm Two EE’s Winery Huntington, IN powersofone.com/pricing

Three Rivers Festival July 7 - 15 Fort Wayne threeriversfestival.org

Pierogi Fest July 28-30 Whiting, IN pierogifest.net

Downtown Indy 20

Yoga at the Vineyard August 21 6 - 8:15pm Two EE’s Winery Huntington, IN powersofone.com/pricing

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

200-HOUR YOGA TEACHER TRAINING & 100-HOUR IN-DEPTH STUDIES Invoke Studio has hosted Yoga Alliance Registered yoga teacher training programs for over 10 years under the guidance of experienced and passionate teacher training leaders. We offer three teacher training programs a year, each featuring a 100-Hour In-Depth Studies Course and a 200-Hour Yoga Alliance Registered Program.

INVOKE WELLNESS CENTER FALL 2017

Led by CHERYL MILTON

UBUD, BALI FEBRUARY 2018

INTERNATIONAL IMMERSION

INVOKE DOWNTOWN SPRING 2018

Led by AHNA HOKE

COMMUNIT Y

2017 Hoosier Farmers Markets The Hoosier Farmers Market Association is a nonprofit organization providing statewide education, resources and technical support to Indiana's farmers market community of market managers, vendors, growers, producers, consumers and friends for a more vibrant, place-based Indiana local food economy. In 2016, there were 155 confirmed farmers' markets operating in Indiana. Each market is unique to its own community. Every week of the year somewhere in the great state of Indiana a farmers market is providing seasonal produce, meat, dairy and artisan foods. Farmers markets are ideal venues for consumers to meet and know their Indiana farmers and ask questions about food grown, raised, produced and crafted within 100 miles of home.

Farmers Market

Association

BOONE

Lebanon Farmers Market Joe LePage 105 N Meridian St Lebanon, IN 46052 317-447-8036 cityoflebanon.org 1st & 3rd Fri 4 - 8PM, May 5 - Oct 6 SNAP - Fresh Bucks

FAYETTE

Fayette County Farmers Market Suzanna Johnson Fayette County Courthouse 401 N Central Ave Connersville, IN 47331 765-825-8502 connersvillecommunity.com Sat 9am - Noon, May 20 - Oct 28 WIC - SFMNP - SNAP

GREENE

Linton Farmers Market Mark Stacy 1351 A St NE Linton, IN 47441 812-847-7754 lintonfarmersmarket.com Sat 9 AM - 1 PM, May 20 - Sept 30 WIC - SFMNP - SNAP - Market Bucks

HAMILTON

Noblesville Farmers Market Chris Owens Federal Hill Commons SR 32 + SR 19 Noblesville, IN 46060 317-776-0205 noblesvillemainstreet.org Sat 8AM - Noon, May 6 - Oct 14 WIC - SFMNP - SNAP - Fresh Bucks

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HANCOCK

Farmers Market at the Fairgrounds Barb Smith + Jeniece Miller 620 N Apple St Greenfield, IN 46140 317-697-0508 WIC - SFMNP - SNAP Sat 8AM - Noon, May 6 - Oct 28 Wed 8AM - Noon, July 5 - Sept 27 1st + 3rd Sat 10AM - 1PM, Nov 4 - Apr 15

Tyner Pond Farm Chris Baggot 7408 E 200 S Greenfield, IN 46140 317-442-2679 tynerpondfarm.com Meat CSA + Farm Store

HARRISON

Corydon Farmers Market Catherine Turcotte 124 S Mulberry St Corydon, IN 47112 812-738-0120 corydonfarmersmarket.org Tues 11AM - 1PM, May 9 - Oct 25 Fri 4 - 7PM, May 5 - Oct 27 WIC - SFMNP - SNAP - Double-Up

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

HENDRICKS

Brownsburg Farmers Market Therese Waechter City Hall, 61 N Green St Brownsburg, IN 46112 317-858-6069 brownsburg.org Thurs 4 - 7PM, Jun 1 - Sept 7 WIC - SNAP - Fresh Bucks

HOWARD

Kokomo Farmers Market Adrienne Akers Mulberry St + Washington St Kokomo, IN 46901 765-210-8235 kokomofarmersmarket.com Sat 9AM - 1PM, Apr 29 - Oct 7 Wed 4 - 7PM, June 14 - Oct 4 WIC - SFMNP - SNAP

KOSCIUSKO

Syracuse Artisans & Farmers Market Tyler McLead Veteran's Memorial Park at Crosson Mill 303 W Henry St Syracuse, IN 46567 574-457-3440 syracusefarmersmarket.org Sat 9AM - 2PM, May 13 - Oct 14

JOHNSON

The Market at Crystal Spring Farm Jennifer Mowery 3620 Hurricane Rd Franklin, IN 46131 317-410-1401 Farm market. Call as hours vary.

MADISON

Anderson City Market Kristin Sayer 802 E 5th St Anderson, IN 46012 765-374-4662 ppchog.org/acm Sat 8 am - Noon, May 6 - Oct 28 WIC - SFMNP - SNAP INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

MARION

City is Indianapolis unless otherwise noted.

38th + Meridian St Farmers Market Jessica Linder 3838 N Meridian St northchurchindy.com 1st, 3rd + 5th Thurs, 4:30 - 6:30PM, Jun 1 - Sept 21 WIC - SFMNP - SNAP - Fresh Bucks Broad Ripple Farmers Markets Barbara Wilder & Mark Demerly 317-259-4193 broadripplefarmersmarket.org WIC - SNAP - Fresh Bucks Summer - Wednesdays 5301 Winthrop Ave Wed 4:30 - 7:30PM, June 7 - Sep 27 Summer - Saturdays 1115 Broad Ripple Ave Sat 8AM - Noon, May 6 - Sep 30 Sat 9AM - Noon, Oct 7 - Nov 25 Winter - Saturdays 5301 Winthrop Ave broadripplewintermarket.org Sat 9AM - Noon, Dec 2 - Apr 28

Felege Hiywot Center & Farm Stand Aster Bekele 1648 Sheldon St 317-545-2245 fhcenter.org Fri 11AM - 9PM Sat 9AM - Noon SNAP - Fruits - Veggies Indy Winter Farmers Market Sarah Adams 1125 E Brookside Ave indywinterfarmersmarket.org Sat 9AM - 12:30PM, Nov 18 - Apr 21 SNAP - Fresh Bucks - Double-Up JCC Farmers Market Katherine Matutes 6701 Hoover Rd 317-715-9238 jccindy.org Year round: Sun 10AM - 1:30PM SNAP - Fresh Bucks Original Farmers Market @ Indy City Market Stevi Stoesz 222 E Market St indycm.com Wed 9:30AM - 1:30PM, May - Oct WIC - SFMNP - SNAP - Fresh Bucks Pogue’s Run Grocer + Cafe 2828 E 10th St 317-426-4963 poguesrungrocer.org WIC - SNAP - Fresh Bucks 23

COMMUNIT Y

MARSHALL

Culver Farmers Market Tracy Fox 819 E Lakeshore Drive Culver, IN 574-968-7638 Sat 9AM-1PM, May 13 - Oct 21 Tues 5 - 7PM, May 17 - Oct 18 SNAP

MONROE

Bloomington Community Farmers Markets Marcia Veldman Bloomington, IN 47404 812-349-3738 bloomington.in.gov WIC - SFMNP - SNAP - Market Bucks Summer - Tuesdays 212 N Madison St 4 - 7 PM, June 6 - Sept 26

Summer - Saturdays 401 N Morton St 8AM - 1PM, Apr - Sept 9AM - 1PM, Oct - Nov

MONTGOMERY

Crawfordsville Farmers Market Sue Lucas 100 W Pike St 765-376-6832 crawfordsvillemainstreet.com Sat 8AM - Noon, Apr 29 - Oct 28 WIC - SFMNP

TIPPECANOE

Lafayette Farmers Market Emily Colombo Main St + N 5th St Lafayette, IN 47901 765-742-4044 lafayettefarmersmarket.com Sat 8AM - 12:30PM, May - Oct WIC

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WARRICK

Newburgh Farmers Market Amber Kelly State St + Water St Newburgh, IN 47630 812-853-2815 newburghfarmersmarket.org Sat 8AM - Noon, May 28 - Sept 24 WIC - SFMNP

Warrick County Farmers Market Kimberly Ashby Harold Gunn Memorial Pavilion 2nd St + Main St Booneville, IN 47601 812-483-0867 Sat 7:30am - Noon, June 3 - Oct 28

WHITE

Musall’s Farm Market Lawn, Garden & Landscaping Tracey Musall-Davidson 408 S Beach St Monticello, IN 47960 574-583-8080 musallslawnandgarden.com Mon - Sat 8 AM - 6:30 PM Sun 10AM - 4PM SNAP

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COMMUNIT Y

WHITLEY

COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Whitley County Farmers Market Jane Loomis Whitley County Courthouse Square 101 E VanBuren St Columbia City, IN 46725 Sat 8AM - 12:30PM, May 6 - Oct 28 SNAP

Feeding Indiana’s Hungry Farms to Food Banks Program Emily Bryant 8425 Keystone Crossing, Ste 220A Indianapolis, IN 46240 317-396-9355 or 317-452-9829 feedingindianashungry.org

Farms to Food Banks provides farmers with outlets to supply food banks excess produce pre- or post-harvested.

Community Harvest Food Bank & Produce Preservation Center 1010 N Coliseum Ft. Wayne, IN 46805 260-441-3696 communityharvest.org Space to store, sort, blanch, chill, freeze and preserve fresh produce for food pantry patrons in Northeast Indiana.

Photos courtesy of Hoosier Farmers Market Assoociation

$38 per ye ar

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

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FOOD

A farmer's market picnic

Summer is here, and it’s time to slow down and enjoy the outdoors. Stop by your local farmer’s market for everything you need to create a healthy delicious picnic.

Included are two different sandwiches: one that can hold as many vegetables as your heart desires and one for some of our picky younger eaters...or for those of you that just love peanut butter.

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Be sure to check out our local Indiana food companies mentioned in these recipes.

All of these vegetables were sourced from Freedom Valley Farm in Freedom, Indiana.

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FOOD

Apple Cider Vinegar Pasta Salad 16 oz Casarecce from Bettini Pasta 1 Zucchini spiralized 1 Carrot spiralized ½ Large Red Onion Sliced 1 Red Bell Pepper 1 Yellow Bell Pepper

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3 tbs Olive Oil 1 tbs Apple Cider Vinegar Salt and Pepper to taste

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FOOD

Cucumber Sandwiches with Microgreens and Asian Turnips 1 Cucumbers 2 Asian Turnips 2 c Microgreens 6 oz Veggie Cream Cheese Sliced Semolina Loaf from Amelia’s Bread

Peanut Butter Banana Honey Sandwich ¼ c B Happy Peanut Butter or try Revival Almond Butter 2 tbs Honey from Eagle Creek Apiary 1 Thin-sliced Banana Sliced Brioche from Amelia’s Bread

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INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

FOOD

Creme Fraiche “Cheesecake” and Berries Beat until light and fluffy: 6 oz Creme Fraiche 8 oz Cream Cheese 2 tbs Sugar 2 tsp Vanilla Simmer in a small saucepan on medium heat until soft: 16 oz. Mixed Berries or a berry of your choice 2 Tbs Sugar Layer all components in mason jar alternating graham cracker crumbs, cream cheese mixture and fruit. ½ c Graham Cracker Crumbs

Stress-Eating?

Mindfulness to Change your Habits Negative emotions have been scientifically studied... extensively. Researchers have found that among individuals trying to lose weight, negative emotions were the most frequently mentioned reason for overeating.

Emotions can lead to what is often termed irrational or spontaneous behavior. Have you ever been in a situation where a negative emotion led to unplanned eating?

called the “emotional brain.” It may take only six seconds for these chemicals to be drained out of the brain and allow this body and brain chemistry to rebalance. So if you experience stress, stop and pause. After this, you gain time and have the opportunity to return to a more “cognitive brain” where you can take mindful control of your actions.

Eating in response to our feelings is not a habit we were born with. It is something that we have learned which means is also something we can unlearn.

Many dietetic (nutrition) practices are emerging into the world of yoga today to encompass relaxation and stress relief as a priority. When you are experiencing a negative emotion, it often triggers a “fight or flight” response in our brain.

If you are experiencing any negative emotions (perhaps from something at work) and food is available (maybe a coworker has a bowl of candy set out), make a conscious decision to stop and use a different coping response. Switch into a lower gear and implement a different coping mechanism. Practicing some simple physical yoga that invokes stress tolerance and/or incorporating yogic breathing exercises to instill improved behaviors are effective ways to manage that emotional brain. By reducing

The brain can be easily flooded with chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol which allow us to react quickly in a stressful or emergency situation. This is

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

By Kaitie Delgado

psychological stress and thereby shifting the body from the sympathetic (emotional) to parasympathetic (restful) nervous system dominance, you will have an increased sense of mindfulness regarding the circumstances around food consumption and/or food choices.

It is important to understand your own emotional mind if it frequently triggers unhealthy eating. This may be preventing you from living your preferred lifestyle.

Using yoga to improve mindfulness correlated to emotional eating habits is one way that may weaken these negative-emotion responses over time.

Focus on a physical change to literally change your thinking, and create a new healthy response to stress. ■

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MEDITATION

Practical Tips for Meditation

Being present and engaged in the world doesn’t just happen. Our minds are complicated. Our lives are messy. Our attention can be diverted by even tiny senses, cravings, and aversions. Everything around us is changing. How do you surf in this roiling ocean? How can you adapt to whatever comes? Meditating is a way. It’s a tool, really, a means of understanding how your mind works and reacts to things. Since everything you experience goes through it, becoming more skillful through meditation can allow you to create conditions that empower you to turn towards life, to be more generous, patient, diligent, understanding, wise, and loving.

Meditating, like anything else, involves a bit of skill. Here are things I’ve found to be helpful over years of meditating and meditating with others.

By Tony Wiederhold

Stretch a Little Before you Sit Physical sensations are loud. They demand immediate attention. Think of the motivating power of the bite of the tiny mosquito. More subtle sensations, like muscle tightness, may not be as urgent as an insect taking a blood sample, but are still loud when you’re trying to listen to your innermost thoughts and feelings. Take a few moments to swing your legs forward and back, take a few twists, and maybe a low lunge on each side.

Pick a Comfortable Seat You don’t get bonus points for either forcing your knees into lotus position (padmasana) or sitting on a hard floor.

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Meditating, like anything else, involves a bit of skill.

I sit on a sofa. It is soft and supports my back. If you choose to sit cross legged, you may find less strain when the seat is lifted above the knees using seat cushions or a meditation bench. Sitting in a chair is fine, too. If possible, adjust it so that your thighs are parallel to the ground, your feet are flat on the ground, and the armrests don’t press into your arms. If you notice pressure or compression, adjust your seat or deploy cushions to relieve the pressure.

Soft Hands, Straight Wrists Choose a hand position that is pressure-free in the hands, wrists, arms, and shoulders. Keep your wrists neutral.

I like to rest the back of my left hand

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MEDITATION

inside my right palm. Both palms face up, with thumbs lightly touching. Sometimes, I rest my hands lightly on knees. If you feel pressure between your shoulders and fingertips, adjust.

Be Mindful that the Mind is Full A lot of people try meditation for the first time seeking a quiet mind, or an empty mind. This expectation often leads to disappointment. They sit and initially enjoy some seconds of quiet, but then find that they become distracted by things inside or outside the room, or daydreaming about grocery lists, or regrets, or anxiety, or thoughts. They become disappointed at themselves, usually, viewing their distraction as a sort of personal flaw.

The flaw is expecting that the mind would be quiet! We are talking about mindfulness and not mind-emptiness after all.

Your mind is alive, in your face, and a powerful force of nature. It reacts to everything it senses from the outside

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

and even its own children—thoughts, emotions, memories, imagination, beliefs, and perceptions—to create layer upon layer of perceptions. Embrace the nature of your mind. Meditation is not a tool to empty the mind or to silence it. It is a tool that helps us develop the skills to understand how it reacts and recognize what it is doing in real time. Chief among those skills is honest acknowledgement of the presence of whatever is in our minds, no matter how much we dislike it or wish it weren’t there.

Set a Timer We all have places to go. Thinking about being on time for your next engagement can be a mosquito in the room when you are meditating. By setting a timer, you can eliminate this source of tension and distraction. Find a pleasant alarm tone that is different from your wake-up alarm tone so that you don’t associate meditation with dragging yourself out of bed. I use “Twinkle” on my iPhone.

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MEDITATION

Progressive Relaxation Meditation practice is listening practice. Starting each meditation with progressive relaxation, taking your attention muscle by muscle, noticing muscle contraction, and loosening your grip, hones the skills that you use in diving underneath your surface thoughts. Some muscle contractions are subtle. Take your time doing this. Three breaths per muscle is a place to start. I lead meditators from the toes of the left foot part by part up the legs and back, down the arms, through the face and back to the belly to observe one’s natural breathing rhythm. As you become accustomed to doing this and more skillful at noticing and releasing muscle contraction, you may notice that your attention passes through your body like a wave of relaxation.

Let Your Belly Hang Loose You might have a tendency to hold tension in the muscles around your belly. These are the same muscles you use to suck your belly in when you see someone interesting up ahead. Loosen your grip on those muscles. You might find breathing to be a bit easier.

Breathe following your natural rhythm, but with a soft, tension-free belly. Notice how the belly and chest expand as you inhale and relax down on the exhale.

Some people find it relaxing to deepen the inhale a little bit, maybe even pausing at the top of the inhale.

Others find that that increases tension in their body and find that exhaling deeper or taking shallower breaths reduces tension. I usually don’t manipulate my breath.

Listening With Your Eyes Closed By preparing your seat and your body as described above, the background becomes the foreground. This is how you can see the conditions that affect your thinking and motivation. Your mind has a lot to say, and there’s a lot to be gained by listening.

Imagine that you have something on your mind and sit with a skilled listener. No matter what you say, no matter what you are feeling or struggling to express, she sits, eyes soft, offering you her full attention. She offers no words of judgement, no unsolicited advice, no should-haves, no examples of how she handled a situation that, in her mind, is similar. She neither interrupts you mid-sentence with a response nor tries to complete your sentences when you are midthought and groping in the mist for the right words.

She just listens, asks a clarifying question or two, and acknowledges that what is in your head is real. You feel heard. You feel loved. You might even have a new understanding of whatever was stuck in your head.

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Now imagine that you are the skilled listener, offering your full attention to someone with something on his mind. When I sit in meditation, this is my frame of mind. I practice the skills of a master listener. The speaker is my mind. No matter how unpleasant the thought or emotion, I stare at what bubbles to the surface. I watch how sensations, thoughts, and emotions bend as they bounce off of my memories and imagination. Preconceived notions, beliefs, cravings, and aversions reveal themselves. By emulating the skilled listener, your mind reveals its secrets. You become aware of how cravings and aversions motivate you. When you become aware of the conditions that allow them to exist, your grip on them loosens and you can choose to be free to go against their wishes.

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MEDITATION

Those things you perceive—your likes and dislikes, your feelings and emotions—are products of conditions. You have a view of something that is filtered through your entire life experience. You don’t choose your perceptions and emotional reactions. Once they have formed, they are real. Maybe you love green bean casserole because a favorite relative used to make it. Maybe you hate lilies because they remind you of funerals. Maybe something someone said upset you because it touches on a sore spot that you’ve tucked away and forgotten about. Becoming aware of how your life experiences and preconceived notions bend your views is a powerful skill that can be honed in meditation. This creates the conditions for a patient mind comfortable with engaging the messy, complicated world, vs one that acts hastily and turns away from it. By practicing the skills of the listener, you can reveal all of the layers and become free from their influence. That is the power of meditation.

Forget About “Normal” Whatever you experienced in meditation is real and valid. It can be scary or exciting (two sides of the same coin!) to realize that only you can see what is in your head. A key lesson for me was that if my own experience is both unique and valid, then that is true of every other being I encounter. Everyone has a different set of lenses since everyone has a unique set of life experiences.

Human connection starts with that. From there, understanding of each other's filters is the next step.

Listening With Your Eyes Open The skills you hone in meditation are the same ones that you deploy when listening to anyone or anything. They are the skills that give you the strength to face the world rather than shrink away from it. Listening is how one can understand the contours and complexity of every situation and the myriad conditions underpinning circumstances. ■

After the Timer Goes Off, Write for a Few Minutes I like to use paper and pencil. Sometimes I write words.

Sometimes whole paragraphs. Sometimes I draw a picture or graph or diagram. You may be surprised by what you find!

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COMMUNIT Y

Harvesting the Sky

The Headwaters Wind Farm What does it mean to operate a wind farm from cradle to grave? Indiana has abundant wind resources, but as with any major industry, renewable energy has political champions, skeptics and adversaries. A general understanding of a wind farm’s planning, creation and operation is essential as we seek to remain informed citizens during this age of renewable expansion.

Headwaters itself is located 70 miles east of Indianapolis in Randolph County. The operations building is located in Winchester, Indiana. It consists of 100 wind turbines each rated at 2 megawatts (MW). This gives it an installed capacity of 200 MW, enough to power approximately 51,000 Indiana homes with clean energy each year.

The conception of an Indiana wind farm began when Indiana Michigan Power (I&M), a unit of American Electric Power (AEP), sought to add 200 Megawatts of wind energy to their portfolio. They issued a public Request for Proposal to wind developers, and after consideration, the project was awarded to EDP Renewables.

That was the birth of the Headwaters Wind Farm.

The wind turbines selected, model V110 2MW, are by the Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas. This specific turbine starts producing energy at wind speeds as low as 6.7mph.

Measuring 492 feet to the top of the rotating blades, these specific turbines are taller and wider than the Indiana State Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the heart of Indianapolis, taller than most of our state’s skyscrapers. And there are 100 of them at the

By Katarina Svabcikova Headwaters Wind Farm. At the tips, the blades can rotate at a speed of more than 150 mph.

The development, construction, and operation of the wind farm generated more than 250 jobs at the peak of construction. It also created 14 permanent, well-paid jobs in the area servicing the wind farm. More importantly, the annual environmental benefits are equivalent to taking 91,000 cars off the road.

Know Which Way the Wind Blows EDP Renewables started working on the project in 2007. However, due to the effects of the worldwide financial crisis, the project was put on hold until 2012. The first step in the development is the selection of an appropriate site where meteorological towers

How Tall is a Wind Turbine? *

(IMS) *Tallest Building in Indiana

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COMMUNIT Y

could be installed. These towers collect wind data such as wind speed, wind direction and temperature. The data is then analyzed as it is crucial in estimating the annual electricity production and therefore the overall economic feasibility of the project. EDP Renewables was collecting wind data from the site since the beginning, 2007.

The next step is modelling the layout of the wind farm based on the specific topography and wind characteristics of the site. At this stage, the developer is already involved with the permitting authorities as well as the local communities. The goal is to be in full compliance with all local ordinances, so that construction permits are issued in a timely fashion. Depending on the location, there are multiple federal, state, and local permits that are required for the project. For example if the project poses a potential impact on wildlife, or a species protected under the Federal laws, the developer will need to coordinate with the US Fish and Wildlife Services. In the case of the Headwaters Wind Farm, depending on the time of day or the season, the operator slows the blades to a specific speed in order to protect the local bat population.

Positive Economic Impact on the Community EDP Renewables has signed longterm leases and easement agreements with more than 114 landowners. According to EDP Renewables, landowners hosting a wind turbine on their property are paid between $8,000 to $12,000 annually. The company is also making economic development payments to Randolph County government, totaling about $10.5 million.

Additionally, the company compensates landowners who are having a wind turbine within 1,500 feet of their

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

Wind technology from diffferent eras

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COMMUNIT Y

property under the “good neighbor agreement.” These compensations help create and maintain good will in the community. It also represents a huge economic boost for both Randolph County and the landowners, increasing the ability to repair public roads, build new ones, and invest in social and education programs.

One of the landowners happens to be State Representative Greg Beumer of District 33, has 2 wind turbines on his property; the closest one located 1,500 feet from his house. “For the local farmers, this represents a guaranteed source of income in a business that has no guarantees, “ said Beumer. He himself signed a 30-year lease.

According to Beumer, from very early on, his community was interested in attracting renewable energy development. Given the economic impact, they looked at it as the next logical step for economic development in the county. “Maybe the future of our community is in helping to provide the energy that our growing economy is going to need.” said Beumer.

Connecting the Dots The next big milestone is the securement of the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). This is an agreement between the electricity generator (the seller) and the buyer of the electricity, where all commercial terms are defined, including the price of the electricity. It is the backbone of the project development because it contains the blueprint for project’s revenue. A typical PPA runs for 20-25 years at a fixed price.

After the PPA hurdle is the interconnection of the wind farm into the electricity grid, so the electricity generated by the wind farm can be delivered to where it is needed.

The overall responsibility for delivering electricity for the cheapest price possible is with the Regional Transmission Organizations (RTO). Indiana is served by 2 RTOs: Midcontinent Independent System Operator and PJM Interconnection. It requires balancing the demand and supply side of the electricity in real time. This is very challenging, as fluctuations in wind significantly affect supply. On days with little wind, other sources of electricity must be utilized.

The trading of electricity is a very fascinating process happening behind the scenes. As consumers, we all expect electricity with a push of a button or with a flip of a switch. The “wholesale electricity” is very similar to trading in the financial markets. The big difference between the two is that electricity is produced and consumed instantly. The electricity cannot be stored, at least not at a significant commercial scale yet. This means supply and demand for the electricity must be constantly balanced.

As such, a lot of precision goes into forecasting exactly how much electricity we are going to need. Electricity generators, such as Indianapolis Power & Light Compa-

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State Representative Greg Beumer ny (IPL) and I&M bid their generation of coal, gas, wind and solar in the market. The system operators utilize very sophisticated systems to predict the intermittency of renewables so they can react and balance the everchanging supply and demand of electricity in real time.

Getting the Blades Spinning The wind farm developer must also work directly with wind turbine and blade manufacturers as well as other suppliers. These include tower, foundation and cable manufacturers during the development phase. Once the site is secured, permits are granted, and equipment is selected. The project can then move to the construction phase.

The first step is to prepare the site by making any necessary road improvements or construction of new access roads. Then comes cable laying, building of the foundations as well as the substation. After that the towers, nacelles and blades are erected. Once the extensive testing and commissioning is completed, the wind farm is now ready to operate.

It only took approximately 6 months to build the Headwaters Wind Farm. The Headwaters Wind Farm is owned and operated by the Headwaters Wind Farm LLC and serviced by Vestas who is also the manufacturer of the wind turbines. It was outsourced to Vestas because it was the most economically viable option for the developer.

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An average wind turbine is guaranteed to “spin” 98% of the time WHEN the wind is blowing. That means that the developer accounts for only 2% of downtime for service and maintenance. That is only 7 days in a year that the turbines need servicing.

Once the lifetime of the wind farm is concluded (approximately 20–25 years), the project owner has 2 options: They can either upgrade the wind turbines with newer technology, or they can choose to completely scrap them, salvage the value of steel, copper, and wiring - and return the site to its original condition. The decommissioning plan is tied to the initial permit. As of today, EDP Renewables has not decommissioned any wind farm in their portfolio.

Bursting with Energy We are living in very exciting times in the energy industry. We are changing the way we think about electricity and energy in general. We are learning new and innovative ways of dealing with the challenges of the 21st century: progressive generating profiles of the utilities, the intermittency of renewables, the flexibility and reliability of electricity, and certainly the effects on the workforce with emerging technologies.

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Indiana has strong wind resources, combined with strong community interest and support. We have favorable permitting processes in place and an increasing consumer appetite for renewable energy. I&M also purchases power from Wildcat Wind Farm (Madison and Tipton Counties) as well as from Fowler Ridge Wind Farm (Benton County), greatly contributing toward wind power development in Indiana.

Big name companies like Amazon, General Motors and Google are already committing to becoming 100 % renewable. They are becoming huge environmental champions advocating for clean energy and sustainability.

This creates even more demand for renewables, making it more feasible for developers such as EDP, utilities and all of us energy consumers.

Although a lot of planning and due diligence goes into wind project development, it is a very exciting industry.

Renewable energy technology is here to stay, and has already caught up with conventional resources in many ways. We must do the same with our own mindsets. We must commit ourselves to protecting our environment while harvesting our homegrown renewable energy. ■

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This portion of Morgan-Monroe State Forest is unlogged. Contiguous forests are great for endangered species and make for amazing wilderness recreation. Photo by Elizabeth Mahoney.

Preserving Indiana Forests: Politics and Action

By Anne Laker, Indiana Forest Alliance

It is intuitive, and proven with research: When you spend time in a forest, your mood is boosted, your blood pressure lowers, and your stress melts off.

Indiana is lucky to have 156,000 acres of public forest in our twelve state forests, not to mention waterfalls, breathtaking vistas, and seemingly magical geological formations. If you’ve hiked or paddled through these forests, you know the often unsung beauty waiting to be enjoyed.

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But imagine taking a wonderful weekend hike... only to come upon a series of clear cuts.

This is a common sight in Indiana State Forests today. Our Governor, Eric Holcomb, and the two preceding governors, have sanctioned a policy of inviting commercial loggers to cut trees on taxpayer-owned land to generate revenue to pay for the Indiana Division of Forestry’s (DoF’s) budget. The Division’s strategic plan calls for nearly half of its budget to come from “product sales” (i.e. logging revenue).

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are already plentiful. Endangered, rare and threatened species such as the cerulean warbler, the Indiana bat, and the Eastern Hellbender salamander need undisturbed forests to thrive.

Taxpayer-owned forests are supposed to be managed for multiple use, not treated like timber farms. That means balancing the needs of hunters, hikers, and forest management (a.k.a. logging). Right now, the balance is weighted far in favor of the timber industry, a $17 billion industry in Indiana, with $3 to $4 million of that generated from state forest logging. Allowing Indiana State Forests to be aggressively logged amounts to the commercialization of public land, and it’s directly against the American ethic of preserving our common assets, be it the Grand Canyon or our own Yellowwood State Forest.

Imagine you own property in Brown County. You moved there because you love nature. Now imagine the trees around you being cut and dragged out, tearing up roads and causing erosion.

This is bad for your property values, and bad for eco-tourism.

What can we do about this problem? A lot. The Indiana Forest Alliance (IFA) invites every Hoosier to join the movement to protect our public forests.

• IFA is lobbying the governor and

As part of the IFA’s Ecoblitz, bird expert David Rupp and volunteers watch for cerulean warblers, a neotropical bird that nests in deep forest. Photo by Anne Laker.

Fact: In 2002, 40% of Indiana State Forests were protected from logging; in 2016, less than 5% are protected. The DoF justifies this policy in the name of science, saying that forests are like gardens and need to be weeded, and that forests need to be heavily managed to survive, and that cutting down trees “creates wildlife habitat.”

Why is this problematic? First, forests are ecosystems. Unlogged, old growth forests provide habitat that support rare biological diversity and unique as-

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semblages of animals, plants, and fungi that are found nowhere else but in old growth forests. A forest “knows” what it needs. If you’ve read the book The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, you know that forest have their own systematic intelligence. The wise forest manager lets a forest be a forest, with only sensitive, strategic intervention.

While it’s true that selective timbering can encourage growth of desirable trees, to say that logging “benefits wildlife” is not accurate, unless you define wildlife as wild turkey and deer. These species

•

lawmakers to establish 13 new Wild Areas in seven of Indiana’s State Forests, preserving them for hiking, primitive camping, backpacking, hunting, mountain biking and horseback riding opportunities available nowhere else on public lands. These proposed Wild Areas will protect 23% of the state forests from logging. Take one step today: Send a postcard to Gov. Eric Holcomb asking him to reserve some portion of state forests from logging.

Volunteer or donate in support of IFA’s Ecoblitz. The Ecoblitz is a comprehensive effort to inventory all the amphibians, small mammals, insects, reptiles, vascular plants, birds, bryophytes, lichens, fungi living in a 900-acre tract of one of our state forests: MorganMonroe. Knowing what life exists in the unlogged forests is a logical

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Last fall, 400 citizens and veterans marched in support of Crown Hill North Woods. Photo by Daniel Axler.

• • •

baseline. [Side Note: The 24 different salamanders in Indiana are equal to the number of salamanders in all of South America, including the Amazon rainforest].

Get to know and love Indiana State Forests. Try a state forest rather than a state park. State forests are the only places where (theoretically) you can do primitive, offtrail camping and hiking.

Become a member of IFA, and attend their rallies and events.

Advocate for green space in your county, whether urban or rural. Green space reduces crime, mitigates heat, absorbs carbon, and raises everyone’s quality of life.

On that last note, Indianapolis residents may have heard about the effort to save Crown Hill North Woods. Here’s the story: the U.S. Veterans Administration approached Crown Hill Cemetery about building a massive columbaria to house the ashes of 25,000 veterans. But this worthy project was unnecessarily sited on a 15-acre plot within Crown Hill including 300-year-old trees, one of the oldest stand of trees in inner-city Indianapolis.

As a direct result of public outcry, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett made a public statement against the project in its selected location. Then, in mid-March, a group of citizens occupied the site in a show of resistance on the day the felling of tree was to start. The VA issued a stop-work order and promised to consider alternative sites. In the end, Crown Hill Cemetery offered the VA an alternative portion of land of equal size. This important piece of forest is, for now, preserved.

Nature is not a commodity. It is us. The Indiana Forest Alliance and its allies continue to fight for the right of every Hoosier the opportunity for true wilderness recreation in this beautiful state. The IFA continues to strive for the preservation of deep forest habitat for native, forest-dependent species of flora and fauna in these places owned by all Hoosiers. ■

The Indiana Forest Alliance and supporters sounded the alarm. Over six months, hundreds of calls were generated to elected officials, and multiple rallies and vigils held. School kids, veterans and neighbors got involved. The message was clear: the Indianapolis community wanted the VA to select a different site for this important project, one that honors veterans and the American heritage they fought for without needlessly sacrificing an old growth forest.

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INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

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CONSCIENTIOUS LIFE

Local Honey Buzz

By Michelle Jarvis Honey bees are tiny flying wonders.

They can carry their own body weight as they fly miles to collect pollen, they produce a trifecta of products that humans have been utilizing since the beginning humankind. Honey, wax and pollen have been utilized by nearly all civilizations on record. Bees themselves were often revered so much they were used to symbolize royalty. We busy humans have evolved and increased our technology while the busy honey bee buzzes on, quietly collecting food and protecting the queen.

Jeff Cripe and his daughter, Millie Cripe, of Eagle Creek Apiary took time recently to speak with us and share not just his own story, but to give us a bit of an education on bees and all the benefits

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that come with local honey production.

He and his family run the apiary from their own property in Sheridan, Indiana. With the help of his whole family they are able to harvest three products to share with their community and three counties; Boone, Hamilton and Marion.

The Cripes’ story began when Jeff found himself suffering from respiratory issues due to exposure to black mold. After a lifetime of enjoying the outdoors he was being told he would require pharmaceuticals to find relief from a newfound fall allergy. He was determined that would not be his story. In searching for more holistic remedies Jeff was directed to try raw honey in treating his fall allergies.

They found a local source of honey, but

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he wanted a rawer version than what that operation provided. Eventually he decided to start keeping his own bees in order to harvest his own honey. Eagle Creek Apiary was born.

The in-your-backyard-local that he likes to promote is an important aspect of trying to alleviate symptoms of allergies. The bees in an area are utilizing the same flora that could potentially bother the local allergy sufferer. When this sufferer begins to introduce these allergens through honey or pollen into their systems, their system often builds immunity. This lessens or eliminates the symptoms when allergens are floating in the air. A little-known bonus of bee pollen is that it provides an energy boost to rival your morning cup of coffee!

When the Cripes first started out they had successes and losses in their hives.

He insists that every loss is a lesson though, an opportunity for the bees to teach the keeper about their needs. After all, “we can’t suppress millions of years of the bees’ coding to support our needs,” says Jeff Cripe. “We want them to exceed their goals, so there is also plenty for us.” Jeff has spent years studying bees and learning about their needs and habits, so he can give them the best conditions possible for production. To impart his knowledge, he has invited folks expressing an interest in beekeeping to visit the farm, see what beekeepers do and get an education before making a big investment.

By now most of us have heard that bees are in jeopardy, and the world is

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Jeff Cripe and his daughter, of Eagle Creek Apiary. just starting to realize how important bees are to the global food production.

Two main factors in their decline have been pesticides and mites. Pesticides used on commercial crops are an immediate threat to all bees. Mites are the culprit in what is most commonly known as Colony Collapse Disorder, and amateur beekeepers often lack the knowledge to combat an infestation.

Bees are not just providing us with flowers and honey, they pollinate a large percent of crops that feed the world. Anything that we can do to aid in their missions will aid us in our own. If beekeeping isn’t for you, you can still help. Avoid inorganic pesticides in your own garden or yard. By planting a variety of pollinator friendly plants in your home garden, we give bees more pollen to collect.

Local, statewide, and regional organizations exist to help educate all things related to bees. For instance, White Lick Beekeepers Association, based in Mooresville, Indiana, is dedicated to education and mentorship for budding bee keepers. Their website, whitelickbeekeepers.org, has a place to apply for a mentor or to become a mentor, in addition to many other links and information about beekeepers and honey for sale. Look for a similar organization in your area if you need more information about beekeeping or if you have a swarm that needs to be relocated.

As for Jeff, he spends every day outside with the bees–symptom free. His only medications are honey and pollen. He loves to eat honey on toast and does so every single day. He starts each morning with a small palm full of pollen and washes it down with a glass of water.

If you need him, he’ll be with the bees: “Born an artist, I just happened to be raised in construction. Now–thank you, Lord–I’m a beekeeper, and this is what I intend to do with the rest of my life.” ■

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CONSCIENTIOUS LIFE

Indiana Made

Local artisans and small businesses that make us proud to live in Indiana...

Soak Your Soul Soak Your Soul is a line of handcrafted products for

of her clients. As a massage therapist for 18 years, she

the body and soul. Nestled in the winding streets

has found what natural remedies can do for the body

of Indianapolis is a yellow house that hosts the

as well as a person’s spirits. This context has inspired

production of this line. Melyssa, creator of Soak Your

her brand.

Soul, developed each blend with soulful attention to healing body, mind & soul. Her intention in creating these products comes from her own soul, as from a young age she found the power of healing in the mixtures she created. Her desire is to send hope and restoration to all

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The oil combinations that arise come for a deep knowing that transcends the rule books. The product line includes bath soaks, aroma sprays, and roll-ons. The not-so-dirty hippie bath salt filled with an essential oil blend of patchouli, cedar wood and sage serves as a

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CONSCIENTIOUS LIFE

great addition to a warm bath or mixed with coconut oil as an effective & restorative exfoliant. A spritz of wellness body spray, with its peppermint, lemongrass and eucalyptus properties is a perfect way to disinfect your yoga mat or rejuvenate yourself after the practice. You can trust this brand as it incorporates only the highest quality, organic, vegan ingredients found in nature. Enjoying her products will benefit not only your body, but your mind & soul.

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CONSCIENTIOUS LIFE

Pronounce Skincare Jessica’s mommy intuition told her to stop putting steroids on her young son’s face.

She’s so glad she listened. Having treated her own eczema for years, when her son was first diagnosed with a similar condition she turned to her dermatologist for help – but soon realized conventional prescription drugs were often compromising rather than improving his young health. Through her family’s wellness journey Jessica learned that food, fitness, and skincare are all intertwined, and that creating a life from scratch is a lifestyle she loves to pass on to others.

Jessica started the original Scratch Mommy blog to share her exploration into health and natural skin treatments. The positive readership she received encouraged her to keep learning, healing, and sharing how to live a life ‘from scratch’ which quickly led to the inception of Pronounce Skincare & Herbal Boutique.

Since 2013 Jessica’s business model has proven to be a win-win for wellness searchers:

She’s made DIY, handcrafted skincare readily available by providing free recipes on her blog and supplying certified organic recipe ingredients in her Herbal Boutique…or you can simply head over to the Pronounce Skincare Shop (both online and in the Bloomington brick & mortar) and purchase quality handcrafted organic skincare products for you and yours.

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CONSCIENTIOUS LIFE

Threads of Life Threads of Life is a local woman-

up so that you are not bumbling

owned business specializing in

around while searching for your

fabric related items. In addition

favorite

to fabric art Ann has combined

shade of lipstick.

her love for yoga and creativity.

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necklace

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geared specifically for yoga.

They can be mailed with just a

In addition she makes Bumble

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the owner.

(she’s an engineer) that can be

three

used for makeup or organization

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or

a

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that

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first class stamp. All items may be

Each bag is

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pockets, on

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headband

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Check out the items online: etsy.com/shop/ threadsoflife01. â–

DEEPEN YOUR PRACTICE

116 N. Lebanon St, Lebanon, IN INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

chris@indianayogastudio.com 317.225.7867 47

HEALTH

Yoga Therapy in Practice

By Nathalie de Meyenburg

Resilience & the Human Spirit As I speak with fellow yoga therapists, listen to perspectives and opinions, or read the growing body of literature and research on approaches to yoga therapy, there is an element all too often missing: A recognition of the resilience of the human spirit, something which is not—simply by default— crushed by trauma, injury, or chronic illness. Not recognizing the inherent strength, spirit and willpower in each of us is a negation of a fundamental aspect of being human, and being alive. In the midst of grief, strife, and utter deprivation, humans tend to be at their strongest and most determined.

If our outlook as therapists is obfuscated by a dark, negative outlook, saturated with the conviction that each client is in some way broken, bruised, and too sensitive for a frank, open conversation and the long journey ahead, we literally deprive them of the opportunity to grasp our hand and pull themselves forward. Mahatma Gandhi spoke eloquently to this aspect of the human soul when he said, “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” Strength and resilience reside in gentleness, perseverance and endurance. We should use these attributes as our tools, and recognize them in our clients.

balanced. In caring for others, two fundamental principles mirror each other: Non-expectation on our part as a practitioner, and yes, expectation. There should be no expectation of reward or fulfillment on our part as practitioners. If it comes, that is a gift and a blessing. Yet, we must expect much of ourselves, and our clients, if either is to benefit from the client/practitioner relationship.

As a yoga therapist, caregiver, and healthcare provider, we may be with our client through good times, very difficult and complicated times, and yes, death. One must be able to find joy in the sadness of watching someone with early-onset Parkinson’s change from a well-spoken, outgoing person to a shuffling, mute, and distant person. Or seeing someone with MS who is active, raising a family and engaged in their profession eventually apply for disability, stop working, and divorce due to the strain on their marriage. Or guiding someone with ALS to breathe through the last few weeks of their life. Joy? Impossible, surely. And yet, the years spent helping them remain upright and walking on their own; the astonished doctor who could not believe that yes, indeed, their patient can still get on the floor and back up without a chair or prop; the breathing exercises to cope with the relentless compression of an ‘MS hug’ or to give a voice to the faint whisper of Parkinson's are a form of bittersweet joy—a lesson gained from the recognition of, and appreciation for, resilience of the spirit.

Within this term, self-awareness, resides the potential for growth, inner strength, and resilience of spirit and mind, yet also the ubiquitous misperception of ‘Self ’ as ‘me, myself, and I’. The latter is self-absorption, whereas looking beyond oneself to something which is greater than our ego or our per diem actions and reactions results in self-examination at a level deeper. At that level we, as well as clients, may find a source of profound and immutable strength and resilience, while also staring down grief, pain and anger.

The Balance of Nature theory, which proposes that nature or a system is in a state of equilibrium, or homeostasis, is sometimes discredited in favor of chaos theory due to the outlook that nothing is in perfect balance in nature. What is overlooked is that equilibrium is a balance between opposing forces, not a stagnant state. And, so-called chaos has been shown to be a form of perfectly controlled order.

Turning back to self-awareness and self-examination, one can understand that in striving to find the physical energy, mental energy, and spiritual willpower to overcome an illness or injury, or pursue a meaningful life while managing a chronic disease or recovering from a traumatic experience, one must find order both in the chaos we may feel within us and the natural balance which exists deep within us.

Duality of Expectation Opposites must often co-exist in order to achieve equilibrium, a state in which opposing forces or influences are

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Pain, illness, and disability are not always defined by a visible injury or identifiable cause: In order to heal fully, the mind as well as the body must heal, with an eventual consensus between the two. If a below-the-knee amputee can still feel their foot, then we work with that connection rather than ignoring what may physically no longer exist. By the same token, recovering from cancer may, for some, be a much harder journey than undergoing treatment or the disease process itself. The body and mind are depleted and there is a sense of separation—a distancing—from the physical body. Yoga Therapy gives the individual a means to help themselves, putting less emphasis on ‘doing’ and more on ‘how,’ resulting not only in body awareness and the mind-body connection, but self-awareness.

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Grounding: Support and Supported How are we to guide clients to health and healing through their own resilience when we ourselves may be seeking resilience? This brings us to a term yoga practitioners know better than most, yet may not fully appreciate—grounding—often described verbally as grounding into the floor. Newton’s third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, therefore one must assume that the floor is supporting us with an equal and reciprocal force. Neither our standing force, or the supporting force of the ground, overrides the other, therefore there is reciprocity and equilibrium.

The relationship between client and practitioner is much the same, requiring yoga therapists to ground themselves in order to support their clients, while asking clients to gradually

learn to ground themselves in order to help themselves. A client is supported in their efforts by the yoga therapist, yet never overwhelmed by that support or made to feel that they are tethered to that support. ■ NATHALIE DE MEYENBURG

Nathalie de Meyenburg is a C-IAYT yoga therapist specializing

in

neurological

and

neuromuscular

conditions, movement disorders, rehabilitation, and disability. She is the founder of EquiLibrium Yoga Therapy & Thai Massage, providing individualized therapy and comprehensive therapy programs to the Bloomington community and Indianapolis area for over 16 years. For more information on her practice, visit her website: EquiLibriumYogaTherapy.com

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

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HEALTH

Yoga Education and Service to Veterans The Story of the YES to Vets Program

By Nancy Schalk

“Again you used us, and again you dropped us…”

That was a Vietnam veteran who’d just finished one of our yoga research studies at our Indianapolis Roudebush VA. He had benefited greatly from the 12 weeks of yoga. Now that his cohort was complete, there was nothing set up for him to continue his yoga. Classes in the community were not right for him for several reasons. Did we expect that he would practice on his own going forward, without further instruction, community or support of any kind?

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When I heard these words I too felt broken-hearted and confused that continuing yoga classes were not readily available and encouraged through the VA. Compared to many available treatments, yoga is safe, effective, low-cost and without negative side-effects. I remember my thought clearly, “How hard can it be? I’ll start a program in the community for these admirable men and women.” These veterans should absolutely be supported in continuing their yoga practice if they want to. I became determined to

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provide classes developed specifically to meet the unique needs of veterans. And, as in our research studies, they would be offered at no charge and taught by well-trained and experienced yoga therapists, teachers and assistants, and they’d be practicing with other veterans. We would welcome their spouses, partners and loved ones, also at no charge. Yoga Education and Service to Veterans was born – “YES to Vets”.

Of course, whenever we hear our self think How hard can it be? we know we might be in for more than we’ve bargained for.

Maybe you’re wondering, if the classes are offered at no charge, who pays the expenses? Even if all of us on the teaching team and our Director could volunteer our services, which we cannot, and I’m not sure is a good idea anyway, there are many other expenses. In the beginning I was paying all costs out of pocket and putting in uncountable hours and soon realized this was not sustainable. Expenses include rent for space, props, sturdy chairs, design and printing of brochures, website design and maintenance, special events, phone and office expenses, plus unaccounted for surprises. Fortunately, I’d already established a Not-for-Profit organization, Heartland Yoga Community, for yoga work we’d done at the Indiana University Simon Cancer Center some years ago.

Okay, good. We’ve got a nonprofit entity. Still someone must do fundraising, which is a learned time-consum-

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ing skill. Although I had good intentions and took several trainings in how to run a nonprofit, especially how to raise funding, the support that has come was not due to my great fundraising skills. It was luck, or Grace, or the Universe’s nod to a good idea. We’ve received several helpful smaller donations, and thankfully a very generous gift from one special gentleman named Ned Zink.

Ned was a family acquaintance and a Navy veteran who sort of adopted YES to Vets. Ned is now deceased, we lost him last summer, but he attended classes for over a year and saw his balance, sleep and breathing stamina improve.

(Ned had pulmonary fibrosis so the pranayama was especially important and helpful.) He insisted I not let on to the group who he was, the “financial supporter” of the program. Sometimes during classes I think of Ned and imagine him looking down on us, delighted to see how the program has grown watching everyone receive these benefits and making friends. Ned had a giggle-laugh that started at his belly and moved up his torso to include throwing both arms up and waving his hands. I can hear and picture him doing that, even now.

Ned knew the value of community. As we get older, and especially if we fall ill, it is even more likely that we’ll spend too much time alone. Loneliness and isolation are detrimental to health and tend to spiral downward. This is especially problematic in the veteran community. Ned was an early YES participant when classes were quite small.

For a while our group was all women veterans and wives of

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HEALTH

veterans; Ned was the only male. I wondered if Ned could relate to or enjoy the group. During this time Ned was out for a while with illness. When we talked about him getting back to his practice and attending classes again, I assumed he missed the yoga and the benefits he was receiving. Instead, he said to me “I’ve got to get back to the group!”

The group energy, that connection with others, was what struck him the most. It is a huge benefit of and a powerful reason to attend yoga classes for us all.

Creating Classes in The Community for Specific Populations

Kelsey Rardon was just starting her donation-based yoga center, Breathing Space, on North Binford in Indianapolis. I contacted Kelsey to congratulate her and wish her well, and she listened eagerly to my aspiration for special veteran’s classes, which were wholly in line with Breathing Space’s mission. Kelsey invited us warmly into her new studio. We held our first class on Sept 22nd, 2014. We had officially begun!

Months were spent creating the brochures and speaking to clinicians and patients at our Roudebush VAMC, and anyone else who would listen, but nobody came to class, seemingly forever! It gave our teaching team (Alli Steinke, Haydee Ortega and myself) some time to practice

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together and talk about the intricacies of offering yoga in a “trauma-sensitive” manner, as well as the many physical challenges we might expect in veterans. For some weeks I suggested our assistants stop coming until there were students for us to teach. Slowly, north side YES classes got off the ground, and we saw a class and a community develop.

I had hoped to offer YES classes on opposite sides of town to reach as many veterans as possible. Mindi Epstein and I had developed a friendship and regularly shared our yoga hopes and dreams. Dear Mindi welcomed us into her Speedway Peace Through Yoga studio with open arms. We held our first class there in Feb 2015. Things take time.

Again there were several (okay, many!) “no show” classes.

Again, I suggested our assistants, Carol Weiss and Gaynell Collier-Magar, wait until students started coming, and their services would be needed. Eventually students started to find their way to us in Speedway, and we now have two thriving classes with a veteran yoga community that is fun and beneficial to us all.

How did word of our classes finally get around? Although the Indianapolis Roudebush Veterans Administration has not sanctioned our yoga program, nor do they provide funding, many of the clinicians at the VA give our brochures to their patients and encourage their attendance.

I’m honored to work with these caring professionals who

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are looking for additional tools to complement what they currently have and welcome yoga as an additional support for their patients. They appreciate that yoga is non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical and unlikely to re-traumatize. Individual VA clinicians have been a huge help, and our research teams there have also been proponents. (Admirably, I found the VA staff will not recommend something until they check it out and are sure it’s solid.) The folks in the Nutrition Department encourage their patients to find us and join in, as well as the Rehabilitation staff, Pain Clinic, Mental Health and others give patients our brochures and encourage participation.

The information-sharing goes both ways: Our participants take brochures to their doctors and other clinicians, sharing their own stories of the myriad benefits they’re receiving from their yoga practice. Sometimes stubborn medical challenges clear up or improve so dramatically that the physicians will ask the patient/yogi what they’re doing! Upon hearing an enthusiastic “Doc, it’s the yoga,” some accept the connection outright. Others just say “Well, whatever it is, keep doing it!”

Mostly our story is spread by buddies telling their buddies, word of mouth, the best way of course. The brochure and our simple website give folks something in front of them. One guy told us he had a brochure at his home for 18 months before finally walking through the yoga door. The website is deliberately full of photos; we want people to see that we are a mixed and welcoming group, maybe some of us look much like them. Older veterans may think yoga is for hippies, and now, apparently, yoga is associated with mid to upper class educated white women. Our information gives them a new association: Yoga is for everyone. Yoga is for them.

What We Do: How is Our YES Program Different from Classes in the Community

Our YES community classes are very much like our research study classes:

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We do a well-rounded practice with a focus on techniques that help regulate the brain and nervous system. We avoid religious and esoteric language and are more likely to use terms like “neuroplasticity,” “self-regulation” and “energy-accumulation” than talk of chakras, “shining our light” or “pushing through boundaries.” We avoid topics like politics and gun rights and regulations.

We do teach advanced practices and use some Sanskrit terms like prana, ujjayi breath and drishti, and we do namaste.

We use the powerful bandhas, root lock and belly lock, but here we use English terms rather than their Sanskrit names.

We begin with a brief centering, then practice a calming pranayama series which includes ujjayi, three part breath, extended exhale and alternate nostril breathing. This takes 25 to 30 minutes, and we feel it’s well worth the time. We

then do a seated series which is surprisingly thorough, working top to bottom.

A standing series focused on strength, balance and inner focus exhilarates us.

Then onto the floor for a prone backbending flow, and finally a supine series leads us into our relaxation. Our classes are 90 minutes and modifications are offered throughout. Some students utilize a chair for the entire practice, and they receive great benefit. Some use the chair and do standing postures but do not get on the floor. All of it works, and it’s a joy to see the support, encouragement and acceptance of all.

Trauma-Informed Yoga Classes and Practices

We know that those who have served in the military, whether they’ve seen combat or not, are much more likely than the average citizen to have experienced trauma. The kind of trauma that chang-

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es the physical brain. All of us on our YES teaching team have made effort to learn more about the neurobiology of trauma, how trauma affects the brain, and how yoga practices might give people the opposite experiences of trauma to help regulate the nervous system and bring the brain back to its pre-trauma state. We also study military culture, the effects of the different eras, wars and weapons used, and women veterans’ special challenges.

"Trauma-informed yoga" is currently an eagerly-discussed concept in yoga. We must first understand the prevalence of trauma in our world. It is now believed that 1 in 6 Americans have traumatic changes in the brain. We WILL HAVE traumatized people come to our classes.

If we understand a bit of what is lost in traumatic experiences we can try to provide a situation for recovery of those

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things. These might include: autonomy, safety, trust, choice, and agency. In our classes we make every effort to provide a safe and comfortable environment where healing is supported.

Every “special population” will have its special concerns, needs and interests. Here are some things our teaching team keeps in mind while offering the yoga classes:

• Autonomy—Students are fully in

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charge of their own experience.

They decide what is right for them.

We make suggestions and offer help, but we never tell them what to do.

Safety—This may include the configuration of the room with windows and doors in view rather than behind students’ backs; how we great them; even how close we stand when speaking with them;

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and how much we move around the room during class (no pacing or heavy-footedness!); how we make eye contact (not too little, and not glaring/staring); how crowded the room is; who comes in and out and much more.

Choice—We make it clear that everything is the participant's choice, from where they are in the room to how they do their poses to if they want an eye pillow during relaxation.

Touch—We are VERY cautious with touch and discuss it with them before their first class. Our goal is that any touch from us will be needed and welcomed, and importantly—expected! NO surprises, with touch or anything, if possible.

We do not give “comfort assists” or “deepening assists.” We may offer “safety assists,” and what we call “interoceptive assists,” such as plac-

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ing our hands on their shoulder blades and drawing downward.

Predictability—We do things the same each class, with little variation. I know some are thinking, “boring,” but for those who’ve had traumatic experiences, predictability allows them to let their guard down. Apparently not only trauma survivors but everyone loves predictability: Ask McDonalds and Starbucks how predictability works for them! We are careful to let the group know ahead of time if there will be any changes in our teaching team, if there will be a guest or photographer with us, etc. When we do plan to add something to our flow, we will show them the week before. We warn them about any potential interruptions or disturbances. For example, “We know we are right behind the fire station, so we could hear sirens." Going into relaxation we might say, "The guys are playing basketball in the gym across the hall,” or "Letitia and I will let you know if there’s anything you need to be aware of, you can go deep inside..."

Language—“Surrender" may mean something totally different to veterans, as well as "peace" and “relax.” These words are used often in regular yoga classes, but not in ours. For years, when female students had shoulder discrepancies I would ask if they always carry their purse or baby on one side. With our female veterans, I would instead ask if they’d carried their weapon on one side only. Military folks are incredibly respectful, so we too use the same terms they do, and we use somewhat technical terms rather than slang.

Voice—I’ve never met a combat veteran who didn’t have at least some hearing loss. We project our voice and speak up! We also strive for an upbeat, steady, welcoming and respectful tone.

Agency—Agency implies an ability to take action and make changes that affect oneself, according to one’s own will. Therefore, we do not “micromanage.” We let them figure things out about their own body, practice and experience.

Bill had been coming to classes regularly and then stopped. After a while one of the guys asked, “say, where’s Bill been?” I explained that Bill did not have transportation, and it became too difficult for him to get to class. I’ll never forget the look on their faces after hearing this. It was a combination of confusion, and not anger, but a not-okay! kind of look. Next thing I knew, they had figured out who lived on his side of town and arranged a schedule for him to be picked up and taken home. They were indeed not going to leave Bill behind! ■ YES to Vets classes are currently held at these locations: Dragonfly 360 Indianapolis, IN Fridays at 10am

Peace Through Yoga Speedway, IN Mondays at 2pm

We never tell our veteran students what they should feel or experience in yoga. We let the yoga itself do the “talking.” Also, how our participants feel about themselves is far more important than "getting the pose right." As long as they are in no danger of injury we are not insistent about the form of the poses. We want them to have successes in their yoga class, lots of successes, and as few perceived “failures” as possible.

I absolutely love working with our veterans and feel so honored to be able to give back in this way. I know all of us who teach yoga could share many stories that illustrate why we do what we do. Let me share one of my favorite experiences with our veteran yogis:

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Karma Summer: Kids Yoga

By Betsy Alt

One of the most uplifting trends to take off in the Indianapolis area in recent years is yoga and mindfulness programming for children and young adults. Once upon a time, it was a challenge to find a yoga, meditation or complementary practice for youth. But the landscape is changing. From studio classes to summer camps, and even a number of grade schools, our children now have more access to mindfulness-based practices. Those leading the way and facilitating such programs are passioncentered and know the practices offer immediate and lifelong benefits for children and teens. Courtney Bray, a newly registered yoga teacher, is among that group, and

you could say teaching yoga to kids and teens just came naturally to her.

importantly, surrendering to your practice, within my piano teaching.”

Courtney is a teacher by trade. She has been teaching piano to young people for the past twelve years. She describes herself as “very enthusiastic about educating our youth” and sees some strong parallels between learning piano and practicing yoga.

“Learning to focus on a goal, keeping clarity in your intention, developing good posture, respect for the process in learning a skill…those are just a few of the similarities I notice between the two studies,” she says.

“I am constantly using the key yoga philosophies of intention, motivation, patience, acceptance, and most

Courtney had been practicing herself for about six years when she decided to pursue her teacher certification with Body Mind and Core in Carmel.

“I completed my 200-HR certification this past March and jumped into teaching right away,” she gushes. “I have done a bit with teaching yoga to kids in the past, and a few years ago I took a YogaKids workshop in Chicago and loved it!” She currently leads ongoing family yoga classes at Body Mind & Core in Carmel, Indiana on the second Sunday of each month, but it’s her upcoming kids and teens programs that has her so excited the moment.

This summer, Courtney will be leading a full schedule of youth yoga at Flourish Yoga + Wellbeing in Fishers,

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Indiana. The Flourish offerings include Karma Youth Yoga (ages 7-12) and Karma Teen Yoga (ages 13 and up) on Saturday mornings and Kids’ Yoga on Tuesday and Thursday mornings (ages 5-12).

Karma Youth Yoga, which Flourish owner Erin Smith developed and offered last year, is an excellent opportunity for kids to experience and engage in the practice of yoga in a "youthful" way. Students will make a craft at the end of each session and then offer it for sale within their community. The money earned will be donated to a local charity. “This is such a beautiful way to allow children and teens to get involved, striving to be part of a positive goal for the community,” says Courtney. “Some of the crafts we’ll be making together include dream catchers, chakra garden stones, tie-dye yoga headbands, yogi herb gardens, and more!”

One of the perks of the Flourish Youth Yoga schedule is that their adults can practice at the same time in the other studio room. “We gave very careful thought as to how to make the kids and teens classes mesh with our adult offerings so that whomever is bringing them to class can also get on the mat,” states Erin.

The monthly family yoga class Courtney teaches at Body Mind & Core continues throughout the summer as well.

As this issue was going to press, she was leading her first “Kids Yoga Camp” at the studio. This offering included yoga sequences for kids ages four and older along with a yoga-themed craft. “This was the only week-long camp I had on the schedule so far, but I definitely would love to offer more, or even oneday events this summer, and beyond.

It’s so much fun to practice and create with the kids and teens,” Courtney says.

Courtney encourages anybody with a child or teen and room in their schedule this summer to find a class and take them to the mat. “Whether it’s one of the classes I’m leading or another offering, I hope parents will find a class for their own children because I know how beneficial it can be,” she says. “Two of my four kiddos have felt drawn to yoga, especially my seven-year-old who favors Tree, Wheel and Yogi Squat. I see her focus and notice her progress in the asanas, INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

and she does as well… That really boosts her confidence.” Courtney is also teaching meditation to her budding yogini and so far, feels that is also going very well. “Just taking a moment to be still, she seems to really like that,” she says.

To learn more about Courtney Bray and her services, or talk to her about youth mindfulness and yoga, visit her website: www.lightandstoneyoga.com. ■

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Into the Turn: Motorsport Yoga Imagine driving at death-defying speeds, wrestling against gravitational forces up to four or five times the normal pull of the Earth on your body. Your heart races doubletime while you sit and sweat without break, trying to keep your mind focused on your milliondollar machine and every other car around you. And your job is to win.

In the ruthless world of auto racing every detail is crucial. From engineering the vehicles to training drivers and pit crew, every element is meticulously planned for success. When drivers train they prepare their bodies for the physical endurance challenges, and the mind for the mental stress of the race. They are also looking to protect their bodies to allow them a lengthy career in this very physical sport.

Recently it has become well known that many drivers are turning to yoga to find a competitive edge. Not only does the physical practice protect their joints, strengthen muscles and add range of motion, but the mental practice allows them to stay centered while making quick decisions during high performance racing.

Chip Ganassi Racing Team in a pit stop. Photo courtesy of LAT Photography.

One celebrated racing team that has embraced this practice for their drivers, pit crew and engineers is Chip Ganassi Racing. At their Indianapolis facility engineers and pit crew participate in weekly yoga classes to help their bodies with the physical demands of their jobs. At their North Carolina facility they have a yoga program for their NASCAR team. Drivers in Indy typically work with specialized trainers such as Pitfit Training, an Indianapolis-based leader in motorsports-specific human performance training.

PitFit is a small company on the northwest side of Indianapolis, and it boasts clients from Formula One, IndyCar, NASCAR, NHRA, GRAND-AM, ALMS, USAC and numerous junior-level auto racing series. Pitfit Training president Jim Leo says, “We encourage our racing drivers to take part in yoga as a way to help with recovery from tough training sessions. There is also a benefit when they take part in hot yoga as this helps them acclimate to the dreadful summer temperatures and humidity while on track.” In addition to motorsports PitFit trains professional athletes in the NFL and Mixed Martial Arts. Leo says,” Most are quite surprised how difficult yoga can be and are amazed how much it helps with increasing range of motion in their shoulders and hips.” No matter the physical shape of the individual, yoga will push you further. ■

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Team Practice at Chip Ganassi Racing

By Kristy Simpson

When I first had the opportunity to teach yoga at Chip Ganassi Racing, I wasn't sure what I was walking into.

Being married to a race car driver and being a race fan in general, I thought I knew enough to understand their needs. Yoga is incredible for the physical and mental state, for anyone that practices it. So I don't think it's any surprise that a race team would want to incorporate it into their weekly routine. Of course race car drivers, especially IndyCar drivers, need to be fit.

But what about the team behind the driver? Many people behind the scenes work their tails off endless hours to make everything work in just the right way, often in the fastest way possible, to get that coveted podium finish.

Mistakes made from mental stress or distraction can cost the team a podium finish.”

Yoga practice is an important part of the Ganassi team’s work life week to week. It only takes watching one pit stop on TV to see how the crew needs to have their bodies in excellent physical shape in order to be fast, efficient and effective. I am lucky enough to have studied their movements from pit lane. To watch these men and women (yes, it’s not just a boy's club) leap over a concrete wall and nearly land on a knee with a 30-pound tire in hand is intense. This is why chair pose (utkatasana) becomes a part of our weekly practice. Chair pose builds strength in the thighs and surrounding muscles of the knee. It's extremely useful when they have to move quickly with heavy equipment.

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Regular exercise and a yoga practice helps prevent injury on the job.

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To know the craziness that is a pit stop, we also have to know the inner calmness that is imperative when performing them. Mistakes from mental stress or distraction can cost the team a podium finish. Mindfulness is a necessity when moving quickly in a fast-paced environment. We will practice seated meditation at least once in each class. I will incorporate lotus pose (padmasana) right smack dab in the middle of a flow as a gentle reminder that we can slow down, reset our focus and move forward in a more mindful way. Even if adjusted from traditional lotus, we will force the body to slow down and recognize our space.

That takes us back to the knees. Once strength and mindfulness are addressed, we can make our way to more complicated postures. Crescent Warrior, both high and low lunge, are an integral part of our yoga practice at Ganassi. In almost every class I like to add low lunge into our sun salutation sequence. The need for flexibility in the knees is apparent when observing a pit stop: When the crew has to remove a tire, grab the new tire and bolt it to the car. They are on their knees the entire time. By practicing low lunge the class can instinctively understand where weight should go from the front foot to the back knee finding balance as well as flexibility. In high lunge, like chair, it builds an incredible amount of strength, but it also adds in the element of flexibility. This is incredibly use-

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Chip Ganassi Racing engineer Kate poses in the garage

ful for the crew during their work in the pits and the garage where they work on the cars.

Chip Ganassi Racing has provided an incredible tool for their employees. Not only does yoga help improve results on the race track, but it also allows their employees a well-rounded work week. Employers providing yoga raise the entire company’s quality of life.

Week in and week out, we practice getting up and getting down mentally and physically. This crew makes a commitment to their jobs that most people might not understand. Their hours and dedication are awe inspiring, and I am so lucky to be a small part of the bigger picture in the world of motor racing at Chip Ganassi Racing. â–

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Reap the Benefits of Forward Bends

By Alyssa Pfennig

Forward bending poses help to stretch and strengthen the back side of the body, including the posterior muscles of the spine, pelvis, legs and shoulder girdle. This group of poses can be quite therapeutic with proper understanding of biomechanics, using modifications as necessary, and just slowing down. If you find yourself cursing the bendy person in class next to you while you struggle to touch your toes, seize the opportunity to establish a connection with the part of your body holding tension, and learn how you can get deeper into the pose without injury.

Lumbar-Pelvic Rhythm Our bodies are ingenious and will find the easiest route to get into a pose with the least amount of effort. Yes, that’s right, our bodies are innately lazy. And that’s why learning about your body through your yoga practice is imperative.

In the case of forward bending, forcing yourself to reach your toes may cause strain on the low back or hamstrings because your body is going to find the easiest way to get there at the expense of these areas. On the other hand, that bendy person you cursed in class may be cheating herself and simply bypassing the entire stretch across the back due to the laxity of her hip joints. In both cases, the lumbar-pelvic rhythm is off. In Yoga for Wellness, Gary Kraftsow, founder of the American Viniyoga Institute, describes this relationship

between the actions of the joints of the lumbar spine and the hips: “The key to forward bends is the ability to control the proportional relation between the progressive flattening and potential reversal of our lumbar curvature and the forward rotation of our pelvis at the hip joints.”

Personally, I have loose hips, and my pelvis tilts forward, thus allowing me to easily cheat and bend forward without releasing the fascia and muscles in my lower back. This is a prime example of an irregular lumbar-pelvic rhythm. For the longest time I did not realize that my pelvis was tilted forward, and every time a watchful Iyengar yoga teacher would tell me to put my butt down.

I had no clue what they were talking about. One day it clicked, and I moved my pelvis back to an upright position.

My entire low back sighed with relief.

Since then, my work is in grounding my tailbone and lifting my pubic bone slightly upward as I bend forward. To me, it feels like I am tucking because my pelvis has become so accustomed to tilting forward. However, by doing what came easy for me for years without correction, I actually increased the tightness in my low back and made my hips joints even looser. Loose ligaments and tendons can feel arthritic and painful as you age. No bueno. Of course, backing off totally messes with my ego, but my body is ever so grateful.

Ardha uttanasana with pelvis tilting forward, thus causing a deeper lumbar curve.

By lifting the pubic bone or engaging the muscles of the lower abdomen, you can keep the alignment of the spine and release the lower back as you bend forward in ardha uttanasana or any forward bending pose.

Left: Paschimottanasana with chest collapsed and excessive rounding of spine.

Right: Paschimottanasana with chest lifted.

Use a chair or an upright bolster to put your forehead or arms on to help with extension of the torso and spine.

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Upavistha konasana with tight hips and restriction of the pelvis.

Rounding the Back Many students new to yoga desperately try to reach their toes, or tend to round the spine deeply, thus collapsing their chest. It’s easy to do as this is precisely what happens when sitting at a computer all day. There is not much extension in the spine when the back is rounded and chest collapsed, only flexion. If someone already has kyphosis (exaggerated rounding) in their thoracic spine, this is not ideal.

Now, too much rounding in the back and a posterior tilt of the pelvis can potentially be more injurious (to the vertebral column as well as its corresponding muscles and ligaments) than bending with a straight back. This is one reason why yoga teachers, including myself at one time, have been trained to teach students to bend from the hips with a flat back and avoid rounding the spine too much. Neither extreme is optimal as always bending with a flat back can leave you more susceptible to tearing a hamstring tendon or straining the sacroiliac joint. However, if someone has a flat thoracic they do need to round the spine

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Bending the knees slightly or sitting up higher on blankets in upavistha konasana or other forward bends allows the pelvis to rotate forward.

Upavistha konasana alternate pose

because flexion is a healthy movement for them. This is one example of why I believe that yoga is an individual experience, and teachers should be trained on how to adapt poses to different bodies rather than simply repeat an instruction passed down through a training.

know the same thing but is too afraid to ask. Once you know exactly what props you need for your body, you can grab them at the beginning of every class and be prepared. As your body opens up with regular practice, you may no longer have a need for all of the props.

Getting Unstuck Many students, especially men, have restriction in the movement of the pelvis, sometimes creating a posterior tilt.

As mentioned before, this adds potential for injury, so modifying your poses is essential. This feeling of being stuck can be frustrating to the ego, but know that when you force your body into a pose, you’re doing it at the sacrifice of some other area. For standing forward bends, keep your knees bent until your hamstrings can relax. For seated poses, I suggest sitting on the edge of a couple of blankets or a small bolster to help your pelvis rotate forward. If you’re not sure what you need or what you’re doing, ask your teacher for assistance during or after class depending on the circumstances. Be brave. Most likely there’s someone else in class who wants to

Once the pelvis tilts forward, and no matter where it stops, allow the rest of your body to relax and surrender into the fold, including your head and neck.

Think of creating an arc of the entire back in order to find stability (sthira) and ease (sukha) within your forward bend. Be careful not to collapse the chest too much. As you get to know your body, it’s very helpful to have a teacher that you trust to help guide you on your yoga journey and help you to become aware of the way you move. Yoga is about creating a relationship with yourself, so think of it as a very long engagement and relish in learning something new about your body and mind time and again. Oh, and one day you may very well touch your toes. ■

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Heart-Centered Mudras

By Mindi Epstein

How do you mend a broken heart? So much ink has been spilled, and so many voices have crooned over this very question. When you are in the throes of despair, how can you feel whole again?

We have been told time heals a broken heart, or that you should “fake it till you make it,” until you feel right again. Exercise and generally “taking care of yourself,” whatever that means, also are purported to promote healing.

Yogic tradition places the power to heal in our own hands with the practice of hasta mudras. These beautiful, symbolic hand gestures seal and redirect prana, the flow of energy that breathes life into all living beings. Since ancient times, mudras have been practiced to promote all aspects of healing, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Whether mending a broken heart, strengthening a heart weakened by dis-ease, or tapping into your energetic heart center, the following sacred hand gestures aid in getting to the heart of the matter.

Practice these mudras while meditating and try invoking a heart-centered affirmation to encourage healing and a loving heart.

Abhaya Hridaya Mudra Strength and courage reside in my loving heart.

The complex intertwining of fingers and hands make this mudra of the courageous heart a powerful antidote to feeling wounded and small. In Sanskrit, abhaya translates to “have no fear.” Hridaya means “heart.” When you feel overcome by emotions that inhibit you from radiating your inner beauty, call upon this mudra to restore faith in yourself. To form the abhaya hridaya mudra, cross your right wrist over the left so the right is closest

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to your body. Press the back of your hands together.

Next, link your pinky, ring finger and index finger on one hand to its partner on the other. To complete the mudra, bring the thumbs to touch the middle fingers on each hand, thereby closing the circuit of energy. The gesture should be held in front of the heart with fingers upright, thumbs touching the sternum.

Apan Vayu Mudra My heart is pure and loving. Only love can touch my heart.

Apan vayu mudra (or apana vayu mudra), is intended for the physical aspects of the heart. According to ancient lore, this mudra not only prevents cardiac disease, it can supposedly stop a heart attack by immediately increasing blood circulation. While this mudra is traditionally practiced to promote heart health, it also supports the digestive system by offering relief for heartburn and other gastrointestinal ailments. This mudra of the heart combines the power of two mudras in one. Rest the hands on the knees, palms facing up. Bring the middle and ring fingers to touch the tip of the thumbs. This gesture by itself is the Apan Mudra. Curl the index fingers into the base of the thumbs to form the vayu mudra, the second aspect of the apan vayu mudra. Extend the pinky fingers away from the body to complete the gesture.

Padma Mudra I am beautiful. I am confident. I am perfect just the way I am.

Padma is Sanskrit for lotus. This exquisite flower is rooted in darkness and bursts through the surface of water to open its petals to the glory of the sun’s warmth and light. The perfection of the lotus blossom represents love, truth, beauty and divine knowledge. Allow your inner beauty to radiate from your heart center by practicing padma mudra. Bring the palms together to form prayer hands, or anjali mudra, in front of the heart. With palms touching, press the thumbs together and draw the pinky fingers to touch one another. Open the index, middle and ring fingers away from one another to form the cup-like shape of the lotus blossom. â–

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What to Expect from an Iyengar Class

By Dana Darr “Jump your legs open to a wide distance. Turn your right foot open and your left foot in. Line up the heel of the right foot with the arch of the left. Rotate your right thigh open and lift your knee cap. Turn the shinbone inward. Stretching your feet wide, press weight into the ball mound of your big toe and extend the entire edge of your right foot into the floor. Lift up the arch of the right foot. Now rotate your entire left leg outward from the root of your thigh, lift the knee and extend weight into the outer back heel and edge of your foot. Do not let the arch collapse. Keep weight evenly distributed between both feet and maintain your hips in the same plane. Moving on to your torso…”

Wait, what?

Welcome to your first Iyengar yoga class! A world full of minute directions, some quite esoteric, intended to focus both your body and your mind into the depths of your asana in an attempt to chase that elusive state of dhyana, or mindfulness. A place where the subtleties of triangle pose, utthita trikonasana, can absorb your attention for nearly a full class and leave you amazed that a full hour or more has passed without your noticing.

Practicing triangle in an Iyengar class does not look like the ads you see on

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TV or in magazines, or even other yoga classes. Instead of trying to create a picture perfect pose in unison you will see some people using blocks to lengthen their arms, so they do not sink into their shoulders or scrunch up the sides of their waists. Others will have their outer foot pressed against a wall to learn how not to fall into the front leg. Still others might have their back against a wall to improve their sense of balance, to become aware of how their hips are aligned, or to be safe during an advanced stage of pregnancy. In other words, there are numerous

ways to make a pose accessible to every student. BKS Iyengar taught us that each pose is as individual as the person attempting it and that through the use of props there is always a safer way to experience the nuances of the pose.

Inversions are also an integral element of each class. Headstand and Shoulderstand charge our bodies with energy, challenge our fears (is there anything more terrifying for most adults than balancing upside down?) and teach us how to control our bodies in an unusual environment. At the same time they soothe our nervous system, help balance our hormones and focus our attention strongly within ourselves. Finding peace in an inversion may be difficult, but imagine how much easier it makes that process in every other situation. And who ever said that Headstand can only be practiced in one way? We can use bricks to teach us how to bring our upper spine inward and to lift our shoulders. Blankets and extra mats teach how to effectively work the muscles of the arms to provide a strong base for the pose.

We can use chairs to take weight off our neck and head so we can experience being upside down safely. Or, and this is my complete favorite, you can suspend yourself in ropes on the wall to experience traction in your low

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back and a delightful lengthening of your entire spine. Oh my, just thinking about it makes me want to go practice!

Iyengar teachers also create precision with their exact instructions. In urdhva hastasana (raised arms in tadasana) we don’t just lift the arms overhead. We lengthen the arms as we bring them upward, rotating the triceps towards each other and the lower arms outward.

The entire arm is engaged, right up to the wrists, palms and fingertips. We resist our chest and thighs backward to prevent shortening the armpit and throwing weight into our low backs. Our face remains calm and we do not allow the jaw, throat or back of our skull to become tight. The trapezius muscles slide downward and create beautiful length in our shoulders and necks we may never before have experienced. Ahhh! It truly becomes meditation in action when we practice so precisely.

After I took my first Iyengar yoga class, way back in 1995, I recall how tired I was both physically and mentally. I

mean, I was wiped! I slept so soundly that night and woke up thinking, “Ok, I can see this. This is a good thing.” It was difficult doing two disparate directions at once but my body responded quickly as I became absorbed in the journey. I stopped thinking about the parts of the pose I couldn’t do and allowed the instructor to guide me, step by precise step, toward greater strength, flexibility and health. The bonus was my first lesson in aparigraha (non-attachment) as I realized yoga is not about achieving a perfect pose but about the work I do within the pose.

No, Iyengar yoga is not sexy. There are no gimmicks associated with it to draw you in. No music, no goats, not even fun outfits. It promises only that hard work will result in deeper work and greater understanding. After 20 years of practice I realize that I am only scratching the surface of what took BKS Iyengar 96 years to explore. I can’t wait to get back on the mat and see what I uncover tomorrow. ■

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10 Titles on Inspiring People When Breath Becomes Air

by Paul Kalanithi

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

by Rebecca Skloot

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a

Her

neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a

cells—taken

that, the future he and his wife had imagined When

Kalanithi's

Breath

Becomes

transformation

Air

critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

her

one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for

a naïve medical student ""possessed,"" as he wrote, ""by the question life"" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most

without

knowledge in 1951—became

from

of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful

Henrietta

black tobacco farmer whose

was a patient struggling to live. And just like

chronicles

was

her as HeLa. She was a poor

doctor treating the dying, and the next he

evaporated.

name

Lacks, but scientists know

developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more. Henrietta's cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can't afford health insurance. This phenomenal New York Times bestseller tells a riveting story of the collision

Guruji: A Portrait of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Through the Eyes of His Students

by Guy Donahaye

between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew.

It is a rare and remarkable soul who becomes legendary during the course of his life by virtue of great service to others. Sri K. Pattabhi Jois was such a soul, and through his teaching of yoga, he transformed the lives of countless people. The school in Mysore that he founded and ran for more than sixty years trained students who, through the knowledge they received and their devotion, have helped to spread the daily practice of traditional Ashtanga yoga to tens of thousands around the world. Guruji paints a unique portrait of a unique man, revealed through the accounts of his students.

Krishnamacharya: His Life and Teachings

by A.G. Mohan In this book, the author, A. G.

Mohan,

a well-respec-

ted yoga teacher and yoga therapist,

draws

on

his

own memories and Krishnamacharya's

diaries

and recorded material, to present a fascinating view

Americans Who Tell the Truth

by Robert Shetterly Stunning portraits and stirring words of brave citizens from all walks of life. As we in the United States have the right to speak the truth, we also have the need to be told the truth. Americans have used this freedom to motivate and empower others to challenge the status quo. Artist Robert Shetterly's fifty portraits offer a powerful perspective on what it means to be American

of the man and his teachings, and Mohan's own warm and

inspiring

relationship

with the master. This portrait of the great teacher is a compelling and informative read for yoga teachers and students who truly want to understand the source of their tradition and practice.

and to be part of a democratic society.

68

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

SELF STUDY

Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama

by Dalai Lama

My Own Words

by Ruth Bader Ginsburg The first book from Ruth Bader Ginsburg

In this astonishingly frank autobio-

witty,

graphy, the Dalai Lama reveals the re-

The Goddess Pose: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West

by Michelle Goldberg New

Times

best-selling

globetrotting story of the incredible woman who brought yoga to the West.

the most inspiring figures of our time. In his classic autobiography

When Indra Devi was born in Russia

he recounts the story of his life and how he developed his

in 1899, yoga was virtually unknown

concept of active nonviolent resistance, which propelled

outside of India. By the time of her

the Indian struggle for independence and countless

own lives and communities.

York

author Michelle Goldberg tells the

Mohandas K. Gandhi is one of

circumstances,"in order to bring about change in our

and

and popular culture.

Gandhi: An Autobiography The Story of My Experiments With Truth

by Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi and Mahadev H. Desai

close scrutiny, what can and cannot be adapted to new

serious,

influence on law, women’s rights,

ities of Chinese Communism.

experimenting, of tesing what will and will not bear

engaging,

has had a powerful and enduring

Tibetan Buddhism and the brutal real-

Sissela Bok urges us to adopt Gandhi's "attitude of

a

speeches from the woman who

him to master both the mysteries of

In a new foreword, noted peace expert and teacher

becoming

playful collection of writings and

markable inner strength that allowed

other nonviolent struggles of the twentieth century.

since

Supreme Court Justice in 1993—a

death, in 2002, it was being practiced around the world. Here Michelle Goldberg tells the globetrotting story of the incredible woman who helped usher in a craze that continues unabated to this day. A sweeping picture of the twentieth century that travels from the cabarets of Berlin to the Mysore Palace to Golden Age Hollywood and beyond, The Goddess Pose brings the Devi’s little known but extraordinary adventures vividly to life.

Conversations with Myself

by Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama Nelson Mandela is one of the most inspiring and iconic figures of our age. Now, after a lifetime of recording thoughts and events, hardships and victories, he has opened his personal archive, which offers unprecedented insight into his remarkable autobiography.

From letters written in the darkest hours of his twenty-seven years of imprisonment to the draft of an unfinished sequel to Long Walk to Freedom, Conversations with Myself gives readers access to the private man behind the public figure. Here he is making notes and even doodling during meetings, or transcribing troubled dreams on the desk calendar in his prison cell on Robben Island; writing journals while on the run during the anti-apartheid struggle in the early 1960s, and conversing with friends in almost seventy hours of recorded conversations. Here he is neither icon nor saint.

An intimate journey from the first stirrings of political consciousness to his galvanizing role on the world stage, Conversations with Myself is a rare chance to spend time with Nelson Mandela the man, in his own voice: direct, clear, private. Foreword by President Barack Obama.

Follow Indy Yogi on goodreads.com.

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

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SELF STUDY

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asana

By Purvi Lippincott Around the world yoga is received in different terms and through many different styles. The most common form of yoga and the driving force in the Western World could be identified as the asana practice. We refer to asana as the yoga poses.

Savasana, meaning corpse pose, is one of the most frequently practiced poses typically at the end of any practice.

This posture has the most relevance to the ancient philosophy of yoga since it asks us to truly turn inward and let go. Our opportunities for working through the chatter of the mind is often the greatest challenge in these moments of stillness. Sometimes called the “death of the practice” this pose is taken after moving through the spine in the different directions, poses that can help release blocked or stagnant energy further allowing the practitioner to settle in and digest the effects of all the movement.

Patanjali offers us the eight limb path of yoga in the Yoga Sutra also known as ashtanga. Asana is the third rung of the yoga ladder. Though it is just one

piece of the whole, it is seen as what has brought many to dig deeper into truly living their yoga. This is because it is often the most accessible and commonly recognized. Meditation is another rung which is well paired with the asana practice. There are many styles of yoga that encourage you to move through a specific sequence or type of sequencing to prep you for a prolonged period of seated meditation.

This becomes more obvious as Patanjali goes on to explain the role of poses in Sutra 2.46: sthira sukham asanam. This is the only sutra explaining what is asana. Sthira is interpreted as “steady, stable and motionless.”

Sukham is interpreted as “comfortable, effortless and easy.” Asanam in this case can be interpreted as a meditation pose, seated pose or a rooted pose. Patanjali offers us opportunity to work through postures to achieve this steady and comfortable state of mind, the physical practice allows us to work through compromising positions and breathe so we can better tap into this when we work through the

challenges of life and the obstacles we face on and off of our yoga mats.

Think about a time when being on your mat was challenging. The poses were uncomfortable. Your mind was building to-do lists, and staying present was comparable to climbing Mt. Everest. This is when we need our yoga the most. The asana practice, coupled with presence—the kind you have to tune in extra hard for—and breath (yet another rung of ashtanga yoga) is what helps us get grounded. Those are the practices that teach us the most.

Our yoga is about working through one discomfort at a time. When we revisit a pose that makes us uncomfortable over and over until it becomes comfortable, THIS is the work.

We move to the next uncomfortable edge, continuing to expand from our light, tapping into the always-present divinity within us, working through the discomfort until it becomes familiar, and then we have to take the next step. The practice is constant, just like change. We evolve, we grow and our asana practice suddenly becomes us LIVING our yoga everywhere we go. ■

Photo by Amanda Reynolds Photography INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

71

HOW YOGA CHANGED ME

How Yoga Changed Me

Happy Life, Happy Wife

By Mel Butler

My wife, Eunice, kept asking me to try yoga. She had been taking classes with Kim Allen and was enjoying them greatly. She’d heard of a yoga class especially for veterans. After some time I decided I would indulge her and go to one class with full intention of telling her yoga isn’t right for me. About half-way through that first class I realized yoga IS right for me! The way the instructor, Nancy, explained things and the practice we did made total sense to me. And to my great surprise, I enjoyed it!

Nancy welcomed us to the class with a warm and friendly familiarity of having known us for ages. She explained the origin and the purpose of the class: It was for veterans who sustained physical and mental difficulties as result of injuries to their bodies. Some injuries were due to combat. Some were due to age.

What was more intriguing and very welcoming was the opportunity to have my spouse as well as other spouses participate in the class. The experience of having your spouse working out with you is very fulfilling. It offers a new and different closeness and bond the two of you share.

Nancy is a very engaging, encouraging, and supportive person as well as an excellent yoga instructor. She also provides interactive, knowledgeable, and caring assistants.

Together, they provide an atmosphere of calm and relaxation. We do a 90 minute session of yoga-oriented exercises. For some vets this is an hour and a half of no pain.

Mel is a Vietnam Era Veteran, Combat Wounded Purple Heart

The experience of having your spouse working out with you is very fulfilling. It offers a new and different closeness and bond the two of you share."

72

In our yoga classes, we learn how to move, breath and relax. The yoga positions learned are applicable to daily life. Nancy offers various ways to do the yoga poses. Some use their yoga mats and others use chairs; choices depend on their disabilities and/or mobilities.

Personally, I use a chair as my yoga alternative position. I am offered modification and tools to aid in the various poses.

My goal is to graduate from the chair to my yoga mat that I purchased with the determination to do floor yoga postures.

As a kidney transplant recipient, my yoga program helps me keep my core region firm. Our exercise program aids in maintaining my best physical fitness.

Since I have begun yoga, approximately a year and a half ago, I have become stronger, more flexible, and increasingly mobile. My breathing has improved as well as my balance and sight due to the muscles that are strength-

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

HOW YOGA CHANGED ME

ened when practicing the yoga exercises. The improvement of my sight is not medically assessed, however, it is what I have experienced since practicing specific yoga practices for the eyes.

In terms of my balance, I now can walk up and down stairs in a bilateral movement. This is because the yoga exercises have made me stronger and more balanced. For full disclosure, I use a walking stick at times for better balance, quickness, and faster mobility. Nevertheless, I feel more secure now not using my walking stick as often as before.

Another benefit of yoga is its aid in helping me with my weight loss program. With its strengthening properties, it affords me the ability and confidence to move further with more precise, stronger and longer exercise activities.

with the exercises and their benefits. Some of the benefits include: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Low impact movement Weight loss Improved mobility Increased flexibility Improvement in breathing Satisfaction of exercising with your partner (if applicable) Camaraderie (sorely needed in our society today)

Needless- to- say, I have made a lifelong choice that enhances my physical, mental, and emotional being. Yoga has strengthened my resolve to live the best life that I can. This is not only for me, but for the love of my life, family and friends. â–

Recently, I was hospitalized with very serious medical conditions. Thanks to my God, He allowed me full recovery. While confined, I utilized some of my breathing, hand, and eye techniques to help calm myself when times became more stressful than usual during hospital stays. They provided a sense of power one tends to lose while in the hospital. Ultimately those practices afforded me a reassurance of my imminent recovery.

There is such a camaraderie that has been forged and formed in each of the classes. I think because of our primary connection that we all have in common, a sense of concern manifests when our yoga buddies are absent from class. This sentiment certainly includes staff when (very rarely) they are absent.

I would like to suggest that Veterans give this form of yoga a try. You will be surprised and satisfied

IGNITE Y UR PRACTICE bodymindandcore.com

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

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DIRECTORY OF STUDIOS

Indiana Yoga Studios CENTRAL ANDERSON Yoga for Everyone 12 E Cross St

CRAWFORDSVILLE

MUNCIE Lotus Wellness Center 814 West White River Blvd

Studio Exhale 103 N High St

RICHMOND

Zen Cat Yoga

5127 1/2 S. US Hwy. 41

zencatyogaterrehaute.com

WEST LAFAYETTE

Finish Strong Studio 1323 Darlington Ave

finishstrongstudio.com • 765-376-6552

Quest for Balance 2886 US Hwy 231 S

GREENCASTLE Serendipity Yoga Studio

Journey Yoga 424 N 10th St

journey-yoga.com • 765-969-3793

KOKOMO

SHELBYVILLE Pure Motion 9 Public Sq

Bodyworks Kokomo

TERRE HAUTE

Moving Toward Balance

3905 Southland Ave

LAFAYETTE Pink Lotus Yoga Studio 2139A Ferry Street

Community Yoga

480 W Navajo St, Ste B

communityyogalafayette.com • 765-201-0494

Tenley Studio

332 Main St, Ste B

Yoga Balance

The Morton Center, 222 North Chauncey Ave

YORKTOWN

1620 W Defenbaugh St

Peace of Yoga

bemovedpoweryoga.com • 765-588-6657

Your Yoga Nest

215 E Ohio St

bodyworks-studio.com • 317-920-9642

3451 Wyndham Way

ROCKVILLE

3875 W County Rd 250 N

3717 South Reed Rd (back door)

Be Moved Power Yoga

Common Ground CrossFit + Yoga 1625 South 25th St

commongroundcrossfitandyoga.com 812-208-8946

inYoga

605 Ohio St, Ste 216

The Corner Mat 2005 S Tiger Dr

thecornermat.com

Sunshine Yoga 527 Main St

74

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

DIRECTORY OF STUDIOS

Christian Theological Seminary Yoga School

INDY METRO CARMEL

1000 W 42nd St

Peace Through Yoga

134 S. Washington

peacethroughyoga.com • 317-753-1266

FISHERS

CITYOGA School of Yoga & Health 2442 Central Ave

cityoga.biz • 317-920-9642

Flourish Yoga and Wellbeing 10138 Brooks School Rd

Body Mind & Core 1344 S Rangeline Rd

bodymindandcore.com • 317-696-0720

Dragonfly 360 Yoga & Wellness Indy Balance 404 W Main St

Source Yoga

1724 E 86th St

dragonfly360.net • 317-818-1800

8609 E 116th St

sourceyoga.net • 317-915-9642

indybalance.com

Shamrock Wellness

14535 Hazel Dell Parkway

GREENWOOD

Embarque Yoga Therapy & Wellness 5345 Winthrop Ave, Ste E

embarqueyoga.com • 317-762-9642

The Hub by ProMotion Fitness 620 S Rangeline Rd

thehubindy.com • 317-914-4316

The Yoga Studio 736 Hanover Place

DANVILLE

Evolutions @ Yoga 2801 Fairview Place

evolutionsyoga.com • 317-881-YOGA

Heartfulness/Healing Arts Indy 805 S Meridian St

Studio You

862 South SR 135 Ste I

INDIANAPOLIS

Inner Peace Yoga Center 5098 E 56th St

innerpeaceyoga.com • 317-257-9642

BodySpace

1315 Shelby St, Ste B

Breath Life Yoga Hendricks Regional Health

8202 Clearvista Parkway, Ste 8C

Invoke Studio

970 Fort Wayne Ave

998 E Matin St

invokestudio.com • 317-631-9642

hendricks.org/YOGA • 317-718-8160

Breathing Space Yoga 5026 E 62nd St

breathingspace.yoga • 317-900-2312

Invoke Wellness Cetner 1315 W 86th St, Ste D

invokewellnesscenter.com/yoga • 317-802-1374

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

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DIRECTORY OF STUDIOS

SPEEDWAY

Irvington Wellness Center 17 N Layman

Tree House JCC - Community Yoga School

6701 Hoover Rd

jccindy.org/yoga • 317-251-9467

Karma Yoga

Williams Creek Area

22 E 16th St

treehouseindy.com • 317-602-7707

Peace Through Yoga 1032 Main Street, Suite B

peacethroughyoga.com • 317-753-1266

Yogaworx

4550 Central Ave

LEBANON

ZIONSVILLE A Yoga Lounge

4400 Weston Pointe Dr, Ste 120

kOMpose

6201 Winthrop Ave

Indiana Yoga Studio

Metta Yoga Initiative

116 N Lebanon St

Mindful Movement Studio

MARTINSVILLE

3125 E 10th St

1475D W 86th St

indianayogastudio.com • 317-225-7867

Blooming Life Yoga Studio & School 30 S Elm St

bloominglifeyoga.com • 317-800-4037

Breathe & Flow Yoga 188 E Morgan St

Nourish Wellness 826 W. 64th St

nourishwellness.com • 317-524-2266

NOBLESVILLE

peacethroughyoga.com • 317-753-1266

Practice Indie 922 N Capitol St

Santosha

8580 Cedar Place Dr #120

Peace Through Yoga

575 S. Main Street

Simply Yoga 260 S 1st St

Shine Yoga 833 Conner St

Studio G

Lafayette Square Mall

The Hot Room - Downtown 305 E New York St

The Hot Room - Uptown 3855 E 96th St

The Playful Soul 6516 N Ferguson

The Yoga Studio

shineyogawellness.com • 327-774-5570

PENDLETON Exhale Yoga

207 W State St, Ste B

PLAINFIELD

NORTHWEST CHESTERTON

Rejuva Wellness and Yoga 1915 Gladden Rd

6245 N College Ave

Bleu Lotus Yoga

326 Indian Boundary Rd

bleulotusyoga.com • 219-299-9642

76

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

DIRECTORY OF STUDIOS

ELKHART

East Wind Studio 101 Second St

The Awakening Realm

Yoga Mecca

624 W Beardsley Ave

1587 S Calumet Rd

Tree of Life Yoga Center

CROWN POINT

ONE

1605 LaPorte Avenue

onevalpo.com • 219-240-1810

The Lotus Center 4403 N Calumet Ave

Salt Mine Personal Fitness & Yoga 121 N. Main St

bleulotusyoga.com • 877-566-9642

The Yoga Room

The Yoga Sanctuary 407 E. Lincolnway Suite A

Yoga Sukha Shala 505 Don Hovery Dr

418 N Main St

9001 Indianapolis Blvd.

PurePower Hot Yoga

224 S Main St

FORT WAYNE Fusion Yoga

6382 Jefferson Blvd W

Hot Yoga Fort Wayne - Opening soon 1202 W Main St

6208 Covington Rd

65 W 112th Ave

Hot Yoga Highland

Yoga Bodyworks

MYoga

YOUnique Yoga of NWI

HIGHLAND

29666 County Rd 10 W

Simply Yoga Fort Wayne 918 Woodland Plaza Run

NORTHERN

Studio Seva

ANGOLA

Urban Body Yoga

2645 Main St

3511 N. Anthony

4930 Illinois R. Suite F1

West Central Yoga

Yoga on 45th

727 Union St

2008 45th St

LA PORTE Barn Sante

Bike and Soul

120 North Public Square

bikeandsoulangola.com • 260-665-8356

1612 W 400 S

AUBURN

MICHIGAN CITY

Yes You Can Fitness

Sacred Dunes Alternative Health

500 S Grandstaff Ste D

410 Wabash St

COLUMBIA CITY

SHERERVILLE

Laughting Lotus

YOUnique Yoga of NWI 354 E Lincoln Highway

Pranayoga Insitute of Yoga and Holistic Health 1301 Lafayette St

pranayogaschool.com • 260-627-9642

1746 S 350 W

DECATUR

Pranayoga Insitute of Yoga and Holistic Health 10329 Illinois Rd

pranayogaschool.com • 260-627-9642

VALPARAISO Asana Yoga Center 155 Linocolnway

Ohm Yoga Studio 70 Lincolnway

Decatur Downdog 164 S 2nd St

decaturdowndog.com • 260-724-9642

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

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DIRECTORY OF STUDIOS

GOSHEN

The Breathing Room 1936 W Airport Rd

VINCENNES Elements

Spacious Heart Yoga 302 S Main St, Ste 1

spaciousheartyoga.com • 574-361-9756

GRANGER Beyond Zen Studio 318 Toscana Boulevard

LOGANSPORT

ROANOKE

4 North 2nd St

Powers of One 151 1/2 N Main St

SOUTHERN

powersofone.com • 260-494-0222

SOUTH BEND Dhanwantari Center for Yoga & Well-Being 402 W Washington St

MONTICELLO

Bodyworks Monticello 101 Main St

bodyworks-studio.com • 574-870-0258

Warsaw's Secret 601 E Smith St, Ste A

Bloomington Body Bar

615 N Fairview St

Enlighten Wellness Yoga 4001 E 3rd St

SOUTHWEST

Know Yoga Know Peace

EVANSVILLE

Touchstone Yoga & Massage

Evansville Power Yoga 4814 Tippecanoe Drive

Evansville Yoga Center 1421 Main St

Yoga 101

2800 Lincoln Avenue

Monarch Yoga 517 Broadway St

monarchyogastudio.com • 260-255-2968

PERU Joyful Yoga 10 S Wabash

78

1543 S Piazza Dr

Ekah Yoga

evansvillepoweryoga.com • 812-449-2239

NEW HAVEN

304 E Pearl St

BLOOMINGTON

bodyworks-studio.com • 574-398-1401

Solace Yoga Studio 620 W Edison Rd St 132

b inspired yoga

WARSAW

Bodyworks Logansport 213 S 3rd St

MISHAWAKA

BATESVILLE

HUNTINGBURG Yes Power Yoga 412 E 4th St

NEWBURGH

234 North Morton St

2864 E Buick Cadillac Blvd

Vibe Yoga

1705 N College Ave

vibeyogastudio.com • 812-335-9642

Yoga Mala

116 1/2 S College Ave

COLUMBUS Uptown Yoga 422 1/2 5th St

Zen Fitness 331 Franklin St

Livewell

300 West Jennings St

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

DIRECTORY OF STUDIOS

CORYDON

JEFFERSONVILLE

Yoga on Ridley

Lionflow Yoga 1931 E Spring St

Pure Bikram

400 Ridley St

824 University Woods Dr, Ste 1

FLOYDS KNOB FlowMotion 3413 Paoli Pike

Dawn to Dusk Yoga 3660 Paoli Pike, Ste 2

Inner Spring Yoga

PAOLI

isyoga.me • 812-207-2070

Healing Arts Center of Southern Indiana

335 Spring St

NASHVILLE Riverlight Yoga

GREENSBURG

61 W Main St

B.U. Yoga & Health

NEW ALBANY

121 N Broadway St

HELMSBURG Barefoot Yoga 2082 SR 45

Inner Spring Yoga 137 E Market St

isyoga.me • 812-207-2070

10 E Court St

The yoga studios shown with logos above are Official Distributors of this publication. Please visit indyyogi.com for our online directory which includes studios, independent yoga instructors, yoga retail, nonprofit organizations, meditation centers and more. For questions about the Indiana Yoga Studio Directory, becoming a distributor, advertising, sponsorship, or this magazine, email yogi@indyyogi.com.

D I S C O V E r B r E AT H E . C O m INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

79

POETRY

Poetry

Muhammad al-Idrisi’s World Map, 1154 CE In al-Idrisi’s world map, the ocean is shaped like elephants.

Not like white elephants, silly. Not water for elephants.

Elephants made of water. One’s adorned with four beach umbrellas and the other decorated in rope. Not tied up.

The elephants have islands for eyes. Can you imagine sunning yourself on the beach of your mind’s eye? At midday you press your fingers to your stomach and the paler imprint they make tells you you’re burning. So you shimmy underneath your purple umbrella. Your eyes adjust to the shade it provides and you look out, the sand the same color as rope. Then the ocean, some big thing underneath trying to shake the water from its ears.

— Lauren Mallett

80

LAUREN MALLETT 'S poems appear in RHINO, Tupelo Quarterly, Smartish Pace, Barrow Street, Sou'wester, and other journals. She received her MFA from Purdue University, where she was the Assistant Director of Creative Writing. She began practicing yoga in 2011 with Pete Guinosso, and continues to practice at Tenley Studio and Be Moved Power Yoga. Her favorite pose is pigeon.

INDIANA & YOGA MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

yoga in the outfield at victory field!

Join the Indianapolis Indians for two Yoga in the Outfield events in 2017. Overlooking downtown Indy from the grass of Victory Field, Yoga in the Outfield is for all experience levels as Invoke Studio takes yogis through their workout.

Sunday, June 4 & Sunday, July 16 Gates open at 11:30 AM with the session starting at 11:40 AM save $2 when you purchase your tickets in advance at indyindians.com/yoga

Must have a game ticket to the respective game

Use promo code “yoga� during check-out at IndyIndians.com/yoga BYOYM - Bring your own yoga mat - Required for field access

Where Legends Grow | IndyIndians.com/yoga

Monument Circle 4:00 - 8:30pm

monumentalyoga.com

June 21