Rainbow Dreams and Art Blog

This has been a very cold winter so far, and my entire world is buried in the icy January snow, with more on the way!  I’ve certainly been particularly busy lately, and it seems I need to spend some time on my blog here!  I figure if I am going to get up to date here, what better time to do it then my birthday, which is in a few days (February 1st!)!

This New Year, 2009, has brought about many changes in my schedule and activities.  Every day seems to bring a new opportunity or idea.  I am most excited about a month-long series of Storytime Yoga workshops that I will be teaching in Ferndale, for a home school group of gifted children.  These are called Fill in the Blank Workshops; what a cool and creative idea!  I am very excited about this prospect and will begin teaching on February 11th.

I am now teaching two senior (age 50+) yoga classes at the North Oakland YMCA, held on Monday and Wednesday, and I truly enjoy working with my new students.  I truly enjoy their insight, enthusiasm, and joy at learning yoga, and I love seeing the positive changes taking place in each of my students.  One of my senior yoga students just gave me a beautiful hand-knit scarf as a gift, and she even noticed how I love hot pink, and this is the color scarf she knit for me.  I love it and have worn it every day since.

Beginning this week, I now teach two yoga classes at the Auburn Hills Community Center on Monday nights, at 6pm and 7pm.  I love teaching in the community center; the students are friendly and appreciative; the staff is very friendly and helpful.  The building supervisor even helps me carry my gear to my car!  I love being around positive, helpful co-workers.

I am most excited about my beautiful birthday gift that I am going to very much enjoy playing, and that is my new mandolin!  I thoroughly enjoy being artistic, and this is another way for me to dive deeper into my creative side.  I am looking forward to learning to play, and I plan to play my mandolin during my Storytime Yoga classes!  I can’t wait.

I will post more often, as I adjust to my new teaching schedule.  I also plan to include more of my artwork on my site.  My latest work involves sunflowers!

Happy Birthday to me and to my brother, who shares my birthday with me!

Lisa

Tags: Art, Creative Writing, Eischens Yoga, Storytime Yoga, Yoga by Lisa
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Thanksgiving is only a couple of days away and it seems like a good topic for my blog today.  I am thankful for so many wonderful opportunities that have come my way.
The past few weeks, my time teaching Storytime Yoga in our North Oakland YMCA Childwatch, has been absolutely magical.  There is no other way to describe it.  The classes are only a half hour long, but when I walk in and the kids come running or walking toward me, smiling, I know why I’m doing this.  I silently give thanks for each one of these great kids.  There have been so many special times that we have shared.  On Monday evening last week, I introduced my pink, winged piglet, named Star, just as usual.  I talked about poetry and how Star loves to recite poetry.  I asked if anyone had a poem to share and to my surprise and delight, there were several kids willing to share poems.  It became a very special experience.  Then, I also introduced my Sophia, the Snake of Dreams, and talked about dreams.  Amazingly, several kids again wanted to share their dreams!  The cutest thing was at the end of the class, I asked each child to take a turn and show us all their favorite pose, and that we would all do it with them.  Well, the kids were so focused on poetry, that the first child actually recited a poem instead of showing us a pose.  So then I had us all do a yoga pose that could go with the poem.  If it had a tree in it, for example, we did tree pose, and so on.  It was great fun and soon all the kids were joining in.  Purely magical.  This is why I love teaching yoga, seeing the positive impact on others.

In my yoga class for senior citizens, it is so nice to see how much they appreciate their practice, and how they are grateful and happy to see me.  Just the same way that I feel about them.  I love all of my students and I love seeing them feel better and more at peace.

I have so much to be thankful for!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Lisa

Tags: Eischens Yoga, Storytelling, Storytime Yoga by Lisa
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Today is a lovely autumn day that feels a bit like summer! The sky has that hazy summer sky look and the air is warm and moist with a gentle breeze blowing every now and again. The sun is shining and I feel like smiling.

Lots of new experiences to share, for sure! First, about Eischens Yoga! This past weekend, my teacher, Kari Tomashik was in town, and I went to her workshops on Saturday in Ferndale. What an amazing experience I had! It was awesome to learn so many new things, and to leave there feeling light as a feather, yet grounded and peaceful. I learned how working in the standing poses and getting my legs working really helped me to feel more comfortable when seated. I actually did not have to use my neck and shoulders to hold me up when seated! I also learned some things about myself, how I try to use my neck muscles to make my legs work in downward dog. Currently those two parts of my body are connected. I began to learn to allow the muscles in my neck to relax. It is a process. It is about me getting out of my head.

Equally rewarding was seeing several of my students who were able to attend Kari’s workshops as well! It was wonderful to share the experience with them, and to see how it supported and nourished their own practice.

More new experiences. I began teaching kids classes again this week, after several weeks off. I love the time I spend with kids of all ages! My newest job is at the Auburn Hills Community Center. What a beautiful facility it is and I get to teach in a really warm and beautiful studio. I loved the kids who came to my first class yesterday. It is a small class right now, but I believe it will only continue to grow. Storytime Yoga
is a wonderful method for sharing the beauty of yoga, story and art. I am finding these techniques continue to become more of a resource to me. I am looking forward to sharing this with more children, their parents, their caregivers.

This week I began with my favorite story, The Peddler’s Dream. What a fun and lively tale it is to tell! In my class at Auburn Hills, we also created books to record our own dreams, our favorite yoga poses, whatever we wish! Already one of the older girls in the class was recording her favorite pose. It made me feel great!

This morning I taught in ChildWatch at the North Oakland YMCA. I currently do half hour classes there on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. The kids are much younger than I usually get a chance to work with. They are preschool, but most are very young. Today they looked as if they did not want me to leave!

On my art project ideas pages, I will share with you the projects we do in my classes for the next 6 weeks! It should be a LOT of fun! Many adventures to be had!

Happy Autumn!

Lisa

Tags: Art, Art Lesson Plans, Art activities, Articles, Eischens Yoga, Kids' Yoga, Storytelling, Storytime Yoga by Lisa
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