For 2010, Zobha has focused its community efforts in a partnership with Headstand, a program that brings yoga to the classrooms of youth at risk. Founder of Headstand, Katherine Priore, blogs about her journey.

When I was an eighth grade English teacher, Sunday nights were sleepless. I developed a serious case of acne then, an irksome emblem of my anxiety.  Witnessing my stress, my childhood friend Kathleen intervened and insisted I take her yoga class. I thought she was nuts. I didn’t have time to take a yoga class—I needed to respond to student writing.  I needed to organize collaborative groups for the 8th grade. I needed to go to Borders and buy more books for my kids because we only had 10 copies of Of Mice and Men for 120 students.

In the end, Kathleen won. Thank God. It turned out to be one of the most profound yoga classes I’ve experienced to date, providing a glimpse of awareness – me without the anxiety and fear that had consumed much of my internal life that year. I wanted more.

Learning how to relax and finding sanctuary in my own body created a surprising impact on my teaching. Not much else had changed other than my own presence in the room, but suddenly the students were more engaged, they were producing more work, and everyone was having more fun.

While I wasn’t cut out to stay in the classroom as an English teacher, I did remain in the field of education. Seven years into my career I landed in a yoga teacher training. The idea of sharing the practice of yoga with kids gripped me.

With visions of a classroom of kiddos in dhanurasana, I wondered: What if we taught our children to value balance, self-awareness, and courage at school, hand-in-hand with the analytical skills of math? What if every student was exposed to yoga and awareness strategies as part of school day curriculum? Would this practice be able to serve kids who might lack boundaries and emotional support at home?

I decided to see for myself and created a non-profit dedicated to spearheading the yoga in schools movement: Headstand.  Now I am in my second year teaching full-time to middle school students in a KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) school.  KIPP is a national network of free, open-enrollment, college-preparatory public schools dedicated to preparing students in underserved communities for success in college and life.

Catapulted into the throes of middle-school culture again, the content of my day constantly surprises me and often delights. This morning the seventh and eighth grade practiced in punk-rock garb for Spirit Week, yesterday a student asked me if a backbend counted as an inversion because your head is below your heart, and a few months ago one of my 10 year old students asked genuinely, “How do you keep your soul with you for more than just one hour?”

The road is long ahead, but Sunday nights I sleep like a baby.

In March 2010, Zobha sponsored Breathe, Laugh and Pray – A benefit for Headstand with Circle of Grace member, Stephanie Snyder – at Yoga Tree Castro, San Francisco. For recap and pictures from the event, click here.

Here’s a thank you video from the 5th graders in the Headstand program.

For more information on Headstand, visit http://headstand.org/.

(Pictured above:  Zobha Founder and CEO, Jamie Hanna, with Circle of Grace member, Stephanie Snyder, and Found of Headstand, Katherine Priore.)

Posted by: Circle of Grace Member, Coral Brown

The word “Inspiration” is derived from Middle English to express the experience of ‘Divine Guidance’.

Grace

Faith

Strength

Perseverance

In February 2006, I left a relationship of 14 years.  Throughout the last 4 years, my connection to the aforementioned words has been nothing less than the most magnificent roller coaster ride.

Ending my relationship, I left behind the identity that had become my prison. Don’t get me wrong. I was safe, and comfortable. I wanted nothing, but needed freedom and space. The confines of my relationship with the most wonderful person had begun to strangle me. Safe, stable and comfortable are words that I would never have used in describing my life prior to this relationship. The lifestyle of uncertainty and comfort of change is how I was raised. I missed the familiarity of the unfamiliar.  In order for me to grow, I had to go.

I think I felt this realization on a cellular level before I took action. I stuffed away my emotions of doubt and eventually became a shell of myself. Finally, I had no choice.  My body told me it was time to go, ready or not. Sometimes we can prepare for the earthquakes, sometimes we see them coming. They still have the power to shake us to our very core, and completely change our landscape.  Other times we are blind-sided by that lone phone call which, within an instant, changes our lives.  So, what is the recipe for making it through? How do we gather the courage to release from comfort or an unhealthy environment and leap into the ring of change, the ring of fire?

For me, I had to recognize that through the cracks there was a great light shining, a light that was fueled by spirit itself. Ultimately I had buried my light all on my own. No one else can do this for you or to you. We give away our power, it isn’t taken from us. I had to remember that being Empowered comes from within.  It was up to me to go through rather than around the fire.  So I did.  I moved out of the house that I owned with my partner, I took nothing with me but my clothes. I moved consistently without laying down roots for the next 3 years.

It was at one of my temporary homes that I opened my first package of Zobha clothing. My friend, and now fellow Circle of Grace member, Shannon Paige Schneider had recommended that I would be a good example of Zobha’s message. I felt the farthest from this! However, when I wore my Zobha, I felt feminine, connected, and graceful for the first time in a very long time. It felt so good.

As I traveled and connected with my extended yoga family, everyone noted the difference in me. They said I looked lighter. I felt lighter, I was lighter.  I realized that I had felt like a fraud. Mostly because I was! I wasn’t living my truth, following my Sva-Dharma, my heart’s true purpose.  Now that I had begun pursuing this it was clear that it wasn’t an option.

We must recognize that the feelings of safety, stability and comfort can only truly come from within. No matter where I am or what the resources may be, I have the deep depths of my well of faith, perseverance, grace and strength to draw from.

Our yoga practice can heal the deepest wounds. Sometimes it is our practice that reveals where the wounds are residing. By recognizing where our imbalances are, we can create a practice that correlates to the energetic body or Chakra(s) that need nourishment.  Through this balance and strength we are prepared to face whatever the Universe provides.

I get incredible joy from teaching yoga, from my holistic (mental) health practice.  I aim to cultivate an environment that fosters healing and integrating not only body, mind and spirit, but inspiration, faith and truth. Live your Truth. This is my passion and my ‘Divine Guidance’.

Coral Brown, is a certified senior teacher and teacher trainer for  Shiva Rea’s Prana Flow Yoga.   She leads retreats, workshops, and teacher trainings worldwide.

To find out more about Coral and her schedule, go to http://www.coralbrown.net/index.htm.

Posted by: Circle of Grace Member, Shannon Paige Schneider
My mother would laugh at me as a child and marvel at my creativity with language. I would sometimes hear words as I heard them and offer definitions that I felt made contextual sense. I would make words and their definitions my own.

“Empowerment” was one of those words. I remember hearing it and in the conversation it seemed clear to me that the power in question was something that made a person feel good on the INSIDE. I began to use the four-syllable word in the everyday, feeling really, REALLY, really big in my little boots.

Only, I was saying, “IN-powerment.”

My mom asked me to qualify it once. She cocked her head to one side and said, “You know, I think you are right.” So she did not correct me. In fact, she NEVER let on at all. I do not actually remember who DID finally point out the snafu but it kind of stuck with me my whole life and I think about it every once in a while when I feel small, contracted, or a little uninspired.

Who does NOT like to be powered on the inside? Who does not like to feel lit up and in the seat of solid decisions and following truth, joy, inspiration, and intuition?

Everyone can operate from a sense of internal power. This is actually the sustainable state. It is like GREENING one’s decisions and life-lived patterns. When we live without this, our energy falls, we push ourselves to the limit and burnout, exhaustion, fatigue, and depression are not far behind.

Power is something very different from force, though both can be internalized and can find a strong presence in the day-to-day. We can force ourselves to sit in front of a situation and take it in. We can force ourselves to show up in a situation where we are diminished or told we are not enough, screwed up, somehow not quite right. We can force ourselves to act as though we feel a certain way to attain a certain outcome. We can force a decision to feel right and righteous. We can simply force for the sake of force.

OR, we can soften and listen to the questions we are asking inside. We can soften and listen to the vibrations of grace we are answering to ourselves on the inside. When we soften and tap into the way life and love and energy moves through us, we realize that it is our nature to live in connection to an expanding universe. In lining up to that pulse of expansion, remembrance and placing ourselves in tandem to universal embrace, we too power up from the inside.

We find ourselves IN-powered.

When IN-powered, we are much less likely to make a decision for a small outcome. When IN-powered we don’t really feel the need to push a single agenda. When IN-powered, we look for grace, goodness, and a win-win in service to the expansion of the universe herself. When we live in a state of IN-powerment, there is less fear, there is more creativity and there are rows and rows and rows of more love blossoms blooming. When we are IN-powered, we give unconscious permission for others to do and live the same.

So the exercise is to sit, to soften, to listen, to re-spond rather than re-act and therein lies the work of a lifetime. However, the power certainly outweighs any sense of force, leverage, or sense of unsustainable lack.

Make a list of all those activities you have in your day that lift you up. Make a list of all those people in your life who make you feel held, safe, and present. Do you realize that these people, places, things all live in the vibration of you, your memory, your body, your capacity to connect? At ANY one time, you, me, we can turn within and see them, feel them, know that they are part of us from the inside out. We are, therefore, constantly IN-powered by those we love.

Here’s to living IN-powered.

Shan, as she is known to her students and friends, is the founder and muse of om time. She is an activist, an eternal  optimist, and a lover of the flow of grace within everyone. Shannon has been featured in Alternative Health Magazine and Yoga International. She leads weekly classes in Boulder and Denver, as well as workshops, intensives, teacher trainings and retreats nationally and internationally.

Shannon will be teaching a Zobha-sponsored community class along with fellow Circle of Grace member, Coral Brown, at the Yoga Journal Boston Conference on April 10, 2010 from 1-2PM. For more information on the community class, see our events page - http://www.zobha.com/t-events.aspx

Find out more about Shannon at omtime.com, or read her blog here.

Posted by: Casey Carr, E-Commerce Director

I love dresses! Now I love dresses, but I didn’t start out that way.

As a little girl growing up in South Louisiana (read: the very deep south), my mother often dolled my younger sister and I up in adorable dresses paired with pretty, lace-edged socks and patent leather Mary Janes. We were precious! And I hated every minute of it. I longed for the more hip look of my elementary school friends in their jeans and sweatshirts. I don’t think I wore a pair of pants until I was 5 years old. I’m not kidding.

I’m a child of the 80’s with our totally awesome pegged jeans, “Jams” shorts, and neon-colored socks (and jelly bracelets). I attended Catholic school with the uniform to boot, but I totally rocked the plaid shirts and cut-off jeans after school in the 90’s (hello, Eddie Vedder).  Over these two decades, I was not into looking like a girly.

I’m not sure what the turning point was. Perhaps it was moving from my 20’s to my 30’s where I discovered that, for me, being a woman was about being beautiful and strong – and there was nothing “girly” about it.  Whatever it was, now I love dresses!  I can’t get enough of them. Living in the Bay Area, I LOVE that I can get through the year in our 50-60 degree average temperature with a dress & a pair of boots.

So naturally, I was DE-lighted when our design team came out with Zobha Dresses, which I feel are a little known secret.  They’re made of our Performance fabric, so you can wear them to yoga (with leggings, pants or capris) and to play traditional dress sports like tennis. But you can also wear them to work, for a night out, lounging at home…anywhere. I don’t have a favorite style – each offers a different look. And, while I’m plugging my favorites, I have just 3 words for you:  Asymmetrical Zip Pullover.

What’s your take on dresses vs. pants? Have pics to share? Post them on our Zobha page on Facebook.

Posted by: Zobha

Anne Maggioncalda, a retired Stanford Professor turned Yoga Therapist, traveled to Kenya to conduct a 2-week yoga intensive at Daraja Academy, a boarding high school for girls from remote tribes and the slums of Nairobi. Inspired by Anne’s journey, Zobha donated $4,000 worth of Zobha tops & bottoms to outfit 26 girls. Anne shared her experience and a few photos from her time with these determined young women. We wanted to share with our community:

Dear Zobha,

Thank you so much for your generous gift of yoga outfits for the girls at Daraja Academy in Kenya. As you know, Daraja is a boarding high school for girls from remote tribes and the slums of Nairobi. These are girls would not be educated beyond eighth grade if it weren’t for Daraja. Through a very competitive process based on elementary school performance, need, and passion for learning, these girls have been given the opportunity to change their lives.

I arrived in mid-October and began a two-week yoga-intensive with them as part of WISH – their Women of Integrity, Strength, and Honor program. First, I distributed to them the beautiful yoga pants and tops you donated. The girls were so excited about these outfits and they cared for them like they were sacred, ceremonial costumes throughout my stay. I began by teaching the girls some basic anatomy and physiology. We progressed to yoga philosophy, including the eight limbs of yoga and a few Yoga Sutras. The girls learned Sun Salutations A and B and a yoga sequence I designed for them with a variety of standing and seated poses. My main message was that when we honor and care for ourselves, we become better able to honor and care for others – bringing positive change to our families, our communities and the world.

In general, the girls were very open to learning yoga. I’d say about one third of the girls enjoyed the relaxation and physical movement; one third related to the philosophy and call to honor ourselves and each other; and one third really absorbed the power of yoga to transform their lives. This last third became very passionate about learning, discussing, and practicing yoga. One girl stepped up to start a yoga club and lead her classmates in daily practice.

I found Kenya to be an incredible world of plenty – quite the opposite of what I expected. I anticipated going to Kenya and seeing poverty, disease and misery. Instead, I found a people filled with joy and hope. They have torn clothes, mismatched shoes, and they live in clay huts with thatch roofs. They have no TV, no radio, and no toys. All they have ever known is what they have, and it is enough for them.

Despite being orphans, abused or forced to hard-labor from a very young age, the girls of Daraja school are proud, determined, and powerful young women who will bring change to Kenya. Daraja is a safe haven for them, where they can focus on themselves and their educations. Yoga was a great addition to their curriculum.

Thank you again for your incredible generosity. The yoga-intensive was a magical experience for the girls and for me.

Namaste!

Peace,
Anne
Find more information on the academy and learn how you can help here: http://daraja-academy.org/.

Posted by: Circle of Grace Member, Kino MacGregor

The experience of your first yoga class feels like embarking on a mysterious adventure into a whole new terrain. As your curiosity peers into the incense-filled hallways lined with Ganesh and Shiva the open-hearted calm beckons you to travel into your own sacred inner realm. The seductive power of yoga is an addictive calling to go deeper into yourself. Once you experience firsthand how magical yoga is, all resistance becomes futile.

Regardless of your intention, when you plant the first seeds of your lotus flower, the transformative power of this ancient spiritual science works on a deep level of your being. Many people start yoga for fitness reasons only to find that yoga changes their lives in ways far beyond the physical. Even if you are not a true believer and only wish to receive the physical health benefits of yoga, merely attending a yoga class regularly will have a lasting impact on your life. The beauty of the physical yoga postures is that you do not actually need to believe in them in order for the healing power of yoga to work. Hatha yoga approaches the transformation of the human spirit from the body first and then works its way subtly through to the mind and soul.  The body itself is an avenue to the spiritual that works from the inside out. As you water the seeds of padmasana, the full blooming lotus opens in your mind and soul.

Entering the new world of yoga is the first conscious step to live a more peaceful life. The initiatory phase of yoga is your chance to powerful create your life moment to moment and live your highest potential every day. As a neophyte, it is important to remember that it is natural to feel overwhelmed when you realize just how demanding spiritual discipline really is. Rather than a recreational activity that you can keep separate from your life, yoga asks you to transform your whole life to abide by yogic principles. If at first you find yourself drawn to the physical display of power in advanced asana, you quickly see that the heart of yoga reaches far deeper than the postures themselves. Indeed the asanas are only used to purify the body, practice meditative states of unified consciousness and prepare the physical form to be a home for divinity in the world of mind and matter. The more advanced asanas are not ends in and of themselves. Instead the real work of yoga happens on the inner body and is actually the seed of your own enlightenment beginning to flower.

Like an open invitation to the spiritual path, yoga never places commandments on practitioners from above. When you start practicing yoga, the body itself becomes more sensitive and then asks you to live a more pure lifestyle. While the moral and ethic codes of a yogic lifestyle ask practitioners to be an instrument of kindness, compassion and healing in the world, the choice to live a peaceful life is meant to be a sincere feeling that each practitioners feels for themselves before acting upon it. Practicing asana makes the body more sensitive so that you feel more clearly the impact that unhealthy behavior, negative thoughts and destructive emotions have on you. Yoga never tells you what you can and cannot do. It is a path of liberation not bondage. It is a path of direct knowingness rather than rules and edicts. The practice of yoga itself opens your body and mind to desire wholly a new way of being, living and interacting with yourself and others. It is the heightening of your own awareness that facilitates the transformation. You change not because your teacher tells you to but because yoga opens the door to a new way of being that you choose to walk through with joy, ease and grace. The journey into the lotus heart of yoga is a lifelong spiritual practice that bears flowers in this life and beyond.

Faced with the seemingly insurmountable goal of ultimate enlightenment many new students doubt their ability to ever progress along the arduous path of yoga. They look at their teachers or other accomplished practitioners and wonder how they will ever get from their relative feeling of confusion to the clarity, grace and precision they see in the masterful art form of yoga. Yet small seeds do not doubt whether they will become trees. They trust the natural process of evolution and growth that takes them from seeds to sprouting seedlings to flowering, fruitful trees. With proper nutrients, care and love, the flower of your inner lotus is sure to grow to maturity in the fertile soil of your own consciousness.  Every accomplished yogi today has benefitted from the guidance of their teachers and been nurtured by the yoga community. Every yoga teacher today has also nourished their own journey with their own dedication and devotion. If you are a new students of yoga remember that you hold the key to the power of yoga. It is in your own heart that the seed of spiritual investigation must take root, watered by the flow of your own consciousness. When you embark on your own operation lotus, know that this journey is a timeless one that never ends – it only deepens. Small treasures abound when you attempt challenging postures that seem impossible that with time, dedication and guidance, evolve into possibility.

Kino Macgregor is co-owner and teacher at the Miami Life Center in Miami Beach, Florida.  For intermediate practitioners, join Kino for a 2-Week Ashtanga Course June 27- July 9, 2010. Find out more information at http://www.miamilifecenter.com/index.php?page=ashtangacourse

View her full schedule here: http://www.kinoyoga.com/schedule.html

Posted By:  Jamie Hanna, Zobha Founder and CEO

Every year my husband, two children, our dog and I make our annual pilgrimage from Northern California to Maine for the holidays.  Having grown up on the coast of Maine, it not only holds my earliest memories, it is a place we have all come to cherish for the peace it brings us and good times with family and old friends.

The year 2009 was a more-than usually busy one for me with lots of energy expended on the demands of balancing motherhood and running a growing business.  Recently, my 9-year old daughter drew a rather peculiar picture for me that depicts me inside a rocket about to launch with a caption that reads “racing mom.”  Hmmm…even she could see that some down time would do me good.

Arriving in Maine is always a delicious process for me.  There’s the 3-hour drive from Boston that slowly moves us from city life to increasingly rural towns until we arrive at our little town, fast asleep that time of year.  When we arrive at our house, we all run around with excitement, admiring the painted canvases we left to dry when we closed up last August.  We talk about all of the wonderful projects we will complete during our visit—we are off to a great start!

Over the course of our holiday vacation, Maine embraces my soul like a warm blanket.   The memories of my childhood and the freedom of “just being” when I am there pulls my feet to the earth like a magnet–I can feel the physicality of it.  I have many rituals that ground me back to my true self in this most special of places.  One of my favorites is opening the little box I keep on my bedside table there.  The box holds five stones my sister gave me one year for my birthday.  Little did she know, or maybe she did know, how I would come to treasure these stones and value the words etched into them:  vision, beauty, peace, freedom and choice.  As I feel the weight of each stone turning in my hands, I am reminded that these things are always present, everywhere for each one of us.  We only need to stop the race long enough to realize it.

It is a new year and we are happily back in Northern California and back to our routines.  Only we are all moving with lighter hearts and stronger compasses than when we left.  We know that life is good and we are grounded back to our roots, back to our selves.

I wish you all a happy, grounded 2010 and a year that brings you vision, beauty, peace, freedom and choice. After one month behind us, are you feeling grounded in your new year?