The Movement Studio

Pregnancy, labor and birth are physical body experiences, and yet so much of women’s preparation fro birth takes place in their heads! In contrast, when we use movement and dance as a mode of preparation for birth we open a gateway for connecting to our body wisdom, for remembering our natural instinctive creativity, and for giving ourselves breathing space in which we can connect to the life-force energy which is literally growing within.

Mindful Prenatal Yoga is different than many traditional yoga practices in that there is less of a focus on the exact posture achieved and more focus on body/mind awareness. Slowing the pace to be aware of physical limits and pause long enough to experience them shifts our perception of experience in the body/mind connection. Mindful Yoga allows looking deeply into each moment with movement with full acceptance and without forcing ourselves to be different from how we are, with our mind/body in the moment. This practice allow for the mom, body, and baby to prepare for birth through self-exploration building confidence.

Our mindful and lunch class as the nutritional component, picking ingredients from the garden. We build community, cook, and eat family style lunch.

Parent & Child Yoga provides a fun and comfortable environment where moms can enjoy special times with their babies and other moms, while experiencing the benefits of yoga. Yoga poses for mom promote wellness specific to post-partum bodies, and interactive poses for baby help with development and establishing good sleeping habits, as well as relief of reflux, gas and colic. The benefits of proper breathing, which calms the nervous system and promotes deep relaxation and are emphasized in every class. The class is free flowing and spirited. You may involve your baby in the movements or place your baby on a blanket next to your mat. You are encouraged to take a break at any time to nurture, feed, or change your baby. Babies are encouraged to express themselves in their own way during class and there are no expectations placed on the way a baby should behave.

This class is for 4-6 weeks into recovery up to when baby starts to crawl.  

Free Class

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FREE CLASS

The breastfeeding support group is a large community-based self-help group, recognized as a leading authority on whole wellness breastfeeding. The group provides innovative counselling and support to the community in understanding the physical, emotional, and social dynamics of breastfeeding.

Current understanding of the pelvis, sexuality, misconceptions and modern medical care • Anatomy of the pelvis, hips and gluteus muscles and their roles in pelvic health • How posture affects the pelvic floor • Identifying hypertonic vs. hypotonic muscles and the difference between a strong muscle and a tense muscle • The role of breath and emotion in the pelvic floor • learn breath and asana to tone in the pelvis or release to much tone • Yoga for the pelvic floor during all stages of pre and post natal • Yoga for Menopause .

It is important that all infants spend time awake on their stomachs (tummy time). Tummy time allows babies to strengthen and stretch muscles that are important for developing basic valuable motor skills such as crawling, standing, sitting and walking. Tummy time also facilitates visual development as your baby learns to move his/her head to look at objects and track movement. Tummy time is a wonderful and mindful play time experience for both caregiver and baby. Parents will learn the foundation in the importance of tummy time, bonding, massage, while incorporating song and play for infants. This is a wonderful way to meet like minded mindful parents looking for a Whole Child approach to parenting. 

During the first year of your baby’s life, movement affects the cognitive, emotional and physical well-being of your child and of the adult your child will become. From the earliest stages of development in the womb, through the birth process, to rolling, crawling and walking, children move through a range of patterns that create their ability to sense, perceive and act in the world. Through observation, movement, touch and play we follow your baby’s growing curiosity and learn useful information about natural movement patterns that encourage optimal brain and body development classes. The class is filled with song, movement play and story time. 

The Creative Movement and Play is a wonderful way for parents and caregivers to build the village needed to raise happy, health, and whole children. During this 1 hour program children explore the wonders of movement, song, and dance while parents learn ongoing mindful parenting, natural movement development and a community for mindful parenting.

Hatha Yoga stems from a deep understanding of the mechanics of the body, and uses yogic postures, or yogasanas, and breath work, to enable the system to sustain higher dimensions of energy. By practicing this profound science, one can change and enhance the way they think, feel, and experience life. Hatha Yoga is about creating a body that is not a hurdle in your life. The body becomes a stepping stone in the progress towards blossoming into your ultimate possibility.

Mindfulness meditation, the practice of paying more attention to the present moment, helps lower stress hormones and science how it decreases inflammation in the body.

The training has been growing in popularity in recent years, with many practitioners recommending mindfulness as a way to reduce stress and anxiety. Studies have shown that mindfulness can decrease self-reported stress levels and make people feel calmer, but until now it was unknown if it was having a biological impact on the body.

Now scientists in the US have shown that an eight week course of mindfulness, involving daily classes, can help lower inflammatory molecules and stress hormones by around 15 per cent. The therapy was shown to work better than a non-meditation stress management course.

Mindfulness and meditation have been scientifically proven to reduce anxiety, increase empathy, and promote happiness and well-being in people of all ages and populations. This class is a wonderful safe place to release stress, learn many tools to enjoy family time, learn about local ecology and healthy cooking.

We start the class with a topic about living int he Silicon Valley and the stress it brings into the family. Then everyone learns how to work through the feelings in their body through mindfulness techniques and mindful movements.

The second part of the class is about nutrition and the effects of stress on the body. We finish the class with exploring the garden to make a wonderful dish for everyone to share.

FREE CLASS

Mindful Birth Talk is a weekly discussion group for new families who are pregnant, lead by a Mindful Birth Doula. Each week, the group begins with a mindfulness exercise to center the body and calm the mind and continues with topic discussion about pregnancy, breastfeeding, new baby care, or parenting topics. Following is an informal time to talk with your peers about current successes and challenges. Once a month we will have a guest speaker from the community, that supports the Holistic aspects of pregnancy and parenting.

In this group you will learn about :

• Understanding your birth intentions and 3 different birth approaches
  
• Coping styles that bring a clam birth
  
• Stress reduction, meditation, and hypnotherapy
  
• Physiology of birth
  
• Emotional development
  
• Transitioning to parenthood
  
• Attachment & bonding
  
• Partner support
  
• and much more!!
  

The Mindful Movement program allows children to start learning about the exploration of feelings and how they move through their body. Through of being human and learn to put words to their exploration they learn that feelings are part of being human and learn to put words to feelings. This allows for development of a healthy emotional intelligence. They will also explore the continuum with our local ecosystem and how it effects health.

This program allows children to explore their sense of trust in themselves. Building their foundation of knowledge through facts, making connections and getting them mindfully in tune within themselves. Students will be using basic principles of art and color theory; projects will be lead by the class, assisted by a mindful art facilitator. The Art Within program will be focusing on expanding curiosity of self and their environment, while making connections through observations and asking questions. Using visual examples of items from daily topics, students will be assisted in creating project with the day’s specified materials.

Mindful Teen Circle

A weekly mindfulness teen group that holds a safe space to work through the challenges of today's teen.  With the pace of life, social media and the pressure to succeed many teens can feel lost and in a place of fear. Many teens today struggle with depression, anxiety, and poor concentration due to these stressors.  

The Awakened Teen Circle gives teens not only the ability to identify with the stressor but gives mindful resources to assist with the daily stressor.  These circles are lead by a collaborative team that has specialties as mindfulness, Holistic Health, Mindful Yoga, Sound healing, and Somatic Therapy.

The Awakened Teen Method works with 7 mindful principles:

• Grounding for Teen Life
  
• Flowing through Teen Life
  
• Empowerment for Teen Life
  
• Loving through Teen Life
  
• Communication in Teen Life
  
• Vision for a Joyful Teen Life
  
• Family & Community Dynamics for a Health Teen Life

7 weeks series that will include sound healing, guided meditation recordings,  and workbook.  Every teen will work through the principles and in encourage to continue coming, even if they have done one 7 week series.  They become a great support for those teens who are just starting on the journey of self-exploration.

Men's Integration Circle

A monthly men's therapy group to connect, share and process issues related to sexuality, relationships, intimacy, self-esteem, belonging, family, and masculinity.

Men in our socieity often do not feel supported and do not have a safe outlet to process and share their personal issues. In a time of societal transformation there is an every strong need for men to re-group and find integrity and self-actualization.

Each month will have a specific focus: