Kangen Water is a ionized alkaline water system that has many life giving and life sustaining wellness benefits. Over the course of the hour together we will learn the history of the water machine, the technology, the science behind the water, and ways to integrate the water into your daily life.

The talk will be led by Brittany Montes LMT & RYT. Brittany is a Yoga Teacher, Massage Therapist, Cancer Survivor, and health researcher. Brittany’s intention for this talk is to share knowledge and impart some wisdom from her own journey and research in hopes it will help others along their personal wellness and life path. Brittany personally used Kangen Water as part of her cancer fighting journey. You can read more about Brittany's cancer journey in 2015 here.

This informational talk is free of charge! Join us!

Santosha Yoga studio offers a yoga teacher training program each fall and requires those accepted into the program to complete community service, known as karma yoga, during their four month training.
 
Santosha Yoga’s co-owner, Dina Lang, created and leads the 200 hour Initial Yoga Teaching Certification program and she felt strongly that every teacher trainee (TT) needs to give back to the community and created the requirement of  Karma Yoga. As Dina explains, “it can be anything in which they are offering selfless service and expecting nothing in return, even recognition.”
 
Twenty two graduates of Dina’s yoga teacher training completed their certification at the end of January. Since all of them had completed their selfless service, this adds up to 88 hours of good works and volunteering happened since the program began last September.
 
When asked why Karma Yoga is part of the Yoga Teacher Training, Dina explained, “I include karma yoga, selfless service, in my 200 Hour Initial Yoga Teaching Certification program because yoga philosophy teaches that this is the ultimate purpose of our very existence.  So, to dedicate an hour a month to serving others expecting NOTHING in return, not even recognition, gives us a chance to experience yoga in action.  To do what must be done with an open heart is what it means to take our practice off the mat."

Establishing a regular consistent practice is an important way of bringing yoga into your life and make the challenges you want to see in your mind and body. Perhaps it's flexibility, strength, calm, or deeper breaths; yoga is an essential part of your wellness in the new year.

The January Challenge will run from 1/1/16 until 2/12/16. We wish everyone a strong, peace-filled new year!

On February 13, 2016, we'll announce the Grand Prize Winner! 

Every yogi who completed five classes a week for four consecutive weeks with no more than one "daily double" per week will have their name entered into the drawing for the Grand Prize. There is only one Grand Prize Winner per year.

The Grand Prize Winner will received 3 Months of Unlimited Yoga! A prize worth $350!

Every yogi who is qualified for the Grand Prize drawing still wins! Each person who completes the January Challenge will receive 50% off the price of one month of unlimited yoga! That means your next month yoga is unlimited for $65.

To enter the January Challenge, you'll write your name on the January Challenge sticker board because we're old school and like sticker charts. You can begin your Challenge as early as January 1st with the 12 p.m. Set Your Intention class with Dina and reflect on what you'd like to cultivate in 2016. And, we'll still have free Community Classes happening Jan. 2 - 18 as more opportunities for you to get your practice in each week. 

 
 Each year, Santosha Yoga has a Giving Tree for a local non-profit's wish list of items that they need for their programs serving others in the greater Portland community.

This year, Santosha Yoga is holding the Giving Tree for Living Yoga whose work brings yoga to shelters, homeless youth, incarcerated people, and to treatment facilities. In the work that Living Yoga does, they are bringing yoga to people in significant transitions and challenges in their lives. The yoga helps to provide them a sense of peace, calm, resiliency, and hope. 

We're asking you to help us fill this tree with gift tags of your donations. You don't have to run out to the store and find the latest yoga accessory. We've got a list of the items they need and would use most in their programs - things we might be very used to having: yoga blocks, eye pillows, straps, etc. In fact, last year Living Yoga staff shared with us that often the eye pillows were the most valued prop in their youth in-treatment facility classes because it gave the teens a chance to have quiet and darkness in a place that is often busy with lights on and noises in the halls. 

Here is how you can help fill the Giving Tree for Living Yoga! 

At the studio, you'll find a list next to the Giving Tree of the Items for Living Yoga.

​You'll decide which items you would like to donate to Living Yoga and you pay for them at the studio desk. We'll arrange for all items to be purchased and shipped directly to Living Yoga in very early January. Then, we'll give you a holiday tag to write down which items you donated and your name to "hang" on the giving tree. 

This has been a wonderful experience in the past years! We hope you'll join us in the Giving Tree this year!

The Giving Tree is up from Thanksgiving until New Year's Eve. All donations made go to Living Yoga! 
​www.living-yoga.org/

On Sunday, Sept. 20th, yogis all around the greater Portland area came together at the Bethany Village fountain for world peace. It was the annual Global Mala hosted by Santosha Yoga and community partner, Bonfire Hot Yoga. Yogis from three year olds up through our Senior yogis came!

In total, along the tiered grass and concrete surrounding the fountain, we had 83 yogis in attendance, plus a few little ones who came to watch the event from mom or dad's mat. 

A couple of weeks ago, yogis from around Portland and Beaverton filled the studio to learn how to take better care of their knees and how to reduce the pain they are living and practicing with on a daily basis. We had yogis from our advanced Power Vinyasa classes and yogis from Senior Yoga, because frankly, knee pain can happen to all of us. Here's a few things we learned on what to do about it. 

The knee is a hinge joint that moves front to back and has a little bit of side to side movement. The knee works in conjunction with the ankle, feet, and hip to move the leg around in every which way an asana, or life, can take you. 

After reviewing the bony landmarks of the body, Nina immediately got people to work rolling out the major players that work with and around the knee: gluteus muscles, Deep 6 rotators, tensor fascia, quadriceps, hamstrings, and the calves. Nina explained the importance of "fluffing" the muscles and connective tissue, the fascia. Using the Yoga Tune Up® balls can make all the difference because they have the grip and grab to move the fascia around plus they are small enough to get into the smaller areas, such as the gully between the tail bone and the pelvic bone where you access your Deep 6 rotators. 

As Nina shared, muscles like the hamstrings can become pretty flattened or tacked down because of how much we sit. When the hamstrings are tight and tacked down, they start to pull. And where do they pull? The hamstrings pull on the knee which can result in knee pain. Check out this video of Nina showing how to move your leg around with a ball between the back of the thigh and the chair to get into all of the hamstrings and attachments. It hurts so good!

How do you fluff? By rolling out the muscles listed above and then moving the ball down to the lower part of the leg and practicing different moves such as shin rolling, foot rolling, and the calf mash. The calf mash is when you keep both of the Yoga Tune Up balls toted in their mesh bag, you place your calf on top of the balls on top of a block and you roll the toted balls up and down the length of your gastroc muscle. (see photo above).

Nina comes up with fun and interesting names of moves to get the body moving through exercises and stretches that will balance out all the major players involved in knee health. She used humor and funny pop culture examples (e.g. Shakira's hips, twerking) to help people picture what their body should be doing in a certain move. 

A few moves we used to train the leg muscles to navigate and tone in the right way: 
- Imaginary Gas Pedals (with or without a ball under your thigh)
- Quad Stretch
- Hip Hinge (with a back leg raise, similar to Warrior III, to engage the gluteal muscles and the psoas.

Stand where you can see your lower half in the reflection of a mirror, with the pant leg up above the knees (or wear shorts). Come into Tree Pose vrksasana on one side. Once you've found your balance, bring your gaze to the knee cap of your standing leg. Is it pulled up? Is the quadricep drawing your knee cap up? Try to relax the quadriceps and release the knee cap down. This is an important test to see how well your knee and surrounding muscles are functioning together. The knee cap should not be lifted. Then, test the other side. 

If you missed the Yoga Tune Up® workshop with Nina to learn about Pain Free Knees, you can always set up a private yoga session with her or sign up for the next workshop she'll offer in the fall. 

Be kind to you! Be kind to your knees!

More information on Nina and her work can be found at www.yogapitzel.com 

I should start this post by saying that I almost didn’t do a yoga teacher training, anywhere.

In fact, I was a most unlikely candidate for a yoga teacher training. I was a thirty-something mom of two young kids, with a full time career, still finding myself sweating at the three times weekly practice I was doing at the gym, not the studio, (and rumor had it studio practice was even tougher than gym classes) and I had no intention of teaching yoga. I was about 30 pounds overweight, had never been a vegetarian, and when I left my first class at Santosha (with one of the toughest teachers I later came to learn), I was literally in tears. Plus it was a big investment, since I didn’t plan on teaching yoga at all. 

And I did it anyway. There was just a nagging sensation that I needed to be there. That whatever the murky, nebulous journey brought about was going to be important for me and in turn, for my family. So even though it really made no sense for my life, my desire to learn more about the practice, the philosophy and frankly whether or not I could even survive it made me take a leap of faith.

Dina Lang, ERYT 500 and leader of the training, and the Santosha community filled a space in my life that was sorely unfulfilled. I am more balanced. I am happier and healthier, and I have more knowledge about why the yoga practice attracted me in the first place. I learned what my body can do, and I learned how to accept (most times!) what my body just won’t do. I learned how to be kinder. I learned how to listen to and understand the world in ways I didn’t know were possible. I made friends with like-minded people. 

It was hard. I worked my ass off. I was exhausted. But I became a better version of myself.   

Dina is a very wise, patient and caring teacher. She openly shares her own journey and struggles, and doesn’t judge you for yours. She has the amazing ability to foster your path in finding your own style and voice, while pushing you just that much further than you might comfortably go on your own. I still appreciate the space she creates for me in my practice, and her willingness to grab coffee if I need advice or have questions. 

Also she doesn’t like it when you’re late, so just don’t be late.

I teach yoga now, and I have observed that my training has prepared me far beyond what others have received in their 200 hour experience. I’ve tried my best to capture the experience but frankly, words can’t describe it justly. 

The truth is, it will be a little different for everyone, but for those who decide to commit to the experience, it will be one you will not forget. 


~ Joni

For more about the next 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training certification with Dina Lang, ERYT 500, at Santosha Yoga, visit our Teacher Training page and come to an open house Information Session. 

The next Information Session is Tues. Aug. 25th at 7:00 p.m.

After teaching Yoga for over 10 years, I embarked on a 200 hr Teacher Training with Dina Lang at Santosha Yoga.  

I had always wanted to get my 200 hr. 'certification', but frankly had been too busy working and teaching; sometimes I was teaching nine classes per week.  In addition I didn't want to go 'away' for three weeks and had not found the perfect fit until I landed at Santosha.  

I experienced Yoga for the first time years ago when my friend and I were new to a local gym and trying out classes and wondered what Yoga would be like.  I made a crucial choice that would effect my life and others by taking that first Yoga class.  


I couldn’t figure it out at first - yoga seemed kind of slow to me and parts of my body that I never felt before (can you say wrists in “down dog”) were definitely making themselves get notice.  I had always enjoyed the high energy of running, racquetball and kickboxing as well as having been a lifeguard for several years.  I had been a dancer for many years and that may have been one of my biggest catalysts into Yoga.  I like to help my students find the creativity, grace, balance, mindfulness and flow of Yoga paired with the athleticism and overall health benefits.

    I started practicing yoga in the ‘90s in Northampton, MA. I had never liked to "exercise", and my place of business at the time offered to pay for "physical fitness" among the benefits that they offered. I went to my first yoga class at Northampton Yoga Center, and immediately after class, I signed up for the next few months. I went four times a week, and LOVED it. I have been practicing yoga off and on ever since.

    When my son was in first grade his teacher asked if I would like to share yoga with the class since she knew I did yoga. It was so much fun finding creative ways of doing yoga with the kids. I have been teaching yoga there ever since.

    I was inspired by that experience. When people began asking me when I would offer classes outside of the school, I decided to take my first yoga teacher training in 2009. The program I took was part of a bodywork modality called Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy. I was interested in this both as a potential addition to my work as a massage therapist AND to strengthen and give me "credibility" (in my own mind) as a yoga teacher. That training was a life changing experience in many ways, and opened my eyes to the power of yoga as a tool to get to know the True Self.

    As time went on, I felt the need to enliven and deepen my own practice, and to further my understanding and ability as a teacher. I was excited to see that there was going to be a teacher training fairly near to me at Santosha Yoga. 


After my first meeting with Dina Lang, ERYT 500, I was sure that the training she offered was exactly what I was looking for to fill in more of those pieces.