The Yoga Month family wishes you a Happy New Year. Our loving kindness wish for you is:May your year be filled with love
May your year be filled with joy
May your year be filled with peace
May your year be filled with learning experiences
May your year be filled with play and laughterWith a year of experience now as Yoga Month Directors, Meredith and Sora are looking forward to serving the Yoga Month community with continued dedication and enthusiasm. The Yoga Month campaign will connect with even more people across the country and around the world in 2012. Thank you for your support!With love and light,
Johannes, Meredith & Sora

Yoga Recess is excited to announce the Yoga Recess Grant for Teachers finalists!

Congratulations to the following teachers: John Demarco, Julie Ridgway, Kate Niemiec, Monica Fayad, Sharon Fisher, Denise Cooper, Katie Schuerholz McConnell, and Susan Murray.Some of the inspiring ideas included:

1. Yoga and Spanish in the classroom, blogging and video blogging using a flip camera
2. Yoga stability balls instead of chairs, yoga ball movements
3. Teacher training, professional development for the entire teaching staff at a school
4. Yoga lending library for the entire school
5. Student asked to create a yoga club, teacher will be meeting with these students and mentoring them
6. Teaching yoga class after school to teachers encouraging them to teach yoga to children during school, will also provide kids yoga training to staff
7. Using chimes, a singing bowl and aromatherapy in the classroom. Class will blog about their experience.

We thank all of our participants! We had over fifty proposals and continue to work towards providing additional grants throughout the new year.

Yoga Recess is excited to announce the launch of a social platform with free content for teachers. It is our mission to provide Mindfulness and Yoga tools that will allow educators to seamlessly integrate into their curriculum. With this being said, we would love lesson plans, videos, articles, exercises and information from children’s yoga teachers to add onto our site. If you are interested in supporting our project, please email Sora@Yoga-Recess.Org.

The 1st Annual Caribbean Yoga Conference | February 2nd – 5th – Montego Bay, Jamaica
For it’s inaugural event, the Caribbean Yoga Conference is landing in beautiful Montego Bay, Jamaica for 4 days of sun, sand, seva and sangha. The conference lineup includes workshops for all abilities with world-renowned instructors including Seane Corn, Simon Park, Paige Elenson, Sadie Nardini, Kathryn Budig, Jenny Sauer-Klein, Jason Nemer and Toni Bergins. The conference will also offer a rockin’ beach concert with MC Yogi and opportunities for morning meditation and noon yoga on the beach. There will also be plenty of time to just sit back, relax and connect with community. A unique element of this conference is it’s scholarship and sustainability program which is geared towards Jamaica’s youth workers. The aim with this program is to spread the reach of yoga related tools to the marginalized children of Jamaica. See you in Jamaica!

CYC Seva & Sustainability
A unique and foundational element of this conference is our scholarship and sustainability program which is geared towards Jamaica’s youth workers. The intention of this program is to spread the reach of yoga related tools and skills to marginalized children in Jamaica. We are working with Paige Elenson, founder of Africa Yoga Project, and other industry leaders, to establish the framework for a sustainability program in Jamaica. CYC is also working in conjunction with Karma Krew to offer a Karma Yoga workshop at the SOS Children’s Village, an orphanage in Jamaica. Karma Krew will also be setting up a Karma Korner at the conference to allow participants the opportunity to engage in small yet meaningful karma initiatives.

Studios have taken action by providing a “Practice with Purpose” donation based class to help raise money to fund Jamaica’s Youth Workers. It takes $900 to cover one recipients expenses. There are still 6 recipients that need pledging so please help. Deadline is February 2nd. For more information, please email Kim at kim@bellalunayoga.com.

So much has been said about Krishna Das that there really are only two things left to say: If you have seen KD in concert before you know you want to again! If you have never seen KD in concert it will change your life!Please join us for an evening of chanting the Divine Names. Win FRONT ROW TICKETS:
Buy Discounted  Tickets through the Lisa Ware in Group Sales:instructor@yoga4love.net . For every ticket purchased through group sales, you will receive an entry into the drawing for Front Row tickets!
BUY TICKETS HERE:
http://tickets.frontgatetickets.com/choose.php?a=1&lid=60356&eid=68690

“YGB Global Calendar 2012” designed by Jonathan Mills

Yoga Gives Back’s first global calendar was created to appreciate and celebrate YGB’s global yoga community. Photos feature their first successful global fundraiser, “Thank You Mother India” that involved more than 750 people in 10 countries, as well as other events throughout the world. Each month also features portraits of women and girls from partner organizations in India, where YGB sends funds directly.You can support Yoga Gives Back’s mission by purchasing this global calendar. We can make a difference if we work together.Calendar prices: $15.00 per calendar or, $10.00 each if you buy more than 20, including shipping via priority mail.Thank you to these sponsors:

As any mum to be knows, pregnancy is a time of huge highs and lows. You may be extremely happy to be pregnant, or perhaps you’re a little more daunted. But even if it’s the thing you’ve wanted to happen most in life, due to fluctuating hormones you could still find yourself feeling down in the dumps and questioning your situation.
As with all things in life, exercise can help alleviate times of mental, physical and emotional stress and provide a much-needed release. But it’s important to choose exercise that is right for you and safe to do during pregnancy. And that’s exactly where yoga steps in.
It’s important to take time out for yourself during pregnancy – as soon enough you’ll have a little one who’ll need all your attention. So, make sure you look after yourself and keep stress to a minimum at this important time in your life. Introduce yoga to your routine and you’ll learn breathing techniques, meditation and postures that will help you not just in the yoga class itself but outside in your everyday life, too.
Click here to read more…

Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg_fpr6XBFM and follow at http://twitter.com/#!/The_Big_FixLA WEEKLY calls THE BIG FIX “Mandatory viewing” & LA TIMES calls it “Scathing” and “Compelling.”In addition to the devastation that millions of gallons of oil caused last year, new evidence shows the oil is still leaking, a widespread health epidemic is possibly underway among Gulf states residents and that fish & shrimp may not be safe to eat.Critics say that The Big Fix is part daring journalism, part archival investigation and part eco-horror story. The Big Fix features Peter Fonda and received critical acclaim earlier this year as the only Official Selection Documentary of the Cannes Film Festival.About the Feature Documentary, THE BIG FIX:
Green Planet Productions’ new documentary feature film The Big Fix is daring journalism, mixed with archival investigation and true to life eco-horror story. The Big Fix features award winning actor Peter Fonda, Actress Amy Smart, featuring music by Grammy singer/songwriter Jason Mraz & received critical acclaim earlier this year as the only Official Selection documentary of the Cannes Film Festival.The Big Fix is the latest movie from the filmmakers of the award winning Sundance documentary “Fuel,” husband and wife filmmaking team Josh and Rebecca Harrell Tickell. It’s executive produced by Tim Robbins, Maggie Wachsberger and Peter Fonda.
Through interviews with scientists, government officials, journalists (including Rolling Stone’s Jeff Goodell who examined the Gulf spill in his article “The Poisoning”), attorneys (including New Orleans Toxic Tort attorney Stuart Smith) and Gulf States natives, The Big Fix recounts the events surrounding the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico and paints a disturbing picture of the aftermath of the largest oil spill in America’s history.