Private Individual & Group Yoga Classes
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NEW! Beginner
• Saturdays 12pm at Gregoire Combatives (fall/ winter season)
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Restorative / Stretch Yoga Group Classes
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- Mondays 6pm at Gregoire Combatives / Yoga Skies Studio, Anza
- Wednesday evenings on the Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians Reservation
- Friday mornings at Lake Riverside Estates, Aguanga (for LRE residents)
- Saturdays 11am at Gregoire Combatives (fall/ winter season)
- El Im Spa & Resort (RSVP only)
Fitness Yoga Classes
for more information, please scroll below
for more information, please scroll below
•Yoga One Mondays 5pm at Gregoire Combatives / Yoga Skies Studio
•Yoga I / II Saturdays 10am at Gregoire Combatives / Yoga Skies Studio
•Yoga I / II Saturdays 10am at Gregoire Combatives / Yoga Skies Studio
Restorative Yoga
Restorative Yoga is a therapeutic style of yoga focusing on providing healing for the body and the mind. Restorative yoga opens your body through passive stretching while your mind fills with a sense of peace and calm. Simple, longer held poses are practiced while seated or on your back with the use of props like bolsters, blankets, straps, blocks and eye pillows for support, comfort and deep relaxation. Attention is given to your diaphragmatic breathing and your muscles get a break to give way to working on your tendons, fascia and ligaments. It is also designed to move the spine in all directions and includes inverted postures, which reverses the effects of gravity. Each session typically leaves you feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. The benefits are practically endless and restorative yoga is especially useful when you need to eliminate fatigue and stress. It can also help you recover from illness and injury or overcome emotional depression and anxiety. It is known that restorative yoga helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system, responsible for regulating stress levels in the body. As such, the regular nervous system will be at rest, and the muscles will become more relaxed. Constant practice of restorative yoga will make your body less vulnerable to stress-related illnesses and help you achieve optimal health.
Yin Yoga
So what is Yin Yoga? It is a more meditative approach with a physical focus much deeper than Yang like practices. Here the practitioner is trying to access the deeper tissues such as the connective tissue and fascia and many of the postures focus on areas that encompass a joint (hips, sacrum, spine). As one ages flexibility in the joints decreases and Yin yoga is a wonderful way to maintain that flexibility, something that for many don’t seem to be too concerned about until they notice it is gone.
This intimate practice of yoga requires students to be ready to get intimate with the self, with feelings, sensations, and emotions, something of which I have noticed can be easy to avoid in a fast paced yoga practice.
Some of the benefits of Yin yoga are:
Yin yoga teaches you how to really listen, you don’t get the opportunity to go in and out, jump around and find a distracted version of stillness within your practice. Yin is such a great compliment to other styles and your own personal life, because it brings long periods of time in a position of discomfort of varying levels, which then asks you to learn to “be” to “accept what is” in that given moment.
by Hope Zvara: Source: Mind Body Green
This intimate practice of yoga requires students to be ready to get intimate with the self, with feelings, sensations, and emotions, something of which I have noticed can be easy to avoid in a fast paced yoga practice.
Some of the benefits of Yin yoga are:
- Calming and balancing to the mind and body
- Regulates energy in the body
- Increases mobility in the body, especially the joints and hips
- Lowering of stress levels (everyone needs that)
- Greater stamina
- Better lubrication and protection of joints
- More flexibility in joints & connective tissue
- Release of fascia throughout the body
- Help with TMJ and migraines
- Deeper relaxation
- A great coping for anxiety and stress
- Better ability to sit for meditation
- Ultimately you will have a better Yang practice
Yin yoga teaches you how to really listen, you don’t get the opportunity to go in and out, jump around and find a distracted version of stillness within your practice. Yin is such a great compliment to other styles and your own personal life, because it brings long periods of time in a position of discomfort of varying levels, which then asks you to learn to “be” to “accept what is” in that given moment.
by Hope Zvara: Source: Mind Body Green
Yoga I / II
/aka Hatha Yoga / Yang Yoga / Vinyasa or Flow Yoga / Fitness Yoga
Practicing Yoga "What I've found through studying yoga therapy is that people who have a daily practice have effortlessly and automatically changed their lifestyle. They eat better, sleep better, their lifestyle is more regulated," says Dillip Sarkar, who serves as chairman of the School of Integrative Medicine at Taksha University in Hampton, Virginia. Don't just take his word for it. Hundreds and thousands of scientific studies support his beliefs. As further proof, we dug up some of the most recently published works (all in 2015 & 2016) on the perks of a persistent yoga practice.
Improves cardiovascular health. A study published in the April issue of the journal Diabetology & Metabolic Syndrome backs this: Researchers followed 182 middle-aged Chinese adults who suffered from metabolic syndrome who practiced yoga for a year. The activity proved to not only lower their blood pressure, but also help them significantly slim them down, too.
Curbs chronic neck and low-back pain. In the January issue of Israel's Medical Association journal, Harefuah, researchers reported that yoga may be a valuable tool to treat chronic neck and low-back pain. "In yoga therapy, when you hold a pose, your muscles contract and then slowly relax as you breath in and out. When relaxation sets in, back pain starts to go away."
Sharpens the brain. "Focused breath equals maximizing oxygenation and movement increases blood flow to brain and body," says registered nurse Graham McDougall Jr., Ph.D., the lead researcher of the report published in the June issue of the Journal of Neuroscience Nursing. Participants of the study saw significant gains memory performance and had fewer depressive symptoms as well.
Controls diabetes. "A new study published in the April issue of the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research supports this: Thirty men with Type 2 diabetes who practiced yoga for six months saw a significant decrease in their blood glucose levels.
Staves off stress and anxiety. A new report presented at the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) Conference 2015 in April linked yoga to lowering levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, especially in women at risk for mental health problems.
Decreases depression. In the May issue of Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, researchers found that women experiencing postpartum depression saw a significant improvement in their anxiety, depression, and health-related quality of life after just eight week of yoga (twice a week) compared to their counterparts who did not practice yoga.
Lowers cancer risk. A study published last January in Journal of Clinical Oncology found that performing yoga twice a week for as little as three months could lower inflammation, boost energy, and lift the mood of female cancer patients.
Promotes positive self-perception. In a pilot study from Brazil published in Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice in May, university students reported feeling good after their yoga practice, especially pertaining to self-control, self-perception, well-being, body awareness, balance, mind-body and reflexivity.
Lengthens lifespan and youth. Another study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine this May analyzed the effects that 90 days of yoga had on an obese 31-year-old man who had a history of fatigue, difficulty losing weight, and lack of motivation. Not only did adopting a yoga or meditation-based lifestyle help erase some signs of aging, but also prevented several lifestyle-related diseases of which oxidative stress and inflammation are the chief cause.
Reduces PMS. In a new study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine this May, researchers found that 11 women who practiced yoga in the follicular phase (from first day of period until ovulation) and luteal phase (during ovulation) of a menstrual cycle felt more relaxed or were in a more peaceful mental state immediately afterward compared to the control group.
Improves cardiovascular health. A study published in the April issue of the journal Diabetology & Metabolic Syndrome backs this: Researchers followed 182 middle-aged Chinese adults who suffered from metabolic syndrome who practiced yoga for a year. The activity proved to not only lower their blood pressure, but also help them significantly slim them down, too.
Curbs chronic neck and low-back pain. In the January issue of Israel's Medical Association journal, Harefuah, researchers reported that yoga may be a valuable tool to treat chronic neck and low-back pain. "In yoga therapy, when you hold a pose, your muscles contract and then slowly relax as you breath in and out. When relaxation sets in, back pain starts to go away."
Sharpens the brain. "Focused breath equals maximizing oxygenation and movement increases blood flow to brain and body," says registered nurse Graham McDougall Jr., Ph.D., the lead researcher of the report published in the June issue of the Journal of Neuroscience Nursing. Participants of the study saw significant gains memory performance and had fewer depressive symptoms as well.
Controls diabetes. "A new study published in the April issue of the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research supports this: Thirty men with Type 2 diabetes who practiced yoga for six months saw a significant decrease in their blood glucose levels.
Staves off stress and anxiety. A new report presented at the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) Conference 2015 in April linked yoga to lowering levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, especially in women at risk for mental health problems.
Decreases depression. In the May issue of Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, researchers found that women experiencing postpartum depression saw a significant improvement in their anxiety, depression, and health-related quality of life after just eight week of yoga (twice a week) compared to their counterparts who did not practice yoga.
Lowers cancer risk. A study published last January in Journal of Clinical Oncology found that performing yoga twice a week for as little as three months could lower inflammation, boost energy, and lift the mood of female cancer patients.
Promotes positive self-perception. In a pilot study from Brazil published in Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice in May, university students reported feeling good after their yoga practice, especially pertaining to self-control, self-perception, well-being, body awareness, balance, mind-body and reflexivity.
Lengthens lifespan and youth. Another study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine this May analyzed the effects that 90 days of yoga had on an obese 31-year-old man who had a history of fatigue, difficulty losing weight, and lack of motivation. Not only did adopting a yoga or meditation-based lifestyle help erase some signs of aging, but also prevented several lifestyle-related diseases of which oxidative stress and inflammation are the chief cause.
Reduces PMS. In a new study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine this May, researchers found that 11 women who practiced yoga in the follicular phase (from first day of period until ovulation) and luteal phase (during ovulation) of a menstrual cycle felt more relaxed or were in a more peaceful mental state immediately afterward compared to the control group.
