Upcoming Workshops
All of Lara’s Brooklyn workshops are held at Yogis & Yoginis in Park Slope, located at 432 6th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11215. Mats and props are available free of charge. The cost of the Workshop is $45.
The pelvic floor is suspended between the pubis, ilium (hip bones), sacrum, and coccyx (tailbone). The health of our lower abdominal/pelvic organs depends on the tone and elasticity of our pelvic floor and the placement of the sacrum and coccyx. In this workshop, we will align the pelvis and tone the pelvic floor by focusing on various asanas on the muscles surrounding the pelvis (including the pelvic, hip, leg, and abdominal muscles). A special emphasis will be placed on Tadasana, Sirsasana, and Sarvangasana.
SAT 16-Aug 3- 5 pm Poses to Cool and Soothe
This is an opportunity to learn what poses can help you remain calm and collected, cool and even-keeled in the midst of NYC's summer swelter. We will open, lengthen, luxuriate, and cool off in supported chest openers, forward bends, and inversions. We will end with some pranayama to make the mind as deep and serene as a mountain lake.
SAT 20-Sept 3-5 pm Core Awareness: The Abdominals
The abdomen represents not only our physical center, but also our emotional seat. Chronic hardening or tensing of the abdomen can have deleterious effects both physically and psychologically. In this workshop, we will spend some time "mapping" the various layers of abdominal muscles, learn how to soften the superficial layers of the abdomen, create extension along the sides of the trunk, and arrive at the deeper, innermost layers of the abdominal muscles. From a state of softness, traction, and spinal length, we will learn how to tone these deeper muscles to bring a healthy strength and support to our posture, exploring the balance between abdominal strength and suppleness.
SAT 18-Oct 3-5 pm Learning the Ropes
Come be both puppet and puppeteer this Saturday as we learn how to practice asana using suspended ropes. Working with ropes allows us to practice more difficult asanas with relative ease, and due to the traction and repetitive movement in and out of poses, it helps us open the shoulders and chest and create suppleness in the spine and body.
SAT 15-Nov 3-5 pm Connecting to your Breath
This Saturday, come join Lara as she leads you through a practice to deepen your connection to your breath. Pranayama, the art of breathing, calms and strengthens the mind and creates a feeling of vast internal space by leading the senses of perception and mind to reach within towards their source. "When the breath is irregular, the mind wavers; when the breath is steady, so is the mind. As long as there is breath within the body, there is life; when the breath departs, life also departs. Therefore, regulate the breath." - Hathayoga Pradipika
In this workshop, we will begin with asanas that teach us to consciously rest, relax, and become quiet to reveal the breath, and then move into some fundamental reclining and seated pranayama practices.
SAT 20-Dec 3-5 pm Chasing Away the Winter Blues
I hope you are having a wonderful December! If you are looking for a pre-Christmas and New Year's workshop to help you slow down, perk up, and find light beyond the glitter, come join me for this uplifting class. This workshop is designed to enliven your spirit and alleviate the winter doldrums. Learn what asanas help you maintain a sunny outlook through the dark, cold days of winter and what practices can help you gracefully diffuse a turbulent mind.
Past 2024 Workshops
Evolution of Backbends: From Virabhadrasana 3 to Natarajasana
SATURDAY
May 11, 2024 10AM - 12:30PM
This workshop will teach you how to initiate your backbends from the “nav-chakra” or navel band. Progress from milder and more open or extended backbends such as salabhasana, urdhva mukha svanasana, and purvottonasana, to more intense variations like urdhva dhanurasana and kapotasana, maintaining energetic equilibrium and nurturing positivity throughout.
Past 2023 Workshops
The positive effects of yoga practice are undeniable. In this workshop, we will explore poses that naturally uplift the body and spirits and work with timings to allow us to refine the posture and cultivate stability and ease. We learn to observe ourselves and adapt our outer body and internal environment in response to each asana's various conditions. When we experience this without a doubt, the benefits accrue, and our life takes on a positive force.
Asanas to Gain a Positive Life
SATURDAY
April 29, 2023 3-5 PM
Twists might just be the "super-poses" of the asana world. You can use them in your practice to rev up and prepare for back-bending, to unwind and release from forward-bending, as an intermezzo, or as the main movement. They affect us on a muscular-skeletal level helping us maintain the full range of motion in our spinal rotation. Physiologically they replace stagnant blood and revitalize our energy with their "squeeze and soak" action on the organs. And, psychologically, they teach us how to remain calm and focused even in a tight bind as our attention is drawn inward to the stable, unmoving center of the pose.
Twists
SATURDAY
March 25, 2023 3-5 PM
Hips & Hamstrings
SATURDAY
Jan 28, 2023 3-5 PM
Natural resistance to stretching of the tendinous fibers in the hamstrings and limitation in the range of motion of the hips (usually due to years of sitting in chairs), limit our physical freedom and comfort. Working to open and stabilize the hips while lengthening the hamstrings is key to balancing the pelvis, finding proper extension in the spine, and preserving the knees and lower back health.
Past 2022 Workshops
Making Spirits Bright
SATURDAY
Dec 17, 3-5 PM
Evolution of Backbends
SATURDAY
Nov 19, 1:30-3:30 PM
In this class, we will use both supported and unsupported backbends to get an anti-gravitational lift as well as gravitational release in various backbends. There will be a focus on abdominal length, learning how to extend from the navel band equally back through the legs forward through the trunk. By the end of class, expect to have a more balanced and effortless approach to your backbend practice.
Mind to Balance:
An Inversion Practice
SATURDAY
OCT 29, 1:30-3:30 PM
In this workshop, we will work to build confidence to balance in sirsasana (head balance) away from the wall and develop the stability and understanding to practice the sirsasana cycle and its variations. In addition to focusing on sirsasana, we will explore salamba sarvangasana, gaining practical experience on the different ways to prepare for and enter shoulderstand to create a lighter, more uplifted pose.
Straighten Up and Fly Right
SATURDAY
July 30th, 3-5 PM
This workshop is not appropriate for beginning students. Are you feeling a little rusty? Does your practice need some brushing up? Every now and then something is bound to come along to interrupt your routine. Perhaps your teacher went away on a summer break?! Whether it has been a couple of weeks or years, this workshop will ease you back into the swing of things. A well-rounded class drawing upon supine, standing, inverted, forward, and restorative postures.
Right Effort, Healthy Will
SATURDAY
August 20th, 3-5 PM
Aparigraha is the concept of non-grasping or not holding—tight. Whether it is how we think, do, or feel, can we learn to loosen our grip to find what is “right effort” and healthy willpower? In this class, we will explore how much effort is enough and look at the balance between stabilizing actions and soothing actions and how they are often one and the same when the right balance is struck.
2021 Past Workshops
Fall with Style
SATURDAY
September 25th, 10am-12pm
If you have always wanted to "drop back" or already love dropping back, join me this Saturday for my "Fall with Style" workshop-- No, nothing to with autumnal fashion, but rather a Backbending Workshop with a focus on how to gain control of the spine in and out of back bending postures. We will start with poses that strengthen the arms, open the shoulders and hips, and bring intelligence and coordination to the arms and legs to gain grace and control to fall with style.
Moving beyond Instructions:
Asana and the Felt Experience
SATURDAY
May 22, 10am-12pm
How often have you got stuck in the idea of something rather than experiencing that something firsthand? For instance, have you executed a pose thinking only of the instructions and not the experience? Perhaps you are looking at everything you have to do in the pose so that you are never done? Or looking at what you have to correct, so that you are never correct? Doing from the head and not the heart? You get to the end point and think "I've done it" and then you come out and move on to the next pose without really savoring or imprinting the experience itself? I invite you to slow down this weekend and increase your capacity for remaining present. Look for the experience beyond words that moves us from concentration to meditation, and from the head to the heart. Through standing poses, backbends and inversions we will explore how our experience changes based on various approaches to the asanas.
Tune In and Drop Back
SATURDAY
April 21, 10am-12pm
If you have always wanted to "drop back" or already love dropping back, sign up this Saturday for an inversion and backbend workshop. We will start by strengthening the arms and legs in standing poses, gaining control of the spine in and out of inversions; building confidence to balance in the center of the room, and developing the grace to drop back with ease and control.
Balancing Act
SATURDAY
March 20th, 10am-12pm
In this workshop we will explore balance in a variety of poses—including, but not limited to, inversions and arm balancings. Like a magnificent massive sculpture that seemingly defies the laws of gravity, finding balance in asanas can lead us to “effortless effort”, where dualities are removed and we become absorbed in the experience rather than in the execution of it.