Yoga Therapy, Yoga Workshops and Yoga Classes

My Yoga Classes and Workshops:

• Focus on moving with your breath
• Invite you to cultivate a healing relationship with yourself
• Offer mixed level options for all ages
• Accomodate diverse fitness levels
• Invite you to lighten up with joyful laughter
• Always allow time for a delicious closing savasana
• Often feature a sound healing with Crystal Bowls, Tibetan Bowl or chimes.
• Include instruction for solo practice
• Invite you to practice meditation
• Are infuenced by Hatha, Hasya, Kundalini  and Yin Yoga
• Feature music to transport you, ground you, rock you and make you smile!

I have offered these Yoga Workshops in yoga studios, in healthcare settings, spas, in eldercare communities, in the workplace, at retreats and at conferences:

• Yoga for Cardiac Health
• Yoga for Stress Relief
• Joyful Yoga for All of Us Affected by Cancer
• Laughing Through Your Chakras
• Yoga for Anxiety
• Yoga for TMD
• Yin Yoga
• Beginners’ Yoga
• Chair Yoga
• Yoga for Boomers
• Yoga for Seniors
• Desk Stretch Yoga
• Community Yoga for Retreats
• Laughter (Hasya) and Hatha Yoga Combo

Private Yoga Therapy Sessions

Boost your confidence and yoga practice while making positive changes with my support, knowledge and intuitive coaching. Beginners are cherished!

I am a Certified Integrative Yoga Therapy Teacher and a Registered Yoga Teacher, RYT and a Member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

I have a M.A, in Clinical Psychology and have been an art therapist and counselor for many years.

Please visit my Counseling and Yoga Therapy Page for information about Private Yoga Therapy Session in your home or at my Office/Yoga Studio in Petaluma.

The Benefits of Yoga Classes with Community

Peace of mind, fitness, vibrancy and health are inseparable. Our emotional, physical, mental and spiritual well-being are all interconnected. Having a supportive community or, sangha, in which we can feel safe to explore our inner growth and feel connected to others is, I believe, integral to our health and well-being. We humans benefit from practicing with a peaceful tribe.

While silent practice in community has its place, yoga classes can often feel quite isolating with each person practicing on their own yoga mat, each on our own little private island.

So, my philosophy as a Yoga Teacher is to encourage you to regard your yoga mat as a flying carpet to adventures within you and the yoga class as a place to safely practice flying together. Not like those noisy, gas-guzzling Blue Angels flying in formation, more like a living, breathing opportunity to be with others in a respectful community with space to move and grow.

The word conspiracy finds its Latin roots in “Con” meaning “together” and “spire” meaning to breathe. A conspiracy of breathing together!

Yes that’s what I like to facilitate.

Choose Joy
By now, most of us know what is “good for us” but we may find it difficult to commit to activities that seem like even more work or stress.

Making healthful changes can be difficult. Margaret Mead, the 20th century anthropologist, said it was “easier for a person to change their religion than their diet.” You need not change your diet or your religion to practice yoga.

The practice of yoga will help you to make healthful choices naturally.

Inflicting pain on ourselves by going too far would be aggression. Yet, not exploring the depth of ourselves and not fully embracing the potential of what the yoga has to offer us would be compromise. I invite you to dare to be joyful and not compromise in your yoga practice.

Chair Yoga Delivers the Benefits of Yoga

The yoga mat may be a  “magic carpet ride”  for some of  us, but it might feel more like “having the rug pulled out from under you” for others. As a  Yoga Therapist, I very much want everyone to have access to the healing benefits of yoga and  so I have developed  and taught several Chair and Wheelchair Yoga Classes over the years. Some of  the classes are done  completely seated for people who cannot stand on their own at all, some have been for folks who can use the chair for supported balance poses and  “Downward Dog” pose with hands on the seat of the chair.  Beautiful  “Sun Salutations” can be adapted for a  chair yoga practice and a vigorous workout is quite accessible. Core-strengthening is a key goal for many people and we can do that seated too.

Chair Yoga is not only effective for people with  so-called disabilities.  I like teaching  “Desk Stretch Yoga” for people in the workplace who do a lot of computer work. I hesitate to call the classes “Yoga for the Working Wounded”, but sometimes when I looked at the stiff shoulders, tightened jaws and pained look on their faces, the title did cross my mind.  So much good yoga can be done while seated at work!  Our wrists, lower backs, hips, shoulder, necks and jaws respond quite gratefully to yoga in the workplace chair.

I believe that Seated Yoga can be  wonderfully effective way for beginners to focus on the really important part of yoga, pranayama, yogic breathing.  Learning to extend the exhale and move with one’s breath while getting the feel for “inhaling up and exhaling down” is a vital part of  the Yoga practice which can be learned while seated. Practicing beginning meditation as part of my Chair Yoga classes is also another key part of the yoga practice that lends itself well to being seated. So, there really are some advantages to the chair practice.

My Arm Chair and Wheelchair Laughter Yoga Club in Rohnert Park was the first LY Club in this country dedicated to practicing laughter yoga seated for adults of all ages with diverse mental and physical challenges. And we get quite a good workout and lots of  laughs without doing the standing group laughter exercises that are the usual fare at LY Clubs.   Nor do we lie down on the floor for a closing laughter meditation, but we still finish each session with a juicy  solo laughter meditation.    I teach several  Chair Laughter Yoga  groups to elders every week, many of whom use walkers and wheelchairs, and they always remark how they feel so “alive with such a good workout” doing the practice.

When  I offer Laughter Yoga at professional conferences in auditoriums the audience is always seated and that has given me an opportunity to really get them moving and laughing while seated. Of course, I do aim to bring them up  to standing, waving their arms and laughing and shaking hands with each other, but I  have learned to adapt the practice, even for the  very able-bodied, to get the benefits while sitting on their bums.

So, if you have been considering “trying yoga”,  or if you “used to practice yoga on the mat years ago”  and worry that your current body might not like being on the floor, consider the many benefits of a Chair Yoga practice.

Carmela teaches customized Family Yoga Sessions

Valley of the Moon Pose

Mother and DaughterFather and Son Tree Pose

Brother and Sister Warriors