Friday, August 13, 2010

Exploring other towns & their Yoga; Complete with a Secret Garden

This week I had the opportunity to travel down to Wolfville Nova Scotia for work. Although 'parachuting' my services to another clinic can be hectic, there is also lots of fun in checking out a new town... and it's yoga studio!

Wolfville truly is special. Above all the regular Nova Scotia greenness (recycling and composting in every single establishment, including my B&B), the town is a member of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities-Partners for Climate Protection Program. This means that over five milestones (the first being a greenhouse gas emissions inventory) the town of Wolfville has committed to reducing it's carbon footprint, regardless of provincial goals. 

This town is tiny, but filled with big ideas and creativity. Signs decorated eco-friendly yards asking us to 'Save our Farms' and most houses had wildly growing gardens and flowers. People bring their own mugs here and garbage bags are all clear in order to assure proper recycling and composting.

Despite it being a tiny town, I had no troubles at all finding yoga. The Inner Sun Yoga Centre is a cute studio with beautiful flooring, cork and wooden yoga blocks, jade yoga mats and wonderful teachers. What I love about visiting other non-Haligonian yoga studios is the open and friendly feel. I may be jaded, but sadly Halifax is much more yoga-competitive and less about just practicing yoga.

The class was taught by an open, friendly former Aussie and was very different from anything I had done before. It was filled with all levels of students from all walks of life. Not everyone was decked out in Lulu and the teacher wasn't there to 'sell' her studio or products. She taught Vira I (Warrior I) much differently with a very short stance. I left that class feeling fantastic.

On my walk home with the sun setting over the Minas Basin, I could see all the beautiful, wildly tangled gardens. It was almost as if the author of 'The Secret Garden' had spent her childhood in Wolfville. I wouldn't have been surprised if faeries were hiding behind a giant mushroom or jungle of wildflower stems.

This weekend I'll be bringing my yoga mat to my parents cottage so we can practice on the dock, overlooking the lake. I cannot wait.

Blessings


article copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com

10 comments:

  1. Hey sweetcakes, when's the wedding? Is it this weekend?

    Warrior 1 should always be taught with a short stance. But that's just a lil ol' UK yoga teacher's opion ;)

    Wolfville sounds awesome!

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  2. Ohhh I wish I lived closer so I could go to all these lovely places with you!!

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  3. Sounds wonderful! And yay for Aussie ex-pats teaching yoga!! :)

    Yoga on the dock? Yeah, sounds fantastic!

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  4. yay wolfville! that's so cool that there is a yoga studio there now, when i was at acadia classes were either in the basement of the bac or in a kindergarten classroom... it was great and fit very well with what yoga was and still is to me - i am SO glad that it hasn't become... can't find the right/diplomatic way to say this but you know what i mean... places like this I think are an important and way too often overlooked part of the whole yoga landscape in 'the west'... it's not all about the hype :) Thank you so much for this timely reminder... it's made my week-end all the way down here... very, very far from wolfville now :)

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  5. For all the commercialism, etc. one nice thing about the popularity of yoga is that you can find a yoga studio just about anywhere. The last time I was at my mom's, actually, I saw there was one in the building where I went to kindergarten...which got turned into office spaces years ago...I'm wondering if it's in the same room, even...

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  6. How lovely that you can practise your yoga whilst overlooking the lake. I have to practise in my local (and rather old) town hall!

    http://www.sweatybetty.com/shop-by-department/yoga-/accessories/premium_eco_yoga_mat.asp

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  7. Glad you enjoyed my hometown! Actually, I lived near by, but I loved going to Wolfville to hang out--it was always the cool, arty place to go.

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  8. I'm curious how short this "short" stance is- I teach about 3-4 feet. I looove checking out new studios, something which I've only started recently (yay passport to prana! couldn't afford it before, nice thing about first cleaning and now teaching... free yoga!) can't wait to hear about the wedding!

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  9. lol, I am only realizing that while everyone says 3-4 feet for warrior I it's more like 2-3 feet.. so it's a short warrior and i LIKE IT! :)

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