Online Interactive Yoga Classes 1/22/19 & 1/24/19

Online Interactive Yoga Classes
~ in the comfort of your own home ~

Tuesday, January 22
•2pm
•7pm
•9pm

Thursday, January 24
•10am
•2pm
If you have other suggestions for times let me know! I’m just experimenting to see what works.

Download the Zoom app onto your phone, tablet or computer and set yourself up so you can see the device and I can see you. There is a little bit of a learning curve with this platform yet it allows us to practice together anywhere we are.

Leave a comment or send me a message for more information. To register send me a message and a donation at the introductory rate of $5 or more to paypal.me/deniseporterkemp in the comments, or contact me for other arrangements.

February Workshops at The Mountain Club on Loon Mountain Resort

February Workshops
at The Viaggio Spa and Wellness Center
in The Mountain Club on Loon
on Loon Mountain Resort
with Denise Porter Kemp
~
Yoga Playshops for Kids
Sunday, February 17
•9:30am – 10:00am 7-11 years $10
•10:30am – 11:00am – 3-6 years, Mommy or Daddy & Me $10
•3:30pm – 4:15pm – 11-15 years $15

We will utilize yoga postures, movement, dance and storytelling to engage our minds and bodies through the art of conscious play. These age groups are guidelines not boundaries, inquire if you have questions. In all cases we will explore yoga teachings through postures and movement translated to the maturity level of the group.
~
Yoga Refresh Mini-Retreat
Wednesday, February 20
9:30am-12:30pm
$45, member price $35

A half day of retreat of flowing postural yoga, breathwork practices to relax and energize, seated meditation techniques and guided yoga nidra/conscious-rest meditation catered to the specifics of the group. Combine with a half day on the mountain, exploring the forests surrounding the resort or pampering yourself with the many amenities and services available at the Viaggio Spa for a full day retreat experience, just the way you like it.
~
Yoga and Snowshoe Meditation Hike
Saturday, February 23
9:30am-1:30pm
$60 bring your own snowshoes, $75 with snowshoe rental, member price $50 or $65 with snowshoes

Yoga inside the warm sanctuary of The Mountain Club before and after as well as outside during a snowshoe meditation hike in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
~
Ongoing:
•Mondays 5:30-7:00 Meditative Flow yoga class
•Private individual and group yoga and Thai yoga sessions available by request

For more information visit the event pages or message me. To register contact The Viaggio Spa at spa@mtnclub.com or 800-229-7829.

mural and photo credit ~ Christopher Oktavec of Okto Ink
with editing and support by Taniya Toomey

Snowsports Conditioning Dynamic Balance Sequence 1

The first snow on Mount Washington, Mount Mansfield, at Jay Peak Resort, Stowe Mountain Resort, Smugglers’ Notch Resort, Sugarbush Resort, Killington Resort and Cannon Mountain (did I miss anyone?) inspires me to prepare myself for the upcoming snowsports season.
As skiing and snowboarding are dynamic balance practices, flow yoga and fluid movement meditation practices are useful and fun conditioning for pre-season and throughout the whole year.
This sequence is one potential of many.
If you have interest in working one-on-one or hiring me to lead a snowsports specific group yoga class, send me a message and check out the services section of this website to see some of what I have to offer.
Once again, sorry for the technology and cropping! I am working with what I have and learning as I go.

Turiya Yoga Spontaneous Movement and Dance Meditation at Unifier Festival 2016

Unifier Transformational Healing & Expressive Arts Festival
Camp Timber Trails, Tolland, MA
June 17-20, 2016

In this workshop we will utilize guided meditative yoga, mindfulness movement exercises and spontaneous freeform dance meditation as experiential metaphor for resetting unconscious yet familiar patterns; in the way we approach our yoga practice, in the way we move when we dance and in how we relate to the unique circumstances of our lives. Noticing how the forces of momentum, conditioned habits, preconceptions, our own will, each other, the environment around us and even the music direct our movement, we will experiment with consciously unhooking ourselves from following this momentum. In the space of the pause we can potentially tap into the experiencing witness state of turiya, pure aware consciousness underlying all other states of consciousness – the silence ever-present behind the sound, the spaciousness inside our form and the stillness of each moment within the movement – and allow fresh insight and creative possibilities to arise. Instead of repeating pattern or even identifying as the “dancer” and moving by our own will alone, the dance takes form through us. Informed yet not defined, limited or controlled by everything we have experienced so far in our lives.
All levels welcome, no prior experience necessary. I will offer variations to suit every body.

Accompanied with live improvisational sound and music by Kālidāsa Joseph Getter.

For more information go to deniseporterkemp.com/events/tandava/

Denise Porter Kemp makes yoga practice accessible to the uniqueness of every body while expressing the deeper teachings of yoga through the experiential practice of the physical form. Based in the forests of New Hampshire, she brings her traveling yoga school ~ Turiya Yoga ~ to private homes, offices at lunchtime, ski mountains, addiction recovery centers, yoga studios and music festivals all along the east coast. Certified at the 500 hour level in the Shakti Flow Vinyasa style of yoga by Asa Dustin of At OM Yoga, Level 1 in Thai Yoga by Shai Plonski of Still Light Center and initiated into the Kaula lineage of Kashmir Shaivism by Parvathi Nanda Nath Saraswati, Denise has studied with many teachers and learns from everyone who comes her way. She has been teaching yoga since 2005 and offering Thai Yoga since 2011.

~ body geometry, pure aware consciousness ~
deniseporterkemp.com

Kālidāsa Joseph Getter is a creative world musician whose transcendent sounds awaken the mind and open the heart. He leads kirtan sessions, composes and performs for dance and theater, crafts soundscapes for yoga, and plays experimental and free improvisation music. Kālidāsa is a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, specializing in the bamboo flute of South India and gamelan music of Java. He is on the faculty of several music schools, leads the Wesleyan Youth Gamelan program, and is music director for ArtFarm theater of Middletown, Connecticut.

https://www.facebook.com/kalidasakirtan

Practice video for Finding Your Own Practice Workshop 5/30/2015

A little inspiration 🙂 If you like, flow with this to start, holding any postures as long as you want and/or moving through each one breath. Inhale expand, exhale condense. Remember – backbends happen in the upper back and lengthen the lower back and forward bends hinge at the hip socket instead of rounding the back. Adapt to this. You can mute the music if you want silence or your own music – although this is one of my favorites. And don’t worry, Joe the cat doesn’t stay in the frame for long.
To find some desire to want to practice Hannah Tosi suggested coming into a posture that you know you enjoy and experiment in it to feel what you like about it. And then I suggest let it lead you into whatever comes next. If you like follow a skeleton practice that includes – vinyasa (maybe sun salutation flow of some kind), forward bend, lateral/side lengthening, balance, backbend, twist, hips and if you like inversions. As an exercise you could write a list of different postures that would fit into each of these categories. And here are the sample practices that I spoke of that you can follow and/or use as a jumping off point.
Your mental drishti/focus point on feeling yourself in your body and how the subtleties effect the posture and your experience.
If you’d like to share let me know how it goes.
Love.

Snowsports Specific Yoga Retreats

Mindful dynamic vinyasa yoga and core awakening postures inside at The Mountain Club on Loon before a half day on the mountain at Loon Mountain Resort followed by indoor targeted stretching and decompression to reduce soreness and as a sort of savasana for the day. In the past we have incorporated partner, acro and Thai yoga into both sides of this, which we can do again as interest allows.
You are welcome to ride the mountain with me where we can utilize snowsports as a movement meditation in itself AND practice postures right in our boots or equipment that release tension, build strength and increase effortless balance, and/or take some time to ski or ride on your own as much as you like.
Everything is optional 🙂
I know its cold. Come play outside, it makes winter more fun ❤

Yoga and Snowsports as Movement Meditation Retreats

catalyst

For me, snowboarding is physical yoga practice, asana ~ moving meditation, becoming comfortable and articulate in my body and in relation with the physical world. As I ride I gradually tune in to the subtleties of my movement, awakening presence in my entire body. I don’t have to try so much anymore, it just starts to happen. The movement becomes efficient, somewhat effortless. Grounded in my body, I become aware not only of my body, but with my body ~ my movement responding to the contours of the mountain, the crisp scent of the air and the temperature on my skin, the sounds of my board against the texture of the snow and the wind all around me. Everything becomes more vibrant. There’s nowhere to go and nothing else to do but to be right here, completely open to the moment. It refreshes me, brings me back to center.
I used to get pretty sad at the end of the season, as I thought I depended on this activity to do all this for me. Without it I would feel flat, empty, dull…or so I feared. Through time I realize that these activities that have the potential to revitalize us and bring us spontaneously into the moment remind us that this is possible. We don’t have to become attached to the catalyst, there are many ways to do it. Breathe in, feel yourself in your entire body. Hear the sounds. Right now.
I will miss you, my beloved mountain, my mermaid~tail serpentine snow dance. Another season has come and is passing and I have again learned so much from you.
Until the next time we meet dear friend, the love I tap into when I’m with you lives inside of me.
(yeah, yeah I know kinda sappy. And I mean it  🙂 )
❤

Vernal Equinox Yoga and Snowshoe Meditation Retreat in the White Mountains

Spring in the White Mountains

The word yoga has the same root as yoke, meaning the yoking together of polar opposites as two sides of the same thing. Holding both extremes and the continuum between, balanced at the center.

The vernal, or spring, equinox, balanced precisely between the Winter and Summer Solstices, is typically the turning point weather wise as we begin to experience the effects of the shifting, as daylight becomes equal to nighttime and the still and silent winter woods are being balanced by the warmth and awakening of spring melt.

Come experience the extremes simultaneously on this pinnacle day, balanced right at the center. The winter woodlands opening up with a celebration of the sounds and signs of spring.

http://deniseporterkemp.com/events–snowshoe.html

Lunge Vinyasa Sequence

This closed hip/warrior one sequence helps strengthen and warm up the legs and joints to prepare for sports and physical activity, especially snowsports like skiing and snowboarding. Enjoy!
For more information, visit me at The Mountain Club on Loon for classes or retreats, or contact me for in person or online on Skype or FaceTime group or individual private instruction, including consultation to develop and maintain your own home practice, with optional customized photographic, written, video and audio reference.

http://www.deniseporterkemp.com

Yoga Awareness Meditation Retreat in The White Mountains

~ flow yoga as experiential metaphor to bring meditative awareness into the rest of our lives ~

In this one day retreat we will experiment with yoga postures and breath as awareness meditation, cultivating an increased ability to sustain presence and center ourselves at will. Developing this skill consciously together in practice will help us recall this quality of awareness when we most want to, or need to, be present in the rest of our lives.
~
Starting with a short hike and meditation along the Pemigewasset River, we will then retreat to the sanctuary of The Mountain Club on Loon to integrate our meditative awareness into an indoor yoga asana practice. After lunch we will ride the gondola to the summit of Loon to practice in the forests of the White Mountains.
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This class is accessible to students of all levels. Simple postures will be offered for newer students to hold and develop awareness, while more experienced practitioners will be guided into more complex postures to refine their skill and attention once the simpler postures become easy. We will experiment to find our own unique expression of the potential of each pose.
~
Bring clothing for yoga and a mat, layers appropriate for the weather outside, a towel and swimwear, and footwear suitable for light hiking. In case of inclement weather, we will utilize The Mountain Club as much as necessary and go outside as weather allows. Lunch is available at area restaurants, including The Mountain Club, or you are welcome to pack your own.
Please arrive well fed, enough to sustain you until lunch time.
~
Make it a weekend retreat with spa services and discount room rates through The Mountain Club,
or with private instruction or a Thai yoga session with Denise.
~
Denise practices in nature as much as possible, accessing a playfulness and deep awareness that she brings to her classes. In addition to teaching at the Mountain Club on Loon, she is the seasonal yoga instructor for the Loon Mountain Snowsports School and The Saint Anselm Cross Country Running Team. She leads yoga and meditation at The Plymouth House, a residential retreat center for drug and alcohol recovery, which has helped develop her teachings into a practical life skill that helps free us from dependence and confusion, awakening our potential through awareness and centering. She also brings yoga to festivals and events throughout New England and along the east coast. Her style derives from many traditions of movement and meditation and adapts to fit the specifics of her clientele. Denise is also available for personal and group private yoga classes and Thai yoga sessions.

Saturday August 10, 2013
9am – 5pm
The Mountain Club on Loon
Lincoln, New Hampshire
$80 – includes lift ticket

For more information or to register call 603 568 5977
or visit http://awarenessretreat813.brownpapertickets.com

deniseporterkemp.com