Catching Your Breath: Yoga in Italy

The Yoga Borgo, or Borgo Rurale di Passano, located six kilometers up a gravel road in the foothills of the Apennine mountains in Umbria, Italy, is a perfect place to get off the grid and commit to a yoga practice. Simply driving the road there requires an act of faith, but the payoff is sweeping views of the Upper Tiber Valley of Tuscany, hectares of untouched land, and a stillness that is all but impossible to find in urban life.

Sada Sat Singh and Sada Sat Kaur are beloved Kundalini Yoga teachers who have taught for over 35 years in Los Angeles and around the globe. After falling in love with Italy, they took the plunge and relocated from Los Angeles to Passano… population 4.  Hard work and a lot of love transformed the 4^th century hamlet of Passano into an ideal retreat for self-study and reflection.

The Yoga Borgo has a flexible, Italian spirit. One can stay for a night or two, a week, or even months. A person can attend one class a day, or choose from various immersion courses. Yummy vegetarian meals are served with fresh vegetables and herbs plucked straight from the garden. Retreat participants practice yoga in a vaulted room with stone floors, while watching the sun slowly rise out of the mist in the hills. Days can be spent relaxing and reading in nearby hammocks, hiking or venturing to the nearby towns of Sansepolcro, Arezzo and Monterchi – three towns that contain astoundingly beautiful frescoes by Piero della Francesca. For those feeling homesick for their pets, an adorable dog and cat on site attend to your furry nuzzling needs.

Sada Sat Kaur is well-known across the global yoga community for her gorgeous mantra recordings. During their “Sacred Sounds Retreat”, Sada Sat Singh and Sada Sat Kaur invite their students to experience the power of chanting, mantras and kirtan.

Overlooking the hills in Umbria

The Yoga Borgo can house up to 16 participants in its rustic stone farmhouse and tower, which dates back to the 7th^th century.  In addition to yoga, treatments in reflexology, homeopathy, nutrition, and tantric numerology are offered. For more information on experiencing la dolce vita at the Yoga Borgo, please visit www.yogaborgo.com. 

The Injured Yogi

There are few things in life that irritate me more than being the injured yoga teacher. Throughout my graceful yoga career, I’ve thrown my back and hip out, sneezed so hard I once pulled a rib out of place, had whiplash from a car accident, tripped over my own two feet, and banged into every piece of furniture within a two foot radius of me. Most recently, I’ve had a body that feels like it’s made out of twigs due to an allergic reaction to a medication. What gives?

Yoga has a funny way of teaching us what we need to learn… even if it means sometimes backing off from our yoga practice. Recently I practiced handstands and arm balances when my body was not quite healed enough to accommodate them. I knew this, yet my ego got the best of me and I tried to muscle through it. The next day I was rewarded with stiffness and pain, and I sheepishly realized that I too am guilty of the same issues I try to steer my students away from.

Yoga is many things – not just asanas (physical postures). A yoga practice can be finding awareness while peeling an orange, listening to your breath as you walk, chanting mantras or simply turning inwards and tuning into yourself. Part of your practice is learning and accepting what is appropriate for you in each and every moment, knowing that your reality shifts from day to day.

As with many things in life, your greatest challenges become your greatest assets. An injured body teaches us to slow down and find a practice that is strong yet soft, sustainable and joyful… and isn’t that the real point of yoga?

Stressed? Try Yogic Breathing.

Of the many elements that help to comprise a yoga practice – physical postures, breathing, mantra, visualization and meditation – it is arguable that yogic breathing is the most profound. Breath links us to the deepest parts of ourselves, and is indeed the foundation of our life. As we leave the comfort of our mother’s womb, the doctor’s slap on the back forces us to take our first gasp of breath – a single breath that has enough force to reverse our blood flow and start us down our path in the unknown, outside world.

In the yogic tradition, breathing techniques are referred to as pranayama. Prana translates into breath – but it is far more than that. Similar to the Chinese term Chi, prana is not only our breath, but our life force. It is all that underpins our actual existence. It encompasses our circulation, metabolism, digestion and the more undefinable energetic force that underlies all of our actions. The word yama translates into control. Pranayama is our conscious way of directing and focusing that life force energy in the body.

One doesn’t have to stretch the imagination too far to see how our breathing affects us in daily life. If you think back to a time in which you were shocked, you may have found that you held your breath -- or maybe when anxious, your breath became shallow and rapid. If we are depressed we often sigh aloud, trying to release the oppressive energy within us. Breath is the seat of our emotion.

When we are under stress and our emotions run amok, it often creates the “fight or flight” response in the body, firing up our sympathetic nervous system. We produce adrenaline, our hormones go haywire – essentially we gear up for a fight. The problem is, many of us walk around in this state of anxiety and tension all day – without ever letting go of “the fight”. Yogic breathing can shift us back into balance. A simple long, deep breath can do wonders – stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system, or what is known as the “relaxation response” in the body. Learning how to control the breath is key in stress relief.

The next time you find yourself stressed or anxious, try experimenting with these simple pranayama:

Left nostril breathing: Sit comfortably on the floor or in a chair. Block off your right nostril with your thumb and breathe long and deep through your left nostril for 1-3 minutes. This helps to slow down the mind and body, and is also great for insomnia.

Anti-anxiety breathing: Sit comfortably or lie down on your back. Inhale through your nose, and exhale through a rounded mouth. Then inhale through a rounded mouth (as though you are sipping through a straw) and exhale through your nose. Continue for three minutes.

Try to become very present with your breath as you practice these two pranayama exercises. As you become more attuned to the subtleties in your breath, you can see how you can affect both your physical and mental well being with your breath.