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We’d love for you to join us for an afternoon of celebrating life, bringing together yoga, music, nature and our hearts.

Stuart Watkins and friends will be combining yoga with music while we celebrate life and connect with nature.

This event will be running on a donation basis and all of the profits will be going to Africare.

The yoga will be suitable for complete beginner to advanced yoga practitioner. Even if you just want to dance and/or meditate we’d love for you to join us.

There are two events, both at the Saw Avenue Amphitheater in Kings Park:

1. Friday, April 6, 2012 – 3:00pm until 6:00pm

2. Friday, April 29, 2012 – 3:00pm until 6:00pm

Sign up on the Facebook event page to keep up to date!

Be Love, Be Truth, Be Yoga.

Hope to see you all down there! Ommmm.

Be well,

Annette

xoxo

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I want to share with you two inspirational documentaries that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in the past couple of weeks. I would recommend them to anyone who is interested in wellbeing and living a healthy lifestyle (that should be most of you!)

♥ Yogawoman – The Film

This documentary follows the female journey of yoga throughout the world, and focuses on the ‘global good’ that yoga can foster. From cancer survivors, imprisoned women, those in poverty and those with a variety of health conditions, yoga can bring about the capacity for change and healing.

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With an all star cast including Shiva Rea and Sean Corne, plus many other highly regarded practitioners, Yogawoman is a unique look at the practice that so many of us are a part of. Recommended to anyone interested in yoga! Available from the Yogawoman website.

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♥ Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead

Now here’s one I haven’t been able to stop raving about since watching it a week ago. Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead follows the 60-day juicing journey of soon-to-be-household-name Joe Cross. Starting out with obesity, a poor lifestyle and with chronic urticaria (persistant skin lesions), Joe decided to quit processed food altogether and only drink freshly pressed juice for 60 days while he drove across America, spreading the word about healing through green juice.

Not surprisingly his health increased exponentially, his lesions completely disappeared and he became fitter than ever before. All this while inspiring many others to make positive lifestyle choices as well.

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Never fear though! You wont just be drinking juice for the rest of your life, it’s just a ‘Reboot’ to your system, afterwards you’ll be able to continue eating (hopefully healthy food!)

While I don’t need to lose weight, I’ve experienced amazing levels of wellbeing from green smoothies (little different to juice) and would heartily recommend anyone give either juicing or smoothies a go! Find out more about Joe Cross here!

Have you ever done a juice cleanse? Would you like to? Lets chat about this!

Be well,

Annette

xoxo

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When planning my trip to Bali in November last year, I wanted it to be truly rejuvenating and relaxing, a real treat for the end of the year. Needless to say, this is exactly the experience I encountered at KUSH Day Spa in Ubud.

KUSH is part of the Yoga Barn in Ubud and their treatments are based on Ayurveda – a system of traditional medicine native to India. Ayurveda is based on a life force and the pursuit of balance between the body, mind and nature; its emphasis being on preventing disease and maintaining good health.

I had been recommended the Yoga Barn by a friend and had planned to drop in to a class upon a day trip to Ubud from Seminyak. We ran out of time to attend a Yoga class, so decided on a massage at KUSH – I have been a long sufferer of daily headaches so chose the Ayuverdic Crown Massage.

The Yoga Barn is tucked away off the busy Jalan Hanoman. As we arrived, we were greeted by the friendly reception staff who were able to fit my boyfriend and I in straight away for our massages.

♥ Statues of Ganesha at Kush, known to Hindu’s as “Remover of Obstacles”

We were led upstairs to a beautiful balcony overlooking rice paddies where we were seated for our treatment. After a refreshing cup of iced lemongrass tea and filling in some information about our health history, the massages began. The experience was out of this world – the heat and humidity (and my mind numbing headache) disappeared, as the healing hands of the massage therapist completely melted all my tension away.

My favourite part of the massage was having my hair wrapped in these beautiful, cooling hibiscus leaves, where we were left to relax in the serene setting. After having our hair washed with some delicious smelling products, we were whisked back to our chairs for another cup of tea and the treatment was over. This 60-minute treatment went too quickly, but I felt so rejuvenated and calm afterwards – I may or may not have been in a bliss-induced-coma for the rest of the week!

Ayurvedic Crown Massage (60 Minutes)
180, 000 Rupiah (Approximately $20 AUD – amazing!)
Spa Treatment Menu: Kush Menu.pdf

Web: http://www.theyogabarn.com/kush

Have you had any Ayuverda treatments? Was your experience as heavenly as this?!

Review by Lucy, Wellness WA‘s newest reviewer!

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I have to share with you my latest lady crushes. It’s all well and good to admire actors and celebs and be jealous of their amazing wardrobe (note: they get 99% of it free), social life, boyfriend etcetera BUT why not admire those who are doing incredible things in the world of wellness, helping other people and basically showing us how amazing life can be?

Especially when they look amazing (a testament to the results gained from what they do) and are constantly putting positive energy back into the universe – getting a little hippie here!

ENTERRRR… my two latest yoga obsessions – Tara Stiles & Kathryn Budig!

1. Tara Stiles

Impossibly gorgeous and an ex-model, Tara has an approach to yoga which has been described as “unconventional” and she has received some criticisms for not sticking to the traditional style of any one yoga practice. She advocates yoga for EVERYONE and does away with sanskrit terms (eg. Savasana, Gomulkasana etc), instead choosing to use the simplest terminology such as “lower back” or “pigeon pose”.

Tara also has an incredibly interesting and frequently updated Youtube Channel, which I may have become slightly addicted to! She is gorgeous, but unintimidating in her videos, with her easygoing personality and “just one of the guys” vibe.

She founded the school Strala Yoga in New York and I would love, love, love to go there one day! 🙂

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2. Kathryn Budig

She’s been described as ‘yoga’s first supermodel’ and with gorgeous glowing skin, shiny blonde hair and a beaming smile it’s not hard to see why. But it’s Kathryn’s devotion to an outside cause that most impresses me.

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Poses for Paws is an initiative started by Budig and a friend, to raise money through yoga classes for dog shelters and organisations that help to find our gorgeous furry woofballs loving homes. Their current focus if the ‘Beagle Freedom Project’ (inspired by the love of her very own beagle).

Most people wouldn’t know this, but Beagle’s are one of the most popular choices for animal testing labs, due to their gentle and forgiving nature and non-aggressiveness towards lab techs (the same ones performing tests on them). Absolutely horrific stuff.

I recommend this video about the Beagle Freedom Project, it’s very interesting – prepare to weep a few tears, it makes me want to devote my life to saving these guys. They are so beautiful, and even after living in a lab cage for their whole lives they’re still willing to wag their tails, and seeing the dogs in the video run around on the grass for the first time is equal parts devastating and beautiful at the same time.

So, two beautiful yogis, both doing wonderful things – have you heard of either of these two ladies before?

Be well,

Annette

xoxo

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I’m a lazy, overweight exercise-avoider. I have no excuse beyond a crippling dependence on cake, and in the last year, I’ve been doing my best to try to get on top of this situation. There have been ups, there have been downs, but having recently started attending Tamara Yoga, I’m starting to feel a lot more optimistic about my rocky road to (relative) health and fitness.

Firstly, all credit to my younger sister, who after my unsuccessful week-long attempt at finding a yoga class that worked with my work schedule piped up and suggested I attend Tamara Yoga. It’s obscenely close to where I live, parking is ample and free and their schedule is so insanely varied (7.00am on a Saturday morning, anyone? How about 6.00am on Cottesloe beach?) that you’d have to be truly unlucky to not have something you could attend.

The format is thusly – some classes are fixed, some allow a rock-up-and-pay arrangement. I signed myself up for a six-week beginners course, which locked me in for that amount of time, and meant that each class built on what was learned the week beforehand. They’re wonderfully flexible with this arrangement – I came waltzing in at the week two point, and they altered the fee to reflect the five-week duration. My instructor – the effervescent Carol – quizzed me a bit on my relative level of familiarity and kept an eye on me to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid.

This Buddha greets you in the foyer @ Tamara Yoga

The other option – pay as you go – means that for certain classes you can just turn up and hope it’s not horribly packed (this hasn’t happened – yet). I chose to attend a Vinyasa class at 7.00am on a Saturday morning (yes – this was extremely strange and overeager), which worryingly specified neither all levels or beginners, as many classes do. This instructor (I didn’t catch her name, but the website makes me think Helen), just like Carol, checked on what I knew and what I didn’t and came by to adjust me occasionally. Whilst it was a more advanced class than I strictly speaking should have been attending, every pose and movement had a lesser-powered option, and she was careful to specify easier variations of every motion. It was incredibly inclusive, and very considerate, and impressed the crap out of me.

♥ A class in action

But how are the classes themselves? The key word is relaxed. It’s a very informal, almost chatty format, more educational than you might expect and the wind down, meditation portion at the end (savasana) is complete bliss. The day after my first class I felt less stiff, more limber and more – centred, I suppose? And I don’t resent going at all, like I do gymming, or any other kind of exercise. I actually find myself poring over the schedule and trying to find drop-in classes I can wedge myself into – voluntarily. As in, with no one making me. This is a big deal, kids. As an additional level of awesome they provide everything – mats, blocks, straps, all manner of things. And you can buy rather wonderful yoga equipment there. I’m tempted. Watch this space.

So ultimately I’m really happy with Tamara Yoga. It’s wonderfully informal (which I love) with a great assortment of classes and highly skilled, friendly staff. It is the ultimate in non-intimidating Yoga. Very recommended!

Have you been to Tamara Yoga before? Have a penchant for cake? Lets chat below!

Email: info@tamarayoga.com

Web: https://tamarayoga.com/

Phone: 9385 2242

Tamara Yoga Classes held at The Luck Now Centre
UPSTAIRS 10/24 St Quentin Avenue Claremont Perth Western Australia
Enter via laneway off St Quentin’s Avenue across from Claremont Quarter

Review by Suzanne: she is allergic to exercise, and can only be cured with cake.

Be well,

xoxo