0 ratings
Read Reviews
Details
 | WELCOMEThe Davenport School of Yoga
|
|---|
* Come join us for Yoga Happy Hour *
A "good will" donation class...every Friday from 5:30 - 6:30pm
The Davenport School of Yoga (DSY) has been sharing the insight and power of yoga with the Quad Cities since 1996, and we are proud to be the Quad Cities "original" yoga studio. We specialize in traditional Hatha yoga, and you can expect fundamental classes from our instructors, emphasizing the most important aspects of any yoga practice: strength, flexibility, and balance, internal focus and release of tension and stress. Visit us at our main space at 421 Brady Street (shared with our Ashtanga vinyasa sister school, tapas yoga shala), or at any of our satellite classes throughout the community.
If you’re just getting started, (or interested in starting over again), we offer a six-week course, Intro to Yoga, to introduce you to the basics (this course also includes a yoga mat and 2 weeks unlimited free classes). Look over our full class schedule and class descriptions to see everything we have to offer and to find the right class for you. Be sure to check back often for updates or contact us and let us know if you'd like to be added to our e-mail list.
See you in class!
New to Yoga?
Certainly you have heard of yoga. It is currently enjoying immense popularity and, in addition to yoga studios offering its instruction exclusively, it is available at most gyms and health clubs, as well as many church basements, libraries, and living rooms. While this popularity has made the practice available to many more than would have had access to it a century ago, it has also spread some ideas about yoga through our culture. These can be intimidating for newcomers. If you are new to yoga, here’s what you need to know. If you are looking for a more in-depth explanation of yoga, try this link to What is Yoga:
1. Yoga is easy.
Often the media portrayal of yoga poses is extreme, but most are very straightforward and simple. They are easy to learn, remarkably beneficial, and adaptable to any body. This leads to the next point:2. No flexibility required.
Really. Many people say, “I’m not flexible. I can’t even touch my toes, how can I do yoga?” In the same way that aptitude at playing the piano is not a prerequisite for taking piano lessons, flexibility is not required for yoga. The same is true of strength or a peaceful, serene mind. People practice yoga to become flexible, strong, and peaceful, not because they are flexible, strong and peaceful.
3. Yoga feels good.
Most people walk out of a yoga class feeling as if they’ve had a massage and maybe a nice nap – relaxed and energized, focused and calm.
4. Yoga is versatile.
Whatever you may be looking for – relaxation, strengthening, freedom from chronic tension and aches, or a deeper connection with your body – the poses of a yoga class can, with time, help. It can be a great workout or a simple de-stressing. Yoga poses work the body against itself, with no external machines or apparatus, using the strength of one muscle to lengthen another and the body’s own weight to develop its overall strength from the core outward. Yoga also has the advantage that it has been designed to work on all systems of the body – to improve the effectiveness of the digestive system as well as the muscular system, range of motion in addition to concentration and focus.
Of course, the best way to see what yoga’s all about is to come to class and find out!
What is Yoga?
Yoga is one of the world’s most ancient and refined systems for improving and maintaining physical and mental health. It has evolved alongside humanity to deal with moral, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual development. The origins of yoga are lost to time, trailing out of sight in the high peaks of the Himalayas in the prehistory of India. It has evolved from a meditative tradition and, though it does share some aspects of Hinduism and Buddhism, it predates them both and is itself far too diverse and varied to be considered a religion. It is, however, a spiritual practice for some. By “spiritual” we mean that yoga is a system for examining, understanding, and enhancing the experience of life at a fundamental level, beyond the influence of culture, class, and time. 
Yoga is the original mind-body medicine. It is both curative and preventative. It begins with the knowledge that the mind and body are not separate, but neither are they effectively integrated for most of us in our everyday lives. Above all, yoga cultivates integration.
Yoga has gone through innumerable changes over the centuries. It may be understood as an organic, constantly evolving set of experiments, made individually and collectively by millions of people over thousands of years. These experiments have been conceived to plumb the questions that humanity confronts generation after generation, inquiries into the nature of our bodies, our minds, our selves, and our reality. Various structures and systems have risen and dissolved. Because of this ongoing restructuring and reassessing, as well as the diversity of practices, it is not really possible to label yoga a “religion,” though it has been called “the science of religion.” By this is meant that yoga aims to understand the most fundamental aspects of being human, being alive, and being conscious – questions also dealt with in various religions – but in a way that takes no set method or structure as ideal and is always seeking a new, innovative approach. Perhaps the most common, recognizable thread running through the vast collection of philosophy, ceremony, and insight called “yoga” is the original meditative seed. Whether chanting, sitting in formal meditation, or exploring breathing exercises, the practitioner of yoga gently, gradually calms and clears the mind, seeking a quiet, peaceful place.
So it is with the most well-known incarnation of yoga in the West, the practice of Hatha yoga, through yoga poses or asanas. Traditionally, the practice of asana is part of a larger system aimed at allowing the practitioner to focus the mind with increasing efficiency, though there are many today who practice asana exclusively.
Most yoga practitioners today begin with asana. In this practice, the body is taken through its full, natural range of motion in a series of simple movements. The result is improved strength, flexibility, balance, coordination, and concentration. Unlike some other forms of exercise, which tend to focus primarily on the muscular and cardiovascular systems, yoga asanas have been refined to stimulate and balance all 
systems of the body – skeletal, muscular, nervous, digestive, respiratory, circulatory, reproductive, and endocrine – through the increased circulation of blood, oxygen, and nerve energy. Asanas are designed to alleviate stress and tension, rather than introducing it into the body through aggression or strain. Teaching the body to relax is just as important as teaching it to exercise, as it allows the body to deeply rejuvenate and shed draining, chronic tension. With regular practice, asana can result in a vibrant, organic sense of well-being and harmony. We see the body begin to do remarkable things: comfortably sitting still, stopping eating when full, easily sleeping through the night. When the body is strong, stable and relaxed, it functions more efficiently and effectively, as does the mind.
Many yoga practitioners do not realize that asana is a very small part of the greater collection of yogic practices. Even within the system of ashtanga yoga, from which it is derived, it is but one of eight limbs. But yoga has a strange quality. Any amount of yoga practice brings us into contact with a very deep well of insight about the human condition. Each part seems to contain the whole. A very useful metaphor can be borrowed from Zen: that of the reflection of the moon on the water – whether shining on the ocean or on a dewdrop, it is reflected in its entirety.
|
The Davenport School of Yoga
421 Brady Street
Davenport, IA 52801
1-563-322-5354
[email protected]
[email protected]
Reviews
