Practice yoga 40 days consecutively and enjoy an exercise program that will not only shape your body but free your mind.

Yogic science tells us that it takes 40 days to provide the shift needed to develop life-promoting habits or to drop destructive patterns. A first step to experiencing lasting change is a commitment to 40 consecutive days of yogic practice. Because we live in the real world and know the challenges you face, we challenge you to participate in 30 classes over the course of 40 days.

All students who participate in and succesfully complete the challenge are eligible to participate in a draw for a one year unlimited membership at Semperviva.

If you're travelling, visit a studio where you are and inform us of classes you have participated in.

Keep a journal during the 40 days to stay inspired. A 40 day meditation will also be given to complement your physical practice and create lasting change "keep up and you will be kept up."

Special Meet and Greet

Join us Saturday, May 10th at 1:00pm at the City Centre to kick off our 40 days together. Space is limited to 40 participants.

Learn the fundamentals of yoga postures and breathing techniques. Gain insight into the principles of yoga philosophy. Cultivate inner body awareness to guide your practice. The supportive environment of this class will provide you with the necessary foundation to develop a safe and rewarding yoga practice.

About Maggie Anderson

Maggie is committed to a life-long journey of yoga as a way of balancing modern living, family, work, wellness and community. Her goal is to provide a strong Hatha Flow class, where every body, regardless of level or skill, is included, yet challenged and fulfilled. She aims to make yoga accessible, non-intimidating, and above all enjoyable.

In this workshop transformational hatha and kundalini yoga practices guide couples on a path of self-discovery, which is the very essence of childbirth preparation and conscious parenting. This highly interactive yoga workshop encourages, empowers, validates, supports and celebrates a couple's discovery process through birth and beyond.

Together you will learn about:

• Exploring and lifting fears and doubts
• Yogic pain-coping tools (and practice them)
• Creating and owning your birth space
• Connecting and communicating with baby and each other, now and beyond birth

There are groups of poses that require more explanation or time to investigate. In these three hour classes, we will discuss the alignment of each pose, and take the time to explore how these poses manifest in our bodies. We will begin each class with a vinyasa flow to warm the body, then move to the workshop aspect of the class. Questions and active participation are encouraged!

Back Bend Your Way to Bliss-Backbends

From Bow to King of the Pigeons and everything in between. We'll play with all backbends and explore our true arc.

First Workshop: Core Strengthening and Stabilization

Yoga postures take us away from our centre, our work is to come back to centre. Our centre is our relationship to the core. What is the core? Abdominal strength is not is isolation to the rest of the body, it relates to the vertical axis of the body.

In this workshop we will explore the essential body connections that help to access the core. Why is all this important? For the same reason we hate Navasana (boat pose), so we can learn to work with and access our deeper muscles more intelligently so we don't suffer the pain of the superficial muscles doing everything.

Second Workshop: Hip Openers and Forward Bends

Do you find forward bends confronting and uncomfortable? Do your hips and hamstrings say no way? The pelvis is the pivotal junction where your appendicular and axial skeleton meet. In this workshop you will discover ways to unlock the hips and loosen the hamstrings creating new freedom in forward bends and seated postures.

About Catherine Munro

Catherine Munro (EYRT) began practicing yoga in 1989 while living in New York City. She spent several years exploring different yoga traditions with many master teachers, notably in the Iyengar style. Her exploration led to her passion for the Ashtanga practice which she learned under the guidance of senior teachers Chuck Miller and Maty Ezraty. She has also studied with Ashtanga guru Sri. K. Patthabhi Jois in Mysore, India.

The primary musical feature of kirtan is the use of call and response, a figure that also deeply informs Western bluegrass, gospel music and jazz. The form is simple: a lead group calls out the melodies and the mantras. The crowd responds, clapping and dancing as the rhythms build and accelerate.

Dave Stringer has been profiled in Time, Billboard, In Style, and Yoga Journal as a leader of the new American kirtan movement. Kirtan (from the Sanskrit word meaning "to sing") is an ancient practice of mantra chanting that has become popular as a participatory live music experience in hundreds of yoga studios across the U.S. As Dave says, at a kirtan "You're not just listening to the music, you are the music."

About Dave Stringer

"Dave Stringer has integrated his interest in Kirtan, an Indian tradition of devotional chanting, with his masterful grasp of Western popular music, creating an exciting style of psychedelic pop as informed by traditional Eastern music as the Beatles."
– All Music Guide

"Stringer is an amazing, passionate performer. No, this isn't just gentle, soothing new age music and shouldn't be mistaken for it. It is there to engage the listener and speaks in an intuitive manner to the soul within."
– Amazon.com

In this workshop we will experience fluid movement within traditional postures. Infusing vibrant, rhythmic sound and movement into poses allows us to deepen our practice, transforming our experience. We will then move from the asana practice into free form creative dance, moving into sacred self expression. We will complete our practice with meditation and relaxation.

About Tianne Banerd

Tianne Banerd has taught both in Ottawa and Vancouver. She has studied Ashtanga Yoga with David Swenson, and Vinyasa Flow with Shiva Rea. She continues to seek out inspirational teachers both here in Vancouver and wherever her work as a Homeopathic practitioner leads her. As a previously nationally ranked athlete and professionally trained singer, Tianne brings together her love of music and her love of physical movement. Music and movement are powerful partners; music inspiring movement and movement creating transformation.

The aim of this day-retreat is to reconnect body and heart which have become separated over many lifetimes. Ancient teachers tell us that our True Self, our Buddha Nature, is not prescribed from the outside, but resides deep in our heart space all along. By way of yoga asana and silent meditation (sitting, walking, lying-down), we'll approach and enter the ever-present but often obscured gate that leads us home.

About Cameron Gilley

Cameron Gilley whole-heartedly believes in the transformative power of Yoga, and has been passionately sharing in his search with his students. Drawing from his experience in Hatha Yoga, Yin Yoga, Power Yoga, Meditation and Martial Arts, Cam devotes his energy to creating a space for students to access their own innate presence through posture, flow, breath and awareness. Whatever your walk of life, he invites you to come experience for yourself the liberating and life-affirming bliss that is YOGA.

About Peter Renner

Peter Daishin Renner holds degrees in adult education, counselling, and a doctorate in educational leadership. He trained at two Zen monasteries, received lay ordination and the name Dai-shin "boundless heart", and took a vow to be of service. Peter volunteers in hospice care, hosts meditation retreats, and teaches on conscious living and dying. His pastimes include baking bread, sitting in cafés, and keeping a weblog at kissing.wordpress.com.

Learn the fundamentals of yoga postures and breathing techniques. Gain insight into the principles of yoga philosophy. Cultivate inner body awareness to guide your practice. The supportive environment of this class will provide you with the necessary foundation to develop a safe and rewarding yoga practice.

About Maggie Anderson

Maggie is committed to a life-long journey of yoga as a way of balancing modern living, family, work, wellness and community. Her goal is to provide a strong Hatha Flow class, where every body, regardless of level or skill, is included, yet challenged and fulfilled. She aims to make yoga accessible, non-intimidating, and above all enjoyable.

Discover how the principles of Ayurveda (literally, the science of Life), apply to your yoga practice, allowing you to make your yoga practice therapeutic, beneficial and a powerful tool to effectively balance your life.

In this workshop, we will discuss the basic principles of Ayurveda, determine our principal "doshas" or mind-body types and breathe and flow through a dynamic vinyasa practice that is both energizing and calming and leads us to a sattvic (whole) state of being.

Join Geordie Milne once-a-month for a yoga class designed for the whole family! This class is a great deal of fun and a great workout too! Bring the whole family... fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts and uncles. Traditional yoga techniques have been recreated in playful, simple and fun ways.

About Geordie Milne

Geordie Milne is a certified Yoga instructor who trained at Semperviva Yoga, and a certified Kid's Yoga instructor. He is inspired by the sparkle and spontaneity kids bring to movement and mindfulness. On the mat, he has been a majestic tree, a fierce warrior, a happy cat, a superhero and a powerful eagle. Geordie's teaching style is creative, fun, safe and challenging. Namaste.

In this workshop transformational hatha and kundalini yoga practices guide couples on a path of self-discovery, which is the very essence of childbirth preparation and conscious parenting. This highly interactive yoga workshop encourages, empowers, validates, supports and celebrates a couple's discovery process through birth and beyond.

Together you will learn about:

• Exploring and lifting fears and doubts
• Yogic pain-coping tools (and practice them)
• Creating and owning your birth space
• Connecting and communicating with baby and each other, now and beyond birth

Sustaining our Inspiration on the Yogic Path

This foundational training is for aspiring teachers and serious students. We seek to develop teachers who encourage and inspire, who demonstrate sensitivity to the needs of individuals as well as the group.

After completion, students will:

• Deepen their practice and understanding of yoga
• Know how to structure and create a cohesive well rounded class
• Acquire an understanding of yoga philosophy
• Build relationships with highly experienced yoga teachers
• Become a member of a learning community that includes well-renowned teachers worldwide
• Have the confidence and tools to begin teaching yoga

The YogaWorks program includes a vigorous two-hour asana practice. We strongly recommend that applicants have one year of consistent asana practice. If your yoga practice does not meet those criteria, please contact us to explain your practice.

Join Geordie Milne once-a-month for a yoga class designed for the whole family! This class is a great deal of fun and a great workout too! Bring the whole family... fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts and uncles. Traditional yoga techniques have been recreated in playful, simple and fun ways.

About Geordie Milne

Geordie Milne is a certified Yoga instructor who trained at Semperviva Yoga, and a certified Kid's Yoga instructor. He is inspired by the sparkle and spontaneity kids bring to movement and mindfulness. On the mat, he has been a majestic tree, a fierce warrior, a happy cat, a superhero and a powerful eagle. Geordie's teaching style is creative, fun, safe and challenging. Namaste.

Join Geordie Milne once-a-month for a yoga class designed for the whole family! This class is a great deal of fun and a great workout too! Bring the whole family... fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts and uncles. Traditional yoga techniques have been recreated in playful, simple and fun ways.

About Geordie Milne

Geordie Milne is a certified Yoga instructor who trained at Semperviva Yoga, and a certified Kid's Yoga instructor. He is inspired by the sparkle and spontaneity kids bring to movement and mindfulness. On the mat, he has been a majestic tree, a fierce warrior, a happy cat, a superhero and a powerful eagle. Geordie's teaching style is creative, fun, safe and challenging. Namaste.

A human being can survive 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, but only 3 minutes without breath. Truly, BREATH IS LIFE.

Breath serves us in a much deeper way than mere survival. Breath is the conscious bridge between our mind and body, and crossing this bridge with intention can lead us to deep understanding and profound change.

About Cameron Gilley

Cameron Gilley whole-heartedly believes in the transformative power of Yoga, and has been passionately sharing in his search with his students. Drawing from his experience in Hatha Yoga, Yin Yoga, Power Yoga, Meditation and Martial Arts, Cam devotes his energy to creating a space for students to access their own innate presence through posture, flow, breath and awareness.

All the Answers are Within, Friday, October 24th

Side-step the ego and tune into the guidance of your higher self, transmitting the truth of your soul to you through intuition and heightened awareness. Connect to your higher purpose through the ancient technology of Kundalini Yoga and Meditation.

Experience Your Strength with Kundalini Yoga and Meditation, Saturday, October 25th

With Kundalini Yoga and Meditation let the Spirit, let the Soul and let the Self shine like sunshine. Nothing in this world will make sense if you do not know your totality. In this class, experience strength and balance that will calm and open your heart, there by making the impossible possible. Indulge in yoga, meditation, chanting and dance.

Becoming Strong as Steel, Saturday, October 25th

Build inner and outer strength, energy, commitment and self-discipline by creating muscular balance, strengthening the nervous system and building a strong magnetic field.

Awakening to Your Infinite Sensitivity, Sunday, October 26th

Every person has the ability to know the Unknown through Intuition and Sensitivity. Within our body, we are given various centers that can be developed to "know" and "hear" in an extremely elevated way.

Happiness: Our Birthright, Sunday, October 26th

Through the centuries mankind has believed to be really happy, one had to be more, have more, succeed more, to be truly happy. Happiness does not come from outside; it is manufactured inside.

In this workshop we will look at the body in a unique way. We will begin by looking at the physiology of the tissues of the body and how our yoga practice affects these tissues. Next we will investigate the ranges of motion of the eight major joints of the body and discover what stops us from going deeper into poses, when to push further and when to accept our limitations. Finally we will look at what all this means for you personally and how your own unique anatomy affects your practice. Total 8 hours.

About Bernie Clark

Bernie Clark has been teaching yoga and meditation since 1998. He has a bachelor's degree in science from the University of Waterloo and combines his intense interest in yoga with an understanding of the scientific approach to investigating the nature of things. His ongoing studies have taken him deeply inside mythology, comparative religions, and psychology.

Session 1: The Five Elements Birthing Cycle

• The Five Elements: theory, energetic qualities, the cycle of transmutation
• The origins of Taoist yoga
• Philosophy of Taoist yoga, the concept of non-interference
• Relationship of the microcosmic self to the macrocosmic universe
• The natural breath cycle and the circulation of energy
• Taoist meditations for grounding and relaxation

Session 2: The Five Elements Yielding Cycle

• The Five Elements: the Yin and Yang aspects, health and balance of the emotions and internal organs
• The Taoist way of spontaneity and receptivity
• Being in harmony with our individual Tao
• Relaxing the thinking mind to awaken to our primal and intuitive natures
• How to grow the body supple
• Taoist visualizations for deepening your practice

Both sessions include a variety of yin and yang postures and Taoist flow and fluidity with postures

About Paulie Zink

Master Zink has been inducted into four Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He has co-authored two books on Monkey Kung-Fu. He has starred in numerous Martial arts and Taoist Yoga training videos. Through many years of study, practice, and teaching Paulie has further developed this ancient tradition into his own distinctive and dynamic style.

Spiraling Inward Toward Heaven (29th)

In this vinyasa class we explore strengthening and healing the body primarily with postures that internally rotate the hips. This is especially healing for the lower back and neck. Since every adjustment to the body also affects the mind, spiraling our energy inward also has a profound emotional effect, as it promotes self-inquiry and true core strength. Short talk, standing postures, twists, backbends, meditation. This workshop is appropriate for all levels.

Refining Communication (29th)

People often assume that their favorite teachers are able to speak clearly, concisely, and lovingly because they were born that way, but this is rarely true. Teachers who excel with communication often simply work harder at it and never stop studying and improving their art of teaching.

The Three Pillars of Yoga: Intention, Breath, and Movement (30th)

Just as hydrogen and oxygen, depending on how they are mixed together, can produce either fire or water, asana practice joined with intention unifying breath, depending on how they mixed together can produce either just exercise or can revolutionize our lives

About Max Strom

Born with severe clubbed feet, Max Strom spent much of the first four years of his life with his feet confined in plaster casts and braces. Today, he is known for inspiring and impacting the lives of his students, teaching with the aim of personal transformation and has become one of the most revered teachers of yoga on three continents. Many teachers have cited Max as a most important influence in their teaching and yoga life. Visit www.maxstrom.com.

About Twee Merrigan

Twee teaches globally as a recognized teacher and trainer of prana flow, an empowering, transformational, and evolutionary-edge style of vinyasaflow yoga. Her calendar of international yoga activist and adventure retreats, teacher trainings, and master classes evolved from her original studies of hatha, tantra and ayurveda, and her on-going studies with her teacher, Shiva Rea.

Twee's unique teaching style encourages students to explore the infinite intelligence of prana (life energy), to listen to their inner teacher, and to respond and move from their own center of truth. Through this empowering and transformative process of placing the body temple in a sacred way, body mudras unfold within our sacred practice, as we no longer do yoga, but rather we are yoga.

As students of flow, we know that every action from within has a rippling effect without. By first realizing, then embodying our unique connection to prana, we transform our yoga practice from self-service to selflessly serving others. We become empowered to live as one wave, in respect, and in union with the ocean of waves surrounding us, as one collective consciousness.

In this workshop we will look at the body in a unique way. We will begin by looking at the physiology of the tissues of the body and how our yoga practice affects these tissues. Next we will investigate the ranges of motion of the eight major joints of the body and discover what stops us from going deeper into poses, when to push further and when to accept our limitations. Finally we will look at what all this means for you personally and how your own unique anatomy affects your practice. Total 8 hours.

About Bernie Clark

Bernie Clark has been teaching yoga and meditation since 1998. He has a bachelor's degree in science from the University of Waterloo and combines his intense interest in yoga with an understanding of the scientific approach to investigating the nature of things. His ongoing studies have taken him deeply inside mythology, comparative religions, and psychology.

In this workshop we will investigate the various models the Yogis of India, the Yogis of China and the Medical Scientists in the West have developed to explain the workings of the body's energy and its associated systems. We will explore the world of prana and the energy channels and vortexes of Indian Yoga (called nadis and chakras) and contrast it to the world of Chi (Qi) and its associated network of channels (called meridians) utilized in China. Then we will discover how modern scientific investigations in the West (Energy Medicine) are finding remarkable parallels to these ancient models.

About Bernie Clark

Bernie Clark has been teaching yoga and meditation since 1998. He has a bachelor's degree in science from the University of Waterloo and combines his intense interest in yoga with an understanding of the scientific approach to investigating the nature of things. His ongoing studies have taken him deeply inside mythology, comparative religions, and psychology.

Yoga means Union. Bring a friend, spouse or sibling and join us in this most playful and profound exploration of unity: PARTNER YOGA! Working through breath, posture, movement, and communication we will explore the joy of being, and of being in harmony with others. Grab a buddy and join in the fun!