Animal Walks are simple, repeatable movement patterns that connect you to the strength of your belly, hips, and shoulders; open new pathways within your yoga and arm balance practice; and connect you to the wild unbound spirit of play, exploration, and possibility. This workshop begins with some simple core drills, wrist strengthening, and yoga flows. Then we roll up the mats, set them aside and get down low to the floor. You will crawl like a bear, jump like a frog, cartwheel like a sea star, slither like a snake, and more. You will venture off the grid of the yoga mat and really get some momentum going. There will be music with a strong beat to pace the movement. You will move with other humans from one side of the room to the other and feel like a herd of wild animals while you're at it! (there is something primal and satisfying about moving in unison and working hard and getting low to the ground in a lizard creep or a bear crawl or a frog bound) You will get out of your head and into your body and laugh and play and have fun. These are simple movement patterns that repeat. You do not need to be a professional dancer to get the hang of them and feel your bodymind move into flow state doing your animal walks. You will be so distracted by how physically joyful and mentally focused you are that you will not realize you are getting an incredible workout until you wake up the next day soooooo soooooore. (but in a good - strengthening the muscles - kind - of - way). Lily Dwyer Begg has been practicing yoga for two decades and teaching full time since 2003. She draws her material for teaching and practicing Animal Walks from her own yoga and arm balancing practice, as well as her years as a professional modern dancer, especially her work in Berlin, Germany studying Low Flying Release Technique method by David Zambrano.

Get over yourself. No wall - open sky - you are FREE FLYING. There is a teaching that says that behind all hardening and tightening and rigidity of the heart, there’s always fear. But if you touch fear, behind fear there is a soft spot. And if you touch that soft spot, you find the vast blue sky. You find that which is ineffable, ungraspable, and unbiased, that which can support and awaken us at any time. - Pema Chodron, "Practicing Peace" This workshop is open to all students who can kick up into a handstand at the wall on their own. Flirt with your fears and feel the freedom of doing this pose on your own two hands rather than outsourcing this pose to the wall. Wherever you are in your journey: keeping one toe on the wall in an L Square, building longer hang times in the middle of the room, or starting your press handstand journey you will be supported, challenged, and encouraged. Together we will: Practice core exercises to identify and target the Transverse Abdominis, Pelvic Floor, Multifidus, and Serratus Anterior to support a strong handstand practice. Explore the coordination of breath, bones, and bandha: how to stack yourself well and build your own “inner parachute” to suspend floating transitions and cultivate longer hang time. Brainstorm sustainable “exit” strategies. Learn techniques that create confidence, body awareness, and a more reliable, precise path in and out of a handstand. By popular request, this version of the Handstand Workshop Lily Dwyer Begg has been practicing yoga since 1999 and teaching since 2005. Her healing work is a labor of love. Troubleshooting students' handstand practices, helping students have massive "aha" breakthroughs on the mat, and building solid game plans to carry forward into your daily training to feel incrementally more confident going upside down are a passion of Lily's as your yoga teacher! It was her experience postpartum of reclaiming her center and accessing subtle yet powerful deep core muscles she had previously overlooked that helped her learn to handstand for a good long hold away from the wall for the first time. Handstands did not come easily or naturally for Lily but the tools, teachings, and insights from her journey taking this posture off the wall form the content of this workshop that she is so excited to share with you!

A cleanse is a beautiful way to gain fresh insight when you are feeling stuck and create a healthy structure to simplify your life so that you can really take learn to good care of yourself. This is not deprivation or juice cleanse that will spike and crash your blood sugar. It is a gentle, nourishing cleanse that will help you digest better, sleep better, feel better, and see your life with gentler and wiser eyes. Clear out old sluggish patterns in body, mind, and daily habits that have you stuck in cyclical patterns.  Create a new healing rhythm to your day. Unearth your own heartfelt intention so that it can uplift and permeate your life. We kick off with an info session and yoga class and then students have an ebook with recipes and protocols to follow at home. *embark on a 5 day Kitchari Cleanse *learn a simple daily meditation routine *learn Dinacharya, an Ayurvedic start to the day to clear the senses *unplug for a 5-day digital detox from social media *learn to chant Gayatri Mantra *reflect and journal with guided prompts *receive 5 FRESH 60-minute yoga online practices to do at home with Lily.

Share stories. Feel Heard. Move your body. Find your center. Tend to your heart. Reclaim your center. For women with babies 6 weeks - 3 years of age. This is a child-free environment. CIRCLE: In our busy modern mama lives, the experience of being seen and heard is deeply healing, fortifying, and ultimately transformative. We gather. We share stories of birth and motherhood. In circle each person is offered space to simply speak and be heard. We summon the courage to share and speak from the heart. There is no advice given, no commentary offered, no interruption allowed, no effort to fix or change a person or their story. Just like in yoga or meditation, in circle we cultivate healing awareness. We hold our stories in a space of compassion, presence, and self growth - welcoming each woman to stay with the reality of what she is experiencing so that she can at once relax into the heart of her own truth and feel herself as part of community. From this place of acceptance and community we open ourselves to transformation. YOGA: We will end the women's circle by moving through a 60 minute postnatal yoga practice and get to know your new body after baby in a supported, wise, attuned way - focusing on opening chest and shoulders, strengthening the deep core including pelvic floor and transverse abdominis, releasing the psoas, and quieting the nervous system. Lily's acclaimed Reclaim Your Center program which has help many Baltimore-area mamas reconnect to their core strength after pregnancy will be woven throughout the yoga flow.

Restorative yoga with Hot Stones and Massage Balance your frazzled nervous system, soothe your aching muscles, and quiet your anxious mind in this pampering restorative yoga workshop. Perfect for the type-A power yoga practitioner. Also perfect for your grandma. This workshop is inclusive of all levels of practitioners. Take time to slow down, relax, and receive in a pampering afternoon of yoga. Pregnant mamas welcome. We will start with a little bit of chanting and joint mobilization. For the bulk of the workshop, restorative postures are held while massage therapists adorn you with hot river rocks, therapeutic massage and aromatherapy. We will finish with Yoga Nidra (“yogic sleep” – a traditional guided meditation during long savasana) to leave you feeling deeply renewed. Peel away the layers of fear, tension, and anxiety and unlock your own creative ocean of bliss.

This workshop is for students of a Strong Intermediate Level and for yoga teachers who want to develop a new skillset to support students and private clients. The backless yoga chair is a unique prop unlike any other. It can offer great insights to your practice. A backless yoga chair offers handles to leverage, traction, lift, and spread the body in the posture. It offers platforms to support body weight so that active poses like a side plank, for example, become sumptuously passive, allowing more advance leg variations to be explored with ease. It takes the strain off of overused areas of the body so that a shoulderstand, for example, can be held with the weight of the pelvis supported by the chair seat so that there is no added strain to the delicate vertebrae of the neck and the posture can be held longer. It offers a boundary to articulate more precise alignment, press against for isometric engagement and “active” stretching, and rein in blindspots in our body awareness. And it feels fantastic! Some people look to the chair as a prop for senior citizens, or total beginners. It can be that. However, in this workshop we will explore the use of the chair for the strong intermediate student. How can the chair be used to help you work more clearly, more intelligently, more actively? How can the chair reveal new depths to a pose like Parivrtta Upavistha Konasana so that the breath can flow with ease and illuminate bound areas in the psoas/diaphragm structure for greater healing? How can the chair be used as a training wheel for arm balances, for press handstand? The possibilities are limitless! We will begin by using the chair to traction, articulate the hinges of the body, and flush the spaces around them with breath and meditative awareness. We will practice core work and several rounds of sun sals to warm the body and generate Tapas to facilitate deeper purification in our postures. We will explore safe, smart, and smooth entry and exit strategies from the chair in twists, heart openers, backbends, arm balances, seated postures, inversions and finally the most heavenly slow set of chair restoratives. You will leave feeling taller, more spacious, and inspired by the new possibilities and sensations unearthed in your practice.