Staying in Touch During Uncertain Times 🙏

Published: Sun, 03/22/20

Hello, Everyone,

Jocelyne and I hope that you are all doing well, and are safe and healthy during these very uncertain times.

We are all being inundated with news, tips, resources, and online offerings from every direction, and we hope that this email does not add to your pile.

After a very positive online experience this past weekend in lieu of my cancelled workshop in Amsterdam, we thought that we would offer some online classes for the next few weeks starting with a mix of free classes on Instagram and donation-based classes through Zoom (donations are optional). If you have any suggestions for timings that would work better for you, or classes you'd like to have, please let us know by replying to this email.

The preliminary schedule is as follows. All times are EST.

Monday

6am-6:30am Ganesh Japa, Instagram

5pm-6pm Slow Evening Yoga, Zoom

Tuesday

New Moon, no classes

Wednesday

6am-6:30am Pranayama, Instagram

7:30-9am Led primary, Zoom

5pm-6pm Slow Evening Yoga, Zoom

Thursday

6am-6:20am Pranayama, Instagram

7am-8:30am Virtual Mysore Room, Zoom

9am-10am Intro to Ashtanga Yoga, Instagram

Friday

6am-6:30am Ganesh Japa, Instagram

7:30-9am Half Primary, Half Intermediate, Zoom

5pm-6pm Slow Evening Yoga, Zoom

Sunday

8am-9:30am Led Primary, Zoom

10am-11:30am Led Intermediate, Zoom

To sign up for any of these classes, please go to our website on the day of the classes, and the Zoom link and donation button will be live. For the Instagram classes, they will be on Instagram Live, under the name @eddiestern. We look forward to seeing you online, and in person again, one day soon. In the meantime, stay at home if you can!

Right now is a time of great stress, greater than usual. Physiologically, repeated exposure to stress leads to increased fear, and repeated exposure to fear creates panic. Panic leads us to act and think irrationally. All of this is the response of the sympathetic nervous system to threat, either real or perceived. We can see sympathetic overdrive in the behavior of people emptying the shelves of stores of every manner of supplies. The experts keep saying, "Don't panic," but if you already are in a state of panic, saying don't panic doesn't help much because it's already too late. Panic is contagious, and that is what we've been seeing. However, being a calm presence can also be contagious, and to be a calm presence is to have a quiet mind that is not overreactive. Thankfully, we have many tools available to help us with that, asanas, pranayama and meditation being among those tools. We are self-isolating now for the sake of others, to slow the spread of the virus, and try to make sure that the health care system is not overwhelmed. At the same time we should also remember to make it our priority to do some daily practice, in order to slow the spread of stress, fear and panic that is sweeping the world, by cultivating a quiet mind in chaotic times.

With love,

Eddie and Jocelyne

PS Remember to wash your hands, all of them!