More 'Loaf Love

Police Officers Wanted!

The Dharma Project is doing a 10 week pilot program for police officers. We are in search of officers to enroll in the pilot. The program includes 10 sessions, one hour each session . The program will cover physical movement, breathing techniques and meditation practices to help officers reduces stress and be at their mental and physical best. 

This 10 week program can help demonstrate the opportunity for a year-round program for officers, with a curriculum that can be implemented in their ongoing training. View our Facebook Event  for more information. 

Dates : 
October 12th, 19th & 26
November 2nd, 9th, 16th & 30th
December 7th, 14th & 21st

Cost : FREE

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Thank you for all the love Creative Loafing! Check out 2017's Best Yoga Instructor! "For too many people, yoga is seen as affluent white women wearing expensive pants indulging in pain-inducing poses. RUTU CHAUDHARI, however, is on a mission to change that perception. Through her All Life is Yoga studio, Chaudhari works to return the practice its self-referential roots by embracing mindfulness over athleticism..."Read More.

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ALIY Book Club

"You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room." -Dr. Seuss. Our next book club session meets this Sunday from 12-2pm. This week we will discuss the 'Wisdom' chapter from Fire of Love. This is potluck style, so please bring something vegetarian and dairy free to share.  Go to our Facebook Event Page to share what your are bringing so we don't have five different quinoa salads (though they were all YUM!) 

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Save the Date : October 8th, 3-6pm

The deadline to register to vote for Atlanta's upcoming local election is October 10th. This year Atlanta will vote on a new Mayor, City Council, and School Board. Atlanta is currently at a critical stage of growth and this election presents its residents with a major crossroads. This next group of leaders will decide the future face and culture of our city.Voter turnout in Atlanta is low. Let's use our platform as yoga teachers, leaders and enthusiasts to inform and increase voter turnout. 

We are throwing a party to make sure you are registered to VOTE. This event will include a yoga class, an interactive, engaging Civics 101 class, food, refreshments, music...Fun! Register to VOTE and shape the future of our city! 

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Brad Waites Workshop Early Bird Registration ends 10/07/17

We are super excited to host Brad Waites. CPYT, in Atlanta for his first full weekend workshop. The workshop is called Skills for a Soul-Based Life. "This workshop is about choice and freedom.  We live in a cause and effect world:  you act on a choice; you get a result.  When you choose, as most everyone does, from habit, desire, or mental analysis, you become a slave to life’s rollercoaster of fulfillment and disappointment, clarity and confusion, and you will never exit that ride.  There is a solution..." Save $25 if you register before 10/07/17! Learn More and Register

honorCode and Dharma Project Partnership

“The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”

— William Wordsworth

I love the story about William Wordsworth that Aadil shares in his book, Fire of Love. “William Wordsworth spent most of his life in the beautiful Lake District of Northern England… soon after Wordsworth moved to Dove Cottage, he sent a letter of protest to the local authorities complaining about the constant noise of the horse-drawn buggies on the road near his home. He claimed that it disturbed his concentration and he could not write poetry. He wrote that a wheeled buggy passed by ‘at least once a week.’

Can you imagine that level of concentration and connection! “Getting and spending, getting and spending”... that’s what we do. We have lost the wonder.

It's time to reconnect. Read many other inspirational stories from Fire of Love during our upcoming book club that starts September 10th at 12pm. Register Here.

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honorCode's 2YR Anniversary Celebration

The Dharma Project is so excited to have honorCode as our partner. Together we were awarded United Way’s Spark Prize, which will help us to bring a joint program of computer science, SEL(social and emotional learning), mindfulness and yoga into the lives of teachers and students in Atlanta Public Schools. Join us on September 12th for honorCode’s 2nd year anniversary fundraiser at Atlanta Tech Village. Dharma Project will be showcased at this event. Get your tickets here. If you can’t make it to the event, you can still donate to the cause.

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Creative Loafing Article

Check out Creative Loafing's interview with Rutu. The article was supposed to be a cover story, but CL went from being a weekly to a monthly publication in August and we lost to an article about chicken wings. The irony!

Creative Loafing Article

Creative Loafing recently interviewed me to discuss the state of yoga, All Life is Yoga and the Dharma Project. Check out the interview here.

To be honest, I was nervous about this article. I said some things. But after the events of this weekend, I was reminded of how necessary it is, even in our small ways, to speak up and acknowledge things as they are. Thank you to Creative Loafing for the platform. 

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A heartbreaking reminder that we are not born with hate. 

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200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training

The All Life is Yoga Level 1 Teacher Training starts August 19th, 2017. Along with learning the most clear, concise and accurate alignment of asana, you will learn to adjust students safely and effectively. As a teacher, your adjustments give students a sense of where their pose is headed, a feeling of what's to come, something to look forward to in their practice! Details and Registration Information

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Book Club Date Correction

We are so excited to bring back the book club. The last newsletter had an incorrect start date. The book club starts September 10th, 2017, not August 20th. We are reading Fire of Love by Aadil Palkhivala. Stop by the studio to pick up your copy.

The Language of the Gods

At All Life is Yoga we teach yoga in its original language, Sanskrit. Sanskrit was never commonly spoken; instead it was used to orally convey thousands of pages of verse from scriptures. It was, and is, the holy language of the scriptures—the oldest known sacred writings in human history.  Yoga was originally relayed and taught only in Sanskrit. Hearing yoga terms in a foreign, complicated language can sometimes make it difficult to follow along as a new student. However, there are several reasons we feel it’s beneficial to use Sanskrit terms:

• It’s the language of our profession. We expect dentists to know what periodontitis and caries are, an artist to be familiar with stretcher bars, pigments, and gesso, and we trust a carpenter to know the meaning of level and plumb. To understand the language of your profession is part of what makes you a professional.
• Sanskrit is a phonetic language: the meaning is in the sounds. Saying words correctly connects students to the word’s meaning on a much deeper level than the English translation of the word.
• Proper pronunciation teaches you to use your mouth in ways you rarely do. Sanskrit has complicated, unique movements of the tongue, which exercise the mouth and mind, creating new neural pathways and keeping them both fresh and youthful.
• Using Sanskrit teaches students to listen and focus more intently during class. You may struggle the first few times and have to look around to stay at the pace of the group, but before you know it, you’re in the zone, deeply present and aligned with an energy transmission that has happened for thousands of years.

There is no need to dumb down the yoga. We treat our students like they are intelligent enough to learn a new language, just as their body is learning new movements, and their heart is discovering new potential.

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200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training

The All Life is Yoga Level 1 Teacher Training starts August 19th, 2017. Along with learning the most clear, concise and accurate alignment of asana, you will learn to adjust students safely and effectively. As a teacher, your adjustments give students a sense of where their pose is headed, a feeling of what's to come, something to look forward to in their practice! Details and Registration Information

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Book Club Date Correction

We are so excited to bring back the book club. The last newsletter had an incorrect start date. The book club starts September 10th, 2017, not August 20th. We are reading Fire of Love by Aadil Palkhivala. Stop by the studio to pick up your copy. 

Plug 1

#CCIspotlight : Rutu Chaudhari, The Dharma Project

Check out this INTERVIEW Center for Civic Innovation did with Rutu about her start with yoga and the development of The Dharma Project .

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Myka Harris teaching at ALIY

200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training

"A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame." Rabindranath Tagore. So true. Our 200 hour training helps students develop a strong personal practice. Without this, your teaching lacks integrity and without integrity, your teaching is ineffective. Starts August 19th, 2017. Register Here. 

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Yoga in the Park

Join Ron Young for our August Yoga in the Park. The class is held on the green behind the fountain at the Grant Park Farmers Market, which is on the Cherokee Ave side of the park before the Zoo (if you are going south).  Class is Sunday, August 20th from 10:30-11:30am. Check out our Facebook event for more details. Hope to see you this Sunday!

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ALIY's Book Club is back! We will be reading Fire of Love. A new case has just come in so order your copy and start reading. The book club will take place Sunday's from 12-2pm during the below dates. This will be potluck style, so bring your favorite vegetarian dish (please no meat or dairy in the studio) and join a group of discuss one of the most relevant books on yoga and personal growth. 

Dates: August 20th. September 10th, September 24th, October 22nd, November 12th, December 3rd, January 7th, February 11th. 

Contact us to join the book club.

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#YogatheVote

Thank you to all who expressed interest in meeting to discuss the upcoming local election. We will have our first gathering this Saturday, August 5th at 12pm at All Life is Yoga. Hope to see you there. 

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Since our work has gotten an opportunity to be highlighted, we'd like to share the work of some amazing people and organizations that we love and support. 

Dr. Greg Talley is one of my favorite anatomy nerds in Atlanta. I trust very few people with body work and am happy to know and work with GT. Check out Morningside Chiropractic for spinal and joint health to supplement your yoga practice. 

Compost Wheels comes to your house once a week to pick up your compostable waste, on a bike! They will also give you beautiful compost to use in your own garden.

They work with over 7 farms and gardens in Atlanta who collectively grow 75,000lbs of fresh produce annually and compost approximately 288,000lbs of our food waste annually that is cycled back through their growing process.

Acres of Diamonds + Yoga with Police Officers + Dirty South + Meet the Trainees

Many years back I read this book called Acres of Diamonds. The author shares countless tales, spanning throughout history, of people who lived in the most destitute conditions on land that was seemingly barren and hopeless. Seeking riches, they would sell their land and travel far to mine for gold, oil, diamonds, etc. Story after story, the person that bought that seemingly worthless land for next to nothing would find the very thing the original owner chased elsewhere, making millions.

I’ve been spinning like a top trying to develop the appropriate connections to get certain programs for The Dharma Project moving. Recently I discovered that the people closest to me—those already in my inner circle—are exactly the resources I need to propel The Dharma Project forward.

The teaching in Acres of Diamonds is that we look outward for the gold when it’s usually under our very noses. “Every [wo]man has the opportunity to make more of herself than she does in her own environment, with her own skill, with her own energy, with her own friends,” says author R. Conwell. This wisdom from many years back came to mind today when a door finally opened and the perfect connection was made by none other than a dear friend of mine.

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Yoga for Police Officers

I am going to put the above into practice some more: friends, The Dharma Project is starting a program to bring mindfulness and yoga to police officers. We need your help. Do you know a police officer that I can coerce into trying yoga?  :-)  Please put me in contact with them. The goal is to get 10 to 15 officers together for a pilot yoga session in early September.Please email me at rutu@alllifeisyoga.com

The Dharma Project is a 501(c)(3) whose mission is to bring mindfulness and yoga to public service organizations and the communities they work with.

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I will be co-teaching a workshop at this years Dirty South Yoga Fest with Veronica Lewinger. We will explore the 'mother of all twists', Matsyengasana. At the studio we usually focus on the first three stages of the pose, this weekend we will go deeper with the later stages and include the bind. 

Twists are some of the most powerful postures in yoga asana. They release spinal tension, ignite the digestive fire and energize the kidneys. Join Veronica and Rutu in an exploration of one of the most powerful and uniques twists in all of asana, Matsyengasana. Find out why it is referred to as the 'Mother of all Twists' and learn the many phases of this twist that provide deep intervertebral release and abdominal churning.

Join us Sunday, July 30th from 11:30-1pm at Loudermilk Conference Center. Register Here.

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Meet Our Teacher Trainees:

We are so excited for the upcoming teacher training, which starts August 19th at ALIY. So far, the group that is registered brings experience and perspectives from such a wide variety of backgrounds. Join us for what is sure to be a mind/body/heart-opening experience. Details and Registration.

Adrian Barzaga: Adrian loves to create with his hands, play his classical guitar, speak philosophy, climb things, and care for animals. "I was searching for a more holistic training, encompassing all aspects of yoga, and I’m confident I found it."

Ananya Paul: Ananya is a research scientist at Georgia State University. She has practiced yoga for three years. “With this training I want to gain in-depth knowledge of yoga. I understand the surface practice of postures but I want to go in-depth with the lifestyle of yoga.”

Aba Bailey: Aba has been practicing yoga for 30 years and is a licensed Thai Yoga Massage therapist. "I am looking forward to the YTT at All Life is Yoga so that I may learn and grow as an instructor. I'm ready to go deeper."

Margarita Cruz: Margarita has taught kindergarten for over 25 years and has practiced yogafor 12 years. “I have no expectations for this training. I want to be open and receive the teachings. It’s a personal journey of change, introspection, and growth.”

We're Hiring

All Life is Yoga and The Dharma Project are hiring for:

• Designer for logo and website 
• Marketing/Social Media Manager
• Administrative Assistant 

Contact Rutu at rutu@alllifeisyoga.com for details. 

Community Strives for Integration

...and yoga means union.

Earlier this year, a group of yoga studio owners met at All Life Is Yoga to discuss various ways for us to engage as a yoga community. One of the topics I brought up was my interest in increasing voter turnout for the upcoming local election. Atlanta will be voting for a new mayor, school board, and city council members. I would really love to see more people show up at polling stations this year, and I think that we, as yoga teachers and students, have a platform that can encourage voting. Our small effort during last year’s election resulted in over 60 people registering to vote. And that was just from a couple of newsletters!

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. I know some people do not like to mix their yogaand their politics. But my studio is called All Life is Yoga; for me, it's all yoga. Policy affects everything I care about.

I am hosting a gathering at the yoga studio to discuss ideas for increasing voter turnout. We'll have teachers and studio owners present, and I would love to have you there!

 Here's a Doodle Poll with date options. 

Dharma is the Umbrella

According to the Vedas (the oldest scriptures known to man, which came out of India), there are four major reasons for life. They are:

1. Dharma: pursuit of purpose
2. Artha: acquisition of material wealth
3. Kama: experience of pleasure
4. Moksha: spiritual exploration

 The Vedas explains that the latter three are contingent on Dharma. That means that the amount of wealth you acquire, the amount of pleasure you experience, and even the amount of time and energy you spend on spiritual practices depends entirely on your pursuit of purpose. Anything beyond what is required for living your purpose is excess and fuels the ego. Discovering your purpose, then, becomes the most meaningful life endeavor. Everything else you do is clarified by that purpose.

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Level I Yoga Teacher Certification

All Life is Yoga's 2017-2018 teacher certification dates are set! This training is appropriate for anyone who wants to deepen their personal practice, understand the why of yoga asana, pranayama, nutrition, meditation, anatomy, alignment, energetics, philosophy, sequencing, service...and learn to teach with confidence.

August 19th-20th
September 9th-10th
September 23rd-24th
October 21st-22nd
November 11th-12th
December 2nd-3rd
January 6th-7th
February 10th-11th
February 17th-18th

For more information and to apply, contact Rutu. 

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Save the Date:

Brad Waites is returning to Atlanta to teach a weekend workshop on October 27th-29th, 2017 at All Life is Yoga. More information to come soon! 

Aspirations

quiet joy
peaceful trust
luminous hope

- The Mother

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Level I Yoga Teacher Certification 

All Life is Yoga's 2017-2018 teacher certification dates are set! This training is appropriate for anyone who wants to deepen their personal practice, understand the why of yoga asana, pranayama, nutrition, meditation, anatomy, alignment, energetics, philosophy, sequencing, service...and learn to teach with confidence.

August 19th-20th
September 9th-10th
September 23rd-24th
October 21st-22nd
November 11th-12th
December 2nd-3rd
January 6th-7th
February 10th-11th
February 17th-18th

For more information and to apply, contact Rutu. 

The Dharma Project, Fellowships and Pitching

This past week my Fellowship with Center for Civic Innovation officially ended. It's been quite a growing experience. Along with learning how to develop The Dharma Project as a sustainable nonprofit, I've had the opportunity to learn with six other social entrepreneurs that are building powerful organizations. I have developed a lasting community of friends, colleagues and support structure. 

In June 2016, The Dharma Project got selected to participate in the Civic Innovation Fellowship with seven other social enterprises. The intention was to develop a strong business model, teach us how to become a sustainable non profit, how to tell a compelling story about our work and then to pitch, pitch and pitch some more. 

Our Mission: The Dharma Project provides self care in the form of yoga, mindfulness, nutrition and lifestyle to public service organizations and the communities they work with. 

Here are some of the things we've accomplished these in the past seven months:

Sara Blakley Fellowship: Sara Blakely selected 10 women entrepreneurs to support and develop as leaders in their social enterprise. I was one of them. I'm so grateful for this opportunity. Read more about it here.

Yoga at Decatur Housing Authority: I've had fun spending the last six months doing chair yoga with the senior residents of the DHA. I've learned SO much about teaching yoga in this time. I'm grateful for the opportunity to share yoga with various, diverse communities around Atlanta. 

Our first contract! We landed our first official contract with the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. This is an amazing opportunity for The Dharma Project to work with a public service organization that provides support and funding to so many of the non-profit organizations in our city. I trust that it will be a great advantage to have CFGA as an advocate for The Dharma Project. 

Yoga at Stewart Center in Pittsburg neighborhood of westside Atlanta for Parents and Kids. This community has never been exposed to yoga and they took to it immediately! I believe that more people of color don't do yoga because they don't see themselves represented in the larger yoga culture and don't relate to it as something that is for them. "Nature abhors a monoculture" and there's no better time than now to lift our diverse communities with the transformative power of yoga! 

Final Pitch Event at CCI March 16th. I had my first experience of pitching The Dharma Project to different organizations and foundations last week. For my first time presenting, I think it went great! I look forward to many more opportunities to talk about The Dharma Project. 

The Dharma Project has been nominated as a 2017 SPARK Prize finalist. We will be competing with fourteen other organizations from around the city at the C3 Conference on April 21st for one of United Way's $15k grant awards. If won, the prize will support a joint teacher training program focused around computer science, socio-emotional learning, yoga and meditation with our partner, honorCode. A huge thank you to United Way of Greater Atlanta and the Center for Civic Innovation for sponsoring the competition!

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Our goals for the next 8 months:

1. Provide The Dharma Project's services to 12-16 organizations across Atlanta. 
2. Add 2-5 new instructors to the team
3. Summer Camp for kids at Stewart Center

If you'd like to support The Dharma Project's programs, Donate below. For the Summer Camp at Stewart Center we are raising $2000.00. We'd love your support!

Holiday Schedule

Thank you for being at the studio and showing up for your practice during this seemingly tragic year. Despair leads to inaction, so my resolution for 2017 is a commitment to action.  I'm excited for the growth of the studio. Our growth is quality. I'm thankful for our student base. Your dedication to your practice and desire to leave a kinder imprint on the planet inspires me. I'm excited about The Dharma Project. The fellowship I'm going through at Center for Civic Innovation is helping mold a beautiful mission for an inclusive, thoughtful yoga culture and city. We'll get to see some of it finally move in 2017. I look forward to sharing more about this soon. 

The studio typically closes the last week of the year, but some of the teachers wanted to teach their classes. I am going to take the week off to relax and prepare mentally, emotionally and physically for the year ahead. Narin is also out of town for the holidays. Please visit our website linked below for the complete schedule. 

Enjoy your time with family and friends this week! 

Rutu