Last Call for In Person Classes at the Village Creek Country Inn
Please confirm your attendance for classes this Saturday June 18 and for coffee/tea time after classes too!
I am so looking forward to seeing everyone!

And if you are visiting and would like to stay overnight, the Inn has offered our guests 10% off! Please call (780) 586-0006.

Saturday June 18 @ 9:30am: Yoga for Strength & Core
This class includes a standing series and floor series. The standing series includes poses that help build strength and stability in the body. The floor series includes core strengthening, poses that improve flexibility and some relaxation. You will need a block & mat.

Saturday June 18 @ 11am: Stress Relief Class
This class will include some relaxing yin poses and a short guided meditation and soundbath to relax your body & mind. With chronic stress, by-products of it can stay in the body for several hours, even days. Only 3 weeks of constant "high stress" will re-write your entire baseline level of functioning, moving all functions in the body into the various states and stages of chronic stress. This is detrimental to our overall health and causes issues like adrenal fatigue, immune system suppression and brain fog. This is why it’s so important to ground and reset daily to move out of the multiple stress responses we can experience each day. You will need 2 blankets, eye cover, mat and a bolster or pillow under your knees.
Member Drop-in: $17
Regular Drop-in: $20

Village Creek Country Inn Collaboration!
Thank you to the Inn for taking our community in as we continue to practice in person classes once a month! I am now offering private sessions, Wellness & Stay Packages & more with the INN!
Check out their site here

JUNE Weekly Online Live Zoom Classes
Hello!
If you are looking for connection, motivation and want to get back into a routine the online zoom classes are a wonderful support. They are an accessible & affordable way to get your exercise in and it is fun doing it with others & from the comfort of your own home!
And if you prefer more privacy you can always have your camera off. If you need support with your exercises you can keep your camera on.

Please send me an email back to register. Prices include GST.

Mondays @ 8:30am: Weight Training 30min
4 Week Session: June 6, 13, 20 & 27
Wellness Member: $40. Regular: $48
Improve your overall strength & stability in your body, build & maintain bone density & increase lean body mass. This class will include different weight training exercises and muscle groups each week.

Wednesdays @ 9:30am: Weights & Yoga 60min
5 Week Session: June 1, 8, 15, 22 & 29
Wellness Member: $50. Regular: $60
Build bone density & lean body mass by adding weight training to your exercise regime. This class will include different weight training exercises and muscle groups each week. We will also use yoga poses that improve strength and balance and finish class with stretches for the areas that we worked.

Fridays @ 9:30am: Strength, Balance & Mobility Class for 50+ 60min
4 Week Session: June 3, 10, 17 & 24
Wellness Member: $40. Regular: $48
Improve your strength & balance with yoga poses and body weight exercises. Improve joint health and range of motion with mobility exercises and learn therapy ball exercises to decrease stiffness in the body.

One Day Retreats with Carmon & Janelle
Location: Pure Awareness Retreat Centre
We are holding these one day retreats on Wednesdays! Dates are:
July 20 Summer Sanctuary Day Retreat. Click here to register.
August 17 Sweetness of Summer Day Retreat. Click here to register.
And if you are looking for an overnight option after your day retreat, please check out the Village Creek Country Inn here & receive 10% off your stay.

The Wellness Online Studio
Recorded classes
$35/month
This online studio is for those who like to choose their own style of classes along with class length & time of day. Click here to explore the free 7 day trial and choose from a wide variety of classes.

Recorded Challenges & Series are also added to the online studio each month.
Here they are in the case you are looking for something in particular!

Recorded Class Groupings/Playlists

Yin/Restorative Yoga Classes

Yoga for Strength Classes

Seniors Classes

Stress & Anxiety Relief Sessions

Strength, Balance & Mobility for Longevity Classes

Yoga & Therapy Balls

Yoga for Hips & Lower Back Health

Fitness (weight training, HIIT)

Barre/Pilates Classes

Movement & Mindfulness for Depression & Anxiety

Shoulder Health Classes

Special Guest Instructor Classes

Evening/Before Bedtime Sessions

Classes for Men

Yoga Flow Classes

Chair Yoga

Sport/Activity Specific Classes
Series & ChallengesYoga for Beginners: 6 Week Series14 Evening Stress Relief Series7 Day Weights & Yoga Challenge7 Day Rise & Shine Move & Meditate Challenge

Online Studio Shop
Check out the online studio shop here.
Choose from challenges, series, workshops or special events. Some offer a "pay what you wish" option.

Special events that are recorded so far are:
Trauma as Medicine Workshop
A Power Animal Journey with Sarah Salter Kelly
Know Your Angels Workshop with Lannie Reid

Looking for a wellness gift? You can purchase the online studio or any of the other offerings and send it over email as a gift here!

The Benefits of Going Barefoot
It’s so important to go barefoot as much as possible! It’s so good for the health of our feet and the joints above them! Besides going barefoot, some ways to support our feet are:

Roll your feet with therapy balls!

The bottoms of the feet have proprioceptors so rolling them wakes the feet up and gives them a better connection to the ground. This helps a ton with balance too.

Yoga tune up balls are great because they have a perfect pressure to them. Lacrosse or hard plastic balls can sometimes bruise tissue and don’t move as well with our tissue.

Going barefoot along with wearing natural footwear as much as possible helps you avoid the cast effect.

The body was designed for movement, not to be casted in a single position. When we wear shoes all of the time, tissues adapt to the positions we put them in most frequently and this is true for any area of the body. It’s called the cast effect: if your arm is in a cast for 6 weeks, you will end up with extreme stiffness and tightness in the joints and muscles/tissues that were casted.

Our feet are no different. When wearing heeled & narrow shoes, the tissues and bones in the foot and ankle begin to adapt into these positions. This creates foot weakness and stiffness, achilles tendon and calf tightness, and weak and altered ligaments around the ankle.

Stretch your hamstrings & calves!

Besides these muscles being sometimes too tight, there are also thicker lines of fascia or connective tissue that add to the tension and they run throughout the body. There is a line of fascia called the superficial back line. It runs up the bottom of both feet up the back of the legs, up both sides of the back, neck and around to the forehead. So when something is going on with your feet it’s important to look at what’s going on above them.

Toe spreaders!

If you have bunions use toe spreaders.

Years of wearing narrow shoes can compress feet and mess up toe alignment. Splayed feet = stable, strong feet.

If you deal with plantar fasciitis, it can be related to tension in your calves and hamstrings. And by restoring a strong arch, mobile foot joints and mobile hips, you unload the fascia and it stops getting irritated. The solution is understanding why your fascia is getting “itis” (aka irritated/inflamed) and fixing the problem for good.

Some of this info comes from The Foot Collective. Check them out on Facebook or Instagram as they have a ton of great info!

And you can purchase therapy balls by googling Yoga Tuneup Balls.

Joint Health

Movement and mobility exercise are great ways to support our joint health. They stimulate synovial fluid in the joints which keeps the joints moving fluidly.

Being aware of our daily movement patterns is also really important. Stacking joints when we are sitting, driving and walking helps our alignment, posture and evenly distributes weight on our joints. The same goes with aligning our feet and pointing them straight forward vs outward so we can prevent uneven wear on the joints.

Why is this alignment so important?

Because our joint capsules don’t have pain receptors so they don’t feel pain while the wear and tear is happening over the years. But bones DO have pain receptors so once we have bone on bone it means we have had so much wearing down that we are now experiencing pain.

How can we prevent this? By learning healthy movement patterns, using mobility exercises, keeping the musculoskeletal system strong with a variety of exercise (weights, yoga, walking etc) and supplementing what makes up our joint composition and what we naturally lose with age.

I have learned that movement can take us only so far. If we keep losing what makes up our joint composition then this causes more soreness, stiffness and lack of mobility, no matter the amount of movement we do.

What are major parts of joint composition?

Collagen type 2: component of healthy joints and connective tissue.

Hyaluronic acid: this is a huge part of the synovial fluid I talked about above.

Chondroitin sulfate: supports joint flexibility and lubrication.

No wonder by the age of 50 we feel more discomfort having lost around 30% and by age 70 it is around 50% of what supports our joints.

If our body makes less or stops making what we need, it makes so much sense to give it what it needs to maintain or return to optimal mobility.