Yoga Studio In Julian

Zen Mountain Yoga

Just as I wish to, may you be safe, may you be healthy, may you live with ease and happiness. And, may our actions thoughts and words contribute to the happiness of others.

Welcome To
Zen Mountain Yoga!

About the Studio
We are a small studio located in the beautiful mountain town of Julian California. We offer a cozy, nurturing setting for our students to feel nourished and supported. We provide students with a firm foundation to develop yoga as a way of life, benefiting self and community through meditation, stress relief and physical and emotional well being.
Mission
To provide yoga sessions to benefit everyone. To create a healthier & more peaceful community. To serve our students while enriching and enhancing the body / mind connection.
Listen To Podcast Interview With Zen Mountain
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Classes

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Yoga Drop In

$25

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8 Classes Per Month Pass

$20 per class

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Private Yoga Session

$95

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Private Yoga Session In Home

$150

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The body is your temple. Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in. – B.K.S Iyengar

Benefits of Yoga

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Stress Relief

The practice of yoga is well-demonstrated to reduce the physical effects of stress on the body. The body responds to stress through a fight-or-flight response, which is a combination of the sympathetic nervous system and hormonal pathways activating, releasing cortisol – the stress hormone – from the adrenal glands. Cortisol is often used to measure the stress response. Yoga practice has been demonstrated to reduce the levels of cortisol. Most yoga classes end with savasana, a relaxation pose, which further reduces the experience of stress.

Pain Relief
Yoga can ease pain. Studies have shown that practicing yoga asanas (postures), meditation or a combination of the two, reduced pain for people with conditions such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, auto-immune diseases and hypertension as well as arthritis, back and neck pain and other chronic conditions.
Better Breathing
Yoga includes breathing practices known as pranayama, which can be effective for reducing our stress response, improving lung function and encouraging relaxation. Many pranayamas emphasize slowing down and deepening the breath, which activates the body’s parasympathetic system, or relaxation response. By changing our pattern of breathing, we can significantly affect our body’s experience of and response to stress. This may be one of the most profound lessons we can learn from our yoga practice.
Flexibility
Yoga can improve flexibility and mobility and increase range of motion. Over time, the ligaments, tendons and muscles lengthen, increasing elasticity.
Increased Strength
Yoga asanas use every muscle in the body, increasing strength literally from head to toe. A regular yoga practice can also relieve muscular tension throughout the whole body.
Weight Management
While most of the evidence for the effects of yoga on weight loss is anecdotal or experiential, yoga teachers, students and practitioners across the world find that yoga helps to support weight loss. Many teachers specialize in yoga programs to promote weight management and find that even gentle yoga practices help support weight loss. People do not have to practice the most vigorous forms of yoga to lose weight. Yoga encourages development of a positive self-image, as more attention is paid to nutrition and the body as a whole. A study from the Journal of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine found that regular yoga practice was associated with less age-related weight gain. The lifestyle study of 15,500 adults in their 50’s covered 10 years of participants’ weight history, physical activity, medical history and diet.
Improved circulation
Yoga helps to improve circulation by efficiently moving oxygenated blood to the body’s cells.
Cardiovascular Conditioning
Even a gentle yoga practice can provide cardiovascular benefits by lowering resting heart rate, increasing endurance and improving oxygen uptake during exercise.
Presence
Yoga connects us with the present moment. The more we practice, the more aware we become of our surroundings and the world around us. It opens the way to improved concentration, coordination, reaction time and memory.
Inner Peace
The meditative effects of a consistent yoga practice help many cultivate inner peace and calm.

FAQ’s

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Why should I start practicing yoga?

Yoga has tons of benefits and it’s for absolutely everyone — it’s for the young, the old, the flexible, the inflexible, the weak and the strong. Yoga is so much more than a physical practice. It is a coming home to your body, mind, and spirit.

Yoga will teach you about yourself. I recommend yoga for anyone who is looking for an outlet for stress, a source of balance to life’s challenges, a way to relieve stiffness in the body, & a tool to learn how to connect more deeply with yourself and the community.

What should I wear & bring?

Wear anything you feel comfortable in that will allow you to have a full range of motion. Usually loose, comfy clothing.

Bring water if you choose. Leave the socks and sneakers at home, you’ll be practicing in bare feet. If you have a yoga mat, bring that as well, but we also have a mat at the studio for you to use.

Why do we roll to the right after savasana at the end of class and some times roll to the left ? Is there some significance to this?
Traditionally in yoga you roll to the right during the day to honor the sun and roll to the left in the
evening to honor the moon.
What is the right amount of time to wait after eating, before practicing yoga asana? And how long should I wait after practicing yoga before I can eat?

As a rule of thumb it’s best to practice on an empty stomach. Two hours after you eat is generally when you have an empty stomach and it’s okay to practice yoga.

How often should I practice to have the best results?

When first starting out try twice a week then after one month start practicing three-five times per week.

Most importantly listen to your body & once you learn the postures you could do a 10 or 15 minute practice at home daily.

Do I have to be flexible?

No you don’t have to be flexible to do yoga… It’s an urban myth that people who are tight can’t do yoga. Yoga isn’t just stretching its extremely toning, calming, meditative, spiritual, healing and opening. Flexibility is only one aspect of it. Once you practice yoga for a period of time naturally you will gain flexibility with a myriad of other benefits.

Why is everyone Om-ing?
OM is said to be the sound of the universe. It is a symbol of our connection to all living things and beings. It is a way to seal in the lessons of the yoga class. It is however, pretty intimidating to new students, and you are by no means required to participate. You are also allowed to giggle, yogis love laughter. Sometimes we may om before or after practice & sometimes we may not.
Will the teacher touch me?
Probably, but if you’re not comfortable with being touched, make sure to let the teacher know.

I will say that adjustments are a wonderful way to experience poses. A slight touch or pressure can help you to realize that you’re holding tension in a muscle or help you go just a little deeper into a pose.

If a teacher plans to make adjustments, they should ask students at the beginning of class to signal if they’d prefer to skip this. If not, it is absolutely your right to ask them to skip you.

Is it okay to fall asleep in Savasana?

No one will kick you out of the studio for snoring during Savasana. However, this is not nap time.

Savasana can be the most important pose in a yoga class and it is the much needed restorative compliment to more active poses. It is a time to be completely with yourself. Rather than doing this through sleep, the challenge is to keep an awareness of breath and body, We practice coming back to the breath & into the present moment, (even with distracting thoughts appearing over and over). It’s a practice!

What happens if my mind will not be quiet during meditation?
Then, you are human 🙂 Our minds constantly run into the past and/ or the future! This is a practice where we learn to be gentle and compassionate with ourselves without judgment in the
moment.
When the myriad of thoughts arrive, we practice & we learn to notice them, perhaps even label them as “thinking, thinking, thinking” realizing that they’re not as solid as we make them and letting the thoughts become transparent as clouds in a vast sky!

Accept wherever you are today and honor whatever comes up for you without passing judgment about it. Mediation is a practice, and it can be much more difficult than the asanas or physical aspect of yoga. Yet these poses are designed to relax the body to assist in quieting the mind!

What is Hatha Yoga?
“HA” means sun and “THA” means moon. Branches of the yoga practice that involve physical exercise, breathing practices, and movement. These exercises are designed to have a salutary effect on posture, flexibility, and strength and are intended ultimately to prepare the body to remain still for long periods of meditation.
First time to a yoga class?
Tips:

  • Wear comfortable clothing
  • Be yourself
  • Remember there is no wrong way of practicing Yoga, find your own pace, listen to your

    • body’s signals, learn to focus on the in breath & out breath.

  • Don’t be concerned with what others are doing, it’s your practice, yoga is a personal
    practice & a journey towards a deeper connection with your body, mind and emotions.
  • Be regular with your practice.
denise-profile-image
Denise Eve studied Yoga & Meditation with Carol Landrum of Seva Deva Center in San Diego where she received her classical hatha yoga teaching certification in 1994. The moment Denise stepped onto a yoga mat she felt ‘at home’. She loved how free she felt in her body and how her mind had begun to experience a sense of calm she had never experienced before. Yoga, along with breath work (pranayama) and a myriad of other healing modalities including chanting, meditation & forest bathing are cornerstones in her life. Denise opened Yoga Time, an on- site Yoga & stress management program for businesses. Denise was also the founder of Tayo Kids Yoga, introducing yoga to over 20 schools as an afterschool program. Denise encourages her students to listen to their body while infusing postures with the breath. Practicing with Denise invites healing, nourishment and wellbeing to the body mind connection.

Denise resides off the grid in the mountains of Julian Ca with her family. Aside from running her business the zen pet & zen mountain yoga, Denise finds contentment in the quiet and beauty of nature, tending to her medicinal herb & vegetable garden .Denise’s passions include making herbal tinctures, sacred chanting/ songwriting & being in nature with her animals. Denise is dedicated to deepening the connection to her true nature by a practice of living peacefully, compassionately & mindfully.

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marisol
For more than twenty years as a yoga practitioner Marisol finds yoga to be a source of inner peace. She became a certified yoga and meditation teacher in 2016 and she has been teaching yoga in the San Diego Area. She taught at World Beat Center, YMCA, Massage Envy,and most recently at the after school program at Julian Elementary, among others. Marisol is also a school teacher and loves to be around family and friends.

Julian has been a welcoming and warm home to Marisol. She finds joy in giving back to the community and she is happy to join Zen Mountain Yoga, an extraordinary place in this beautiful community.”

Ashley Zen Yoga

Ashleys light hearted personality and focused practice invites practitioners into the present moment and connect with themselves. A committed student of Yoga for over 10 years, and instructor for 6, Ashley brings her passion of alignment and anatomy, meditation and classical philosophy into her classes.

Yoga has taught her self awareness and believes there is always something to learn, awaken and let go of.

Ashley primarily teaches Hatha, Vinyasa and Restorative. Ashley and her husband happily reside in Wynola, CA.