The art and science of yoga provides a template to encourage each of us awaken to the delights of an embodied life. As we become more open, aware and sensitive, our ability to fully engage and celebrate life also increases. 5 sessions offered separately or together.

A certified Anusara yoga instructor, Stacey is described as a teacher who combines soulful inspiration with precise biomechanical instruction. "Only from the heart can you touch the sky." (Rumi)

Registration still continues for all our winter offerings.
Takoma Park Classes , Silver Spring Classes
Short Courses
Workshops
wsyc-winter.pdf

NOTE: In case of inclement weather, call our main phone (301-270-8038) 1.5-2 hours before your class/workshop (or after 5:30am for 6:30-7:15am classes). If we have cancellations, they will be listed there. If possible, we also update this website and FaceBook.

If a class you are registered for is cancelled, you will receive a replacement voucher in the mail, good until the end of the following session. Students who don't wish to travel, even if their class is still scheduled, are encouraged to use their judgement and take a makeup class instead.

I recently lost 50 pounds, and yoga helped me do it. Indeed, if I were inclined to be entrepreneurial, I would probably be making infomercials for something I might call the Willow Street Diet! Yoga may not be a major fat-burning activity, but I am serious when I say it contributed significantly to my efforts to re-contour my middle-aged body. I returned to Willow Street in the winter of 2009 after several years away. I had taken classes for a couple of years early in the 2000s, mostly Yoga Is with Suzie Hurley, but I decided to take a break in 2003 during a ridiculously stressful period in my life.

By the time I got back from my "break," I was seriously out of shape and significantly overweight, because I had given up not only yoga but also a commitment I had maintained for most of my adult life to regular, vigorous cardiovascular activity. On the brink of my 50th birthday, I was feeling out of sorts and starting to worry about the long-term consequences of having gotten so out of shape. In other words, I was starting to feel old, and I didn't like the feeling.

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Being in the Maine woods is a time of remembrance, a time of reflection, a time of introspection and a time for deep connection. I come to this same little cabin called Mt. Spruce every other year or so, and have for the last 15 years. It is where some of my best thinking, meditating, and writing happens. I am presently sitting on the top of Maidenhead Cliff overlooking Lake Mecunticook in the Camden Hills, and checking in on my feelings as I prepare to give over the reins of Willow Street Yoga Center to my son Joe and his wife Natalie, come January 1, 2012. Surprisingly, I feel very little contraction, no big gulps, as I let go of WSYC in the capacity I have known for 18 years. A sign that I am ready to let go, to trust, to know Joe and Natalie will continue to serve our students fully.

Gratitude is what immediately arises as I remember the early days of opening Willow Street when it was actually on Willow Street, on the DC side of Takoma Park. We began with one small studio that had windows that we could actually open with lace curtains that blew with gentle breezes. That was in January of 1994. We had 160 students, just enough to pay the rent, but not much for myself or the three other teachers we had at the time. Not much “staff” in those days either, Joanne Klick (some of you “oldies” may remember her) and I did it all: the registration by hand, flyers, scheduling of classes, the newsletter, marketing and teaching. Jenny Otto was on the teaching faculty from the start and still is!

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Yoga is an ancient holistic system of personal development, designed to balance our physical, mental and spiritual aspects. Willow Street teaches Anusara Yoga, one of the most spiritually inspiring, therapeutically effective and physically transformative styles of hatha yoga.