Inner Light Outer Peace Yoga Blog

Meet Les!

In whatever studio or space - indoor and out - Les brings his Yoga communities a ready and warm smile. Sometimes attending class along with sister, Christine, their Yoga can be a beautiful family affair. He usually has interesting stories to share whether focused on family, work or fun adventures fishing or doing Yoga on the beach - one trip he practiced seven days in a row!

All around he adds color and depth to our community and we are glad to have him! He is the Dew Yogi of the month for September. I asked him the usual questions about Yoga…

Q: How long have you been practicing Yoga?

A: I have been practicing yoga for about 8 years.

Q: What fills your time off the mat?

A: Off the mat I am a master carpenter, co-developed, and run the service department for a high end custom builder in Greenwich and Manhattan. Continue reading “Dew Yogi of the Month - Les Melich”

Meet Sarah, our Yogi of the month of August and there could not be a more fitting human to honor in this month of sunshine, even when it rains Sarah lights up the studio with her radiant open heart. We have known Sarah through Yoga in many different spaces, youth soccer and school. In all arenas she shines.

I asked her the usual questions and here is what she shared.

Q. How long have you been practicing Yoga?

A. I’ve been practicing yoga for about 9 years.

Q. What fills your time off the mat?

A. Off the mat I have been busy for the past 3 years pursuing a masters in school counseling. It’s been a challenge being a full-time student while parenting 2 teenagers, nurturing my marriage, and managing a house and a dog.

Q. How does Yoga affect your life off the mat?

A. Yoga has kept me sane and grounded and it’s something I look forward to every week. It is one of the only times in my week when I “unplug” from my cell phone and email for an hour or two.

Q. What would you like to share with others about Yoga?

A. In the beginning I worried about doing yoga “right”! As I grew in my practice, I came to appreciate how the practice of yoga is a unique experience for every individual, so it is always “right” for me.

In my experience, yoga has never been about the “place” but about the people– the sense of spirit and the community. It’s been such a pleasure to practice with Elysa and Jen and the community they’ve built over the past several years. I’m deeply grateful to everyone with whom I’ve shared a class through the years. You’ve all been part of my “gift” of yoga.

Jen says… And we are grateful to you Sarah for always supporting us with love, wisdom and sunshine! Join us in wishing her well as she begins a new professional adventure this Fall offering support and guidance to High School students.

Meet Donna, Yogi of the Month for July which just happens to be her birth month!

I met Donna Sparan quite a few years ago cheering on our son’s Little League Baseball team. It wasn’t until last year, however, that we connected through Yoga. Donna became a ‘regular’ at Outdoor Yoga at Turn of River and the Beach and I quickly realized that her infectious optimism was not something she reserved for Little League.

To share Yoga space with Donna is to share her Goddess light and her expansive love of Yoga.

I asked her the usual questions about Yoga. Here is what she had to share with us.

Q. How long have you been practicing yoga?

A. I’ve been practicing yoga for about 3 years now.

Q. What fills your time off the mat?

A. Kids, sports, kids, etc. Not much time for anything else.

Q. How does your yoga practice affect your life off the mat?

A. Yoga has totally changed my life since I began. It’s like therapy for me. Being a single Mom with two teenage boys, it’s very hectic. Yoga keeps me calm…gives me the inner strength to take on the day to day obstacles and stress - the good and not-so-good, that life brings.

Q. What would you like to share with others about yoga?

A. Before I began yoga, I was a cardio queen doing aerobics and running. I didn’t love the running, but it was a great way to burn calories and the results were beginning to show - at least I thought the results were good. As time went on, my body took a beating from running and the weights. After my doctor told me that I should take it easy on my knees - I turned to yoga as some friends suggested. I was a little hesitant because I didn’t want to gain weight. 3 years later, my body has changed…I lost inches everywhere…and my body has taken on a totally different shape. Yoga does wonders for your body, skin, and is also a good way to build strength and muscle. Yoga for me, is something that I will never stop practicing. I even do it at home in any room, on any floor. My kids think I’m crazy. I now have some of the men and women in my office stretching while pouring their coffee! Pretty soon it’ll be yoga in the boardroom.

Apparently it’s a bit tricky to find Donna on the lens side of a camera. I hope she won’t be too upset that I picked her out of a crowd at Springdale field 3 years ago.

This is Carlo. He has been a great supporter of Dew Yoga through it’s first incarnations, at the Dojo and now at BVSA. He also happens to be a truly kind and bright soul. When you read his answers to my questions, both of the above statements are quite evident. Thanks Carlo for being a part of the Dew Yoga community.

I asked him a few questions about Yoga. Here is what he has to share with us.

Q: How long have you been practicing Yoga?

A: About 15 years - 14 of them with the same yoga mat. I even forgot it in Nashville once and got it mailed back. When you find the thing you love, why part with it?

Q: What fills your time off the mat?

A: I’ve been immersed in my new profession as a psychotherapist. This career change was influenced by my yoga, as have many of my choices in recent years. Like yoga, therapy aims to raise awareness and shift perception about ourselves, especially about our inner pain. It asks us to accept ourselves with compassion, without judgment, and to find the teacher within. I teach my clients meditation, which I also learned through yoga. There is a natural complementarity and synergy between yoga and therapy that I hope to explore with the yoga community once I open my private practice - hopefully next year. Stay tuned.

Q: How has your yoga practice affected your life off the mat?

A: Yoga has changed my life by subtle steps so that I did not recognize for a while how the changes day-by-day have mounted to a crescendo, a driving wave that propels my vessel into new and unfathomed waters. The primary change has been a shift and heightening of awareness - awareness of the subtleties of my physical body, my emotions, my thoughts, my social interactions, and the choices I make about each of them. They have been better choices. Financially, yoga’s been a good investment too as I haven’t been to the chiropractor in years. Oh, and I’m happier too. Maybe my yoga mat is more like a magic carpet sweeping me off to a different sort of Mecca? No wonder I’ve held onto that old mat for 14 years!

Q: What would you like to share with others about Yoga?

A: Yoga is also about the people you connect with. Most of the yogis I’ve met haven’t told me about their jobs, their families, their histories or their struggles. Yet when we breath together, when we chant together, when we stretch our bodies and our souls together, I find I have met them at a deeper and more intimate level. I have been inspired by many fellow students, but especially by dedicated teachers. The word inspire also means to breath in. I like the thought that I have breathed in and been enriched by them all - by all of you.

If anyone would like to connect with Carlo professionally, let us know, we will put you in touch!

Phyllis, is a beloved friend and student in the Dew Yoga community.

Our expansion and growth was nurtured and supported in a beautiful and quiet way by Phyllis last November. She has been practicing with Elysa for several years and since I have only had the joy of knowing her on the mat, I was unfamiliar with her Professional and Charitable work. It was no surprise to me to learn all the beautiful things she does, they are all reflections of her radiant spirit that I observe in Yoga class.

I asked her a few questions.

Q: How long have you been practicing Yoga?

A: I have been practicing Yoga for about 15 years.

Q: What fills your time off the mat?

A: I work for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society as a Patient Services Manager and spend a few hours a week volunteering with Hospice here in Stamford.
I am blessed with a wonderful family and enjoy spending as much time as possible with them. I love to be active and have participated in The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training events, completing 3 marathons and 2 cycle century rides in the past few years.

Q: How has your yoga practice affected your life off the mat?

A: Yoga hopefully infuses my professional and personal life with compassion for others as well as for myself.

Q: What would you like to share with others about Yoga?

A: I remember my first teacher commenting that “you are only as old as your spine is flexible”. In those days, yoga for me was a physical practice, and I tried hard to “get it right”. Through the years, and with the gift of some exceptional teachers here in Fairfield County, yoga has become so much more. It truly has become a practice of union of mind, body, and spirit on and off the mat. I no longer challenge myself to get it right, rather,it is more about living well and doing good.I am grateful to be a part of this warm, welcoming and inspirational yoga community.

If you have questions for Phyllis or would like to connect with her regarding The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society or her volunteer work at Hospice please let us know and we will put you in touch with her.

Namaste and thank you Phyllis for sharing your light with us!

Sam Colon is the Director of Camps and Clinics at Bobby Valentine’s Sports Academy, Head Coach of a 15U AAU baseball team, Instructor, Fitness Trainer, Daddy and all around nice guy.

New to the Connecticut baseball scene, Sam is a highly regarded coach and instructor in Westchester County. He brings with him a strong baseball resume, see below. My son has taken lessons with Sam and came away from 30 minute lessons with knowledge and wisdom that will cary him through the season and beyond because Sam not only instructs skill but also strategy for baseball and for succeeding as an athlete on field and off.

Sam has just begun attending Dew Yoga classes with a commitment to make Yoga a part of his weekly routine, I am sure it will complement his active and busy life!

I asked him about his Yoga practice.

Q: How long have you been practicing Yoga?

A: 2 weeks

Q: What fills your time off the mat?

A: Baseball at Bobby V’s, my son on Thursday’s and Saturday’s, and food and drinks during the night’s I don’t do either.

Q: How has your yoga practice affected your life off the mat?

A:The two times that I have done it, has left me with a feeling of relaxation. Less stress, and more positive thinking

Q: what would you like to share with others about Yoga?

A: Yoga is about mind, body, and soul. That’s your own mind, body, and soul when you get to focus on yourself and no one else. It is a time to let yourself go, and that is where the real relaxation takes place.

Sam began his baseball career at Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, where he was named to the NY All-City team. A 2002 graduate of Concordia College, Sam was a four-year starter twice being named captain and once earning All-American recognition for his outfield play. Sam helped lead Concordia to four straight regional appearances and three NYAC Championships, while leading the school in a number of hitting categories. In 2002 Sam received the NYCAC Scholar Athlete award along with three All-NYAC selections, and two All-Region selections. Over the past three years, Sam has coached for the Diamond Buddies in the WBA and in 2005 served as the Assistant Varsity Baseball Coach at Harrison High School.

To contact Sam about baseball, instruction or training, give him a call at BVSA or send him an e-mail at samcolon @ myway . com.

Visit BVSA website here.

In partnership with Dew Yoga, the blog ‘hopes’ to introduce a community Yogi each month to learn how students connect Yoga on the mat with their lives and communties off the mat.

Meet Anik Palulian. Anik is an award-winning graphic designer, accessory designer, artist and budding product designer based in Rowayton, CT. A BFA from School of Visual Arts, and a BA in psychology mix with her lure towards the authentic, personal, handmade, and natural to create a unique style and dedication to “making it special”. She hopes to ride a pony to her mailbox one day, in Europe. To contact Anik for professional art and design work, please e-mail her at anik @ optonline dot net

You may have noticed Dew Yoga has a new logo. It has been designed with great love and care by Anik. She set out to create something for our community that would represent many characteristics of our practice; continuity, transformation, fluidity, union, peace, nature… We love the result, from the single stroke lines of the letters incorporating dew drops to the union of the birds.

Thank you Anik for seeing our dream and creating a beautiful representation of it!

I asked her some questions about Yoga.

Q: How long have you been practicing Yoga?

A: Only about a year and a half now. It feels like longer though.. it has integrated very fluidly and naturally. For me, it was time.

Q: What fills your time off the mat?

A: I’m a designer and artist, so my work, interests, and thoughts tend to be interrelated. I am either working on an idea, thinking about an idea, researching and collecting things for such ideas, riding, reading, gazing love-sickeningly at my cat, thinking, making something, talking to myself, talking about how talking to myself is now a public activity and is only going to get worse with age, stalking stuff on ebay, daydreaming, writing, more cat love (I could just eat dem pawsers), listening to music or watching law & order re-runs. if it’s spring or summer, move it all outside in the grass and garden!

Q: How does your yoga practice affect your life off the mat?

A: Yoga has been a challenge, a support, a release and a nurturing route for my own growth. I feel a sense of accomplishment, strength and grace from my body, and a forgiveness, acceptance and presence in my “mind” or self. Sometimes yoga helps me drop something that has been grating at me.. sometimes all I can think about is what I want for dinner. And sometimes i am quiet. Often, I’m still in meditation prayer while everyone around me is rolling up their mats. And many times I have cried during shavasana, then scurried to my car and cried more. Whatever comes up, I take with me. I am always grateful I showed up for myself and went to class.

Q: What would you like to share with others about Yoga?

A: Give it your full self. Don’t think about the poses or any of that totally useless achiever-role crap. Yoga is a healing practice. It’s accepting. It can bring forth beautiful qualities in yourself that you did not know you possessed, or did so to such a degree, if you let go of thinking and doing your way through it. If you are in a vulnerable, fragile personal space, it is the perfect time to start. You will be guided, nurtured… and then, at some point, you’ll realize that nurturing is coming from yourself. you are doing it for yourself.

Namaste.