Yoga

Private Yoga Lessons - 60 minutes $60
Restorative Yoga and Reiki, private Studio or Zoom - 60-minutes $80
Yoga Therapeutics - 3, 60-minute private lessons $165
Astrology themed, Chakra Yoga, Mindfulness Yoga, Outdoor Yoga and Subtle Yoga (see below)
New Moon and Full Moon Meditations free recordings in Video Library
Weekly Classes begin in September, schedule TBA
Frequently Asked Questions (see below)

Private Lessons

Private Yoga builds self-care tools to benefit students uniqueness. By designing a customized practice for your lifestyle and wellness goals. In a private setting we get to create the space to help you transform your body and practice. Having private lessons allows you to set specific personal goals whether that be for flexibility, strength, meditation, mindfulness, relaxation or stress reduction. As your private yoga teacher, the practice will be adapted to your self-care goals and expectations. Newer students might feel overwhelmed in a typical yoga class. It can seem difficult to keep up and personal flexibility might require a little work before it becomes easier to get into different poses. If you're already a consistent practitioner, private yoga sessions can be beneficial if you're interested in taking your practice to the next level.

Studio or Zoom 60 minutes $60

Restorative Yoga with Reiki

Enjoy a customized private restorative Yoga lesson in Studio or Zoom. With the use of bolsters, pillows and blankets

you will fully release into the support of the props. Also enjoying the healing benefits of Reiki.

60 minutes $80, *(3, 45 minute sessions - special package $180)

Yoga Therapeutics

Package of 3, private 60 minute lessons $165

Yoga Therapeutics private sessions based on your particular goals. This is wonderful way to experience Yoga as a beginner or students who want individualized focus or to build a home practice.

After completing this introductory series, many students continue regularly scheduled private Yoga lessons.

Option to enroll online Yoga courses and classes.

Chakra Yoga

Exploring the wisdom of the Seven Chakras to improve your understanding of the energy centers within you.

The Hatha Yoga perspective says the chakras must be balanced and functioning properly to maintain optimal physical and mental health. Therefore, engaging in practice via the Chakra System supports spiritual growth and can provide clarity to align with dharma, your soul's purpose. Moving the spine through various yoga postures is believed to increase the energy flow. When you pay attention to what each Chakra relates to and work to bring yourself into balance, you'll find a sense of wholeness and completeness that leaves you feeling put together. Understanding the Chakras helps us to understand the full spectrum of our basic needs. Sign up: PetrasWellnessStudio@gmail.com

Private Chakra Yoga Course - 7, 60 minute sessions, $420
Semi-private small group: 2-4 students each additional $70
Create your own private small group with your friends/family (4 minimum to 10 maximum), $105 per student

Mindfulness Yoga

Rejuvenate your body and mind. Each session offers a refreshing outlook as we explore a new theme each session.

Mindful Slow Flow Yoga to release tension and stress
Restorative Yoga to calm your body and restore energy
Yoga Nidra (description below) to clear your mind and release stored physical, emotional, and mental tension
Metta Meditation to reconnect to yourself and the world around you.

Note: If you decide to do this course online participants are recommended to have a yoga mat, water, journal paper and pen, chair, ottoman or wall space, 3 pillows, 2 blankets, and 2 blocks or firm pillows for class. In studio equipment will be provided.

Private Mindfulness Yoga Course - 4, 60 minutes sessions, $240
Semi-private small group: 2-4 students each additional $40
Create your own private small group with your friends/family (4 minimum to 10 maximum), $60 per student
Sunday, December 17 at 2:00 - 4:00 PM, $25 ~ mini-retreat/workshop for the Winter Wellness

Subtle Yoga

Subtle Yoga calms the nervous system, improves breathing, increases the body-mind connection, and is trauma-informed. It is a holistic intervention that can complement and enhance traditional healthcare approaches through health promotion, prevention, treatment or aftercare/recovery. Subtle Yoga incorporates six key processes: mindful movement, breathing practices, meditation, awareness of values/ethical engagement, spiritual development and service. Together these practices promote attention, mindfulness, body awareness, self-regulation, resiliency, self-actualization and pro-social behavior. Subtle Yoga is a broadly applicable, person-centered approach to yoga practice that can be tailored to different body types/physical abilities and various contexts - from mental illness, anxiety and depression to public health. Sign up: PetrasWellnessStudio@gmail.com

Private Subtle Yoga - 12, 60 minute sessions, $720
Semi-private small group: 2-4 students each additional $120
Create your own private small group with your friends/family (4 minimum to 10 maximum), $180 per student

Working with the Magic of the Moon

New Moon

The New Moon phase is when you make time for yourself. Awaken and align your energy with this practice and plant the seeds of your future dreams. The New Moon is in a different zodiac sign each month, explore meditation, and an opportunity for self-care journaling. Suggestive supplies: journal paper and pen, water. See Monthly Memo for current information. Free recording, found in Video Library.

Full Moon

The Full Moon is the high point of the lunar cycle. It is a very powerful time for inner work. As the Full Moon takes place in a different sign of the zodiac each month. In this session you will experience two healing meditations: the Full Moon Forgiveness and Gratitude practices. Suggestive supplies: journal paper and pen, water. See Monthly Memo for current information. Free recording, found in Video Library.

Weekly Yoga Classes

These weekly Yoga classes will offer weekly themes to bring you into the seasons of change with comfort and joy.

Kripalu, Subtle, Mindful Yoga, Restorative, Yomassage and Astrology. NEW CLASSES BEGINNING IN SEPTEMBER

Outdoor Yoga

Practicing Yoga outdoors combines exercise, releasing natural mood boosters (endorphins) and the natural world. These two work incredibly well together, improving your sense of self. From feeling more confident and happier to carefree and open, outdoor Yoga benefits your mental health. Spending time in nature is known to have profound effects on our physical and mental well-being. Combine that with your yoga practice and you have yourself pure joy!

I am open to discuss the scheduling of your private group classes at your location or at the Pittsford Recreation Park for June through September. For a local group rate $20 per student per class, 5 student registration minimum per class. Travel fee may be included depending on your location.

1. You can ‘look up to the sky’…literally - Yoga teachers in class often cue students to, “reach your hands down to the earth,” or to “turn your gaze up to the sky,” while practicing at an indoor studio. However, when we take our practice outside, these cues become more than just figurative language.

2. The Added Benefits of Earthing - Walking barefoot is good for your feet because it allows the many, many muscles and joints in your feet, ankles, and toes to work in a way that they do not normally do while constricted in shoes. Even indoor yoga helps with this because we practice yoga barefoot anyways. Let us take it to the next level and practice barefoot outside. Earthing (also known as grounding) is the scientific concept of receiving the Earth’s surface electrons through the physical connection between skin and the ground. Talk about energy. The reconnecting our bodies with the earth has many benefits including reduced pain and better sleep due to the effect that this energy has on our hormone levels (like the stress hormone cortisol) and free radical oxidation.

3. Get Inspired - Many yoga poses gained their names from plants and animals. Practicing yoga outside allows the yogi to embody the sense of the pose while actually looking at what inspired that pose. For example, harness the stability and strength of a tree while you stand grounded in Vrksasana (Tree pose). Take flight into Kakasana (Crow pose) and feel like the birds flying above you.

4. Be More Present - Being surrounded by nature awakens our senses. Our eyes can see long distances and natural colors, instead of the tiny, blue-light screen of our phones that our eyes are so often glued to. Our ears can pick up birds chirping in the distance and the breeze blowing around us. Our skin absorbs the warmth of the sunshine’s natural heat waves. With these senses awakened, we can be more present in life in each moment with no distractions. Spending time outside also reduces the levels of the stress hormone cortisol. With lower levels of stress, we can ease into a deeper state of relaxation and enjoy the present moment.

5. Dose of Vitamin D - Sit your body under some sunshine. It is very common for Vitamin D levels to decrease during the winter months, so now that the sun’s out, you get the all-natural source of essential Vitamin D.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kripalu Yoga?

Kripalu Yoga is a gentle yoga practice with a compassionate approach. It places an emphasis on meditation, physical healing and spiritual transformation that overflows from the yoga mat into daily life. Kripalu is gentle Yoga that emphasizes moving at your own pace, self-acceptance and adaptability. It's ideal for beginners and is accepting and adaptable to everyone, no matter your age, ability, size, or other circumstance. Yoga increases strength and flexibility, improves circulation, breathing and digestion. Because of the deep relaxation there is reduced muscle tension and risk of injury. The classes usually begin with pranayama exercises and gentle stretches followed by asana practice and ending with final relaxation.

How do I prepare for my first private Yoga lesson?

You will need to set up a yoga space and position your computer. Having props isn't required, but they are a great way to deepen your practice. Some props might include a yoga mat, strap, yoga blocks, bolsters, pillows and blankets. Many things around the house can be substituted as props. Zoom gives the student the convenience of being home.

What is Restorative Yoga?

Restorative Yoga is a deep relaxation healing practice. To assist the body to release tension by using the support of props. To be completely comfortable to fully relax into a Yoga Pose for several minutes to restore balance and harmony.

Note: participants are recommended to have a yoga mat, chair, ottoman or wall space, 3 pillows, 2 blankets, and 2 blocks or firm pillows.

How often should I do yoga?

The more you practice, you'll notice the benefits. Petra recommends practicing daily, even short sessions bring joy.

How long is a private yoga lesson?

Private yoga lessons are usually 1 hour long. Sessions can be longer or shorter to accommodate students schedule.

What Is Yoga Nidra?

Originating from ancient yogic scriptures, Yoga Nidra is a powerful relaxation technique that uses guided imagery with the natural process of sleep to enter a regenerative state of consciousness between being awake and sleeping.

Yoga Nidra is also known as yogic sleep.

The deeply therapeutic exercise is a methodical practice of directed steps, focused on moving awareness from the external world into the internal world.

Stimulating complete physical, mental, and emotional relaxation, the healing practice of Yoga Nidra has countless documented benefits.

Promote deep relaxation
Aid insomnia
Alleviate tension
Restore the body
Sharpen the mind
Improve memory
Reduce symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression

Unlike typical meditation, Yoga Nidra is practiced lying down. You support the body with props, pillows, and blankets so that you can land in a space of deep relaxation and rest.

While ‘yogic sleep’ is not a substitute for your regular night’s sleep, many people say one-hour of Yoga Nidra meditation is equal to 4 hours of normal sleep in its restorative effects on the nervous system.

Yoga Nidra practice triggers a sequence of brain-wave changes that alter the fluctuations of the mind and shift the brain into a state of healing and restoration.

The process lets go of stress-producing hormones and boosts the production of neurotransmitters and pleasure hormones like serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and others.

The end results? A massively positive effect on overall human well-being.

How do I to meditate?

Begin each day with a simple 5 minute meditation practice.

At the earliest possible time in your day:

remain completely still and quiet once the seat is chosen
allow for insights to arise — shifting results in avoidance of what comes up
watch the breath by focusing on a spot — perhaps the tip of the nose, or the back of the throat and feel the breath move in and out. Keep the focus only on the breath and let everything else fall away
Surrender, meditation will be full of everyday distractions
Keep a daily meditation journal.
Date, time & duration of your meditation
How you felt before & after the meditation
What was easy or hard about the meditation
What you will take from the meditation practice into your day

What is Metta Meditation?

The metta prayer of loving kindness is a prayer or mantra used as part of a loving-kindness meditation, or metta bhavana. 'Metta' is a Pali word for benevolence, friendship, affection, and kindness. This form of meditation is one of the most soothing ways of putting together and practicing the four qualities of love – friendliness (Metta), appreciation and joy (Mudita), compassion (Karuna), and equanimity (Upekkha). This kind of meditation and use of a mantra is popular in the Buddhist tradition. The word, metta, translated as “good will” or “loving kindness.” In Pali, a language that's closely related to Sanskrit and spoken in northern India, “metta” means positive energy and kindness toward others. Metta to care and wish well for another being without judging them, to accept them independently of agreeing or disagreeing with them and without wanting anything from them in return. It is a universal love that can overcome all barriers.

https://kripalu.org/resources/what-loving-kindness-metta-meditation?gclid=CjwKCAjwq-WgBhBMEiwAzKSH6E3nrZ9P08_auRfZ-ha95deAjsYhTK1k-JbkGa6Z95eioKdW_Awp4RoCExEQAvD_BwE

What is a Walking Meditation?

Vipassana Walking Meditation: walking and becoming aware of each movement is a meditation; relieving tension and calming the mind. This technique is based on the awareness of the feet touching the ground.

Instructions (15 minutes walking indoors or outside) - Walk slowly with your awareness focused on your feet as they touch the ground. Keep your eyes lowered to the ground, so that you can see only a few steps ahead. If you like, place your hands on your heart center. While walking pay attention to the contact of each foot as it touches the ground. As you walk in slow motion you can say, "Right" when the right foot touches the ground, and say "Left" when the left foot touches the ground. If other things arise, notice what else takes your attention, and then return to your feet.

May you be happy, may you be healthy,

May you be safe, may you be strong,

May you flow through life with joy and ease.

Shanti. Peace. In Buddhist and Hindu traditions you chant shanti three times to represent peace in body, speech, and mind.

Mindfulness is the act of bringing one's full attention to what is happening in the present moment. We bring our minds back to our bodies, and come home to the present moment. It begins with mindful awareness of our breathing: our in-breath and out-breath. Mindfulness is the kind of energy that helps us to be fully present, to live life in the here and now. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh