Yoga Videos, Yoga Downloads, Free Yoga Videos, Yoga, Free Yoga, Melissa West, Dr Melissa West — Yoga videos and Yoga Membership Site with Dr. Melissa West. Canadas 1 FREE One Hour Weekly Online Yoga Show. Yoga videos and yoga downloads.

Yoga videos and Yoga Membership Site with Dr. Melissa West. Canadas 1 FREE One Hour Weekly Online Yoga Show. Yoga videos and yoga downloads.

Earlier Yoga Episodes

Aparigraha or Non-Hoarding a 45 Minute Yoga Sequence, Yoga with Melissa 178

Earlier Yoga Episodes, Intermediate Yoga Class

Yoga with Melissa 178 Cultural Conditioning Series: Money Can’t Buy Everything an Intermediate Yoga Class


: Cultural Conditioning is the social process in which authority figures such as parents, professors, politicians, religious leaders, peers, and the media define our cultural values, beliefs, ethical systems, and ultimately the way we perceive ourselves in the world. Today we are going to look critically at the way we worship at the altar of consumerism. In our culture we are told our consumer choices will solve all our problems. Buying the right cleaner will solve the environmental problems. Buying products with pink ribbons on them will cure breast cancer (forget that many of these products actually have carcinogens in them). Companies can throw together a “green campaign” and all in the name of buying their products.

Episode-178-of-Namaste-YogaIn truth many of today’s problems will not and cannot be solved at the level of consumerism. Consumerism has gotten us into many of the problems we are currently experiencing as a culture, we only need to look at consumer debt, foreclosures and mortgage defaults for evidence.

Money can’t buy us everything and we can’t consume our way out of every problem. In yoga there is a yama called aparigraha which means non-hoarding or take only what you need.

But I want to go even deeper than that in today’s class and go so far as to say, you can’t buy your way into being a yogi. You can buy an expensive yoga mat, fashionable yoga clothes and yoga books at yoga trade shows. You can pay for all the retreats and fancy yoga conferences you want, but unless you are coming to your yoga mat with regular frequency to practice your yoga, you are not going to experience the benefits of yoga. You cannot buy your way into being a yogi. The only way you can become a yogi is through the practice of yoga. It is called get your but in the asana. Sit in meditation. Get up every morning and practice.

I totally understand that we live in a pecuniary world where everything costs money. I understand that even in order for me to give away these free weekly yoga classes I have to run a business to support that with our membership site and paid videos. Hey, I have to pay for the roof over my head, the clothes on the backs of myself, Tim and Trinity and the food we put in our mouths. I have a heat bill, water bill and electric bill too.

What I am trying to say is that to find the path to inner peace through your pocket book is not going to work, even if you are buying yoga products and services. You do not need to accumulate a ton yoga products and services. Take only what you need to support your yoga practice. Is going to loads and loads of yoga workshops and retreats in the yoga community any different than showing off your fancy car and house in the larger culture? Do the external trappings matter or is it more important what we are cultivating on the inside? As we practice yoga we have the opportunity to focus on a journey that allows us to uncover our True Selves, our dharma (purpose) and in turn create positive change in the world.

Reflect on the ways that materialism show up within spiritual communities. Reflect on yoga as a practice as a verb rather than a noun. How does that change things? What is your intention for today’s practice?

Today I’m going to share some of the yoga poses I’ve had to practice the most and I’m still practicing.

Props Needed: Yoga Block, Strap

Yoga Asanas: supta padangusthasana/hand to big toe pose, cat & cow/Marjaryasana, 1/2 moon balancing from cat, modified side plank/Vasisthasana, lunge/anjaneyasana, parsvottanasana/standing forward folding triangle, triangle/trikonasana, 1/2 moon balancing/ardha chandrasana, downward facing dog/adho mukha svanasana, Camel/Ushtrasana, Childs/balasana, Sages Twist/Marichyasana I, Sages Forward Bend, Bhumisparsha Mudra

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Yoga with Melissa 99, Yoga of Emotions: Compassion

Earlier Yoga Episodes, Melissa's Blog Posts


Yoga with Melissa 99 is on compassion. This is the second in our series of hatha yoga classes on emotions. Our focus is on karuna – compassion. “True compassion is a communication of truth in loving kindness.” Peter Marchand, The Yoga of Nine Emotions. In this episode we will navigate the emotion of sadness to find the true compassion that recognizes that the suffering of others is also our own. We will begin our practice with Loving Kindness Meditation and a mudra to open our hearts. Those with the kapha dosha ayurvedic constitution are more prone to sadness and thus we will engage in a practice to bring fire and lightness to the heavy watery and earthy quality of kapha.

After our metta meditation we stay in our seated easy pose for some twists and heart openers followed by a mudra to open your heart to compassion. We then do some variations on gate pose to lengthen your spine and open your hips, followed by pigeon pose. From standing we do some sun salutations. We also practice peaceful warrior and breath of joy. Our hatha yoga class finishes with reclined bound angle pose to open your hips and your heart.

Yoga with Melissa 98 – Yoga of Emotions: Fear

Earlier Yoga Episodes, Melissa's Blog Posts


Yoga with Melissa 98 is on Fear. This is a new series of hatha yoga classes on emotions. Those with a vata dosha are more prone to fear, worry and anxiety so this asana practice is designed to improve apana vayu, the downward flow of energy to ground and calm agitation. This series is inspired by Peter Marchand’s book The Yoga of the Nine Emotions: The Tantric Practice of Rasa Sadhana.

This class begins with some teachings on fear. We then lie down and ground vata dosha with apanasana, bridge pose and locust pose. When we come up to kneeling we release emotional tension from our spine with cat pose and thread the needle. We come to our emotional center with pigeon pose. From standing we continue our grounding with tree pose, eagle pose and wide-legged standing forward fold. We then calm vata dosha with legs up a chair for more grounding energy. Our class rounds out with a seated twist and calming forward fold.

If you are looking to go further with this grounding, supportive energy I would encourage you to check out the classes for vata dosha in our membership community.

Our Yoga for Anxiety playlist is a great place to start with over 10 classes to connect you to grounding energy.

Link for members: http://www.drwest.ca/showthread.php?1686-Classes-for-Anxiety

Join our membership community today: https://www.melissawest.com/membership/membership-sign-up/

Yoga with Melissa 97 The Five Vayus: Vyana Vayu

Earlier Yoga Episodes, Melissa's Blog Posts

Yoga with Melissa 97 is on Vyana Vayu. This is the final hatha yoga class in our series of classes on the five vayus. This is the expansive aspect of life force energy. Once we cultivate energy internally through udana vayu, we can then begin to disperse it outwards like spokes on a wheel through vyana vayu. It is through vyana vayu that all things circulate through your mind and body. Vyana vayu is the network of 72, 000 energy lines or nadis throughout your body. It connects the functions of your nerves, veins, muscles, joints and circulate nutrients and energy .Vyana vayu moves from the center to the periphery. Hatha yoga and its endless yoga postures are fabulous for enhancing the flow of prana through vyana vayu and ultimately your circulatory system, lymph system, and nervous system. Through practicing hatha yoga we are able to remove the obstacles to the circulation of energy, and information through your mind and body.

We being this hatha yoga class with a reclined twist series and hand to big toe pose, followed by locust pose. We come to kneeling for some variations on balancing table pose. Then we do some side plank. When we come up to standing we do some breath of joy and half moon balancing pose. Then we finish with an integration of the five vayus in savasana.

Yoga with Melissa 96 – The Five Vayus Udana Vayu

Earlier Yoga Episodes, Melissa's Blog Posts

 Yoga with Melissa 96 is on Udana Vayu. This hatha yoga class continues our series on the five vayus with udana vayu. This is a more subtle prana of upward moving energy to express your truth, expand your awareness and raise your consciousness. This vayu is active primarily region between your heart and your heat drawing prana to your energy centers deep within your brain. When we cultivate this energy as we create a blissful consciousness of enlightenment by moving udana vayu up through the sushumna nadi.

We begin our hatha yoga practice by releasing your head, neck and shoulders with 10 tigers running through the forest and a dynamic shoulder release. Then we move into some bridge pose with some thymus tapping. We come into cat pose on your forearms to release your upper back, followed by thread the needle and dolphin pose. This class has lion’s breath, cow’s face arms, shoulder stand and fish pose. There is lots in here to prepare you to come into headstand if you have had instruction from a teacher in a yoga studio. We finish with a nice long savasana.

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