Woodbury Yoga Center Offers Ways to Ease Into Your New Year's Resolution

If your New Year’s resolution was to get in better shape then one place you could start is Woodbury Yoga Center.  

At the center you can sign the kids up, choose a class for yourself, or just start by visiting for a free Sunday evening program and learn more about meditation, relaxation, yoga and tai chi.

Yoga teacher Joann Livolsi said, “Yoga is great in every form, but this is a real yoga center. It is a place that is soaked in spiritual goodness. Going to the gym for a yoga class is equally important, but it’s not quite the same as this spiritual center.”

Yoga, she said, encompasses a whole philosophy that covers posture, moral code, breathing, a focus on tension, self seeking knowledge, meditation [sitting in silence], and “end of the game” or leaving the body.

“Everyone at the yoga center is well versed and would be glad to talk about this,” Livolsi added. The Center offers chair yoga, children’s yoga, core strengthening yoga, Vinyasa slow flow, a Foundations of Meditation course, and Ayurvedic Medicine: Practical Applications to Contemporary Health Issues. Tai Chi and Chi Gong are new offerings.

Chi Gong helps one gather and increase energy. Tai Chi is a series of postures that improve balance, alignment and concentration. In addition to a range of classes and workshops, the Center has a small bookstore and a lending library.

“I came to yoga as a teen, going through the pangs of life,” Livolsi said. “And I discovered it was a very beautiful and peaceful way to live my life.”

Livolsi is the mother of three children, and although none of them practice yoga postures, she says they all understand that what we send out in life comes back. “You want to forgive as you want to be forgiving,” she said. ”You should offer exactly to others what you want offered to you.”

Livolsi, in addition to teaching yoga for the past 20 years, is an organic farmer [The Gardens] in Southbury and an estate gardener, a lifestyle that she finds compatible with her yoga practice.

You can join a yoga class at just about any level of exercise. Unlike an aerobics class, where a newcomer might find they have to sit out and catch a breath, yoga allows each person to put as much as they want, or can, into each position. The focus in each class, according to the Center’s brochure, is on toning muscles, limbering joints, releasing tension, and centering body and mind.

The Woodbury Yoga Center also offers a free Sunday night program that includes chanting and meditation, and an offering for world peace followed by tea. This can be a gentle introduction to what the Center offers.

This Sunday, Jan. 23, the program is “Out of the Deep – Relaxation/Overcoming Physical and Mental Resistance”. Upcoming programs include Jan. 30,“Owning Our Journey and Allowing Others Their Path,” Feb. 6, “As Is, Accepting ourselves,” and Feb. 13, “Inspiration from Ancient Yoga and Ayuverdic Practices in India.”

Woodbury Yoga Center is a non-profit organization started 25 years ago by Janaki Pierson. Some teachers are also on the governing board, and volunteers help to keep the organization running.

Most classes are held in Meditation Hall, 122 West Side Road, Woodbury. A satellite location is Oakville’s Union Congregational Church, 161 Buckingham Street.