TEACHERS: Union Square Yoga Founder DANIELLE ABISAAB and UK based Yoga teacher extraordinaire DEE EL NAJJAR
DATE: Saturday August 6
TIME: 6:00 pm > 8:30 pm
LOCATION: Station Beirut
REGISTER: maysan.marouf@gmail.com
*** BRING YOUR OWN MAT POR FAVOR
Yoga is a balancing act of the sun and moon energies in the body, mind and heart …A dance between the masculine and the feminine. The masculine energy, referred to as prana, embodied through the muscular engagement in the body. The feminine energy, referred to as apana, favouring relaxation into our joints.
This workshop’s central theme is about experiencing wholeness through two very distinct sequences. Through heating and cooling the body, you will train your mind to harness the masculine properties of action and intent as you move into a pose, then learn the art of sinking gracefully into a deeper stretch as you hold the asana in contemplation of the feminine qualities of surrender and acceptance.
Union Square Yoga pop up workshop at Station Sin El Fil, is a double whammy endeavor brought to you by Danielle Abisaab and Dee El Najjar, and will go down on Saturday Aug 6, from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm
Program will comprise a rich, fun and fiery sequence as the sun dips into the night, followed by a cooling down sequence as the moon rises up in the starlit skies
Expect a fun and playful sequence, giving you plenty of time to play with accessible arm balances and inversions as well as a long sweet cooling sequence to ground and connect you.
All living beings including humans have a common vibration frequency with the universe, and when we move our bodies and invoke deep breaths to the rhythm of nature, we are actually aligning our energy and tuning into the infinite power of the universe.
Fun, depth and newfound wisdom guaranteed.
Plan to hang out with us after class for music grooves and drinks (Yes! Of the alcoholic nature)
DANIELLE ABISAAB BIO
Danielle Abisaab is a 500 hours Registered Yoga Teacher. She completed her Yoga Teacher training with ISHTA NYC in 2003. She holds a certificate to teach Unnata Aerial Yoga since 2012 and has followed a restorative aerial yoga course with Anti-Gravity Yoga in 2012.
She is the founder of the funky Union Square Yoga in Beirut Lebanon, where she has been living since 2005. Her many years lived in NY working as an architect, have informed her personal life and yoga practice with depth and tremendous amounts of yoga knowledge. Constantly seeking ways to improve her teaching skills, she travels regularly back to NYC to study with some of the most influential teachers in the US and has accumulated over 300 hours in continuing education over the course of the past 10 years.
Switching back and forth between her hardhat and her yoga leggings has allowed her to harness a full understanding of the concept of space. The Yoga platform allows her to help people refurbish their inner space and the Architecture background allows her to design external spaces with positive energy and kindness in mind.
Currently living in a challenging part of the world, she draws teachings from her everyday life as a way to keep growing spiritually. She strongly believes we are all teachers, we are all students, we are all one and feels consistently grateful to her students for being a great source of inspiration, they make the expansion of her spirit possible; they are her gurus. Her classes, whether Vinyasa Pop and Rock, Vinyasa Honey flow or Aerial Yoga, are infused with spirituality, laughter, fun and music.
Aside from running her own studio in Beirut city and teaching a number of yoga classes, her most important endeavor has been teaching yoga to Syrian Refugee kids in Lebanon. She is the creator of an artistic exchange program, which brings yoga, music and arts to these kids, providing them with an opportunity to heal and integrate the magic of oneness through creative expression.
Danielle’s wildest dream and hope is for every human on this planet to discover the magic of yoga one day and remember that they are whole.
DEE EL NAJJAR BIO
In 2006, I suffered a debilitating knee and shoulder injury caused by years of ice climbing and mountaineering. After a whole year of physiotherapy culminating in traditional medicine’s advise to operate, I decided to take matters into my own hand and opted to change my life instead of going under the knife.
I started to practice Sivananda yoga a few times a week, and soon after, I fell under its therapeutic spell. I didn’t understand the spiritual side of yoga at the time, but I felt a bizarrely mystic power; which drew me to this ancient practice and I gradually immersed myself in its many schools. I practiced Ashtanga, Hatha and Yin yoga, Pranayama and meditation.
Eventually, my mat became my haven, my friend, and my safe place away from life’s chaos, not to mention the fact that my body was as good as new and my injuries were completely cured. But it was in this repetitive pattern of stillness and goodness that I started seeing more clearly, I start breathing more freely, and I learned to dedicate time for nurturing myself…This sense of peace and commitment carried through into other parts of my life and saw me through both joyous moments and dark times. Yoga gave me the fortitude and awareness to feel more empowered and less afraid and so in 2011 I decided to start my yoga teacher training journey with a trip to India. I travelled to Bangalore and met incredible yogis, and on my quest to get closer to the source of this intense spiritual practise, I discovered that the source was in fact ME!… I realized that there is no Yoga of the East or of the West, there is only One common experience: “A greater connection with yourself through a constant integration of body and mind”…After many long years of practice, I finally felt Yoga…
So I returned to the UK and embarked on an intensive teacher training program with the British Wheel of Yoga. The BWY is an alignment based school, focused on teaching the tradition’s philosophy with integrity and delving into the practise of Asana from an anatomical view point as well as a focus on alignment.
I will be an everlasting student and will continue to learn about myself and about Yoga every single day.
My wish is to share a mat with as many people as I can because I hope that when we go deep into our physical body and experience what wonders it is capable of, we go deeper into our mind and start seeing wonders in everything around us. We collectively spread the Yoga Love and create a wavelength of peace which will resonate deep within each and every one of us.