Yoga Workshop to Benefit Yoga Gives Back

Yoga Gives Back and CRS invite you to join us for an open-level flow yoga class and meditation with celebrated Ayurvedic Yoga teacher & YGB Ambassador Mariko Hirakawa.

Mariko brings fun and dance-inspired fluidity to the Vinyasa yoga practice, connecting alignment principles to the greater Life principles that help us to grow into our highest expression.

In this workshop, we will use the Vinyasa Yoga as a movement meditation that puts us in touch with our Soul’s Wisdom to guide us to our Purpose.

We will explore the use of mudras, meditation, visualization, and journaling as tools to invoke the Dreamer within and gain clarity on our Big Picture Vision.

When like-minded, growth-oriented people come together to share and support each other’s dreams, there is a powerful confluence of energy that can accelerate our dreams’ manifestation.

Join our tribe of  Visionary Yogis for this transformational experience!

For Visionary Yogis seeking to deepen their knowledge, create a life of balance, and channel that energy to create something magical with their lives…

100% of the proceeds go to the Yoga Gives Back NPO supporting mothers and children in India. YGB Founder Kayoko Mitsumatsu will present a short YGB Film illustrating how these benefit classes are improving the lives of many mothers and children in India. Sponsors include ZICO Coconut Water, LARABAR and more! Registration is $35 in advance and $45 at the door.

Mariko Hirakawa is an internationally known Yoga-Ayurveda Expert with over 20 years of teaching experience. A former professional dancer as well as an Ayurvedic physician trained in India, she is one of the very few in the West to have completed the rigorous 5 ½ year B.A.M.S. degree in India. Healer, yogini, and a performerwith multi-cultural background, Mariko is known for the quality and depth she brings to her work. http://www.ayurvedayogapractice.com

Mariko is a yoga instructor’s instructor. She’s the best one I’ve had. She’s passionate, precise, friendly, and very calming. In her class you feel energized and rejuvenated.

Yoga Gives Back is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness and funds in order to alleviate poverty in India. We started in Los Angeles in 2007, determined to find a way for the global yoga community to help the poorest people in the country that gave birth to YOGA. YGB partners with local NGOs NISHTHA in West Bengal and Deenbandhu Trust in Karnataka. In the last ten years, YGB has grown to fund over 1100 mothers and children with micro loan programs and education funds with a minimum of five-year commitment to each person. http://yogagivesback.org

I support Yoga Gives Back wholeheartedly because I have first-hand experience witnessing how hard the mothers in the lower class of Indian society work to support their families.

All in all, I have spent about 10 years living in various parts of India, and although I have had the privilege of being around great Yogis and Masters, scholars and wise beings, I truly feel the greatest lesson I received in India is from watching the sincere, cheerful, hard work that these people offer, day in and day out.

By connecting Yoga practitioners in the West with these deserving women of India, Yoga Gives Back creates awareness of the greater purpose of Yoga, of Yoga with a capital “Y,” Yoga that is generous and healing, compassionate and truly transformative – the Yoga that is the original gift of the enlightened rishis (sages) of India.

I firmly believe that spirituality must be grounded in the practicalities of the world today. Yoga Gives Back allows us to participate in the sacred activism that is grounded in Dharma. It transforms our practice into deep, universal prayer as we create positive socio-economic impact.

What an empowering feeling for everyone involved!  — Mariko Hirakawa