2011-08-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

Our video channel on YouTube - YSSFYoga

Kirtan night with Pedro Franco and Clayton Horton
- during Ashtanga Yoga Teacher Training 2011

Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati Birthday Celebration 2011

Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati Mahasamadhi Ceremony 2010

Vedic Fire Ceremony Trailer

Kirtan October 2010

Kirtan October 2010

Shree Ram Jai Ram Kitchen Kirtan

Om Namo Amitabhaya Part 1

Om Namo Amitabhaya Part 2

Om Namah Shivaya

Navagraha

Yoga Instructors

2011-08-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

Anne-Sophie Leary
Anne-Sophie Leary holds a BA in Holistic Healing and Nutrition and is RYT 200 certified. Her roots are in vinyasa flow with a Forest yoga influence. Her intent in teaching yoga is to help people heal themselves by listening to their body, as this is what yoga has done for her. She seeks to inspire people through her love and passion of yoga by igniting power, heat and sweat, as well as fun, joy and lightness in her classes.

Brandy Skipton Harrington
Brandy has been practicing yoga for well over a decade. She has studied with many teachers and mentors around the globe. She was so inspired by the balance, beauty, and stillness of yoga that she left her corporate job in early 2009 to travel to India to deepen her yoga practice and get her yoga teacher certification. Brandy has been teaching yoga asana classes and sharing her practice ever since that transformative experience. Brandy’s Hatha classes are dynamic with a focus on building strength, flexibility, and balance while being mindful of the breath. You will sweat, you will be in the moment, at least for just a moment, and hopefully you will feel that bliss, THE bliss, which comes with a great asana practice.

Hari Harananda
Hariharananda Jorge Cal was drawn to the practice of yoga for health reasons. As a student of Yogiraj Swami Venkataraman S. Bua Ji, he learned the combined technique of conscious breathing and dynamic posture flow that characterizes his teaching style. In Swami Bua Ji's very traditional style, he also discovered a vital method of realizing and abiding in one's cosmic consciousness by means of guided visualizations during relaxation (yoga nidra) and meditation. It is his greatest desire to share the experience of abiding in that unified field of consciousness and wholeness with his students. As a result of his yoga practice, Hari has developed a deep and rich understanding of the holistic healing process. He practices as a certified massage therapist and Reiki master in San Francisco.

Julie
Julie fell in love with yoga after a candlelit class at BYS yoga in Pittsburgh, PA and has never looked back. Strongly rooted in vinyasa-based traditions, she completed her 200-hour teacher training through Greenpath Yoga in San Francisco. She now strives to bring yoga to people of all ages and backgrounds by concentrating on a restorative, gentle practice that is accessible to everyone. Outside of the studio, she teaches at Stanford University and in San Quentin prison.

Letitia
Letitia Bartlett began studying yoga and mime in 1971. For twenty years she worked primarily in the theater, mime and circus world before returning to serious yoga study at the Iyengar Institute in San Francisco in the early 90s. Letitia graduated from the Teacher Training Program at the Institute in 1996, and since then has made two trips to Pune, India to study with the Iyengars. Her yoga classes combine concentrated discipline with the spirit of curiosity and investigation. Letitia's dynamic approach is encouraging, challenging, and fun.

Lilla
Lilla teaches vinyasa style classes where she focuses on awareness, alignment and playfulness. In her classes you will flow through a well-balanced, creative pose-sequence that strengthens, stretches the body and mind to discover more flexibility, openness and freedom to move, to think, to feel and to breathe. Sharing her enthusiasm for yoga, Lilla has taught classes and workshops in Hungary, Guatemala and San Francisco. Besides teaching regular classes for adults and kids she has also brought yoga to the community of a non-profit organization, Camino Seguro that provides hope, education, and opportunities to the children and families living in extreme poverty around Guatemala City's garbage dump. After working as a psychologist and a yoga teacher for two years in Guatemala, Lilla now lives in San Francisco and offers yoga classes in the SF Bay Area.

Marcelo Carvalho, M.A.
Marcelo Carvalho began teaching yoga in 2001. His yoga classes include asana (poses,) pratyahara (internalizing the focus of the mind and the senses,) and pranayama (expansion of primordial energy - prana.) He emphasizes meditation, yoga psychology, and Self-knowledge as principle tools for personal transformation and healing. Marcelo studies Sanskrit with Dr. Ram Karan Sharma and the Yoga Society Sanskrit faculty. An active member of the Yoga Society of San Francisco, Marcelo is the Resident Manager, has been on the board of directors since 2000, and is elected President for the term beginning January 2011. Although he did not meet Shri Brahmananda during his lifetime, he has embraced him as his Guru.

Tarvo Nurmeots
Tarvo is from Estonia. He has lived in San Francisco for the past 5 years and currently he serves as the Ashram manager. He is a lifelong student of inquiry and self-development. He has background in many healing modalities and meditation techniques. His classes are a combination of guided meditations and focusing exercises for the mind. He values the impact that meditation and other mindfulness practices have on our day to day activities.

Guest Teachers

Briksha Mahendra
Briksha combines Hindu Yogic practices and Buddhist wisdom in his teaching. He has learned spiritual nutrition and healthy eating life style under the guidance of Dr. Gabriel Cousens and Dr. David Jubb. He has been working as rawfood chef over 7 years and teaching rawfood classes for last 5 years. He worked as a head chef in Tree of Life for a year. Briksha is a certified rebirthing breath-worker and yoga teacher. He has been teaching yoga, guided meditation, and stress management classes since 1992.

Clayton Horton, RYT
Clayton has been a student of yoga for over 20 years and began teaching in 1996. He is the director of Greenpath Yoga in San Francisco, CA. His practice is rooted in the Ashtanga tradition and Greenpath meditation. He is a student of Sri Pattabhi K. Jois and the Greensufi. Clayton is a founding board member of the Green Yoga Association and the Director of Teenpath Yoga for teens in San Francisco. He is a student of Sanskrit and on the Board of Directors at the Yoga Society of San Fransisco - Brahmananda Ashram. He received formal Authorization to teach Ashtanga Yoga from Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and his Grandson Sharat of the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute of Mysore, South India in 2003.

Pedro Franco
His studies came from various lineages and traditions icluding Sivananda, Satyananda, Krishanamacharya and Matsyendra - Goraksha Natha Lineage. Pedro also carries certifications in Pilates technical skills for rehabilitation, wellness and fitness. He has developed a practice that blends effective practical tools under a broad holistic perspective and a teaching style that adapts to all levels for maximum development of students inherent abilities. During the past ten years he has conducted Yoga certification Courses, Yoga and Pilates teacher training programs, intensive courses, workshops and Beneficial Kirtans for the World Child Foundation in Brazil, Europe, North America, India and Nepal.

Sasi
I have had a life long interest in the Eastern healing arts including yoga. The study and practice of this ancient art and science has, through the years, nourished and sustained me physically, mentally and spiritually. Teaching for 12 years has added another dimension to this experience in broadening my communication skills and providing me with the opportunity to share the knowledge that I have accumulated over the years. In my teaching, I constantly reiterate the importance of being fully grounded in their standing and seating as the foundation from which they move. Students are instructed to cultivate the practice from within by the unwavering awareness of the Â breath, and maintaining a full presence through concentration (dharana). From this stable foundation I emphasize alignment - creating theÂ path of least resistance for prana to flow through the body. I encourage them to find lightness in the heart center and flow from that awareness. Studying Sanskrit and Yoga philosophy with Dr Ram Karan Sharma for 3 years has nurtured and enlightened the spiritual insight of my practice. The opportunity to work, over the past 2 years, with Niroga Institute, a non-profit organization that seeks to foster health and well being through Transformative Life Skills for at risk and under served individuals, families and communities, has enhanced my ability to move and teach from a deeper place of compassion. My experience of traveling around the world and engaging people of different cultures and backgrounds has significantly broadened my perspective not only of the practice of yoga, but of life.

Gratitude for Yoga Society of San Francisco

2011-03-04T13:51:00.000-08:00

www.flickr.com

Yoga Society of San Francisco's Gratitude for YSSF photoset

Videos

2011-03-04T13:39:00.001-08:00

Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati Birthday Celebration 2001

Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati Mahasamadhi Ceremony 2010

Vedic Fire Ceremony Trailer

Kirtan October 2010

Kirtan October 2010

Shree Ram Jai Ram Kitchen Kirtan

Om Namo Amitabhaya Part 1

Om Namo Amitabhaya Part 2

Om Namah Shivaya

Navagraha

Click here for our calendar of events

2010-12-24T21:08:00.001-08:00

Brahmananda Mahasamadhi Ceremony 2010

Ongoing Programs

Watch here Vedic Fire Ceremony Movie Trailer

What is Yoga?

2010-12-24T21:05:00.000-08:00

From an Essay by Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati

One who uses the body and mind properly in time and space, with proper motive for the common welfare of humankind, is the yogi and practicing yoga, weather he or she knows it or not. There is no choice between using and not using the mind. There is only the choice between proper and improper use, between unselfish and selfish purpose. One who uses the mind to unite humanity’s heart, not only to create unity between East and West, but to experience that unity with all existence -- he or she is the yogi.

Yoga is the holistic way of life, where union and harmony of the body, the mind, and the soul or consciousness, “I-am,” are fundamental. Accordingly, yoga has many branches, including physical, mental and spiritual forms and disciplines. In fact, each of life’s activities is yoga when performed in a natural, harmonious way, attentively, to balance and unite the body, mind and spirit.

What is the difference between science and yoga? Science deals with objective reality, while yoga begins with subjective reality and ends in transcendental reality. Science is involved with all types of discoveries and inventions, while yoga is interested mainly in the discovery of the discoverer, that is to say, the discovery of pure awareness, pure consciousness... the absolute “I-Am.” When you have the Self, pure consciousness, pure awareness, then you know the whole universe, objective and subjective, the past, present and future, because you are beyond time and space.

Now our old ways of living are dying, and humanity is searching for the new way. We have the choice between death and life. If we prefer to die, then we do not have to do anything. If we prefer to live, then we have to change our hearts completely from disunity and disharmony to unity and harmony. This transformation is the work of yoga.

Vedic Fire Ceremony Trailer

2010-12-05T18:26:00.001-08:00

Kirtan at Cosmic Temple

2010-10-22T15:46:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

Kitchen Kirtan Part I

2010-10-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

Kitchen Kirtan Part II

2010-10-20T15:37:00.000-07:00

Shree Ram Jai Ram

2010-10-19T15:52:00.000-07:00

OM Namah Shivaia

2010-10-18T13:59:00.000-07:00

Early Morning Breakfast in the Making

2010-10-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

Music Practicing 1 -- Durga Ji

2010-10-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

Om Namaha Shivaya at the Temple

2010-10-08T16:06:00.000-07:00

Navagraha Stotram

2010-10-06T08:28:00.000-07:00

Harmonium Lesson

2010-10-05T08:46:00.000-07:00