Dear Friend,

Think of a hard yoga pose and you might visualize a yogi standing on his head or twisting himself into a pretzel.

While a yoga routine may be difficult in this physical or external sense, there is also the internal challenge of quieting one's mind. For many, a calm mental state is even harder to achieve than the hardest gravity-defying poses.

From Our Blog: The Hardest Yoga Pose (You Already Practice!)

You may not know it, but you may have already practiced the hardest yoga pose there is: Shavasana, or corpse pose. The final pose of any yoga practice, Shavasana has you lying flat on your yoga mat with your eyes closed, looking like you are asleep.

It is called the hardest yoga pose, because in Shavasana you are meant to completely surrender all physical and mental effort. When you enter this pose, you may notice how much your body wants to hold onto little pockets of tension. Even more so, you may notice how much your mind wants to keep thinking about the details of your life, like what you should make for dinner.

A skilled yoga teacher should be able to lead you into a deep state of concentration that seamlessly flows from your asana series through verbal cues and visualization techniques.
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Giving Back: Yoga 4 Hope Charity

Dusky Leaf is among the sponsors of this year's Yoga 4 Hope, a charity event which aims to raise $15,000 to provide free breast cancer screenings for 100 women in Windsor, Ontario. This year's headliner is Sianna Sherman, the internationally-recognized Anusara Yoga teacher.

Contest Winners: Choose Your Favourite Colour

Not long ago, we asked you to help us choose the colours for this Fall's yoga mats. The response to the survey was astounding, and we'd like to thank all those who participated.

The results of the survey have been tabulated, and the winner is Olive Green! The runner ups (from most to least popular) were: Honeysuckle Pink, Burnt Orange, and Charcoal Grey.

Among survey participants, we picked two random winners for our yoga mat giveaway. One of the winners is Andreae Callanan — a poet, vegetable gardener, food writer, and mother of three from St. John's, NL. Andreae studies with Melanie Caines of Nova Yoga.

The second winner is Cecile Cristobal of Montreal, QC. Cecile is an actress, a Kripalu yoga teacher, a CranioSacral therapist, and a soon-to-be student nurse.

Well, the weather is still warm but Fall is fast approaching. Soon enough Canadians will be returning from their holidays. And when they do, they'll be getting back to their local yoga studios to renew their commitments and their practices.

Here at Dusky Leaf, we've got lots planned for the coming Fall season that I'm excited to share with you — but those details will have to wait for September's newsletter. Until then, I hope you enjoy the rest of this lovely month of August.