Class Descriptions:

At East Meets West Yoga Center, we offer a variety of yoga styles such as Hatha, Vinyasa, Kundalini, Prenatal, Gentle Yoga, Teen, and Kids Yoga. We also offer Community classes on Friday evening at 6:00 PM which help support different charities.

Community Yoga - This class is by DONATION. This Friday Night Yoga practice is led by Heather Rainey. Heather Rainey is finishing a degree at George Mason University where she is studying Meditative Healing Arts. She guides students through a powerful practice that focuses on breath and flow.

Gentle Yoga - This is a very gentle practice, perfect for seniors (ages 60+) and individuals who are healing from an injury or are just starting to practice yoga. This class honors the body with gentle postures, breathing, and deep relaxation. All levels are welcome.

Hatha Beginner Level - Beginner Hatha teaches students to enjoy learning about themselves through yoga. Our instructors strives to cater to individual needs, always showing students many pose variations and encouraging them to go at their own pace, avoid injury, and have fun. While beginners are encouraged for this class, the Beginner Level class also caters to long-term Level 1 students, and students who want to brush up on basics. Students in the class will obtain foundational knowledge of breath awareness and control, sun salutation, and proper alignment in many standing, seated, and reclining poses.

Hatha Yoga Mixed Level - Mixed Level Hatha class invites those of all levels to encourage, invigorate, and challenge one another through a dynamic practice. Improve strength and flexibility at your own pace while breathing energy into each movement.

Lil Karma Kids (Ages 3-5) - This class encourages younger children to experience yoga. Using yoga postures in games, stories, adventures, and songs, children improve motor skills, flexibility, balance, strength, concentration and self esteem while having fun. Children will also be introduced to relaxation and breathing techniques. All children must be potty trained. Come and have your child discover that yoga is fun!

Karma Kids (ages 6-11) - This class is designed to help children build strength and flexibility, concentration and focus, compassion and self esteem through the playful practice of yoga postures. Kids will have fun as they improve their posture, motor coordination and balance. Yoga poses will help children cope with the conflicts and stress of a very hectic world. A child who learns yoga will develop skills that will last a lifetime. Come and have your child learn about the joy of yoga!

Kundalini Yoga - Often times called the Yoga of Awareness. The primary goal is to awaken kundalini energy, the psychoenergetic force that leads to spiritual elevation, and kick-starts the process of transformation. Classes feature asana, pranayama and meditation designed to create a specific outcome. Expect to encounter challenging breathwork, including what is known as Breath of Fire, mini meditations, mantras, mudras (sealing gestures) and vigorous movement-oriented postures, sometimes repeated for minutes. Be prepared to push yourself to your limit, and beyond!

Ocean Hatha Yoga - Ocean Hatha is yoga with a focus on maintaining Max Strom's "ocean breath" while sustaining the physical postures in an effort to heal the heart and calm the mind. This class is open to all levels of practice.

Power Hour Vinyasa - This class focuses on core postures, deepening the student's knowledge of alignment, physical conditioning and breath. This practice will also include in-depth detail of advanced aspects of poses, longer holds, and eventually moving into headstand, advanced arm balances, backbends, and other surprises! Get your sweat on in this class!

Prenatal Yoga - The prenatal class is designed to meet the needs of pregnancy and motherhood. Strengthen and relax your body, ease your mind and connect with your baby in a safe and supportive environment. Prepare for labor by maintaining flexibility in the muscles, as well as building strength to ensure an easier labor and post-partum recovery. And, perhaps most importantly, feel inspired and nourished in a community of women sharing motherhood.

Prana Vinyasa Flow - Prana Flow™ is a creative, challenging, energetic vinyasa practice created by Shiva Rea and the Global Vinyasa Collective of Teachers. Utilizing classical and innovative creative fluid sequences, students are empowered to create and embrace prana - life-energy, breath - then use this wave of breath to navigate the practice of yoga. Practitioners learn classical and innovative approaches to vinyasa yoga and the state of flow drawn from Krishnamacharya's teachings, Tantra, Ayurveda, Bhakti, Somatics and Shiva's teaching experience from the last fifteen years.

Qigong/Tai Chi - Qigong means 'to cultivate Qi'. Qi is the Chinese word for life-force, or energy. Qigong is one of the simplest and most profound mind/body/spirit practices around. And it's been here for five thousand years. Qigong, similar to tai chi, is an ancient mind/body practice that combines simple, flowing movement with breathing and mind focus. It is easy to learn, adaptable to everyone - and a powerful, meditative self healing practice.

Teen Yoga - (Ages 12 - 16) The teenage years are an in-between time that is heaped in change. Yoga offers teens a way to find a stable ground as well as acceptance of these life changes. This class empowers the individual, strengthens the body, flexes the imagination, and adds a spark of creativity. Teens establish a meditation practice that relaxes as well as stimulates the mind to be taken into young adulthood.

Slow Flow Vinyasa - This class is practiced at a slower pace than regular Vinyasa style classes. This class allows students to breathe more deeply and increase flexibility, strength and stamina and is ideal for Beginners. Students will experience an eclectic blend of postures designed to allow them to feel challenged, but also safe. The class expands on sun salutations, building heat in flowing asana sequences and finishing with a restorative deep relaxation. "Listen to your body" is the mantra of this class.

Vinyasa - Vinyasa is a vigorous, physically challenging and heating style of yoga. Postures are linked together in flowing sequences connected by the breath to create a practice of continuous movement. Recommended for students with some yoga experience who can move through a Sun Salutation repeatedly and who are free of significant injury. Some classes will practice Inversions. We do not recommend Beginners to yoga to attend a Vinyasa class until you have completed several VINYASA BASICS classes.

Vinyasa Basics - Are you a new student to yoga? A Beginner wondering what class you should take? Are you a student who is trying to figure out the practice of Vinyasa Yoga? This is the class for you if you need and/or want to learn the basic postures and flows, or even refine your existing practice. This class is recommended before you attend any of our Vinyasa classes on the schedule.

Yinyasa - Yinyasa is a balanced yoga practice that blends dynamic Vinyasa flow with calming Yin postures. This well-rounded class combines an invigorating sequence of sun salutations and standing poses with the restorative and relaxing asanas of Yin yoga. Class will begin with meditative yin practice, where postures are held for several minutes benefiting the health and mobility of joints and connective tissues, then lead into a invigorating vinyasa flow practice.

Dharma Yoga - A challenging and physically absorbing vinyasa series created by Sri Dharma Mittra. It reintegrates the flow of prana through the spinal column and emanates deep into all areas of the physical, metabolic, intuitive, and bliss bodies. It promotes harmony within all these layers so a concentrated state of radiant health is achieved. The highest crowning meditative asanas, pranayama (breathing techniques), and yoga nidra (psychic sleep), which are embedded in the deep roots of Dharma Mittra's teachings, are imparted to the student.