3/24/2010 - Yoga, A New Experience

Teacher Mary Ann D"Urso, assisted by yogi Emma Magenta, going vertical for her students.

I've studied yoga on and off for about 10 years, most of it off. Since last April, though, I found my way back. My teachers always talk about "the yoga" -- applying "the yoga" on and off the mat. The union of the self. The inner making room for the outer. Finding light in the dark of the body's resistance. Breathing into a kink and pulling out strength. Yesterday, my first yoga teacher, Emma Magenta, one of the best yoga teachers in the country and director of South Mountain Yoga in South Orange, volunteered and came to introduce my students to yoga.

Woven into a month celebrating women, our school designated some special programs about health and wellness. It was really something to see my students doing yoga. I am reminded always of the things that i forget in the middle of my day. That silence is difficult for my students. That laughter masks nervousness. That encouragement, again and again and again, is essential to all of us and some of us need more than others.

Emma was Emma: the essence of grace and yoga. Her clear instructions, walking my students through movement, helping them find their "warrior" selves, calling their "downward facing dogs," pushing them to stretch for the sun -- they breathed in this new language. With each coaxing, they found new openings. Me, too.

Mary Ann D'Urso

A Yoga Reflection

Yesterday we had an amazing day because we had a visitor Emma, a yoga instructor, who came to the school to show us how to do yoga. It was a wonderful experience for me because it was my first time trying yoga, and I actually like it now. It's a perfect way to relax your mind and body.

Even though some of the positions were painful and I wobbled, I kept on going because Emma said we are warriors, meaning you don't give up easy and if you fall, get up and keep going. I learned to close my eyes and think of something positive so my body and mind were at peace. I learned how to keep my body in balance and in the right position. I also learned that the more we try a position, the better we will be at it.

Like for example, Mary Ann, my teacher, now can go vertical (do head or handstand) because she has been practicing and practicing and now she is good at it. The cross legged position was easier because all we did was sit, cross our legs and say, "Ommmmmmmm, ommmmmmmm, ommmmmmmmm." The harder position I found was the upward (downward) dog position because my legs and arms kept on shaking and I felt like falling.

This was a great experience for me. I enjoyed it and I hope I could do yoga as a part of my daily life because it is a good way to be healthy and in shape.

Becky Rodriguez

Yoga Exercise

Tiffany Taylor

I enjoyed being in yoga class yesterday. The teacher Emma was great. I liked when we had to say "Om," to start relaxing. Yoga for me was relaxing when I stretched my arms in the air. Yoga is peaceful to the mind. I love the cross legged sitting -- it is comfortable. I like when I did the downward facing dog move, because it tightened up my arms and that's a good thing. I also enjoyed the quiet moment we had when I had to think about something good happening in my life. For me, I liked when I did the cobra move. Emma is excellent! She gave everybody good feedback while doing the yoga. I tried doing all the moves. It wasn't great, but I had fun.

When I was in yoga class, I learned that I did better when I had to do the different moves over again. This yoga was good for me because I don't exercise that much. I do a lot of walking. It is good for my legs. So when we did the leg stretch, it felt good, but I feel a little sore (today) because I loosened up my muscles. I would love to take yoga class again. I will be ready with wearing the proper clothes.


(Ed note: Tiffany was a warrior, despite doing yoga in jeans.)

March 17, 2010 - Edible English Visitors

Samantha Sylvestor

Wow! I haven’t caught you up on the Edible English life in a while. So for now this is what we have been doing for the past couple of weeks. Rovilky, Shannon and I interviewed a woman named Hillary-Cohen Freeman. She is a photographer and an Anusara yoga teacher, but she also is this wonderful philosopher. She had such great words of wisdom for all of us and something that she repeatedly said was that everything was a process. She was absolutely correct because nothing that any of us is going to do will come easily. All of us aren’t born with natural abilities to do anything. It all takes practice, practice and some more practice.

This past Wednesday, Dave Bergeland came in to teach the class about multimedia. Unfortunately, I was sick so I wasn’t able to attend. I did find out though that he is a video producer.

In class we have been listening to our audio from the Anna Quindlen and Hillary- Cohen Freeman interviews on Audacity. Since I have never worked with anything having to do with multimedia, I find that everything that we do is extremely educational. Audacity is this really neat program in which you import an audio track and then edit it to your liking. After importing and editing your tracks, you will have your own story based on another person’s story.

I like the fact that you can go get one track that is about 2 minutes and thirty seconds long and cut it down to about 15 seconds of what you think is important and what you want everybody to hear. Having only worked with Audacity for a couple of days now I do find that it can be frustrating sometimes. You have to be so detailed to every inch of the sound bite and if you delete just a little bit too much it could get a little bit annoying to go back and fix it. But in the end, being able to use the Edirols and programs like Audacity has giving me a whole new prospective on what multimedia jobs are like and I give the people who do it a lot of credit because it definitely take patience and work.

3/17/2010 - Our Special Guests

Becky Rodriguez

Wow it has been a while since I have posted a blog. Well, what can I say? I have been doing good and hope that all the people who have been interested in reading our blog have missed us.

Since our last amazing visitor Anna Quindlen, we had the opportunity to interview two more interesting people. Hillary Cohen Freeman, a yoga teacher and photographer, came to talk to us about her trips to different parts of the world like India with her mentor, Douglas Brooks. She also spoke to us about how and why she became a photographer and a yoga teacher. Hillary is an outgoing and down to earth person who believes that when you try and try, you will get what you want. She had really good quotes about life. One of my favorites was, “You are the point the universe wants to make.” I like this idea because I believe that everything depends on the person herself or himself and you have to show the best of yourself.

Dave, an audio and video producer, was a great person who showed us about Audacity because he is the best on that. He taught us different techniques and tricks to do the best audio story presentation in 2 minutes. You are probably asking yourself how can you tell a story in 2 minutes? Well, it’s possible and I learned that myself because I was thinking the same thing. I learned that you just edit the more important parts to tell the story. The 2-minute rule of thumb comes in because as the person telling the story you want your listener to get the full picture without them falling asleep or clicking to another site.

I learned so much from the people we have interviewed so far. It has been a pleasure to learn a little about their personal and professional lives. I never imagined at the beginning of term that it would be a pleasure to interview people. I thought it was going to be a lot of work and that maybe, people we interviewed would give us a hard time and not want to answer our questions. I thought maybe they would feel like they were above us. But instead, I am learning that they are just like us.

3/17/2010 - Visits by Hillary Cohen Freeman and David Bergeland

Shannon

In the last two weeks we have had two absolutely terrific people come to our Edible English/Multimedia class. Hillary Cohen Freeman, who is an excellent certified Anusara yoga teacher and a photographer, came on March 1. I have to say she is a free spirited, down to earth person. Hillary had a lot to say and kept my attention the whole interview. It was interesting to me to learn that through yoga and many trips to India, Hillary said she found spiritually who she was deep down inside. I enjoyed some of her quotes. For instance, “The most personal thing you can feel is ultimately shared by everyone” or “Opportunity is not easy. It is a challenge.” I went home and thought about my age and how maybe I should start to really look deep inside myself and find me, find who I really am.

The other incredible guest we had come to our class was David Bergeland. He is a superb journalist. David has worked for a lot of news paper and knows many notable tips to get things done efficiently when working with audio. He showed us how to make an hour long interview into an impressive 2-minute slideshow. We learned about lighting and where the best position for lighting the talent, and where the microphone show be when we are interviewing someone. I enjoyed all of the slideshows he put together and all the information about Audacity, the program about which he taught us some tricks and tips. Hopefully, when I do my final project I can go back in my notes and try to put a professional touch on my slide show. I am going to try to take some pictures with good lighting to make my presentation pop and see what I can accomplish with the tools I have learned.

I think the more experience my class gets with interviewing respected people, the more we will get comfortable with how we speak in public, how to interact with certain people and how to get great information out of people so that we get great and interesting material out of our own interviews.