Yoga Tune-Up® Series: Fitness Therapy for all Bodies

This series welcomes all bodies that move and work out to the Yoga Tune Up® format of full body awakening. Yoga Tune Up® is a fitness therapy format that helps eradicate pain, improve posture and enhance performance through a blending of the worlds of yoga movement, mindfulness, meditation and self-massage. Each 75-minute class will help participants better understand their body’s movement, leading to more efficient workouts and faster workout recovery. No yoga experience is necessary!

April 22: Diaphragm dynamics: your bridge to total body awakening from your core

April 29: Length, strength and suppleness in your upper body: neck, shoulders, wrists, and hands with movement + breath + massage

May 6: Length, strength and suppleness in your lower body: pelvis, knees, and feet

May 13: Total body care self-massage session from head to toe with restorative movement designed for reset and renewal

Drop in to single sessions: $15 / Sign up for the whole 4-week series: $50

Sign up here.

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We interviewed instructor Diana Duncan about her practice, and specifically, Yoga Tune Up®!

MBS: What initially drew you to practice and then teach yoga?

DD: I have been interested in movement and how my body works for as long as I can remember. In my teens I studied ballet and looking back I realize I must have been quite eager because my family could not afford those classes so I instigated a work exchange where I cleaned the dance studio so I could keep going to classes. At a certain point it was clear I had little talent for ballet but I still loved to move and found yoga. Luckily, I discovered there was an ashram that was within driving distance from New York City that was like a refuge. I recall marveling about how much better my mind and mood felt after each practice. I was fascinated with all aspects of yoga even little things like how my hands know just exactly how to find my feet behind my body in dancer pose.  After a few years of yoga, I decided to study massage therapy and pilates. My pattern of educating myself on movement and its role in our health still continues.

MBS: How did this class come into existence?

DD: The format of the class is called Yoga Tune Up® which is a “conscious fitness” style of yoga and self care.  This format is the co-creation of Jill Miller, a world-renowned expert in therapeutic yoga, movement and the human body, and her partner Robert Faust.  Yoga Tune Up® aspires to fill a need within the yoga community to offer practical, relevant, and productive movement programs for the modern human body.

The movements we share in these Yoga Tune Up® classes will break down and reassemble yoga asana and its most complex poses so that the intrinsic physiological benefits of a yoga practice are enjoyable, accessible, and productive. It is my intention to help students transcend those benefits out of the yoga space and into feeling better in daily life. How we move our bodies day to day impacts what we experience in the yoga room and the work we practice in the yoga room can help us outside the yoga space when we take the time to attune to addressing our unconscious habits, tensions, and imbalances.

For example, a lot of time spent behind the wheel of a car or riding a bicycle can strain the tissues of our hands, forearms, hips and shoulders. Often the result is a cascade of events in the body like suboptimal breathing, loss of range of motion in the neck, or a lower back that cannot reflexively handle loads well.  A Yoga Tune Up® class interweaves the nuts and bolts of functional human movement through a yogic lens of awareness, so practitioners address real life ways to support and fortify the body for a lifetime.

MBS: What advice do you have for people new to yoga?

DD: You don’t have to be flexible, in shape, or look a certain way to practice. The moment you begin to offer your body something new is the moment you begin to create positive change. My intention is to help all students feel welcome in the room with the most important person there, THEIR OWN SELF. Being comfortable in our own skin, and feeling safe, secure, and confident is paramount for learning and embodying new things.

MBS: What can people expect after the class or series is over?

DD: This class is for all levels of experience, beginner to advanced. I think there is much to learn about yourself when you make the conscious choice to look within and consistently monitor your mindset so as to understand your own process. It is my intention to help students become more attuned to their body’s needs and begin to learn that they have the agency not only to sense their own body’s needs but also address them as they arise, to best of their ability.