Working out with a friend

Archie, personal trainer and Boot Camp Hour instructor at Ayuh Yoga, sent us this great article about the amazing results you get with supervised workouts. Even the most fit of us reach our goals much easier when we are working out with a friend or an instructor. While we think that we can get the same benefits from doing something at home with a DVD, studies show that you get much better results when you are with a trained professional. Enjoy!

Consultations and Private Sessions

We understand that if you are new, you may feel especially intimidated coming into a yoga studio for the first time: What do you do if you need a break? Where do you put your shoes? And if you are like me, wondering if anyone is looking at your toes in need of a pedicure. At Ayuh Yoga, we offer consultations and private sessions where you can have your questions answered and get some yoga experience before entering the room for the first time.

If you are new to yoga, you have the option of "trading in" your Ayuh Yoga Full Membership that first month in exchange for three (3) private sessions with a yoga instructor. You will understand yoga etiquette, how postures should look and feel, and remove that worry about your toes!

Here is some more information about consultations and private sessions:

* We can schedule a consultation with our personal trainers, yoga instructors, and/or Pilates instructor.
* If you are new to personal training, yoga or Pilates, consultations give you the opportunity to discuss your health and fitness goals and hear suggestions to make those goals a reality.
* Consultations allow you to get to know the instructors better and remove some of the intimidation you may feel when starting here. If you already feel comfortable here, consultations allow you to check-in.
* During your consultation, you may hear a number of offerings that are available at Ayuh Yoga including one-on-one sessions for yoga, Pilates, and fitness. These sessions are private and may be best suited for new students, people with specific needs related to most anything including pregnancy and post-natal, weight or joint issues. These sessions also allow the instructors to direct their full attention to you--correcting alignment and tailoring the program specifically to your needs, including schedule.

Here at Ayuh Yoga, we are most concerned with your health and want to make sure you are getting the most out of your yoga practice.



See you soon!

Ayuh Yoga

The End of Summer is Near

Often times, we only think about our health in terms of looking good. So if it isn't swimsuit season, we forget that being healthy is a long term, lifestyle change that works best if you're consistent. With the summer coming to an end in the next month, be sure to stay healthy mentally and physically. See you soon!

New Pics

Hey everyone! We just wanted to share a few pictures that our friend over at iamtimbang.com took. Thanks Michael!

FAQ: To membership or not to membership

We get a lot of feedback and we always ask for feedback (feel free to give us some!) and one of the top topics of feedback is about pricing and memberships. We would like to share some things with you that go on in our thinking process in developing Ayuh Yoga that may be helpful for you in general as well as in the topic of memberships.

(1) I already have a membership at a gym and I can't afford another membership somewhere else.

That's great! We think that there are many ways to get healthy and well. But there is a major difference between yoga, wellness and fitness in a franchised location that is huge, loud and un-focused as opposed to a place that specializes in one thing, as in our case being functional training. At a huge franchise location, the instructors are not required to have certain certifications or experience teaching yoga and we believe this is critical in expanding your practice; you really want the instructors to know what they are talking about when it comes to yoga. While we are a business, we really are most concerned with your well-being so even our personal trainers are focused on your health, not their wallets. A membership structure allows us to do that.

We know that doesn't alleviate your double membership dilemma, but we are more than happy to have a discussion about what package/pricing/discount best suits your needs.

(2) It's too expensive. I just can't afford something like that right now.

We understand this too. But you have to be willing to pay to help yourself. Ask if you are worth the expense. And then ask how much money you will save by getting well and/or staying well now versus getting sick in the future.

And more importantly, we are the cheapest in the area, if not the state, for what we offer. While some studios may offer a cheaper price for a similar package for a short time, this doesn't last for long and the price soon sky rockets. And, unlike other studios, we offer so many different types of yoga, fitness, personal training and eventually massage.

(3) I don't want to commit to something for six months.

Sometimes committing to something can be difficult especially if you tried doing that before and it didn't work out. You may have seen money go down the drain. This is why we always offer a trial membership (10 days for $20). We've noticed that during the trial membership period, people come all the time, sometimes a few times a day. And they really enjoy themselves! In their minds, they are thinking "I really need to get my twenty dollars worth to take advantage of this great bargain!" But the same logic should be applied to the full membership because it's a bargain too: "Let me make sure that I go and take advantage of that great price!" If you came everyday, that would be a bit over $3/day! Certainly well-worth the commitment.

On the business-side, it would be difficult for us to do all that we do for the price we'd like to offer it to you if we didn't have a guaranteed stream of income. If we did decide to have class packs or non-commitment prices, they would be considerably more expensive--unfortunately--to account for the potential lack of funds one month. I'm sure if your boss told you that you might not be paid next month and if you were, she didn't know how much she would pay you, you would ask for quite a bit of money that month you were paid. And we really don't want to have to do that.

(4) I just want to take classes. I don't want to do all that other stuff.

And finally, we believe that true health and wellness comes from a variety of sources including yoga and fitness, mental wellness (as in massage and yoga), personal training and nutrition. You find people who are healthy-looking, but extremely stressed out. Or people who have joined numerous weight-loss fads but don't know why they continue to put the weight back on. Or people who can lift heavy weights but have lots of internal illness. Most things that are offered out there are missing an important element. That's why you may see Bob and Jillian helping their clients overcome a fear or have a good crying session with them or take a yoga class led by Bob after a tough work-out--everything goes together in making you well. It wouldn't be real of us to say that you can just take yoga classes and eat all the fast-food you wanted and be healthy. There is a reason why elite athletes have tons of trainers, coaches, nutritionists, and counselors working with them. And we believe you're an elite athlete just waiting to come out!

Remember, you can always send feedback/questions/comments to info [at] ayuhyoga.com

Tai Chi workshops

We often times get requests for classes and Tai Chi is certainly on the top of that list. But we would like to make sure people will attend Tai Chi here, therefore these first six classes are workshops and by donation only. If you like it, please try to attend and we may put it on the schedule.

Here is the announcement:

Join Royce Shima for a Tai Chi workshop especially for beginners!

Derived from the martial arts, Tai Chi is composed of slow, deliberate movements, a moving meditative exercise which uses deep breathing for relaxation, physical health and emotional well-being. Originally, from China, Tai Chi has gained enormous popularity in America throughout the rest of the world for its health benefits.

Tai Chi community classes are by donation only on Thursdays from 5:30pm to 6:30pm beginning June 17 to July 29.

Grand Opening!!

We are finally open!! We had a fabulous Grand Opening celebration on May 15th that included city council members, the Union City Chamber of Commerce, and lots of family, friends and new clients! We were especially happy to include demo classes where people could get a taste of what we do in the studio. While we haven't completed all of the construction as yet (the showers are almost done!) we were still able to open and start offering classes. This studio has been a dream of Brian's for quite some time so it was great to see all the hard-work and training finally pay-off.

America Faces the Worst Health Epidemic of Modern Times:

Obesity, Heart Disease, and Diabetes runs rampant throughout all groups in society. Alternative health care is the only way away from the overuse of costly prescription medication and the scalpel back into connection with nature.

Our current health care system and mainstream medicine are causing far more problems than they can solve. Mainstream medicine is more and more beginning to work with alternative health care providers to find solutions without the harmful side effects and hidden agendas of prescription drugs and surgeries to reduce excess health care costs. Today nearly every other commercial is a drug commercial with the huge list of possibly lethal and/or severe side effects. Even the mild side effects such as headache or heartburn lead the consumer to take other over the counter medications or additional prescriptions that lead to more side effects which require more treatment. For each medical “cure,” there are generally a list of at least 4 side effects that require another drug, and 4 for each of those. The list of problems becomes endless as we enter the mainstream medical system, and who benefits from this? In the end we all suffer because of abusive medical practices. The pursuit of happiness in America is a failed dream without proper health. We need healthy choices that lead to peace of mind and body so we can work most efficiently, take care of our family and society. One cannot expect people to be good to each other if we cannot be good to ourselves.