Public Classes
Monday Yoga with Yoko
livestream only via Zoom.
Contact Yoko directly: yogayoko@gmail.com
First class free!
Monday Yoga at the North Berkeley Senior Center
1901 Hearst Avenue, Berkeley
yokoyoga.com
livestream and socially distanced
in-person at the studio
Mondays 10–11:30 a.m.
Classes at Nest Yoga
3976 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland
nest-yoga.com
livestream and socially distanced
in-person at the studio
Sundays 10–11:30 a.m.
Wednesdays 12–1:30 p.m.
Yoko’s classes run the gamut.
Sometimes she asks the students whether they have a pose they'd like to work on, or a part of the body that is aching and needs some TLC. She folds all the requests in to the mix and comes up with something on-the-spot new. Sometimes she reads a poem or discusses a concept from The Yoga Sutra; sometimes the class begins with restorative posture for slower, deeper breaths and relaxed awareness. Sometimes the class is fiery from the get-go and she directs the class with great passion.
There are certain elements that are always true: we are working toward symmetry, alignment, integrity. Strength. Note that the word "flexibility" is missing. You will become more flexible, but not by over-stretching or straining ligaments and tendons. After thirty years of Yoga, Yoko is interested in longevity. In a happy, vital body with responsive muscles and well-oiled joints.
Yoko teaches classes that draw mainly on the yoga tradition of B.K.S. Iyengar. Beginning with fundamental postures and movements, the class builds to more complex and demanding ones, warming up and working with the body through careful sequencing. We use props like blocks, blankets, a strap and a bolster. It helps to have access to a wall.
A Student Comment
I have been practicing yoga for over 30 years, ever since I broke a vertebra in a car accident in my late teens. Over these years, I've had many teachers, but none like Yoko. Yoko brings decades of study and teaching experience to her asana instruction. Her training runs deep and is plainly manifest when you work with her. The sequences she creates for each class feel coherent, deep, and whole. Yoko is also incredibly adept at communicating instruction around each asana. As you experience each pose, she provides insightful directions and points out things you may be noticing in your body with specificity and utmost care. I have found these instructions to be revelatory — poses I thought I knew became clarified and deepened. As you practice with Yoko over time, you realize that you are learning not just about asanas and your body's relationship to them, but also about the sequence of poses that flow well together, so that you are able to bring that knowledge into your own practice, if you wish.
I practice yoga because I believe that a yoga practice can bring many benefits — to body, mind, and spirit. I believe that different people likely need different things from a yoga practice — or the same person may need different things from their yoga practice over the course of their lives. One of the things that makes Yoko so special as a teacher is the close attention she pays to what is happening in her students' bodies as they practice — she treats each person as a unique being, with unique things they are bringing to and seeking from their practice. I have had the pleasure of learning from Yoko for over 12 years, and during this time I myself have needed, and sought, different things from my yoga practice, due to injury or just my body's changes over time. Yoko's teaching supports these ongoing changes completely, and makes me feel as though I'll be able to have a lifelong practice.
— Ari