Yoga at CityROCK

Why Yoga at a Climbing Gym?

Yoga and climbing are very synergistic. Climbing requires core strength, balance, breathing and focus, all skills that Yoga helps with tremendously. So many climbers do Yoga. For an interesting article on the benefits to climbers of doing Yoga, read the recent SA Mountain Magazine article entitled Yoga for Climbing.

We of course welcome non-climbers to participate in our Yoga classes.

Beginners and Non-climbers welcome at all our Classes!

We have become a small but popular Yoga Studio in Observatory so many non-climbers do Yoga with us as well. Beginners are welcome at all our classes. Just introduce yourself to the teacher and let them know it’s your first time (typically they will have figured it out already if they don’t recognize you).

Schedule

Below is our March 2010 Yoga schedule.

No booking required

Note that we no longer require you to book - we now have a system of first-come, first-serve. Please also check in at the front desk before walking upstairs to the Yoga room.

Pricing structure:

Day rate – R75 per class
Debit  order – R230 per month for unlimited classes.
Annual memberships – R2300 for unlimited classes.

No booking required.
Click here for more details about our prices.

About our instructors:

Carla Gersie

Carla writes: I started practicing Hatha & Iyengar Yoga 10 years ago, and have always been drawn by the way it combines physical exercise (sometimes very demanding!) and the more subtle aspects of consciousness, stillness and concentration.
While traveling overseas, I started started going to Power Yoga classes, and there discovered my passion for Vinyasa based styles of Yoga.
After practicing Yoga for 5 years, I decided to do my Teachers Training while living in Florida. When I settled back in Cape Town in 2005 I started teaching Bodyworks classes at a woman’s studio in Kenilworth. It was here that I learnt about  Pilates style body alignment and attention to correct and controlled ways of moving your body. I started teaching private Power Yoga classes from the Bodyworks studio, and since that beginning, have taught Yoga classes almost every day for the past 4 years. It has been a great journey, and I continue to discover more about Yoga every day. It truly is limitless....

Ivan Agherdien

Ivan has been teaching Hatha Yoga for well over 20 years and qualified at the Ananda Kutis Yoga Ashram Cape Town and Yoga Teachers Fellowship Johannesburg.

As an octoginasium his approach to Yoga is both spiritual and joyful, competitiveness and forcefulness are discouraged but the breath (which is an integral past of yoga) is fully explored to extend and relax to gain the full benefits of activating the internal organs as well as creating flexibility. His speciality is working in pairs where harmony and social aspects create a playful way to extend without the fear of over extending.

He encourages students to be fully aware of their personal ability and to relax when the body fells it is being pushed to the limits or beyond.

Karen Le Roux

Karen writes: Since I can remember there was always something that drew me to yoga. I have traveled from India to San Francisco to study and practice different types of yoga. Last year I did my yoga teacher training at Moksha yoga studio in Cape Town. This was one of the best experiences of my life. I really enjoy being able to facilitate people in their yoga practice. I teach a vinyasa based yoga style similar the primary and secondary series of Ashtanga yoga. This is a yoga that is open to be practiced by all as it can be adapted to suit your personal practice. I believe that the focus and calmness of mind that you get through regular yoga practice is essential to cope with the problems of every day life. Strength and flexibility are the side effects – and such great side effects.

Erica Nielsen

Erica experienced her first yoga class in 1999, focusing on breath, relaxation and simple supine stretches, the perfect relief from a stressful job. She rediscovered yoga in the form Hatha yoga, after herniating 2 neck disks in post-graduate school. In 2007 she expanded her practice, becoming internationally certified as an Ashtanga teacher (Jim Harrington, Karmashala, Cape Town). With a background in neuropsychology and aging, Erica’s yoga practice is influenced by a blend of Hatha, Ashtanga, and Iyengar styles. She continues her study of body movement (Body Intelligence, Meret Storck) and yoga with focus on pranayama and the therapeutic applications of yoga.

Danienla Rudner

Daniela has studied Yoga with Jim Harrington (Karma Shala) and qualified as a teacher in October 2009. Daniela prefers to teach Ashtanga or so called Vinyasa yoga which combines movement with breath, but will adapt her teaching style according to the students in her class, e.g. focus on special stretches, slow the practice down or speed it up, adapt the level etc. Daniela has started teaching mid-2009: she has got her own groups of students as well as one-on-one students and besides City Rock she occasionally teaches at Virgin Active.