Practice Space

08/16/2024

Nature Practice in the City! It's free with a great teacher. Saturday of Labor Day weekend if you are around. I will be there...

01/16/2024

Excited to bring mindful people together this spring in the Sierras. This is a small fundraiser for Off-Grid Retreats to support our partnership with Larkin Street Youth Services and bring nature into the lives of inner-city young people.

06/24/2023

Stay in the Game

This is what I used to tell myself when I was feeling deflated about my career or a job or finding a job. “Just stay in the game,” I would tell myself.

I think about it differently now. I have stayed in the game long enough to learn how much of it I want to play.

In a difficult yoga class, where the heat is 110°F, I will think about just staying in the room. When I am in a difficult posture I will think about just staying in the pasture and breathing through the difficulty. This takes practice and discipline.

The physical and mental stress and discomfort of that hot yoga room are not unlike those that we experience in the workplace, in intimate relationships and in daily life. I still get worked up in traffic and sometimes in the kitchen! Staying in a posture of calm, breathing through a practice of awareness and staying in the room, if not the game, goes a long way to living a joyful life with ease.

Located in Stinson Beach, Practice.Place offers space in nature for retreats and other events on a quarter acre of creek-side land. Retreats can include mindfulness and other stress management methods for organization development, team building and strategic planning. Retreats boost conscious leade

06/17/2023

Space

Thinking about Space in a yoga class last week, it made me realize how many forms Space can take. In the class, the instructor talked about making space in the rib cage in a certain pose, perhaps triangle pose, through the stretching of the arms in opposite directions. This pose is done while the breathing is intense and the heart is beating rapidly. There’s a lot going on and it’s quite uncomfortable for the mind.

This is where another concept of space comes in. By making space between what your body is doing in a physical pose and the crisis that your mind is telling you you are experiencing, you are more likely to stay in the pose and get the benefits of creating that internal physical space. Indeed, all that oxygenated blood flowing in a high pressure way throughout your body is bound to have some benefit for your ailing cells and tissues.

Expanding the concept of space outward from this posture and this yoga practice, I started to consider the concept of space with regard to how we react to things, carry anxiety and fear as we suffer in various moments of our lives. When we are able to conjure up internal space, sometimes through experiencing the vastness of external space, such as on a beach with a vast horizon or in a forest with very tall trees - or even just looking at the sky during the day or at night, we can achieve a sense of freedom from the constraints of anxiety, fear and other forms of suffering.

These thoughts came to me soon after I’ve been considering the concept of expansiveness in a similar way. Both concepts of space and expansiveness help me experience more ease and joy amidst the strife of this life.

04/30/2023

On the Dipsea Trail to the Steep Raveen Trail.

04/30/2023

Adventure Wellness

12/10/2021

Join me for a day of Wonder. As winter sets in, I am inviting a few courageous souls to Practice Place in Stinson Beach on the Friday before the Winter Solstice.

We will explore the concept of balance in four areas of our lives: mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. This exploration will take place on the platforms of easy yoga, pranayama breathing, guided meditation, barefoot walking in the grass by the creek and walking in the sand on the beach.

This is an opportunity for you to press the reset button as the holidays arrive. The goals of the day are are relaxation and transformation; joy and ease.

If this sounds interesting, let me know. If you can't make it on this date, let me know if you want to do it another time.

What: A day of Wonder
When: Friday, December 17, 2021 - 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Where: 11 Calle Del Pinos, Stinson Beach
Bring: Warm clothes, comfortable shoes, blanket, towel, water bottle
RSVP: this is a sliding scale experience - no payment is required. If you like it, my hope is that you would tell about it. charles@practice.place

09/06/2018

Practice Place emerged out of the 2005 purchase of Creekside, a coastal space that inspires practice. It is a three-bedroom house with three additional cabin spaces and a 1961 Airstream trailer set on a half acre of wild lands with a fresh water creek. The property is 300 yards from the beach. Creekside offers an intimate setting for 10 to 15 people to practice yoga, meditation, nature bathing, outside and inside exploration.

The house and cabins can sleep up to 15 people, depending on the number of couples and the yoga room can be set up for ten or twelve mats. Outdoor space can be tented for meals, yoga and other activities.

Nature exploration is available immediately on site and abundantly nearby on trails and in the waters of the Bolinas Lagoon (shoreline, stand-up paddleboading and kayaking).

If you or someone you know wants to organize a retreat, please let us know. We are booking dates through May of 2019. Email charles@practice.place for more details or go to www.practice.place

05/08/2018

Spring Retreat

04/23/2018

We have a few spots left for Friday's retreat. Just send me a message if you want to come, we can arrange payment later

04/04/2018

We still have space for folks to join us for the April day retreat.

04/04/2018

I just posted to www.practice.place an article about awareness. It is in my blog under the engage section

Strategic Awareness Retreats for Individuals, Teams & Organizations Wellness Inspiration Transformation

03/23/2018

We would love to have you join us. These days will be all about restoring our ability to manage stress and live with joy.