A Gentle Way Yoga

05/02/2025

Mark your calendars:
Feb 8-28 are the dates that the Feathered Pipe Ranch will accept scholarship applications for our June retreat. Join Diane Ambrosini and me as we celebrate the Pipe's 50th anniversary.

Questions? email Lanita at:
[email protected]
www.agentleway.com

Scholarship Applications:
www.featheredpipe.com

04/02/2025

Lanita's Thursday evening classes offer a simple way to find peace. Both beginners and experienced yoga practitioners will explore easy, relaxing methods to reconnect with their body and soul. Even if all you do is enter our Zoom room and drift off to Lanita's gentle voice, the collective energy will guide you to profound connections of body, mind, breath, and spirit. Thursday is MIMSY - Meditation in Movement Soft, Slow Yoga for your back, hips, mind, and soul.

Yoga with Lanita:
Mondays and Thursdays at 7:30pm (PST)
Sundays at 10:30am

Retreat with Lanita and Diane:
June 14-21, 2025 - Feathered Pipe Ranch just outside Helena, Montana
www.agentleway.com

02/02/2025

My practice of yoga is an energy practice.
Part of this practice includes moving my body in kind, loving ways.
I practice loving discipline on days when my body resists movement, and I work on staying connected to my body enough to recognize when it needs deep rest and stillness.

This is a lifelong balancing act for me.

I’m pleased with my practice on days like today, when I have been sitting at my desk for three hours, and my body gently nudged me to get outside and take a little walk.

I’m pleased with my mind when it did not talk me out of it. Now, after the walk, I sit here again at the desk, smiling, enjoying the feeling of balance.

Lanita Varshell - A Gentle Way Yoga
www.agentleway.com

31/01/2025

I understand how challenging it can be to seek help. I know what it feels like when you think there’s no way you can afford assistance. I also know how to shift this mindset, no matter your circumstances.

We all need and should support one another.
These actions in life make our hearts sing.

If you need someone to listen, I'm here for you. If you're ready to respond differently and achieve new results in your life, feel free to reach out to me. I'll share everything I know and won’t turn anyone away due to low income.

Lanita - Founder of A Gentle Way & Gentle Movement
A student and teacher of yoga for 30 years. A student of life for 6 decades.
email: [email protected]



I understand how challenging it can be to seek help. I know what it feels like when you think there’s no way you can afford assistance. I also know how to shift this mindset, no matter your circumstances.

We all need and should support one another.
These actions in life make our hearts sing.

If you need someone to listen, I'm here for you. If you're ready to respond differently and achieve new results in your life, feel free to reach out to me. I'll share everything I know and won’t turn anyone away due to low income.

Lanita - Founder of A Gentle Way & Gentle Movement
A student and teacher of yoga for 30 years. A student of life for 6 decades.
email: [email protected]

29/01/2025

How do we make peace with current situations that are not serving us?
Want to chat about it?
Lanita Varshell has over 50 years experience in finding joy, despite the situations life has presented to her. She is certified Yoga Therapist who can assist you on your path to peace. Contact her for a private coaching session join a small Zoom class, or meet her and Diane Ambrosini in Montana June 14-21, 2025 for 7-nights of deep peace at the Feathered Pipe Ranch.
www.agentleway.com

25/01/2025

Why take the time and spend the money to Retreat at the Feathered Pipe Ranch in Montana? Oh...there are so many wonderful reasons!
1. Click on the arrow in the photo and listen.
2. Support an amazing non-profit foundation with your full payment.
3. Partial scholarship help available when applying Feb. 8-28.
4. Nuture and fill your soul on these sacred grounds.
https://featheredpipe.com/feathered_retreats/gentle-way-yoga-retreat-2025/

22/01/2025

This is the year to join us! You will never regret spending the time or money to be on the land and with the staff at Feathered Pipe Ranch. Go to their website today and register for this wonderful 'bucket list' week. If you need financial help to make this happen, put Feb 8 on your calendar to apply on the Feathered Pipe website for a partial scholarship. They are celebrating 50 years and giving $50,000 in scholarships What a wonderful place!

Feathered Pipe Ranch, June 14 - 21, 2025: Join Lanita Varshell & Diane Ambrosini of Gentle Way Yoga for a week-long retreat and invitation to pause, reflect, let go, and repeat.

19/10/2024

Asking For Help
Hi San Diego friends!
Could you please forward this to anyone you know that lives in the Escondido-San Marcos-Vista-Carlsbad area? I'm eager to begin teaching at San Marcos Yoga in 2025 if we can stir up enough interest, but I need help building a following in this area.

If you live in East County or San Diego Central areas and would like one more event with Diane and me, save the date:
December 7, and let us know that you can join us. We need at least 7 registrations by Nov 7 to make this a go.

Thanks for your support!

07/10/2024

05/10/2024

THREE upcoming in-person events to choose from with Lanita & Diane>
Read our full eNews just sent to your email if you are on our list.

https://conta.cc/4gUtjj9

Email from A Gentle Way Yoga How to Fall Into A Peace Holiday & Election Season     Happy Fall! Or...is it? For decades, advertising has made us feel that the Holidays should be fun and easy, a tim

03/10/2024

Register at:
www.agentleway.com/offerings
October 12 - Handlery Hotel San Diego
8:30am - Joyful Movement with Di4yoga
10:30am - Yoga for Balance and Bones with Di4yoga
12:45pm - Join us for lunch and sangha at the pool.
2:30pm - Stretch Away Holiday Stress with Lanita Varshell

November 9 - San Marcos Yoga
10:30am - Stretch Away Holiday Stress with Lanita Varshell
Register at:
https://sanmarcosyoga.com/topics/yoga-workshop-san-marcos/

December 7 - Handlery Hotel San Diego
Save this date for a special end of the year event!

01/10/2024

I'm excited to announce that I have been invited to be a part of San Marcos Yoga Studio - very close to my home. Thank you Kathleen Quinn!
2025 Weekly classes and teacher training workshops will be announced soon, but in the meantime please join me for my 1st workshop at San Marcos Yoga:
Stretch Away Holiday Stress. Saturday, November 9th. 10:30am
Click the below link to register:
https://www.agentleway.com/offerings/in-person-with-lanita-surviving-thriving-through-holiday-stress-mini-retreat

30/09/2024

Monday Evenings on Zoom with Lanita. 7:30pm (PST)
Restorative Yoga. Prop supported, longer held poses, deep breath focus. and meditation. Less movement, more quiet, deep inner resting of the mind and body.
Sign up now at: www.agentleway.com

30/09/2024

There is no more important time of the year than NOW to schedule your self-care and make it your top priority.

A Gentle Way Yoga has events each month to help you:
Oct. 12 - Sat - Handlery Hotel with Diane and Lanita Varshell
This is your last chance to be with Diane in person this year!

Nov. 9 - Sat - San Marcos Yoga Center with Lanita Varshell

Dec 7 - Sat - Handlery Hotel with Lanita Varshell

www.agentleway.com

26/09/2024

Gentle Yoga is not just for people like me who are bigger, slower, or in pain-filled bodies.

You do not need to be a larger or health-challenged teacher to be a great Gentle Yoga Teacher; you just need to 'get it' - what it does and how important it is to all.

If YOU can feel the benefits in your body, and you are a compassionate teacher, you will be a great Gentle Yoga Teacher.

So please, keep on teaching.

In my style, MIMSY-Meditation in Movement Soft Yoga, I am not just deconstructing asana in a Gentle Class. The first part of the class is always about moving the student out of their central nervous system into the parasympathetic.

Then, every movement and every breath releases deep tension, and it truly becomes a type of healing meditation.

After her first class, India Supera (Feather Pipe Ranch's founder) declared,
' This IS the type of Yoga that everyone needs, but no one knows they need.’

This is why, over the years, it has been hard for me to focus exclusively on larger bodies. I have seen extensive benefits with people of all ages, sizes, and physical abilities or challenges.

I think the name attracts many people who have not 'fit in' to other classes, but at the same time, it sends others away who think they are 'above' a 'gentle' level or think of it as 'beginner' yoga.

As Jan, one of my long-time students who took every level of class at my Studio would say:
" Marguerite's Iyengar Classes are my protein,
Diane's Classical Classes are my vegetables,
and Lanita's classes are my sweet completion (dessert) to my well-rounded yoga practice.”

I have been slowly changing my class names from 'gentle' to 'soft,' but my mentor does not think the word soft is better. I think everyone needs 'A Softer Side of Yoga - which is the title of the book I am currently working on.

What do you think? (Teachers and students opinions welcome!

Schuyler: Gentle Yoga for ALL Bodies sounds excellent!
Then, advertise using the testimonials of students of all types who benefit significantly from your class.

Thank you so much for your share.
It is so lovely to hear from you!

25/09/2024

Hi! I've started a new Instagram page:


It's primarily for those of us who live in a bigger body and have lived with pain, shame and trauma. It is a a page of hope and stories. It will have writings from others, personal posts about my life before and now - as a yoga teacher trying to live peacefully and move joyfully in my body -and stories of some of my larger body yoga students over the past 28 years. It won't be for everyone, but please join me there if it speaks to your heart. 💜

Below is my first post:

The Way
You Live Your Life

by Cody Bret
(Many thanks to Sanwal Dani for posting this on Facebook 9/24/24)

Imagine being in your 80s, and you catch yourself thinking about your life and how you never took that trip to go swimming in the ocean on a beautiful summer day because you didn't like how you looked in your swimsuit.

Or realizing you never laughed until you couldn't breathe because your teeth weren't straight enough.

Or how you never embraced the sun on the beach because of the stretch marks on your stomach.

You never allowed yourself to let go and have fun because the pressure to look perfect consumed you.

Just imagine being at the end of your life and realizing you've hidden yourself away from the fear of being real.

Just think about all the years you wasted hating yourself.

And all this time, you were perfect exactly the way you were.

Please take my advice and cherish every single day you have left because tomorrow is never promised.

-------------------------
I'm Lanita Varshell.

I have lived in a bigger, pain-filled body all of my life. Since 1996, I have taught Gentle and Adaptive Yoga full-time to bigger bodies and bodies of all sizes and ages who simply did not 'fit in' to traditional studios and gyms or enjoyed my softer, safer, slower approach to yoga asana.

It has not been easy to live in my bigger body, and it has certainly not been easy to put myself out in public for all to see and critique, but it is so important for those like me not to hide, thinking there is something wrong with us. My yoga journey has taught me how to love my body just as it is and how to listen to it, honor it, and take care of it.

This is a never-ending journey as long as we are using this human form, but joy can be found, and peace can be found along the way.

If you would like to be in a safe place to practice gentle and therapeutic yoga, I welcome you to my classes, workshops, and retreats.

If you are a yoga teacher who would like more training working with people like me, I welcome you.

www.agentleway.com
[email protected]

23/09/2024

"For the most part, I am looking forward to my pilgrimage journey next month...I vacillate between "I think I can do it" and "What on earth am I thinking"?

I'm told this is normal. I have accepted that there will be a lot of unknowns, and I will do what I can.

Sometimes, we can get so caught up in the details and feel we need to complete the journey in a pre-prescribed way that we lose sight of the journey itself.

So I will go forth.....one foot in front of the other.....and see where the path takes me. "

Beautiful words from one of my students,
Jennifer Estela-Stollwerck, who is currently doing the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage walk in Europe.

She is about my age and has been training for this walk for quite a while.

Training has not been easy, but the words in her above email apply not only to her walk, but to each day of our life.

Jennifer, we are on the path with you! 💜💜💜

18/09/2024

For the past couple of days, I have been living through one of my lows.

On Monday, I had a 7:30pm Zoom Restorative Class to teach, and even though it was hard to show up, I did and felt better.

Yesterday I had a 5:00pm Chair Yoga Class to teach - about an hour up in the mountains for the Luiseno Indian Tribe; it took every ounce of strength I could muster to get ready and go, but I did, and afterward, I felt better.

I had an early phone call meeting with Diane -Di4yoga - this morning to discuss our upcoming events. I wanted to cancel the call and stay in bed, but I didn't, and because of that, I feel so much better. I needed a friend, and I needed focus.

I share these events and feelings with you not to brag in any way but to remind you that you are not the only one having low days.

When you have these days, nurture yourself, but also make sure you get out and do something that may help someone else in even the smallest of ways.

On the days I have difficulty showing up for myself, I'm so glad I still teach classes where I am obligated to show up for others.
When I teach a class, I show up for you and me.
When you take one of my classes, you show up for yourself, me, and everyone else present with us.
We need each other, and the group energy that we create when we show up together is always powerful and magical.

I appreciate your friendship.
Let's keep showing up, like the moon, whatever phase we are in.
💜

Next class I teach is this tomorrow live on Zoom at 7:30pm. PST
MIMSY-Meditation in Movement Soft Yoga - Deep Sleep Prep
If you have never attended this class please PM me for a free first class code.

Love and hugs, Lanita Varshell