NEW YORK, Sept. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Gaiam, Inc., the leading distributor of lifestyle media, announced today the release of Maya Fiennes' Yoga for Real Life. Fiennes' yoga is based on the discipline, Kundalini Yoga, which is a practice that fully engages the mind, body, and spirit, focusing on health and healing to improve the body through the use of its own energy.

In Yoga for Real Life, Fiennes guides viewers through a series of exercises to stimulate the chakras, the powerful spiritual centers of the body. Through breathing techniques, movements and mantras, she demonstrates how to clear the mind and body, preparing users to manifest anything they desire in life. In addition, the DVD provides visuals for all the positions and movements defined in her previously published book, Yoga for Real Life

Fiennes combined her talents as a successful classical pianist and performer, as she composed all the music featured on the DVD, which is designed to connect each body position with specific emotions. This provides a sense of release, as well as a journey from beginning to end, welcoming the unknown.

"From the first time I began practicing Kundalini, I felt such a strong connection as it fully incorporates the mind, body, and spirit in one workout, providing a truly emotional experience," says Fiennes. "I also love how Kundalini is accessible to anyone, whether a beginner or someone familiar with another style of yoga."

"We are excited to work with Maya Fiennes to offer our consumers the opportunity to experience a different yoga practice," says Bill Sondheim, president of Gaiam. "As the Kundalini practice has found a growing audience in the US, this DVD reflects our mission at Gaiam to provide a diversity of options, so that everyone can explore and discover all that yoga has to offer, enabling them to find a practice that is right for them."

Maya Fiennes' Yoga for Real Life has an approximate runtime of 60 minutes and a suggested retail price of $14.98. The DVD will be available beginning September 4, 2012 in stores and online at Amazon.com.

About Maya FiennesMaya Fiennes is one of the most in-demand yoga instructors in London today, offering fun, uplifting, inspirational practices. After trying a variety of different yoga practices she felt a strong connection to Kundalini yoga and in 2003 began training to be a teacher under Shiv Charan Singh at the Karam Kriya School in London. Incorporating her background as a classic pianist and performer, Fiennes uses her own original music in her classes, which she also performs live in concert. Since 2007 she has released a variety of DVDs, including a Journey through the Chakras, The Mantras of Kundalini Yoga, and a Detox DVD. Maya has also released a series of musical CDs to accompany her yoga. After writing Yoga For Real Life, she created this DVD, which will be the first in a set of three. Throughout the year, Fiennes leads workshops, retreats, and tours worldwide.

About GAIAMGaiam, Inc. (GAIA) is a leading producer and marketer of lifestyle media and fitness accessories. With a wide distribution network that consists of 62,000 retail doors, 14,400 store within stores, 5,600 media category management locations, a digital distribution platform and more than 10 million direct customers, Gaiam is dedicated to providing solutions for healthy and eco-conscious living. The company dominates the health and wellness category and releases non-theatrical programming focused on family entertainment and conscious media. In addition, Gaiam has an exclusive licensing agreement with Discovery Communications and other licensing partners. For more information about Gaiam, please visit http://www.gaiam.com or call 1.800.869.3603.

Media Contact:Lauren Aboulessan Krupp Kommunications (212) 886-6710 LAboulessan@kruppnyc.com

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Gaiam Launches Maya Fiennes' Yoga for Real Life - An Innovative Kundalini Yoga DVD

Yoga can loosen up your muscles and increase your body's longevity, John Farah says.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: John Farah is the co-author of "Let's Pick it up a Bit," a memoir and a guide to help people lead an active life. He has run more than 430 races, including 123 marathons.

(CNN) -- My friend Christine was into yoga long before it went mainstream, and she was good at it.

She attended yoga camps, went on a yearly trek to India and even ritually cleansed her sinuses with warm saltwater -- literally sucked it up through her nose. She claimed it possessed a healing value and kept her from getting a cold.

That was the '70s.

She tried to convince me back then that yoga would be good for me, that it would loosen up my muscles and increase my body's longevity. I wanted nothing to do with it.

"Are you kidding?" I said. "I can't stand still for two minutes, and you want me to do yoga?"

Yoga: Tap into the many health benefits

I loved running and playing sports like soccer and volleyball, things that kept me moving all the time. The idea of stretching didn't really appeal to me. Neither, for that matter, did sucking saltwater into my nose.

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Hurry up and stand still: Why runners need yoga

Yoga can loosen up your muscles and increase your body's longevity, John Farah says.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: John Farah is the co-author of "Let's Pick it up a Bit," a memoir and a guide to help people lead an active life. He has run more than 430 races, including 123 marathons.

(CNN) -- My friend Christine was into yoga long before it went mainstream, and she was good at it.

She attended yoga camps, went on a yearly trek to India and even ritually cleansed her sinuses with warm saltwater -- literally sucked it up through her nose. She claimed it possessed a healing value and kept her from getting a cold.

That was the '70s.

She tried to convince me back then that yoga would be good for me, that it would loosen up my muscles and increase my body's longevity. I wanted nothing to do with it.

"Are you kidding?" I said. "I can't stand still for two minutes, and you want me to do yoga?"

Yoga: Tap into the many health benefits

I loved running and playing sports like soccer and volleyball, things that kept me moving all the time. The idea of stretching didn't really appeal to me. Neither, for that matter, did sucking saltwater into my nose.

See the original post:
Why runners need yoga

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkHMrQsqLPA

03-09-2012 19:18 Shirts featured in Video - Yoga Paddleboard Workout How To Perform Balancing Cat Pose with Sara Tiefenthaler will teach you how to accomplish this basic move. Yogaqua Lessons - Suplove Paddle Boards - Supconnect Shirts - http Supconnect http Suplove http Yogaqua

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Yoga Paddleboard Workout - Balancing Cat with Sarah Tiefenthaler - Video

Henry David Thoreau said: Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined.

Are you living the life you've imagined? What would it take to walk the path of your dreams? Life coaches can help you realize your goals and actualize your ambitions. No one reaches their pinnacle alone. Professional athletes utilize the expertise of coaches. Highly successful business executives have coaches to aid in their effective and efficient day-to-day task handling. So why shouldn't you enlist the help of a life coach? You deserve it. We all are worthy of having someone on our team helping us to objectively assess what is working and what isn't and to come up with a plan to get us moving in the right direction.

Juxtaposed with traditional therapy, which often helps individuals look into their past to create a better present, life coaching looks into the future and helps clients develop a plan to reach their goals. Specifically, life coaching, or integrative counseling, offers clients an opportunity to take a closer look at their goals, whether physical, mental, emotional, professional or financial. With the help of an objective and highly educated professional, clients learn how to evaluate the ways in which each goal can work more synergistically through the implementation of goal setting, organized scheduling, monitoring and measuring progress, support and accountability. Too often we compartmentalize our lives and isolate segments of ourselves, and in so doing, we are unable to reach our ultimate goals in fitness, life and beyond. For example, working to reach financial success may mean looking deeply at emotional and physical health, while working toward a weight-loss goal may mean taking a close look at effective coping skills. Integrative counseling takes a comprehensive approach to help clients map out the most effective ways to accomplish their ambitions in a holistic way.

Life coaches help clients clarify their goals and identify barriers oftentimes past issues and negative beliefs that keep them from achieving these goals. A life coach also can guide clients, helping them evaluate life plans and monitor behavioral and thought patterns that support and/or detract from stated goals. Together, the life coach and the client develop a strategic plan a road map that integrates fitness, nutrition, healthy coping skills and intermediate goals to assure a positive outcome.

Working toward actualizing your potential necessitates a closer examination of the body/mind/spirit as a whole being. Holding mind/body/spirit at the forefront of everything enacts the most rapid and sustainable change a person can make in life. Integrative counseling provides clients with a road map to identify their goals in many facets of their lives. The process works toward actualizing those goals as an integrative whole.

Abby Ruby, Ph.D., is a senior coach for Carmichael Training Systems, a USA Triathlon Level II coach, a NATA-BOC certified athletic trainer, a CISSN sport nutritionist, a RYT certified yoga instructor and an author (In Sickness and In Health: Exercise Addiction in Endurance Athletes). Ruby offers group and one-on-one coaching options, including nutrition counseling, optimal performance strategy, life coaching and sports psychology. Call 970-476-7721.

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Living with Vitality: What is a life coach; do I need one?

Seairra Nemecek used to put too much pressure on herself to excel at school. The overachiever, whos in the gifted program, would stay awake into the wee hours perfecting assignments, bury her head in books while her friends played, and be crestfallen if she scored 100 per cent on a test, but got the bonus question wrong. Her parents feared her growing anxiety would result in a nervous breakdown.

But teachers at Donview Middle School organized an intervention of sorts and made her understand the importance of achieving balance in her life. It worked. She started hanging around her friends again, got more shuteye and learned to manage the time spent on school work. And her grades didnt suffer.

Its a philosophy the school is expanding this year as it becomes one of two health and wellness academies launched by the Toronto District School Board. The new focus of the schools will be on healthy living, physical activity, and social, emotional, mental and personal wellness.

The schools will still follow the provincial education curriculum, but teachers will infuse health and wellness themes into their lessons. For instance, journal writing may be about food choices and the different food groups. Math class may involve studying the sugar content of different juices. Novel studies may delve into mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression and self-harm.

These students really need to focus on health and wellness to be successful, says principal Sue Brown of what is now the Donview Middle Health and Wellness Academy. If they are not eating breakfast, physically fit, getting enough sleep or have anxiety and mental health issues, they have difficulty learning and cant be truly successful until these issues are addressed.

Weaving these issues into the curriculum is a way to sort of trick kids into getting the pumped about their health and the benefits, she says.

The health and wellness academies the other health-focused school is the Rene Gordon Elementary Health and Wellness Academy, also located near the Don Valley Parkway and York Mills Rd. are among the five different types of specialty schools the TDSB is starting this year. The other themed schools are: a girls leadership academy, a boys leadership academy, two vocal music academies, and three sports and wellness academies.

Details about the new specialty schools.

While many schools place importance on the health and well-being of their students, Donview now has a mandate and vision centred on the belief that a student whos healthy and well is better prepared for lifes challenges. To that end, staff developed five key areas of wellness to boost the students health: academic, physical, social, career and emotional/mental.

You do want to promote academic excellence, says Grade 8 teacher Audra Morgan. But at the same time, if youre teaching the whole child, you have to address the other issues.

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TDSB Health and Wellness academies open in Toronto and focus on students’ wellbeing

KUALA LUMPUR, -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak today announced that Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) is the first government-linked company to raise the retirement age from 56 to 60.

He said this was in accordance with the implementation of the Minimum Retirement Age Act 2012 passed by Parliament recently.

The prime minister also announced more good news for the TNB employees. He said the TNB board of directors and management had agreed to raise the employer's rate of contribution to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) for the 56-60 age period.

He also said that new employees of TNB would contribute to the Social Security Organisation (Socso) beginning Sept 1 this year.

Najib made the announcements when addressing an assembly of TNB employees at the TNB Sports Complex, here. The event was also followed live over a video telecast by almost 30,000 TNB employees throughout peninsular Malaysia and Sabah.

Najib said he hoped that all TNB employees would garner better benefits and be more motivated to discharge their duties.

"And, what was expressed by your representatives will be your firm commitment to work hard.

"As such, TNB will excel and in 60 years from now, it will achieve greater excellence," he said.

Najib said the challenge for TNB now was to fulfil the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) pertaining to supply of adequate electricity and energy at a high rate of reliability compared to the early stages where it had to supply power to small towns and the rural areas.

"When we talk of quality, it goes with reliability. This does not apply just for domestic consumers but for industrial users such as in the sophisticated electrical and electronic fields where a slight disruption can result in huge losses," he said.

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Retirement age at 60 for TNB employees - Najib

Michael Phelps recruits fellow Olympians, such as Nathan Adrian, behind Phelps, for a Las Vegas Labor Day weekend celebration marking his retirement from competitive swimming. (Erik Kabik / September 2, 2012)

September 3, 2012, 5:06 p.m.

We're guessing any retirement party you've been to didn't include bikini-clad waitresses, chilled vodka shots and world class DJs. But then again, Michael Phelps isn't anywhere near retirement age.

But retire the 27-year-old swimmer did. Following a blaze of glory at the recent London Olympic Games that saw him named the most-decorated Olympian in history, Phelps celebrated the end of his competitive career in Las Vegas.

A Labor Day weekend bash awaited Phelps and athlete pals such as Allison Schmitt and Nathan Adrian, kicking off Friday at the Wynn Encore's Surrender nightclub.

"This is my first night of retirement!" Phelps told the screaming room, taking Grey Goose shots as Afrojack worked the turntables.

The following afternoon at the Encore Beach Club Phelps rolled shirtless in shades with Schmitt and Adrian but not girlfriend Megan Rossee, accepting kudos from party-goers and a cake decorated with gold medals from some scantily clad servers.

David Guetta, he of such hits as "Titanium" and Usher's "Without You," invited Phelps into the DJ booth, prompting cheers of "USA!" from the crowd.

Hotel owner Steve Wynn and wife Andrea Hissom joined the pair to take in the moment -- likely an exciting one for everyone present. After all, this is the kind of Vegas occasion you want documented. Others can be a royal pain.

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Michael Phelps celebrates retirement with Vegas rager

SEPT 4 I will admit to having a specific pet hate in football, a certain tactical element of the game that I really dont like.

Its not diving, time-wasting, shirt-tugging or anything else of that negative nature. Those cynical aspects of the game, whilst admittedly not particularly edifying, are inevitable in any team sport with a strong competitive edge.

No. Its something else entirely: the thing that annoys me more than anything else is short corners.

It seems pretty self-evident to me that corners played directly into the heart of the penalty area present one of the most obvious routes to scoring a goal.

After all, corners provide a rare opportunity for a teams best dead-ball striker to compose himself and send an unimpeded delivery directly into the dangerous area immediately in front of the opponents goal, where the attacking teams most accurate and powerful headers of a ball are waiting to guide it goalwards.

Even if the defending team succeed in repelling the initial corner, the sheer number of bodies in a small area means that anything can happen: unintentional fouls, fortuitous deflections and defensive errors can easily result in a goal.

Furthermore, even a defensive clearance doesnt mean an end to the danger: with so many attacking players in the penalty area, if the second phase of possession is won by the attacking team, they can easily maintain the pressure by putting the ball straight back into the danger zone.

Finally, corners can be meticulously rehearsed on the training ground, where strategies such as bending the rules by blocking defenders to create space can be practised and practised until they are perfected.

Considering all the above, I have never been able to understand it when teams decline the opportunity to deliver a corner directly into the penalty area, electing instead to play it short and try to find a more meandering route towards goal.

Short corners immediately remove one of the biggest advantages enjoyed by the attacking team the fact that no defender can be within 10 yards of the ball before it is struck. As soon as the corner is played short, it allows the defending team to close down the man in possession, making it much more difficult to deliver an accurate cross.

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Man United and Barca cut corners for success

An investment rooted in the belief that with support, courageous leaders can create broad impact for the communities in which they live and work defines the essence behind the Bush Fellowship Program. The depth of work planed by the second cohort of 2012 Bush Fellows promises an inspiring range of exploration including systems change, community engagement, and personal development.

We take a behind-the-scenes look at one of the recently announced 2012 Bush Fellows. Zahra Aljabri, a COO of MuslimBuddy, mom, and fashion TV junkie, shares with us not only the path that brought her to this fellowship, but also gives us extended insight into her forward thinking idea that could change the face of community organizations' engagement and governance strategies for decades to come.

What three adjectives would you use to describe your childhood self?

Any professions you idealized as a child?

Police officer

What's the greatest takeaway from your educational experiences?

One of the most important lessons I learned during undergraduate, and was reinforced in law school, is the importance of developing meaningful, reciprocal relationships. Learning to be selective about who you closely associate with and not waste precious time or energy with people who bring you down or only take and never give. Sometimes it's hard to realize, but people you surround yourself with have an immense impact on how you perceive yourself and what you do. It's important to be mindful about the quality of those relationships.

Did you ever face a career crossroads?

I came to an important crossroads when I returned from extended stay overseas and was making a decision whether to work for an established organization or pursue MuslimBuddy full-time. On one hand, I had opportunities that were relatively secure positions with specific roles that would not utilize my full potential or stretch my comfort zone. On the other hand, I could purse an uncertain path that could potentially allow me to leave a significant social impact. I decided to pursue the riskier option. I felt it was a better use of my time, talent, and skills. Though it was a bit scary at the time, I'm confident that I've made the right decision to not stay safe in a limited role working for someone else.

As an entrepreneur, I value creativity and autonomy. At the same time, in order to succeed I needed support and structure while maintaining control and autonomy. The Bush Fellowship offered exactly that! As a Bush Fellow, I will have a fellowship plan and access to innovators and change-makers in the nonprofit sectorwhile having the control to make choices that meet the needs of my community. I am comfortable with risks and uncertainty and the Bush Fellowship makes a perfect fit as they focus more on learning and execution rather than success and failure per se.

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Pursuing uncertainty: A path towards social impact for a 2012 Bush Fellow