“We’ve moved!!!” says Liberation Yoga Co-Owner Christine Burke. It is not an easy thing for a yoga studio to do, but Liberation Yoga has changed locations after 15 years. And successfully.

Creating Community on La Brea in LA

For 15 years, Liberation has lived in the heart of LA on La Brea. They’re still on La Brea, so look carefully at their new address, near the intersection of La Brea and San Vicente. This neighborhood is a culturally and socially diverse, budding Arts District. The streets are filled with a community in resurgence, lovingly attended to by its residents and businesses. Liberation Yoga Co-Owners and married couple Christine Burke and Gary McCleery are OG community members and longtime “Mom and Pop” business-owners, who came to yoga through their beginnings as performance artists. Their values create a studio that gives people a safe space to be unique. This is represented by the teachers who have followed them from the very beginning in 2002, me included. Christine and Gary’s support of their students is reflected in how many have moved with them.

Christine Burke: Student, Author, Teacher

Christine came into yoga as an actress and dancer in New York, studying with David Life and Sharon Gannon (Jivamukti Yoga), Integral Yoga, and Om Yoga until she moved to Los Angeles in 1994. Her influences are many and diverse, and that same eclectic approach is reflected in her teacher training programs; the willingness to be open to new ideas and the richness of a wide range of backgrounds. In addition to teaching, Christine is an accomplished author, of the books The Power of Breath and Hand Yoga: Pranayama and Mudras for Health and Wellbeing, as well as The Yoga Healer: Remedies for the Body, Mind, and Spirit.

At Liberation Yoga, you can come as you are and expect to be fully accepted by everyone you meet. If you come with the mind of a beginner, the instructors are genuinely interested in meeting you “where you are.” If you come with the mind of a seasoned yogi the instructors will honor your practice and offer support as you continue your quest for deepening your own work.

Whatever your level, your practice will thrive here.

I am the founder/instructor for the Yoga for Parkinson’s class and Liberation has offered a home to my students where they can develop healthy, strong, vibrant bodies, and cultivate creative, tranquil minds. Through the kindness of Christine and Gary, this class has been offered for free for 10 years.

When Christine was looking for her “forever home” for Liberation, she had a lot of criteria to meet. These included keeping the new location close enough for her devoted students, and finding a space that continued to develop her dreams of lifting up underserved communities. In the process, she remembered the Parkinson’s students and the need to make sure the new location is accessible. Everything is here in Liberation’s new home. As Christine maintains, “Liberation Yoga is dedicated to promoting health, peace, and freedom in the community and on the planet.”

Find Liberation

Liberation Yoga
1288 S. La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, Ca 90019
323-964-5222
liberationyoga.com

Kathleen Ross-Allee

Kathleen Ross-Allee, C-IAYT is Managing Director for the LMU Yoga Therapy Rx Program. Kathleen has developed yoga therapy programs to support cancer treatment and she teaches a weekly gentle yoga therapy class for people with Parkinson’s Disease, which she offers free at Liberation Yoga in LA: leenbodies.com.

www.leenbodies.com

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Christine Burke Photo by Erika Flores Bermudez

The Power of Breath and Hand Yoga: Pranayama and Mudras for Health and Wellbeing is the latest offering from Christine Burke, who also wrote The Yoga Healer, Remedies for the Body, Mind, and Spirit. Burke is the co-owner with her husband, Gary McCleery, of Liberation Yoga in Los Angeles, open since 2004.

Christine Burke with her daughter at Liberation Yoga in Los Angeles

Yoga for the Hands

To begin, you will want to read this book from cover to cover, and then to keep it handy as it is an excellent reference guide. Christine’s artistry as a yoga teacher is evident on every page. She takes us on a journey using creative language to describe breath practices and mudras (“Yoga for the Hands”).

She’ll convince you that learning how to breathe effectively and incorporating mudras in your practice can help you experience support for coping with and addressing illnesses, health concerns, and even life’s stresses. I am reticent to admit that before reading this, I was not aware of the numerous ways to access pranayama and mudra. I appreciate how

Christine, through this book, created a safe space for me to be a student again. Each of the practices contain clear illustrations and thoughtful instructions, allowing you to easily follow along. The book will revitalize your practice offering you a new series of tools and techniques.

Vitality, Prana, and the Hands

I was particularly drawn to the “Vitality” chapter, which shares a story honoring one of the author’s mentors named Frank. Through him she learned that vitality is more than a physical energy. Vitality needs prana (or life-force) that is supported by and moved through breath and mudra. Through that knowledge, she has given us a gift of her experience.

Christine’s voice, enthusiasm, and knowledge here is contagious. When reading these pages, you’ll feel as though you are practicing with her. It will be a fun, uplifting, healing, and even powerful practice with Christine as your guide.

Kathleen Ross-Allee

Kathleen Ross-Allee, C-IAYT is Managing Director for the LMU Yoga Therapy Rx Program. Kathleen has developed yoga therapy programs to support cancer treatment and she teaches a weekly gentle yoga therapy class for people with Parkinson’s Disease, which she offers free at Liberation Yoga in LA: leenbodies.com.

www.leenbodies.com

The post Christine Burke Shares The Power of Breath and Hand Yoga appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

The Author Healer Author Christine Burke demonstrates yoga poses in the garden at Liberation Yoga in Hollywood.

The Yoga Healer draws you in to believe that there is truly a “yoga healer.” Through this book you are given the gift to empower your own healing powers through yoga. Guided by the ever-inspiring Christine Burke, who is a yoga teacher, studio owner (Liberation Yoga in LA since 2004), wife (to her studio co-owner Gary McCleery), and mother, this stunning guide to a personal yoga practice will allow you to embark on a journey to wellness from the moment you touch the cover.

You will want to carry this beautifully designed book close to your heart as you follow Christine’s joyful expression of yoga. I was one of Christine’s students and I have long appreciated her gifts as a teacher. The pages of The Yoga Healer capture her skills as a teacher and lovingly share her exceptional insight.

The Yoga Healer is filled with humor, attention to detail, and easily accessible spiritual messages. I love the chapter headings that express an ailment I may be experiencing with an underlying positive affirmation as its subtitle.

In the section for Remedies for the Body, the chapter Tight Throat is accompanied by the subtitle: Feel Free to Express Yourself. In the section for Remedies for the Mind, the chapter Fear is accompanied by the subtitle The Other Side is Love. In the section for Remedies for the Spirit, the chapter Acceptance is accompanied by the subtitle The Gateway to Change.

Through this book I learned a new language to helped me cultivate what Patanjali identified in the Yoga Sutra as Prakti Paksha Bhavana, which is the practice of shifting our thoughts. The Yoga Healer offered tools to find the opposite experience of my most recent injury, illness, or worry.

In addition, whether you are a beginner or you have been practicing yoga for years, you will benefit from Christine’s extensive experience. This experience has helped her create mini-sequences that incorporate modifications to accommodate your current and specific needs.

The yoga teachers who are demonstrating the poses in The Yoga Healer are long-time practitioners, colleagues, and students of Christine’s. They feature a variety of body types and unique expressions of the practice so the reader can witness how yoga appears differently on their bodies. At the same time, you see the calm and peace radiating from their practice. You want to join in immediately—and this inspiring guide allows you to feel that you can.

Kathleen Ross-Allee

Kathleen Ross-Allee, C-IAYT is Managing Director for the LMU Yoga Therapy Rx Program. Kathleen has developed yoga therapy programs to support cancer treatment and she teaches a weekly gentle yoga therapy class for people with Parkinson’s Disease, which she offers free at Liberation Yoga in LA: leenbodies.com.

www.leenbodies.com

The post The Yoga Healer Remedies for the Body, Mind, and Spirit By Christine Burke appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.