Karuna Yoga: Your Friendly Neighborhood Yoga Studio
Karuna Yoga is a warm and inviting studio on Hillhurst Ave. in Los Feliz. Tea and cookies await patrons in the lobby, and the dimly lit, beautifully appointed classroom has the feel of a sanctuary. At the time of our visit, we were in the mood for a gentle, healing yoga session, so we took a Sunday evening Restorative class with Lara.
This was our first experience with Kundalini yoga, Karuna's specialty, and we found it to be decidedly different than the Hatha classes we were used to, incorporating chanting, Kundalini blessings and a lot of talk about the heart center. Kundalini uses breathing to energize the body and spirit and prepare it for the postures, and our attention was kept on the breath through the entire class. Lara explained how we can use our breath to heal ourselves - the comforting philosophy of "out with the old, in with the new."
Even though this was a gentle class, it was intense due to the continual focus on breathing. The class sang a lovely Kundalini blessing aloud before going into Shavasana. As we lay in corpse pose, we realized that we had achieved a profound sense of peacefulness and well being. All that breathing and chanting (not to mention the stretching) had paid off.
