Michael - Palm Gardens 10
It was in the late 1990's when I, still a fairly new transplant from Germany living in Columbus/Ohio, was looking for "naked stuff" to do, missing all the easy opportunities like skinny dipping in local swimming holes that I had grown accustomed to back home. What I found was a naked yoga retreat and it was a life changing experience: the yoga practice intensified and magnified by the fact that we were nude - and able to really connect with our own bodies. Over the years I went to many more retreats and gradually started a more regular yoga practice, even though most of that was clothed since nobody was offering nude yoga in Columbus at the time.
In 2013, when I decided to sign up for yoga teacher training, the main goal was to get myself ready to teach nude yoga and start a nude yoga group in central Ohio. I graduated in October that year and just a couple of weeks later something else was ready: my house in the Palm Gardens development inside Cambium. I traveled to the DR to take possession of it and it so happened to be that first yoga class I taught after graduating was at Cambium - and of course it was naked. Â
Last year Ken and Sharon's home at New Cambium was finished and we started a new tradition: Yoga on the Rooftop. We plan to continue the tradition when I return in the winter. Please come and join us if you are there.
Why Practice Yoga?
Yoga, in general, has many benefits including stress reduction, increased energy, enhanced overall strength, stamina and flexibility. It also supports endocrine, brain, cardiac and respiratory functions. Yoga invites you to slow down and calm your mind while you connect with, and revitalize, your body.
Naked Yoga has the additional benefits of freedom of movement. Clothes just don't get in the way. One movement can flow into the next without being inhibited by clothing.
The deep connection with your naked body can teaches you to embrace imperfection and appreciate the wonder of your body and its abilities.