Jai Ma Yoga Center
69 Main St, New Paltz, NY  •  845 256-0465  •  jaimayoga@hvi.net
Gina Bassinette and Ami Hirschstein, Co-Directors

News • Class Schedule • Class Descriptions • Fee Schedule
Special Events • Instructors • Directions • Mailing List

About the Center

Located in the heart of downtown New Paltz, the Jai Ma Yoga Center offers a variety of Hatha Yoga in a interdisciplinary style for every level of practitioner.

The word Yoga means Union, Hatha Yoga refers to the practicing of physical postures to help you develop strength, flexibility, and concentration. We combine these postures with breath and meditation to create a nurturing experience for the body, mind, and soul. No matter what your ability level, age or physical condition we have a class for you. Directors Gina Bassinette and Ami Hirschstein have both been teaching in the Hudson Valley since 1996. We are dedicated to sharing yoga and helping our students apply it to their everyday lives. All our instructors are certified and bring to each class a special blend of Hatha Yoga techniques. Our classes are designed to give you a safe, comfortable atmosphere in which to learn and practice yoga. We focus on alignment and technique in each posture to ensure safety and proper use of your particular body type and ability level. Our classes incorporate meditation and yogic breathing (pranayama) techniques. We also offer meditation classes, Kritan (devotional Sanskrit chanting) and workshops.

Jai Ma Yoga Center donates a portion of its proceeds to local not for profit organizations. We offer family discounts and scholarships are available.


News

There are no special news items.
Please check back here later.
Also see our Special Events section.

Class Schedule

Time Class Instructor
Monday
4:30-5:45pm Moderate Carrie
6:00-7:25pm Moderate Carrie
7:35-8:35pm Prenatal
(Pre-registration required)		 Stephanie
Tuesday
8:30-9:45am Moderate (A) Ami
4:30-5:45pm Moderate Gina
Wednesday
9:30-11:00am Moderate Gina
3:30-4:15pm Children's Yoga
(Pre-registration required)		 Susan
4:30-5:45pm Moderate (A) Ami
6:00-7:30pm Moderate (A) Ami
Time Class Instructor
Thursday
8:30-9:45am Moderate (A) Ami
4:30-5:45pm Gentle Gina
6:00-7:30pm Advanced Gina
8:00-9:30pm Temple Belly Dance
(Pre-registration required)		 Serpentessa
Friday Friday is today
10:00-11:30am Moderate Alyssa
4:30-5:45pm Restorative Ami
6:00pm - Next Friday night
(2nd & 4th Fri only)		 Satsang (Chanting)  
Saturday
9:00-10:15am Moderate (A) Ami
10:30am-12:00pm Advanced (A) Ami
Sunday
9:00-10:20am Advanced Gina
10:30-11:45am Moderate Gina

Call for information about additional events,
and for cancellations due to holidays, vacations, and weather.

Class Descriptions

Classes for All Ability Levels...

  • Moderate: This is our foundational level class. As you are guided through each posture, this class is ideal for the new student as well as challenging enough for a practiced one.
  • Gentle: A class designed to work slowly with a focus on breath and body awareness. Ideal if you have had recent surgery, chronic pain, or just need to work more slowly. Also terrific for our more "mature" students.
  • Restorative: A combination of Restorative yoga and Gentle Yoga Therapy exercises. Ideal for those working with chronic pain, illnesses and injuries. Originally designed for people with serious illnesses, Restorative yoga is a great way to release deeply held stress. Props are used to support you in each posture. Yoga Therapy uses exercises to help you come into alignment and balance your body in order to eliminate pain.
  • Prenatal: All levels class for pregnant women. Poses and breathing techniques designed to assist through pregnancy, childbirth and beyond. Pre-registration required - This class is a series with a special cost. Please contact the instructor, Stephanie directly at 845 633-8142.
  • Children's Yoga: Children ages 5-11 playfully explore yoga with storytelling and music. Children's yoga provides children with ways to relax, open and strengthen their bodies and enhance their self esteem. Pre-registration required - This class is a series with a special cost. Please contact the instructor, Susan directly at 845 750-8853.
  • Temple Belly Dance: Body, mind and soul are accessed and integrated through belly dance drills and improvisation. Open level class. Pre-registration required - This class is a series with a special cost. Please contact the instructor, Serpentessa directly at 845 417-8438 to register.
Advanced Class...  
  • Advanced: This class incorporates the deeper aspects of practice. Building upon the foundational postures we will be working on more advanced postures, longer holdings, vigorous flows,inversions, pranayama (breathing techniques) and meditation. This class is designed for those with a strong foundational practice, knowledge of asana alignment and names. Not appropriate for beginners.
Special classes denoted with an "A" are Anusara Yoga classes taught in the level indicated. Anusara Yoga is a therapeutic and transformational form of Hatha Yoga that blends the heart oriented instructions with the science of alignment.

Satsang (Chanting)...   An open chanting and meditation group in the tradition of Mata Amritanandamayi Devi.  Through chanting in Sanskrit we practice Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of devotion. Whether you come and listen to our musicians or join us in chanting, come experience this ancient practice. This event is free.


Fee Schedule

(Subject to change)

Monthly Fees Option
First Class
$10.00
Drop In
$15.00
4 Classes
$46.00
8 Classes
$80.00
Unlimited
$102.00
Three Month Option
12 Classes
$121.00
24 Classes
$192.00
Unlimited
$252.00
Special 10 class, 2 Month Card
No extensions
$90.00

Upcoming Workshops and Special Events

Date & Time Event Description Cost

Wed Apr 15-
Wed Sep 30
Wednesdays 10:00-12:00

REIKI CLINIC Walk-in, affordable healing! Reiki is a powerful, yet gentle, hands-on energy healing system that can help reduce stress, relieve pain, and boost the immune system. Open to everyone, pay what you can. Alice Velky LMT, RYT; 845-797-4124 or madhurihealing@optonline.net for more info. Sliding scale  

Tue May 5-
Sun Aug 30
6:00 PM

INTEGRAL YOGA® with Alice Velky, LMT, RYT Yoga as a healing path: explore classical yoga using awareness, movement, sound, breath, and energy. Tailored to participants’ needs; for all abilities & any level of yoga experience. Instructor: Alice Velky LMT, RYT; 845-797-4124 or madhurihealing@optonline.net for more info. $14; sliding fee & class card available (*This is seperate from Jai Ma's class card>)  

Fri Jul 31
6:00-8:30 pm

THE EYE OF THE TIGER PRACTICE with live Drumming Now with live Drumming!The Eye of the Tiger is an advanced practiced developed by John Friend, the founder of Anusara Yoga, to challenge well practiced students and teachers. The Fire of Transformation is an invitation to make an alchemical shift within. We will skillfully play with Tapas, a burning desire to enter into our hearts and reshape ourselves. Playfully explore and shift your boundaries of Yoga practice. Informal and fun, this practice is open to advanced students. (Please speak with instructor, Ami Hirschstein, if you are unsure about attending.) $30/$25 Jai Ma Cardholders/free to Certified Anusara Teachers (Please register.)  

Fri Aug 28
6:00-8:30 pm

THE EYE OF THE TIGER PRACTICE with live Drumming Now with live Drumming!The Eye of the Tiger is an advanced practiced developed by John Friend, the founder of Anusara Yoga, to challenge well practiced students and teachers. The Fire of Transformation is an invitation to make an alchemical shift within. We will skillfully play with Tapas, a burning desire to enter into our hearts and reshape ourselves. Playfully explore and shift your boundaries of Yoga practice. Informal and fun, this practice is open to advanced students. (Please speak with instructor, Ami Hirschstein, if you are unsure about attending.) $30/$25 Jai Ma Cardholders/free to Certified Anusara Teachers (Please register.)  

Instructors

Gina Bassinette is a certified Sivananda Yoga Instructor and Co-Director of Jai Ma Yoga Center. She has extensive experience in teaching yoga to people of varying backgrounds and physical abilities both in her studio and outside classes. She has created programs for seniors, at risk inner city youth, and pre and post natal yoga. She was one of the first teachers to bring yoga classes to many of the fitness centers in Ulster, Dutchess and Orange counties. Gina is able to bring and convey the ancient teachings of yoga to varying contexts. She continues her studies with nationally known yoga instructors in the styles of Iyengar, Ashtanga, Kripalu and Sivananda, and her classes encompass the teachings and techniques of all these lineages.

Ami Jayaprada Hirschstein is an certified Anusara Yoga Teacher, a certified Kripalu Yoga Instructor, a certified Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapist, and Co-Director of Jai Ma Yoga Center. She has been teaching yoga since 1995. In the tradition of Anusara Yoga, Ami's classes invite students to embrace their potential and align with their hearts. Ami specializes in therapeutic yoga, teaching her students how to come into alignment and eliminate pain. A student of yoga since 1991, Ami has studied meditation, Ayurveda and various forms of Hatha Yoga throughout the U.S. and India. Her current practice focuses on Anusara and Iyengar yoga as well as Bhakti (devotional) yoga, Kirtan (chanting) and the study of Tantric philosophy and Sanskrit. She is author of The Pocket Idiot's Guide to 108 Yoga Poses. She feels blessed by the presence of two extraordinary teachers in her life: Mata Amritanandamayi Devi and John Friend, founder of Anusara Yoga.

Carrie Wycoff first became a certified 200 Hour Prana Yoga teacher in 2001, studying with Dr. Jeff Migdow. In 2005 she completed the 500 hour ISHTA Teacher Training at BeYoga/Yoga Works. Carrie is also a certified Kids Yoga Teacher, a Prenatal Yoga Teacher and a Restorative Yoga Teacher. She is also a singer and is the Artistic Director of Circle of Soul, an accapella group that features chants from around the world. Many times Carrie will end class with a chant or song.

Alyssa Tullin took her first yoga class at Jai Ma in 2001. When she moved up to the Hudson Valley in 2003, Jai Ma became her second home. She completed two Anusara Immersions with Ami Hirschstein and also attended a 3 day workshop with senior Iyengar teacher Kofi Busia at Kripalu. Alyssa completed her 200 hour teacher training at Satya Yoga in June 2008. In the fall of 2008, she attended a 4 week program at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in Chennai where she studied asana, philosophy, chanting, application of yoga and theory of asana & pranayama. Alyssa hopes to return to India to continue her yoga studies. She would like to acknowledge her first yoga teacher, Jonji Provenzano, whose voice continues to guide her on and off the mat. Thanks to Ami and Gina for their trust and guidance.

Stephanie Nystrom began practicing yoga in 2000. After experimenting with several styles (Sivananda, Iyengar) she fell in love with Bikram yoga on a sweltering July day in 2003. She deepened her Bikram practice while attending graduate school in New Mexico, and decided to pursue teacher certification in 2005. She taught extensively in the San Francisco Bay area before moving to New Paltz with her husband in 2006. She became pregnant with her first child in early 2007, and continued to practice yoga throughout her pregnancy. She credits the comfort, joy, and ease of her pregnancy to regular yoga practice, and is very excited to pass on that joy to other pregnant women!

Susan Silverstream is a certified Radiant Child Yoga Teacher and a Certified Warldorf Teacher. She has been teaching dance, yoga and art for over twenty years. Susan brings her love of children, music and storytelling into her children's yoga classes.

Franklin Demuth began studying yoga in 2002, and has been hooked ever since. He completed Satya Yoga Centre's vinyasa teacher training program in 2008, and began teaching in the autumn of that year. Franklin has also completed several Anusara immersions. His classes focus on proper alignment and pranayam. In addition to teaching yoga, Franklin is also a computer programmer, a published poet, and the coauthor of several peer reviewed epidemiological studies.

Carla Olla has been practicing yoga since 2002. Upon completion of her Yoga Teacher Training at Bliss Yoga Center in 2005, she began teaching at Bliss Yoga Center in Woodstock and also taught and managed the Bliss studio in Stone Ridge. Carla is certified in Thai Yoga Massage and Ayurveda Yoga Therapy. She enjoys teaching Chair Yoga to Senior Citizens in Saugerties and Accord, NY, and has taught yoga to children in both Marbletown Elementary and Bennet Elementary. Carla's classes are fun, devotional, and inspiring. She draws her inspiration from several styles including Jivamukti, Sivananda, and Ashtanga. She is very grateful to her beloved Vedanta teacher Shubhraji, and to all of the many amazing yoga teachers who have influenced her.

Serpentessa studies Belly Dance with Jehan, previously with Serena and Ibrahim Farrah. Her teaching style reflects the high standards of her teachers. Serpentessa is rebirthing the ancient serpent wisdom into the world today through interaction with her live gentle snakes for over 15 years. Weekly classes are without snakes.

Private Consultations & Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy Sessions and Anusara Yoga Therapeutics are available.

Directions

The Center is located at 69 Main St., just above the Cocoon boutique.
Please allow time for parking. New students please arrive at least 5 minutes early.


Click here for a map that you can zoom and pan.

 

Mailing List

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