Baptiste Power of Yoga™ | Sherri Baptiste, Yoga Expert E-RYT 500

Sherri Baptiste is an inspirational yoga teacher at the forefront of training in America. She offers approachable training, that shows real people the depth and benefits of mind•body•breath practices and how best to incorporate the best of yoga, fitness and wellness into their busy lives. She is the daughter of America's yoga pioneers and master teachers Magana and Walt Baptiste. Founder of Baptiste Power of Yoga, she offers classes, workshops, retreats and teacher training. Her retreats and teacher training programs provide an empowering, peaceful oasis in a hurried world, a place where students can find within themselves the tools and knowledge to support and maintain a happier, healthier and more spiritual lifestyle.

Sherri presents for Western Athletics Clubs’s Bay Clubs, Gold's Gym, Yoga Studios Larkspur and San Francisco, Nautilus, Loyola Marymount University's Yoga Therapy Rx Program, Equinox, IDEA World Fitness and Inner IDEA Conferences, Body Mind Spirit, Yoga Journal Conference, ECA, AFPA, Can-Fit-Pro, Rancho La Puerta spa, Cavallo Point Wellness Programs, Bhakti Fest Yoga Events, and Yoga Therapy Conferences. She has instructed for the International Himalayan Yoga Teachers Association (under Swami Veda Bharati's guidance) and conducts yoga retreats at locations such as Kripalu, Omega, Haramara, Holistic Cruise, Green Gulch Zen Center, Tassajara Zen Center and Feathered Pipe Ranch.

She is the Western Athletics Bay Club Marin Yoga Teacher Training Program Director. A member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT), Sherri’s teacher-training certification and continuing education programs 200 hr and 500 hr are recognized by Yoga Alliance at the highest designated levels of E-RYT 500. She is also recognized by the International Yoga Federation as an honorary member of the World Yoga Council. ABC’s KGO radio Yoga Expert and television personality, she is featured in video, DVD and CD programs that include "Power of Yoga" and "Power of Meditation." Sherri is the author of Yoga with Weights for Dummies (Wiley Publishers). She also serves as the online yoga expert for SmartNow.com and VoiceofDance.com. She is a writer in Best Body Magazine and Alternative Medicine Magazine, Caregivers and Professional Psychologists and Counselors Journal (2012).

Sherri's specialties include breath-based yoga flow (for all levels), chakras, breath work, meditation, yoga with weights, Baptiste Power of Yoga sessions, yoga personal training, yoga for older adults and therapeutic yoga applications.

On the Web: http://www.powerofyoga.com

Healing Power of Sound | Susana Moore

Journey to expanses of deep relaxation and calm as the tones of the crystal bowls open gateways of awareness and wholeness within you. The tones of these harmonically tuned instruments help to align your physical, emotional and spiritual bodies, balancing and rejuvenating your vital life energies. Join us as we explore the power of vocal toning, mantra chant, the sound of the crystal and Tibetan bowls, gongs and tuning forks.

Susana Moore is a Soul Coach, Past Life Regression Therapist, Tarot Reader and is the Contemplative Programs Coordinator at Rancho La Puerta spa, where she teaches Sound Healing, Nia, yoga and meditation. Susana's background includes meditation training with Deepak Chopra and Jon Kabat-Zinn, Soul Coaching certification with Denise Linn, movement with Gabrielle Roth and Vinn Marti (5 Rhythms and Soul Motion) and aquatic bodywork (WATSU®®) with its creator, Harold Dull. She is a member of the International Sound Healers Association.

Culinary Experiences at La Cocina Que Canta | Visiting Teacher Maria Speck

Wednesday 11 am and 4 pm and Thursday 4 pm

Maria Speck is the author of "Ancient Grains for Modern Meals" — Mediterranean Whole Grain Recipes for Barley, Farro, Kamut, Polenta, Wheat Berries, & More. The New York Times included the book, Maria's first, in its list of notable cookbooks of 2011. The Washington Post named it one of the top ten cookbooks of the year, and Cooking Light magazine selected it as one of 100 best cookbooks of the past 25 years. The book also won a Gourmand Award as the US-selection, Mediterranean category. Maria has a lifelong passion for the subtle flavors and rich textures of whole grains. She grew up in Greece and Germany before moving to the US in 1993—this unusual heritage is at the center of her cooking, writing, and teaching. Maria's recipes are inspired by the ease and appeal of Mediterranean cuisine and the centuries-old traditions of preparing whole grain foods in Northern Europe.

She combines her vast knowledge about cooking and baking with whole grains with a keen understanding of how to transform these ancient staples into quick and modern foods for our time-strapped lives. Maria teaches at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts (CSCA). In her food writing, Maria combines more than two decades of journalistic research, editing and reporting with her lifelong passion for food. She started her career at Germany's leading news agency Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA), and she came to the US as a Knight Fellow at Stanford University. Since then, she has worked as a freelance writer for US and German magazines. In the US, Maria has contributed to Gourmet magazine, Saveur, Gastronomica, the Vegetarian Times and Cooking Club, the publication of the Cooking Club of America among others. In Germany, Maria's stories have been published in the country's leading magazines and newspapers, including the news and lifestyle publication STERN which sells one million copies a week, SPIEGEL online and BRIGITTE, the country's prestigious women's magazine. Maria is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), Chefs Collaborative, Les Dames d'Escoffier, The Culinary Guild of New England, and Slow Food USA.

Maria offers three hands-on culinary experiences will take place at La Cocina Que Canta, our culinary center.

For more information and registration, please click here.

The Power of Purpose: A Year of Living Purposefully | Richard Leider

Saturday 8 pm, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday 5 pm

"Can you tell me what my purpose in life is?"

Legendary personal coach, Richard Leider, has revamped his bestselling classic, The Power of Purpose, on realizing what truly makes your life worth living. Purpose is nothing more or less than a mind-set. It is a choice you make every day to bring who you are at your core to whatever you are doing. Citing a wealth of new research proving that purpose is key to longevity and well-being, Leider details a graceful, practical, and ultimately spiritual process for making your unique purpose central to your life. This program will help you find your reason to get up in the morning and integrate it into everything you do. Purpose gives us the will not just to live, but to live long and well. The good news is, purpose isn't a grand concept reserved for a gifted few but something each of one of us already possesses, needing only to be uncovered.

Richard Leider is founder and chairman of The Inventure Group, a coaching and consulting firm. He was ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the top five most respected executive coaches. He is the author or coauthor of eight books including the best sellers, The Power of Purpose, Repacking Your Bags and Something to Live For.

On the Web: www.richardleider.com, www.inventuregroup.com.

The Heart of Performance: Rediscovering the Power of Beauty and Inspiration | Bruce Cryer

Sunday 8 pm

As a creative artist and a student of performance and heart intelligence for nearly 40 years, Bruce brings a unique perspective to enhancing one's health and performance through inspiration and beauty. Through strong visual media combined with impactful music, enhanced by the scientific discoveries of the HeartMath organizations, this presentation will inspire, educate, and delight the mind, the heart, and the senses. Bruce's own dramatic health journey will make the time even more poignant and relevant.

Bruce Cryer has had a rich and diverse career spanning entertainment, publishing, biotech, and health and wellness. He has held executive positions in several companies over the past 30 years and currently is Global Director, HeartMath HealthCare, founding director of HeartMathUK and HeartMath South Africa. For eleven years he served as CEO of HeartMath (USA), an innovative research‐based firm he helped to found which offers a unique system of tools and award‐winning technology to boost performance, productivity and health while reducing stress. A series of health challenges convinced Bruce to transition to new roles more closely matching his passions. A cancer survivor, Bruce is also a former actor/singer/dancer on Broadway who has recently revived his singing and dancing skills as a “keynote performer” on aligning your work with what is most alive in your heart. Called What Makes Your Heart Sing?, he has collaborated with seven time Emmy-award winning composer, Gary Malkin (also Bruce’s former college roommate.)

Bruce has consulted to clients such as Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic, Stanford Business School, the NHS (UK),HP, NASA, Boeing, and L’Oreal. He is co-author of the book "From Chaos to Coherence: The Power to Change Performance" and the Harvard Business Review article “Pull the Plug on Stress”. Bruce has been a faculty member of the Stanford Executive Program since 1997 and was named a Top 50 Thought Leader in Personal Excellence. He has been interviewed for or written in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Inc. magazine, Fast Company, Modern Healthcare, Leadership Excellence, and medical journals such as Stress Medicine as well as many other business and health publications. He played the lead role in the New York production of the World’s Longest Running Musical, The Fantasticks, for more than 700 performances. An avid photographer, he publishes his iPhone photos regularly thanks to highly addictive social media platforms.

http://BruceCryer.com

http://WhatMakesYourHeartSing.net

New Year's Concert | Gary Malkin and Deborah Winters

Monday 8 pm

Gary Malkin is an award-winning composer/producer and public speaker dedicated to catalyzing social change and individual healing through the creation of inspiring, music-infused resources and events.

His passion for the humanizing role that music and the arts can play in society's institutions – health care, religion, education, philanthropic and corporate cultures – consistently inflames the hearts and minds of his audiences through media projects, keynote presentations, training sessions and performances around the globe.

Gary has enjoyed a highly successful career for nearly 30 years, having received numerous Emmys, ASCAP awards and Clios that have acknowledged his work in film, television, commercials, and CD production.

In 1992, with the birth (and near death) of his daughter, a desire emerged to use his gifts in service to the world in more meaningful ways. Since that time, he has immersed himself in social benefit products, promoting the use of music and transformational media to promote peace, environmental sustainability, and an integration of mind, heart, and spirit in all that we do.

He is founder of Musaic and Wisdom of the World ™, a life-enhancing media production company and web site. He is also the co-founder of Care for the Journey, a groundbreaking care-for-the-caregiver initiative for healthcare professionals.

A lifelong resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, Deborah Winters' childhood was immersed in music and dance. Heavily influenced by her father, who pursued the drums as a young man, and by her mother, who was a professional ballet dancer for the Oakland Metropolitan Ballet Company, Deborah developed a passion for music, dance and the theatre at a very early age. Big Band sounds rang through the household where Deborah and her father listened to the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton and Woody Herman, to name a few.

During her adolescent years, while moving around the country with her family, Deborah commenced her study of voice and the guitar. Deborah became increasingly influenced by singer/songwriters such as James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and Rickie Lee Jones. As an acting/theatre major in college, Deborah sought to combine her love of music, dance and art through the stage as a musical actress. However, her ongoing desire to sing and play the guitar in intimate settings kept pulling at her heartstrings. This led to Deborah playing clubs and finding her way into the studio to record a few of her own compositions before graduating.

As her musical palate expanded to include jazz standards and contemporary musical forms, Deborah began to perform in San Francisco and establish musical alliances with some of the Bay area's most highly acclaimed performers, including legendary drummer Tony Williams, singers Bobby McFerrin and his Voicestra group, pianist/arranger Frank Martin, and Brazilian guitarist Jose Neto.

In 2003, Deborah released her debut recording, live "in session" on her Pure Passion Productions label, featuring an all-star cast of Bay area musicians. The CD offers an exquisite program of Deborah's spirited and stirring original compositions, along with a few chestnuts such as "In a Sentimental Mood," "You Send Me," and "Fields of Gold."

2009 witnessed the release of Deborah's second CD, Inspired, again on her Pure Passion Productions label. Produced and arranged by award-winning producer/arranger/pianist/vocalist Gary Malkin, this project elegantly portrays Deborah's more introspective side, with heartfelt original compositions and a gorgeous rendition of world-renowned pianist/arranger/composer Dave Grusin's "What Matters Most."

On her soon-to-be released CD, Lovers After All, for the Jazzed Media label, Deborah joined forces with trumpeter/arranger/producer Peter Welker and a stellar cast of Jazz luminaries from San Francisco, New York, Boston and LA. This lofty big-band excursion traverses the vast expanse of jazz history – from the 40s to the present – from some of the best-loved standards to rarely heard gems. In choosing the songs in this recording, Deborah and Peter sought out jazz composers whose pieces provided the ideal platform to showcase her extraordinary versatility and her trademark feeling of intimacy.

Variety and versatility characterize Deborah's ongoing performance schedule. From straight-ahead jazz to inspirational to folk and rock, Deborah continues to dazzle and uplift her audiences at Bay Area music festivals, concert halls, churches and house concerts. Her jam-packed teaching schedule attests to the profound impact she has on developing up-and-coming vocalists in a broad array of musical styles.

Deborah Winters' perpetual search for new ways to express her highly captivating and emotionally riveting music are always front and center in her evolution as a singer, guitarist and songwriter. Her legions of fans are in for a treat as her quest continues.

Banjo in Motion | Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn

Thursday 8 pm

Béla Fleck has been playing banjo for over 35 years, in a myriad of different musical styles. His group Béla Fleck and the Flecktones put the banjo back on the map in the jazz world, and he is known for playing classical music, and music from around the world as well as American roots music and bluegrass. Often considered the leading banjoist of our time, Béla has won 13 Grammies and been nominated for 25 – in more different categories than anyone in Grammy history.

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones have garnered a strong and faithful following among jazz and new acoustic fans. They have shared the stage with Dave Mathews Band, Sting, Bonnie Raitt and the Grateful Dead, among many others, made several appearances on The Tonight Show in the Johnny Carson days and the Jay Leno days, as well as Arsenio Hall, and Conan O'Brian. Béla also appeared on Saturday Night Live and David Letterman.

Profiled in Newsweek (2008) for creating a “gorgeous, joyful new sound,” songwriter and clawhammer banjo player Abigail Washburn takes her bold and expansive musical vision to new heights on her third recording, City of Refuge (January 11, Rounder Records). Raw, ethereal and at times lushly orchestrated, the album melds the forces of renowned producer Tucker Martine (the Decemberists, Spoon, Sufjan Stevens) with Washburn’s classic songwriting and old-time storytelling aesthetic.

Abigail and Tucker along with songwriting collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Kai Welch amassed an impressive group of artists and friends including guitarist Bill Frisell, old-timey fiddler Rayna Gellert, string arrangements by Jeremy Kittel of the Turtle Island String Quartet and guzheng (the ancient Chinese zither) master Wu Fei. Chris Funk from the Decemberists and Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket also appear on the record.

Music is Medicine for the Heart and Soul | Gary Malkin

Friday 4 pm

Music is an incredibly powerful phenomenon that touches us in profound ways. For more and more people, music transcends being simply a form of entertainment to become much more: a source of connection to the things that matter most. This approach to music offers a portal to a new realm, offering a direct experience of music in new ways, providing a glimpse into the universal language of sound. You'll discover how the untapped power of music, when used in a particular way, can reduce stress, improve your performance in your work, deepen your relationships, and enhance your capacity for gratitude no matter what your life circumstances are. Most importantly, you'll deepen your ability to feel connected to something larger than yourself. You will be given direct experiences that will nourish your soul and strengthen your capacity to serve others more powerfully while being more present with the people in your life. This presentation creates poignant opportunities to connect with what matters most by deepening your ability to listen, open your heart, and find ways to identify and cultivate your unique contribution to the world.

The Global Citizen | Christopher Johnson

Tuesday 8 pm, Thursday 5 pm

In today's 'information age' we find ourselves enjoying unprecedented wealth, resources, experiences and opportunities. Many of these luxuries you may have never thought of as a luxury. How many feel a sense of gratitude when you turn on the faucet in you home and water comes out? …that is clean and drinkable? …that is heated on demand? When the simple things in life for us remain significant obstacles for billions of people on our planet today, like 40,000 children dying each day for lack of clean drinking water, we cannot help but question our global consciousness. Are we awake? What actions are we taking individually and collectively to bring about equity in our human family? Is it working?

As we all strive to find meaning and happiness in this human experience, consider the following: This year alone…

· Over 2000 titles will be published with advice on being happy.
· Over 120,000,000 prescriptions for anti-depressants will be written.

This presentation will explore what one NGO is doing to not only end economic poverty in rural villages of developing countries, but what they are doing to end the spiritual and emotional poverty that is so pervasive in the countries stricken with "affluenza." CHOICE Humanitarian offers strategies for becoming engaged and effective global citizens by understanding what perpetuates poverty, what does sustainable development really mean and how sustainability is not enough.

TRIPLE BOTTOM-LINE INVESTING: Rethinking the rules to doing business

Social investing is already a multi-billion dollar market that is blurring the lines between traditional business and traditional non-profit services. As we experienced with the deregulation of the banking industry, the vast depletion of natural resources and the contamination of our environment it is now commonly understood that the bottom line is no longer adequate justification to how business decisions are made. This workshop will explore the basics of triple bottom line investing, impact investing and how the best of private business is coming together with the best of environmental technologies and the best non-profit services providers to develop a model of progress where people, profit and planet can thrive together.

For the past twenty-two years, Chris Johnson has been involved in humanitarian work both here at home and abroad. He has led over 30 humanitarian expeditions for CHOICE as a volunteer as well as served an internship with them for eight months working with the Huichol Indigenous tribe in the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico. He also spent two years on a service mission in Paraguay.

In the non-profit sector, Chris worked as assistant executive director of the Humanitarian Resource Center of North America and has held positions at CHOICE Humanitarian as Director of Field Operations for eight years, as Executive Director for two years and has spent the past three years as Program Director leading the organization in the most progressive social models in the sustainable development industry. Chris is driven by the fact that poverty is a function of politics not resource scarcity and that it can no longer be tolerated.

Chris has a Bachelors of Science degree in Recreational Management from Brigham Young University and has completed the course work of a Masters Degree in Recreation Administration at California State University Chico. He is the author of "Revitalizing Glendale: People, Resources and Strategies for Community Building," sits on two other non-profit boards of directors, has been instrumental in starting three non-profit organizations, and acts as an advisor to many more. He is father to three beautiful children, enjoys camping, traveling, cycling, mountain biking, snow boarding, running and just about anything that releases adrenaline into the bloodstream.