Although I had practiced yoga on and off for years (in the basement of my parent's house while watching my mom's yoga and Pilates videos, or in the morning sometimes in the gym at college), it wasn't until the summer of 2011 that my practice became serious. I had just graduated from college and, in the midst of deciding what I should do with my life, signed up for a triathlon. It turned out to be a good random decision, cultivating strength and discipline in my body and structure for my very unstructured post college life.
During this time, I saw an advertisement in the window of a yoga studio down the street offering a free week of yoga. I, with my roommate at the time, decided to take advantage of it. She was training for the Chicago Marathon at the time, and we both desperately needed a low impact physical activity for our off-days. We went together to a class that was far above our level of knowledge and bumbled our way through an hour of class. I was sweaty, shaking with the acknowledgement of my non-existent upper body strength, and strangely intrigued by what had just happened.
So of course, I went back.
Months later, I ended up grabbing a yoga-for-trade gig at a studio of the same brand in a different location. For a mere three hours a week of mopping studio floors, washing windows and folding towels, I had unadulterated access to as many yoga classes as I could manage to attend.
Boom. World changed.It was at this time that my yoga practice became a Practice. Rather than "doing" yoga sometimes, I became a Yoga Practitioner. A practice indicates a habit. A habit implies repetition. Yoga, ladies and gentlemen, became something like an addiction. I was hooked.
Months later, with my new friend from the studio, I signed up for Yoga Teacher Training. Teacher Training programs in yoga are usually 200 hour commitments. The contents of mine ranged from lectures on Sanskrit and yoga history, posture clinics and practice teaching, anatomy lessons and cadaver labs (seriously) and a dedicated, daily practice. Months later, I was certified. A year later, I was teaching at the same studio that had changed my life 16 short months earlier.
One thing I have learned through my yoga practice is the importance of intention. With that in mind, here are my intentions for this blog:
1) This blog is intended as a point of continuing education. Research for yoga classes is an endless activity. Here, I hope to formulate my research into something more closely resembling accessible information. This benefits me, as I untangle my research notes and strive to become an ever more knowledgeable and learned yoga instructor, and it also benefts...
2) ... You. The student. The fellow teacher. The budding yogi. The dedicated practitioner. The reader. It was not long ago that I know very little about yoga. This blog intends to share what I know, and demystify the experience for those of you hungering for more information. Blogs will include posture breakdowns, tutorials, sequencing tips and sequences, meditations, snippets and thoughts, photographs and drawings. All designed to draw the practitioner closer to their practice, the curious yogi to their yoga.
3) Community. There is a saying at the studio that if you have learned, you have a responsibility to teach. I have learned from so many great sources and studios and teachers and fellow yogis over the last many months, that it is part of my karma and my responsibility to put some good stuff back out there into the world. This is that attempt.
Thanks for joining me on the journey,
H.
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