CLASS STYLES
To keep the practice thrilling, exciting and new, I like to mix things up. I like the yoga that allows for RELEASE so that the body, mind and heart can REALIGN. I like to work WITH our nervous system, and utilise all styles of yoga practice and tradition. We learn to discern and choose in each moment what is and isn't useful in our practice. I take the best of all yoga and bodywork world's and offer options for safe and longer-term practice. I teach Hatha, Mellow Flow, Power, Vinyasa, Slow Yoga, Kundalini, Yin & Restorative. Inclusive to all demographics; I offer Prenatal, Postnatal, Yoga for Fertility, Yoga for Cancer & Chronic Illness. Trauma & Life-Sensitive™ in scope and practice and there is something for everyone. All classes involved aspects of Yoga Therapy, Traditional Chinese Medicine & Ayurvedic concepts because Yoga is more than the poses we see practiced.
The yoga of mixing it up so we don’t get stuck. The yoga of trying new things. The yoga of allowing for RELEASE so that the body, mind and heart can REALIGN. This is the yoga of organic movement where things are less linear and more soft around the edges. Working WITH our nervous system, we utilise all styles of yoga practice and tradition in different ways and at different times because our bodies, lives and circumstances change moment to moment and year by year. We learn to discern and choose in each moment what is and isn't useful in our practice. We learn to say "no thanks" to creating more pain in our lives and we learn to welcome healthy and manageable states of discomfort or uncertainty to better understand, honour and clarify their meaning both ON AND OFF THE MAT. This is the yoga of keeping the practice thrilling, exciting and new so that over time we're neither bored nor simply moving through yesterday's same or over-repetitive motions because like any repetitive stress this can cause lethargy, apathy and injury. Any class or TEACHER TRAINING WITH YOGA THERAPY EDUCATION is like nothing you might've done before. This doesn't mean I’m pioneering anything, I like to think I’ve taken the best of all yoga and bodywork world's and offer options for safe and longer-term practice and teaching.
See below for my take on a few Yoga Class Styles and what you might get from a YOGA THERAPY EDUCATION class or training.
HATHA
Generally, this can be any kind of yoga. A POWER YOGA class can be a HATHA YOGA class. RESTORATIVE YOGA can be used to balance the rigor of a fast paced, dynamic VINYASA. SLOW FLOW is also VINYASA. It’s all about balance. Balancing the sun and the moon, the fast and the slow AND finding balance between what we do with our upper and lower bodies. Many schedules call these classes ALIGN. Not all alignment classes are alike. Some are faster and some offer slow movement and long holds; it depends on who’s teaching and what lineage or teacher they take most inspiration from. This can be confusing. If you're confused, that's ok. When we come to a class uncertain of what we're going to get, we have an opportunity to learn and grow. We have the opportunity to RELEASE AN OLD WAY OF FEELING, THINKING OR MOVING AND TO REALIGN IN THE PRESENT MOMENT. The right and left hemispheres of our brain gets a good turn on, it works better and ideally this keeps our brain healthier. The challenge is finding the alignment inside where we can be both grounded and flexible of body and mind, neither worried about what comes next nor expecting the same next step.
KUNDALINI
One of the most profound practices I’ve been introduced to and definitely one of the most life-changing. I trained with Gurmukh and Gurushabd in 2013 in South Africa. I incorporate Kundalini practices in classes and in all YTE trainings to give you the opportunity to taste something different. It’s not the easiest yoga, and I lovingly say that KUNDALINI YOGA is yoga for the weirdos. Whatever your taste and experience, my experience is that it is body-mind opening. I take it slow with all KUNDALINI practices until its time to take it up a notch. The experience of Kundalini Yoga is challenging in that kind of way where we know, deep inside, that if we "keep it up" something seriously subtle or wildly amazing is about to happen. And sure enough it does. If you want to make changes in your life, if you want to feel something new, if you want to find the raw-hearted deep and true, I dare you to give this kind of yoga at least 40 days. Its not for everyone, until they’re ready.
VINYASA
VINYASA can be called POWER YOGA. SLOW FLOW is also VINYASA. Most everyone’s favorite, DYNAMIC POWER FLOW can feel like salty, sweaty goodness. For some. For others, unfortunately, a call to an injury needed for what we call, “the slow down.” I enjoy a good dynamic flow, but I know now that we don’t absolutely have to do every single vinyasa in between every single right side and left side or at 100mph. It takes time to understand that more than anything, we needed to learn how to slow down both the breath and the movement to accommodate the uneasy and the impossible, to make room for the feeling inside of the movement. We may never get our legs behind our heads, but I love how a VINYASA class, practiced or taught with aplomb and tenderness, can get us closer to our perceived physical goals while also maintaining the mental and emotional rigor to keep us grounded with the realities of our bodies. May all of us, especially the bendy folk, learn how to do less to find more, and may we all stay injury free.
POWER
POWER YOGA is the kind of yoga that might ask for LONG HOLDS and deep reflection. Maybe. It can also be considered a DYNAMIC CORE VINYASA FLOW. I like to think of FORREST YOGA as some of the most powerful yoga around. This is definitely where yoga gets fierce. For some. For me. I spent the better part of the last decade trying my legs at long held Warrior II’s, and I’m still working on my FORREST flavored Uddiyana. I’ve come a long way.
Being flexible makes some of us averse to strengthening poses, and certainly not as excited to do them for anything over the nominal five breaths. My favorite and the funny thing that happens when I practice more powerfully is that I get angry, and then I want to cry. But that’s MY STORY making itself known to me. What happens when YOU are asked to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable? What happens when YOU are asked to stand in your power?
It might've taken me twenty years, but I’ve learned that there is also power in vulnerability and surrender. I’ve also learned that the only way into my forearms balances is if I surrender my Four-Chambered Heart to the earth, to lean in for that first date kiss. The only way into my long-awaited-no-wall-long-held handstands is by drawing powerfully into the midline; Forrest abs and time were also very helpful.
I believe that yoga takes time. And grace. I believe it takes time to find out for ourselves what holds us back. I believe it takes time to “get right” with what we can’t do and I believe that it’s the tender approach that both keeps us safe and opens us to the more powerful practices in yoga. Most of us aren’t taught how to approach ourselves slowly, tenderly and with grace. The most powerful thing I’ve come to love to do is to LET GRACE; to feel the dynamic GRACE OF BREATH moving my body. When I teach POWER YOGA, I’m looking for something different than the number of high to low push-ups you can do; I’m offering long holds, deep reflection and insight into your own sense of autonomy and power. I’m with Ana Forrest and Ram Dass on this one, I want you to feel your way toward the FIERCE MEDICINE AND FIERCE GRACE that your practice and your life offer.
For more information on Ana Forrest, please see www.forrestyoga.com and for more information on Ram Dass, please go to www.ramdass.org.
SLOW FLOW & MELLOW FLOW
You guessed it, slower and more MELLOW FLOW. You don’t have to be 99 to get something out of a slower moving class. In fact, this is where many of us, if we’re looking for it, find the sweet stuff. There is fierce medicine in moving slower. And grace. YTE believes that SLOW FLOW is still dynamic and powerful. We slow down enough to actually feel what we’re doing. You don’t have to be the "feely, feely type" to enjoy moving slower. You might have been forced into a slower moving class because of an injury, or chronic illness, and for some of us this may be where a lot of the harder work in yoga is. Balance is key, and balance in our daily lives might come from one day slow and the next day POWER and the next day fast and the next day YIN. Maybe? We’re still moving with breath when we practice SLOW FLOW and like a POWER YOGA class you might be asked to hold a pose long enough to feel or connect to what Craniosacral Therapists call the “Primary Respiration.” Sounds like fun to me, but I also know from experience, it's not that easy. Slowing down in our fast-paced, non-stop lives might initially feel more like pulling the parking break too hard; its hard. Slowing down, with time, and without reservation, feels like magic.
LONG, SLOW, DEEP
Bryan Kest you little devil. He made me cry once. It was about an hour and a half into an almost three hour LSD session. I was having a glorious and hellacious physical meltdown in Pigeon and started laughing because it was the kind of difficult that feels impossible to do. And we have to open to the humor of life's difficulties, right? As often as possible, I think. He knew what he was doing when he made his way over. My default is anger or laughter or tears. He leaned over to assist saying in his little mic to the maybe 200 participants in the room, “Laughter always comes before the tears.” And the tears came. Hours later, I wobbled out of the conference room feeling fully stoned, lit up from the inside out. A full-body all over experience that I’d only experienced, at the time, once before; after a Long, Slow and Deep Mantra Meditation. There is something to be said for holding a pose, active and intentional, for longer than is comfortable; for doing anything for longer than is comfortable. There is something to be said for longer, slower and deeper movement and practice. Its one thing to drop into a YIN pose and sit droopy and unmoving, or to sit dealing with the mental aspect of practice. It's another ballgame altogether, to TURN IT ON. Everything in every pose, for longer than comfortable, for an entire class, TURNED ON. And at the very end of Bryan’s class, we turned on a ten-minute deep forward fold. Paschimottanasana has never been the same. Nor has my teaching. LSD without the drugs.
Want to find Bryan Kest, go to www.poweryoga.com and if you’ve got the time, check out Yoga Journal’s interview with power pioneering Bryan Kest at:
https://yogainternational.com/article/view/power-yoga-isnt-what-you-think-it-is-an-interview-with-bryan-kest
YIN
Popular these days and great for most, YIN YOGA like everything, should be done in moderation. Like all medicine, it should be taken for prescribed moments in time for specific reasons. Do you need to rest and receive? Have you been crunching it out on hard floors for 60-90 minutes in hot rooms five days a week for five months, or five years? Maybe you just had a bad day? Yes, yes and yes. DO IT.
RESTORATIVE can also be YIN YOGA. And I like to think it is. YIN YOGA IS RESTORATIVE by its nature. It’s the tonic we all sometimes need. It’s slow. It’s meditative. It’s great for some of our joints at different times in our lives. Like any other practice, be careful that its not the only thing you do. Use props as needed. And if you’re super flexible, occasionally use props more than you might like or be used to. The signature YREST: YIN & RESTORATIVE YOGA TEACHER TRAINING is an in depth look at the differences and similarities between YIN AND RESTORATIVE YOGA. I include Slow Flow/Mellow Flow, Kundalini and Long, Slow, Deep practices to offer deeper insight into how we can mix things up to help our students avoid injury over time. Fascia and YIN YOGA are friends, but like any long term and intimate relationship, their relationship will change over time. If you’d like to taco bout it, CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON YREST: YIN & RESTORATIVE YOGA TEACHER TRAINING.
RESTORATIVE
Props, props and more props. RESTORATIVE YOGA is the bees knees! It takes YIN YOGA and “drops it like it’s hot.” Five, ten to twenty minute holds. It's a total turn on for the parasympathetic nervous system. The PNS is your system of rest, digest and love. It soothes a weary soul. Using bolsters, blocks and blankets to support your body in various poses, mostly close to the ground and sometimes hanging off of walls, the body’s usual sense of urgency and flight are calmed and a deeper sense of rest happens. There is no need to fight. In some of our YIN YOGA poses, for all too many, there is a constant battle between letting go and dropping in and pieces of the person practicing cannot relax. Sometimes all we need is time, more time, to both relax and to understand that it doesn’t have to always be a struggle. Life does not always have to feel like a struggle. Yoga does not always have to feel like work. Our RESTORATIVE YOGA practices offer time and support in a way that a strictly YIN YOGA practice might not. I CONSIDER RESTORATIVE YOGA to be one of the most advanced practices. You’re invited to do more than just move from one pose to another. Or breathe and move. Or sit for five minutes in quiet. RESTORATIVE YOGA takes the 8 limbs of yoga practice and offers many if not most of them in all in one.
I’m a little in love with RESTORATIVE YOGA. And if you’d like to learn more about the myriad ways you can RELEASE AND REALIGN, I offer more than the average or one-sided view to practice and teaching. 100 AND 150HRS OF YREST: YIN & RESTORATIVE YOGA TEACHER TRAINING that includes aspects of LONG, SLOW, DEEP and KUNDALINI, SLOW & MELLOW FLOW. The 150HR YREST YTT includes a one of a kind and intuition building 50HR VISIONARY & THERAPEUTIC ASSISTS IN YOGA MODULE. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION.