You’ve followed them on Facebook. You might even take their classes in person once in awhile if they travel to or live in your city. But how well do you know our YogaGlo teachers? We’ve created a new series, Ask a Yogi, so you can learn more about them by asking questions you’ve always wanted to ask.
From favorite poses and tips for beginners to deeper questions about how their practice has changed their worldview, our teachers will collectively answer a new question each week. If you have a questions that you’d like to “Ask a Yogi”, let us know in the comments or email us at hello@yogaglo.com and we’ll add your question to the list. Today’s Ask a Yogi question is:
- Elena Brower: That the subtleties are where it’s at.
- Kathryn Budig: That I can never be mastered or owned. Yoga is for everyone—all levels, all ages and backgrounds. There is no ‘right’ way of doing yoga, it’s about finding what works for the individual best.
- Jason Crandell: There is nothing to prove and there is no timeline.
- Tiffany Cruikshank: I don’t think there’s a time that I teach that I don’t learn something. Even teaching something like anatomy at my teacher trainings, I always make new connections when I teach because a big part of yoga is the practice, showing up and putting in the work.When we infuse that with mindfullness we have something extraordinary.
- Steven Espinosa: It’s taken me a long time to finally understand it’s not all about asana. Don’t get me wrong, I love asana. It’s why I initially fell in love with yoga. But now it’s more for fun. Rather than constantly trying to challenge or push myself in a physical manner. Now it has become more about embodying the yoga off the mat and into my daily life. Meaning, “how does one walk with the yoga in their heart while still living in the modern day world?” To me, that’s the real question.
- Marc Holzman: How much I learn from the students. It’s not a one way street-I receive beneficial feedback from them on how to be more articulate, sensitive, present, compassionate. And since I theme my classes, I contemplate even mundane, daily experiences more deeply. That’s a gift.
- Amy Ippoliti: This may seem obvious, but this is an insight I have recently been able to put this into words in a way I never have until recently: Students in the room are not only operating at differing levels in their physical practice, but they are also operating at different levels of emotional relationship to their practice. For example, students will do one of four things when the going gets tough: 1) Proclaim the class too hard and never come back (gets defeated, gives up) 2) Wait to hear the modification or modify on their own (knows limits) 3) Seek me out for help modifying around a limitation (takes responsibility for their body & trusts me to help them modify) 4) Push themselves through the challenging pose with consequences later. (Lot’s to say here…) My insight is that it’s healthy as a teacher and fellow practicioner to speak to the different reactions that can arise when we are challenged by poses in the sequence that go beyond our physical edge.
- Tara Judelle: That it is about quality rather than quantity. To move with ease is a thing of grace and beauty that blurs the seams of otherness.
- Kia Miller: The more we speak, act and live from a place of love, the more that love is reflected from others. In the busyness of life I sometimes show up to a class un-prepared and have to remind myself that as long as I call on the light, center myself and hold a space of love, that the work will be done through me. The subtle dimensions of the practice are what fascinate me, how certain poses and breath encourage energy to flow and shift, how key our intention and attitude are to the process of transformation. I love the saying “how I do anything is how I do everything.” This is certainly true of the work we do on our mat – when we bring the fullness of our attention coupled with the will to change and a compassionate approach, anything is possible!
- Christina Sell: My latest insight is that yoga postures are like little goals. Knowing what the full form of the pose is is like setting a big goal for ourselves that we might not reach 100% but that still gives us something to work for. It may be that our 100% best effort only takes us 50% of the way to that goal and that disparity between our abilities and capacities and the goal of the pose is the place where we learn the yoga of both self-acceptance and dedicated effort. Too often I watch teachers and students avoid educating their students about the “full form” for fear of people feeling bad if they can’t do it but I think there is another option. What if we knew that we were aiming high from the beginning of the endeavor and we fully knew we might not be able to do 100% of the pose and yet we felt great about what it is that we can do rather than bad about what we can’t do! This inner yoga is more important than a perfectly straight leg or a super deep back bend so it is important that we practice this kind of mindset in addition to yoga postures.
- Stephanie Snyder: I’m continually amazed at how perfectly relevant the practice is no matter who you are or what you’re going through, the practice can serve anyone in any moment.
- Jo Tastula: That not saying anything is often the best thing to say. Giving pause and space is a great teacher.
- Felicia Tomasko: One of the things I’m continually reminded about yoga every single time I teach is how yoga is not a game of Simon Says, nor is it a cookie-cutter approach to the practice. Even in a group situation, each person has their own experience. Each person’s body responds differently.
- Harshada Wagner: Just today I was teaching a workshop where people were having big openings and tears and deep insights and it occurred to me that great generational healing was taking place. This generation- the generation doing all this yoga and inner work- is healing generations of contraction. For most of us western seekers, we are the first generation in our lineage to do this work. Even in the East, the deep work that is going on is new and special. The deep layers that get touched by our yoga practice effect so much more than just us.
