Category: teaching

student, teaching, yoga

Beginning: Meet Your Students Where They Are

Christa Avampato
Yoga teacher Rodney Yee and one of his students

“Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Start with what they know; build with what they have. But with the best of leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say, we have done this ourselves.” ~Lao Tzu

Teaching isn’t about the teacher; it’s about the student. There’s no trick to teaching. No silver bullet. No magic. It only requires our awareness and willingness to be there for students. What does he or she need right at this moment? What can we offer to serve that end?

The best teachers I know step back so the student can shine. It’s about the cause (their students) and not the credit (their egos.) It requires great confidence and generosity to teach. When we’re that present our preconceived notions get tossed aside in favor of our intuition, our gut.

We have to give our students room to build their own experience while giving them the support that instills confidence in their own abilities. It’s this delicate balance between space and support that makes for a masterful teacher. (Thank you to one of my teachers, Arturo Peal, for that message.) And it’s that balance that helps students to rise above and beyond their own circumstances.

This is the point of all teaching – to help others rise.

education, learning, teaching, yoga

Beginning: Is It Time for Yoga University?

Christa Avampato

New York is blessed with a lot of wonderful yoga teacher training programs. It’s also home to some yoga teacher training programs that are put in place with the intention of helping studio owners pay the rent. The trouble is that it can be difficult to discern between these two groups. In the past, I’ve posted some advice on how to choose a yoga teacher training program and I think that advice is valid now more than ever.

A hunting we will go…
As I’ve gone hunting for programs to complete my 500-hour certification, I’ve become even more skeptical about the claims made on fancy brochures and websites. I start asking questions of some studio owners and I can literally feel their nervousness rise into their faces. I’m sure that they’d just prefer I choose to pay the fee (or not) and just go with it. This is yoga, right? Aren’t we training to go with the flow and the best of a situation? Well, yes, but this next phase of my teacher training situation is going to cost me something to the tune of $4K. That’s a lot of money and I want to make sure I’m getting as much value as I can and the right value for me. I’m asking as many questions as I’d like to ask. I’ve found two programs that were overjoyed with the number of questions I’ve asked and they’re extremely responsive so they are the ones I’m considering: ISHTA and Yoga Sutra.

What training do I really want?
In the last couple of weeks I’ve been tossing around some ideas of the kind of teacher training program I really want rather than just comparing the options to one another. Truthfully, what I really want is a masters degree in yoga, particularly because my interest is in using yoga in the medical field. I’m not trying to teach at my fancy neighborhood studio; I’m focused on getting yoga to people who aren’t going to walk into studios, people with critical illnesses. And to top it off, I want to be part of a team of healthcare professionals who collaborate and provide a patient / student with a holistic plan that includes yoga. I’m not sure a 500-hour teacher training program can completely prepare me for that kind of work.

LYT (Licensed Yoga Teacher)?
A few years ago there was a push in New York State to license all yoga teachers and studios. Right now, all we have are fairly flimsy certifications from the Yoga Alliance which basically amounts to us sending in a check, Yoga Alliance sending us a cardboard card with our name on it, and then making sure they have our address right so they can mail us a renewal notice a year later. In other words, if you can pay, you can play. (See Yogadork’s excellent article entitled, “Make Up or Break up: Yoga Alliance What Have You Done for Us Lately?” for more info on this subject.)

For the yoga instructor who wants to teach students who are in relatively good mental and physical health and who go to traditional shiny studios, licensing seems a bit excessive. Does NYS license sports coaches or personal trainers? No. The State’s argument is that yoga borders on physical therapy and physical therapists are most certainly licensed. I sort of understand that argument, but I question their ability to put true standards in place at shiny yoga studios. The state can barely attend to the workload they have now. And to be honest, I think it was just a play by the state to get more tax money rather than a real concern for people practicing yoga.

The State Has a Case In Me
Here’s where I think the state has a very strong case for licensing: instructors like me who want to be part of the healthcare network of providers. I would be more than happy, thrilled actually, to sit for a licensing exam if it meant that my students’ yoga classes would be covered by their insurance. I’ll prepare reports, stay in touch with their PCP, and secure their personal info in my systems. That’s the trade-off I’m willing to make. Give my students a way to be covered and I’ll do whatever I have to do on my end to make that coverage possible.

Insurance Is Going to Have Its Say
This leads me to my next conundrum – now insurance companies are going to weigh in on the kind of training that a teacher needs to have to legitimately qualify as a healthcare provider just as they do with therapists, acupuncturists, etc. Now things get really interesting. They don’t cover doctors, nurse practitioners, therapists, or social workers who get a few months of training and a flimsy certification. Licenses are the result of rigorous, multi-year study at accredited schools and then the students sit for licensing exams (often a series of them). If yoga teachers like me want to play in the healthcare space, why would they let us lower those standards? And if they did lower the standards for us, why would medical professionals see us as equals?

MY (Masters of Yoga)?
Maybe what some brave university needs to do is create a yoga curriculum within their existing graduate school structure. Some of you might cringe reading that. There’s been a lot of talk about the traditional education system going by the wayside in favor of more innovative forms of learning made possible by better technology. I don’t agree with that line of argument for medical professionals. I can’t yet imagine a world where a doctor does all of his or her learning remotely from an iPad. I feel the same way about learning to be a yoga instructor. It’s important to be in a class and working with students face-to-face because so much of yoga teaching is about a one-on-one connection. It can’t be engineered; it needs to be fully experienced.

There are so many pros and cons of this formal education in yoga; many times they’re one and the same. The oversight from a university could be both a blessing and a curse. Yoga programs may become even more expensive at a university, though there would be the opportunity of financial aid. A university could put the muscle behind more robust yoga research, perhaps heightening the controversy over its benefits and perhaps legitimizing it as a viable form of treatment.

Still, I think this idea has potential for teachers like me. I’m going to kick the tires a bit and reach out to my own alma maters to see if there’s interest in exploring the topic. The time and effort it would take would be  worth it if I could be a part of building the kind of program I’d like to have and if more people (teachers and students) would benefit.

student, teaching, yoga

Beginning: A Letter to My Yoga Students

Christa Avampato

Yesterday I wrote a post about the importance of figuring out whom your business or organization serves and why you’re the ideal person to fulfill that need for your stakeholders. In it, I partially described the type of yoga student whom we focus our efforts on at Compass Yoga. I got a few emails that asked me to elaborate on that topic so I decided to write an open letter to those students. Letters are a favorite form factor of mine in writing. They are powerful, personal, and heart-felt. Some say we’ve lost the art of letter writing in our society. If that’s the case, then I mean to bring it back. (On this blog, I’ve written letters to President Obama and My Younger Self.) 

Dear Students – past, present, and future,
      I’ve been working on gaining the skills to help you by examining my own life and focusing on my own healing. The healthier I am, the more I have to give to you. It took me a long time to learn that lesson, and for that I apologize. I wish I could have been available to help you sooner though healing happens on its own schedule and of its own accord. In this journey I learned that every moment unfolds exactly as it should, and in that revelation I have been able to find and feel real forgiveness, of myself and others.

      You are at the beginning of a brave and courageous journey that will lead you home to you, to your true essence. Congratulations on your quest for authenticity. Stop for a moment and celebrate that enormous step. It takes a lot of gumption to go in search of you; revel in the fact that you are embarking on a project that everyone should undertake and few ever do. You are to be celebrated for having the strength to even try.

      This road is not easily traveled. There are pitfalls and mountainous climbs. Some days will be smooth sailing, and others will be wrought with difficulty. I will be with you through all of it. I can’t tell you what to do or why or for how long; I can promise you that I will show up every day with everything I have. You will always have my focus and my compassion. We will walk this road together, and we will both be better off for it. I promise you that it will all be okay.  

      You may have some type of illness, mental or physical. You may be dealing with the heaviness of life in its many forms. You may need to find your way after a long period of wandering. Your age, physical or mental condition, race, religion, ethnicity, marital status, and socioeconomic circumstances do not define you in my eyes, nor in my heart. Come as you are and make yourself at home next to me. People have told you to try yoga or meditation or some other kind of mindful practice. You’ve decided it’s time to give it a shot and you are wondering where and how and with whom to begin. You have come to the right person, in the right place, at the right time. I am for you because I have been in your shoes and I know how it feels to begin this journey to healing.

       Take a comfortable seat, close your eyes, and breathe. This is where we begin and end, breathing in and breathing out, respectively. Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here, just as you are.

Love,
Christa

discovery, dreams, story, teaching, writing, yoga

Beginning: Thinking Your Dreams Into Being

Christa Avampato

“You are what you think.” ~ Dr. Lu

I saw this image yesterday when I went searching for information on the image I posted yesterday about how to live your life by your own design. This poem by Frank Outlaw reminded me of this quote from Dr. Lu, a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Who we become begins with our thoughts on our purpose. You can think the life you want into being. Frank Outlaw just handed us a map of 31 words.

As a writer, the second step of the journey – turning thoughts into words – is where I spend a considerable amount of time. Our words are the first pathways to our personal transformation. As a yoga teacher and yoga therapist, I help students find their own words by working through their own barriers in the body. Our past challenges, mental and physical, store physically in different parts of the body. Through yoga, we can remove the blocks in our bodies that then allow us to articulate our stories.

Once we can articulate our stories, we begin to heal and we become the rulers of our thoughts rather than our thoughts ruling us. It’s this combination of writing and yoga that is so powerful for me as a student and as a teacher. This is where it all comes together. I’m not here to impart any wisdom; I’m here to guide others to their own wisdom that they already have within them.

China, commitment, friendship, teaching, writing, yoga

Beginning: Commitment Gives Rise to Capability

Christa Avampato

“Capable people carry two brushes.” ~ Chinese Proverb

My friend, Allan, recently asked me to review an email he was sending off to an alumni contact regarding his job search. Allan had a lot of wonderful content in the email and I just brushed up the grammar and phrasing a bit. Allan’s response: “Brush is important. In Chinese, we call capable people someone with two brushes.” I’m guessing that this proverb must come from Chinese art in relation to calligraphy or oil painting. I love the elegance and power that it packs in a few simple words. All of Allan’s communications are like that – he is a product of his culture.

Work ethic
Allan is job searching after recently completing his second masters degree. I think of myself as productive, though his diligence and work ethic put mine to shame. I’ve never seen someone be able to sit and study for such a long stretch of time. He literally boggles my mind. I’m certain he is someone who always carries two brushes, and perhaps a third, just to be on the safe side.

Beijing to Charlottesville
Allan landed in scenic Charlottesville, VA directly from Beijing, China in 2005 when he started business school with me at the Darden School at the University of Virginia. He’d been to the U.S. for a few days once before (Chicago, if memory serves), and beyond that had never lived in an English-speaking country. His bravery to leave behind everything he knew to pursue his education and career aspirations (in a foreign language, which he speaks better than many Americans I know!) is a constant reminder to me of the power and magic that is born from commitment. We were in the same section at Darden so he was one of the very first people I met in Charlottesville. We were fast friends and remain so 6 years later despite hectic careers and lives.

How I started writing every day
I’ve actually never given Allan the full credit he deserves in my writing life. 3 years ago we went to dinner and Allan pulled out a copy of an excel chart that he had created that tracked the productivity of my writing on this blog as a percentage. During my first year of blogging, I posted often but not every day. Allan was really excited to see my productivity consistently around 90%; I was not. If I could be at 90%, then why couldn’t I be at 100%? Seeing those numbers in black and white spurred me to commit to writing and publishing every day for a year, just to see if I could do it. I’ve been writing every day for the past 3 years and now I couldn’t imagine not writing every day.

Embracing commitment
This was a poignant example in my own life of the power and magic of commitment. Practice made me a stronger, more confident writer. I used to think of being committed as being tied down, as being unable to change and grow. I was worried that if I committed, I’d regret the choices I made and then be trapped with a life I didn’t want. Now, I realize just how freeing and joyful thoughtful commitment can be.

Once I saw how much I gained from being a committed writer, I started to make other commitments in my life that have yielded amazing transformations. I committed to my yoga practice, which led to the creation of Compass Yoga. My relationships became more profound. New York City became my home. I adopted my rescue pup, Phineas. All of these changes gave me more happiness and they all found their roots in commitment. Doubling down on what mattered and letting go of what didn’t serve brought so much joy to my life that my only regret is that I didn’t learn this lesson sooner. It took me a long time to be ready for this truth: the right commitment breeds happiness.

I guess it is really true that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. My thanks to Allan and to commitment itself for serving as 2 of my greatest teachers.

future, teaching, yoga

Beginning: Taking Compass Yoga in a Therapeutic Direction

Christa Avampato

“Therapeutic yoga is yours now. Take it out into the world and share it. This world needs so much healing.” ~ Cheri Clampett

On Sunday at 6pm I completed my therapeutic yoga training at Integral Yoga Institute with the incredible instructors Cheri Clampett and Arturo Peal. I teared up a bit at our graduation ceremony because in the beautiful words of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, I actually felt myself “crawling through the window of a dream.” I knew this was not an end but only the very beginning of a path that will unfold for me across many lifetimes.

After celebrating and bidding a grateful adieu to my classmates and teachers, who were all truly amazing and gifted, I turned my attention to the next item at hand: what do I do now? The Universe interceded some moths ago and showed me that I should take Compass Yoga in a therapeutic direction, that this was the work I was meant to do. I thought about this training with Cheri and Arturo for a long time and had been looking forward to it since the beginning of the year. Now that knowledge lives in my mind and hands, as if it has been there all along.

Over the last few weeks, a number of people have asked me how I plan to use this therapeutic yoga training and rather than answer them individually, I thought it might be more helpful to publicly talk about my thoughts to date. Your comments and ideas along this journey are always, always appreciated.

Starting up a full private practice
While the real estate market in NYC is always on the nutsy side, commercial space for a small office is relatively easy to find and fairly inexpensive. With therapeutic yoga, private sessions and small group classes are very powerful because it gives the instructor time to the use of props to perfectly calibrate each pose for each student so they feel the full benefit of the practice.I’m currently looking into a few different spaces in Manhattan to rent for private sessions.

Joining an integrated medical practice or working closely with a network of doctors and therapists
1 in 30 people who now practice yoga in the U.S. are referred to the practice by their medical doctors. Rather than hoping someone will stumble into my class, I’ve been more proactive about connecting to the medical and therapeutic community for mutual referrals. Eventually I would love to truly connect with a  group of doctors and therapists as a part of a joint holistic practice in which therapeutic yoga is just one piece of a system to help treat a whole patient effectively.

Establishing residence within a yoga studio or network of yoga studios
Therapeutic yoga is often used for very specialized populations who are managing a specific illness, injury, or condition that has specific needs. I’ve put together a set of populations whom I’m most interested in working with and started to look for partner studios who are interested in providing the space for me to create these specialized programs.

Continue to provide yoga to underserved populations through nonprofit partners
This work has been some of the most rewarding of my life. To see someone bravely walk into my class who has never tried yoga before, and then to watch them feel the tremendous benefits, is a joy that I have a hard time fully expressing. It’s my hope that Compass Yoga will continue to provide this service to everyone who has the courage to take up a practice, regardless of their financial circumstances.

May the healing continue
I continue to be amazed by how much I learn and how much I heal every time I teach a class. What I give in my classes is nothing compared to all that I receive in return from my students. Their joy gives me joy. Their peace brings me peace. Their encouragement gives me more confidence and courage than I ever imagined I could have. The only way I can think of to truly thank them is to keep teaching as often as I can, to pay it forward as often as I have the great blessing to do so. Here’s to a world filled with more yoga, to a world filled with more healing. 

learning, teaching, yoga

Beginning: Practicing and Teaching Yoga Takes Great Courage

Christa Avampato

“People who practice yoga and meditation are the most courageous people in the world. They are willing to sit with their pain in order to heal it. I don’t know anyone who’s had an easy life. Do you? Trauma and suffering are part of the human experience. Give yourself over to explore it; go into it. We are so complex and so amazing.” ~ Cheri Clampett, Yoga Therapist and Teacher

At Integral Yoga Institute, Cheri talked with us about the power of guided meditation and how critical it is for us to create a safe space in our classes for all of our students. Yoga, the physical and mental exercise of processing the memories in our bodies and in our minds, can surface power emotions and we have to be so brave to sit with those emotions. I knew I was ready to teach when I had a very powerful experience in final relaxation pose. It started me down the path of reconciling with my father many years after he passed away. Someday I’ll tell you about that story – its very sad beginning, its long and winding path, and its peaceful resolution – that shaped who I am as a teacher and as a human being. Through that experience I learned that when you say a prayer with all your heart, the Universe responds with an immediacy and accuracy that will astound even the greatest skeptics. That is another post for another time. This post is a caution and encouragement for everyone who teaches yoga or hopes to do so. You have no idea just how valuable, loved, and necessary you are to the well-being of everyone you teach.

A word to the wise
In a yoga class you have to be ready for everything. You go right ahead and prepare your sequences, your intention for the class, and maybe even some of your specific comments and remarks. Then be prepared to chuck it all out the window because it’s not going down the way you planned. When you walk into a class, you have to be able to read your students within an instant, and change your plans accordingly. The class is about them and their journey, not yours.

While it’s very nice to have everything all laid out exactly how you’d like it go, what you planned on giving may not be what your students need. They will have mental and physical challenges to contend with. They are under stresses that you didn’t plan for. Your job, and in my opinion your only job, as a teacher is to create a safe space for all of them to just be, in whatever state they are in.  They will laugh, they will cry, and they will break down. And no matter what you have to stay with them; you have to keep all of your senses firing on full tilt so you can be supportive and strong without expressing pity. When someone’s drowning, they don’t want to grab the hand of someone else who is drowning, too. They want someone on dry land who possess the strength to help them through. In a yoga class, that someone on dry land is you, the teacher, and it is an awesome and intense responsibility. It is not a job for the faint of heart, but a job for those with the biggest hearts.

You are precious beyond measure
You may not know what a gift this safe space called your class is. Your students spend their whole lives putting on a brave face, soldiering up to be someone playing a very specific role at work, at home, with their friends and family members. And even if they love playing that role, it is an exhausting load to carry around. They spend 99% of their time doing and about 1% of their time just being. That 1% happens in your class, and you can’t let them down. It took a lot of guts for them to walk into your class, leave the world outside, and go within. Within can be a scary place. They need you, even if they don’t know exactly why when they walk into the class.

Our bodies surprise us
That’s the funny thing about emotional and physical releases in yoga. We often don’t know they’re coming, making our seeking them out an even more courageous act. They catch us off guard, and that puts us in an even more fragile state. I know first hand. In my final relaxation posture that made me want to be a teacher, I had no warning of the release I felt. Truth be told, I didn’t even know I was holding on to so much grief, regret, and loss. My teacher could have easily come over to check on me, to give me a hug, to give me some kind of sympathy. She didn’t. She created the safe space to let me work it out on my own so that I could preserve my dignity and get the most from this experience which I clearly needed. In Arturo Peal’s words, she gave me support when I needed it and space when I needed it. I think of her generosity every time I teach a class, and strive to be as giving to my students as she was to me. She was strong when I couldn’t be. I still tear up when I think about that moment, and it’s been 7 years.

You have the ability to have this same kind of effect on someone in your class, everyone in your class. In Cheri’s beautiful words, “We are all healing on some level.” Your students show up so that they can heal in your presence. They have come to you as seekers and they need your support on their self-designed journey. Walk with them; be steady when they can’t be; give them the space to feel their feelings and celebrate wherever they are along the path. You never know just how big a part you can play in the evolution of someone’s spirit. This is powerful, courageous work. Give the very best you’ve got to your students, and they’ll astound you with how much they give in return.

experience, learning, teaching, yoga

Beginning: Why You Need to Know What You’re Doing

Christa Avampato

“If you know what you’re doing, you can do what you want.” ~ Moshe Feldenkrais

“Awareness is the first tool of change.” ~ Arturo Peal

Sometimes you can play the game of fake it ’til you make it. You can make it up as you go along, and hope that it all goes well. I’m not an enormous fan of winging it. My MO is to plan, plot, and prepare. In the past year, I have let go of some of that. I do feel a little more at ease taking life as it comes when there simply is no other option. Winging it is still a last resort for me.

Practice helps
I believe there is something really powerful about the art of practice. Through discipline we continuously improve and build an awareness that helps refine our skills. The goal of practice isn’t to be perfect; it’s to be the best version of ourselves at every moment. When we are aware we are always in a state of learning. It’s a virtuous cycle: the more aware we become, the more we learn, and the more we learn, the better we become in our chosen field.

Choose your direction
It’s that idea of our chosen field that came to find when Arturo shared Moshe Feldenkrais’s famous saying, and then added his own thoughts about awareness as the prime tool to generate change. It’s an especially relevant concept for teachers. Teaching is a performance, and yes, you absolutely need to roll with the punches. However, it’s much easier to roll with those punches if you know what you’re doing, at least in a broad sense if not specifically. When I was in business school at Darden, I could always tell who was a seasoned master case method teacher. Their delivery, commentary, and ability to steer the conversation without stifling the students’ creativity always impressed me. Their practice over many years made all the difference.

I consider all of the times in my life when I’ve been really frustrated, when I’m just not sure what to do next or how to get out of the rut I so much want to leave behind. There’s nothing that gets me down more than the feeling that I’m spinning my wheels to no avail. These moments find me most often when I just don’t know what I’m doing. This feeling attacks my confidence and sense of ease. If I can just take a deep breath, crank up my awareness, and recall when I’ve been in a similar situation before, I can begin to find my way one step at a time. My confidence builds, my ease returns, and I begin to do the work I want to do.

You can prepare to adapt
Preparation and improvisation don’t need to be mutually exclusive. I’m beginning to see that our ability to effectively prepare while also being able to handle unexpected change is the very best way of living. To take our lives in the direction we want them to go, we need to know which road to take even if we don’t know all the turns that will crop up along the way. Our preparation helps us choose the right road. Our ability to adapt helps us navigate the inevitable twists and turns.

creativity, experience, teaching, yoga

Beginning: If You’re Going to Experiment, You Need a Laboratory

Christa Avampato
From smashingapps.com

“Experimentation is an active science.” ~ Claude Bernard

The only way anyone can really learn to teach is to practice. No amount of book learning or observation (and I am an enormous fan of both practices!) can really prepare us to stand before a group of willing minds and bodies who want to learn what we know. We have to take our place at the helm of a class and give it a whirl, over and over and over again.

This is especially true when learning to teach yoga. The cadence, tone, and volume of our voices, how we tread the lines of observing our students, adjusting them verbally and physically, demonstrating, and giving them information about a posture’s benefits all take a good deal of practice. To practice we need a laboratory – a place where we can try experiment and play to gauge what works and what doesn’t. My laboratory for teaching is my free class at the New York Public Library on Wednesday nights at 6:00pm.

Tonight we started class with a few postures that I learned over the weekend at my therapeutic yoga training at Integral Yoga. These postures are more based in Traditional Chinese Medicine  than yoga, and asked if they’d be willing to give them a go so I could practice teaching them. Gracious as always, they were more than happy to give them a try to help me out. It was a great gift for me to practice receiving help, something that is sometimes difficult for me to request. I’m used to giving all the time; the students were more than happy to be able to give in return.

Labs gives us the chance to try what’s difficult for us, which is often exactly what we need to do, and it promotes the growth of the individual and the participating community. It also opened up the dialogue. The students felt more willing to ask question than they have in other classes. Rebecca, the head librarian at Bloomingdale who makes this class possible, walked me out after the class. “I have to miss next week’s class and I’m not happy about it. This one hour of class makes my whole week manageable.”

And that’s the benefit I didn’t know a lab could provide – the freedom it represents gives all of us permission to check our cares at the door and for a brief time just be.

harmony, health, teaching, yoga

Beginning: Help Someone in Need with Space or Support

Christa Avampato

Cover for Arturo's latest meditation CD
“When you see a student needs help, ask yourself one question: does she need space or support?” ~ Arturo Peal, Teacher

During my last teaching session this weekend in my therapeutic yoga teacher training, I had a student, Rebecca, who was having a tough time getting comfortable on her side. I placed more padding under her hip and that didn’t help. I called Arturo over and rather than just telling me what to do, he asked me a question to help me find my way – the mark of an exceptional teacher. “Does she need space or support?” he asked me. The support under Rebecca’s hip didn’t help, so she what she needed was space so her hip could relax. “And how can you give her space?” Arturo asked me. “Prop under the rib cage and under the knee so the hip floats,” I replied. He smiled his big, beautiful smile, and moved on. It was the proudest moment of my weekend. Maybe even the proudest moment of my teaching.

After the class, Arturo told me he had learned this question of space and support from Judith Lasater, a brilliant P.T. and yoga teacher who is deeply associated with therapeutic yoga. Arturo took a number of anatomy workshops with her as part of his holistic wellness training. Arturo has deep and varied credential as a certified yoga therapist and anatomy instructor, and also has a Master’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine, is a certified Craniosacral Therapist, and earned a 4th degree black belt in Aikido, “the Way of harmonious spirit”. He’s been teaching and working with students in all of these areas for 30+ years, and his accumulated, assimilated, deep wisdom shows in his manner and in all of his instruction. I highly recommend taking a workshop, retreat, or class with him whenever you have the chance.

I’ve thought a lot about the quote above by Arturo over the past few days. The best parts of yoga I find are in their application way off the mat – as we’re walking through our day, interacting with others, and building lives and relationships. Whenever we see someone with any kind of need, whether that’s an adjustment in a yoga posture, a problem at work, a problem in a relationship, or in dealing with an emotion like anger, trauma, sadness, loss, frustration, or anxiety, there is always an answer to the question, “do they need support or space?” Does someone need a hug or do they need to be left alone? Do they need advice or do they just need someone to listen silently?

Every challenge we face needs either support or space – the key to transformative care, teaching, and healing that helps students on the deepest levels is to know which to apply when.