These Classes Just Hit Different. A love note.

UPDATE September 2022: I have stopped teaching weekly livestream classes, but the library of over 300 On Demand classes filmed in the last 2 years is available for you with the link below:

On Demand Class Library

Today – a little love note to the freedom that comes from being you.

In the last 10 years I’ve taught weekly yoga classes at no less than 10 different studios and gyms (thankfully not all at once).

Each place had its own vibe.

The Mismatch

And yet, at each, there was eventually an awkwardness, a mismatch between the studio culture and my evolving teaching.

I didn’t feel the disconnect every day, but I often felt pressure to teach faster classes, or more “flow” (which translates to less instruction).

This was true even as I taught DOMS-inducing, challenging classes that enlightened you to muscles you never knew you had. They were too slow for some.

I could feel this pressure even when students arrived who — clear as day to my physio eyes — were unprepared for the physical rigor of even a modified version of my class.

[Side note: Rarely did this pressure come directly from studios. More often it was either just in my brain or from students who expected classes to be like another teacher’s class or another studio’s classes.]

The Disconnect

There was another mismatch, too. The conversations I was having with my physical therapy patients discouraged fast-paced vinyasa or peak pose focus, both of which I was teaching at various times.

That’s a little background to say:

Even as I mourn the loss of so many studios (including where I used to teach) in the last year, IT FEELS SO GOOD to teach classes on my own terms now.

The Micro-Studio

Thanks to software technology, I’m running my own micro-studio, online.

I want to teach 3 times a week, and encourage us all to take days off from yoga to walk, hike and lift weights, so I do.
I want to teach Core Strength, Hip strength, and a general Mobility/Fascia/Function class, so I do.
The evidence shows that we all need strengthening, so that is what my classes focus on. Not poses.
I want to offer the classes with sliding scale pricing, so I do.

True Integration

I’m so proud of these classes. They just hit different.

They are appropriate for the majority of my physical therapy clients. Because fancy poses are never the goal, there are always ways to increase or decrease the challenge (and not feel FOMO or less-than). Because I don’t demand that my yoga classes also give me cardio, I calibrate my body’s needs on any given day.

I have regular students who are in their 70s, and others in their 20s. We are an eclectic bunch located literally around the world.

I know that these classes and this membership will not be everyone’s cup of tea.

I know the world aches for in person group classes again.

But I am thrilled to have my own little corner of the internet where I can keep on being me, asking the big questions, and melding my physical therapy evidence mind into my yoga.

If you haven’t yet tried a class, what are you waiting for?
Drop in for as little as $8 US, or join the monthly membership for access to ALL THE RECORDINGS!!!

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Originally published- 04/27/2021

Categories: : Yoga