The poet/activist Yung Pueblo is swiftly recognized among social media circles for the lean style of composition and design he employs. His posts take the shape of distilled down verse floating in a simple black and white typeface among wide margins. The technique lends to the reader a relaxed spaciousness of thought – void of any pressure to crack some code and extending a true feeling of… You’ve got this. Take it. Turn the page. Go.

inward by Yung Pueblo

Pueblo’s new book inward (Diego Perez Lacera, 2017) is a curated collection of the teachings he has been sharing for the past three years on Instagram and Facebook. inward embodies that same spareness of his social media footprint, and his signature approach translates rather seamlessly to print.

I was first introduced to Yung Pueblo’s work when Elena Brower wove bits of his verse into an autumn workshop she was leading in the Boston area. As a poet myself, I was quickly struck by the absolute economy of his vocabulary, and also its power to prompt.

Skillful lowercase bursts such as… “i closed my eyes to look inward and found a universe waiting to be explored.” And, “if you are far away from yourself, how could you ever be close to another?” Accessible wisdom – timeless and so piercing in delivery.

The Story of Naming a Poet

The 29 year-old poet (whose birth name is Diego Perez) hails from Guayaquil, Ecuador. He writes under the name of Yung Peublo because “Pueblo” reminds him of his roots. It’s a word used in his native land in reference to the masses of economically impoverished people. And, “Yung Pueblo” (young people) keeps him recalling the youth of humanity and how much learning remains. “I want to help people understand that growing their happiness, building their inner peace, and reclaiming their power are all essential things that not only heal humanity as a whole, but will ultimately help us establish a more peaceful and harmless world. Your inner peace will literally become the foundation for a future global peace. Healing ourselves will not only help us live with less misery, but it will give us a new clarity that we can use to transform the world.”

Is Pueblo’s verse poetry, or is it some manifesto? Are his teachings mantras,meditations or affirmations? They elude labels yet exude a hint of all. Best to come and see for yourself. Clocking in at a portable 5 X 8 size, inward makes for a swell secret weapon to tuck into a day bag – refuge on the road.

More about Yung Pueblo

Learn more about Yung Pueblo on Instagram and Facebook @yungpueblo.

Susan Currie

SUSAN CURRIE is a West Palm Beach-based poet with a camera. Her words and images have been widely exhibited and published. She met her muse some time ago when she discovered the ancient eight-limbed practice of yoga. Its way of life continues to inform and imprint the art she makes. The creative workshops she offers throughout the country share her signature approaches for practicing mindfulness in order to connect more authentically with one’s creative voice. Susan is the author of four books —Once Divided, Gracenotes, Breath Taking, and Superflow: Light Up the Artist in You (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021)—and the creator of CHARMCODES.
website: www.susancurriecreative.com

www.susancurriecreative.com

The post Deep Healing is Possible: Inward by Yung Pueblo appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Meditation photo by Sami Sneider

Meditation–including people using meditation apps–is definitely having a moment. You can listen to the hum of instructions such as “Call on the breath, notice what you notice, let your thoughts come and go…” streaming through your earbuds on your portable device anywhere you go, even on a city sidewalk or in a subway. According to recent data provided by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, upwards of 8% of adults use meditation as a form of mind-body wellness. Is mindfulness meditation proving to be one thing we can all agree on?

Could meditation be our 2018 love language? Well, it’s a trending solution and modern-day mind-hack. Its reach is wide and its shape fluid. That shape increasingly looks like plugging in. For years, technology has been shouldering the rap for the punishing pace in which we currently dwell. In an interesting plot twist, we may have the avenger of tech to thank for helping us collectively rise above the noise and confusion of our scattered life-scape.

Structuring Practice using Technology

Erik Myers was meditating on and off before he downloaded the Yogaglo app. Since he now has a teacher literally in his pocket, he’s able to start and end his day with meditation. Erik says, “I’m the type of person who needs structure and something to follow and the Yogaglo app makes everything 10 times smoother.” Beyond the ability “To BE the peace and calm energy that I want in my life, instead of waiting for it to come to me,” Erik reports, “My relationship with my wife has dramatically improved since becoming consistent with it.”

Gratitude Daily

The meditation that Erik uses to bookmark his day is gratitude. He’s not the only one. Nina Polo Wieja noticed that the most significant shifts in her own life have come as a result of increasing the awareness of gratitude in her practice. The Yogaglo app compliments her already established practice by serving as a source of fresh inspiration, tools for expanding kindness, and a way to deepen her practice at home and on the road.

unplug for an outlet

Television Writer/Producer Brad considers Brentwood (California) home, but he spends much of his time on the go. His meditation practice is in a state of evolution. Brad found his way to unplug meditation studio on Wilshire Boulevard where he connected with a number of teachers and was hooked. When unplug launched their app, both he and his wife made use of its wide range of video meditation sessions and ability to maintain a practice anywhere.

“I was a completely different man before I started meditation. I had a lot more anxiety, would often feel tense, and had no way to relieve any of the stress. Constantly on edge and often agitated, meditation was the difference. I have an outlet now, and it’s given me a greater perspective on my life and made me far more introspective. I’m not perfect, but incorporating a regular meditation practice has dramatically altered my life.”

Minimum Dosage Required

Lynne Goldberg, co-founder of the meditation app Breethe describes herself as a former “Type A crazy person.” She attributes Breethe’s steady growth and global reach to its varied menu of small dose teachings. “What I notice is that people in general don’t want to sit for 25 minutes. Breethe distills information in a very different way so as to not overwhelm people. People using apps for meditation guidance are often people who would likely not be meditating if not for technology. They want to know what the minimum dosage is in order to see changes. So, what we’ve done is to come up with five-minute meditations to address that population. Then, as the user becomes more efficient and their habit strengthens, we have noticed they begin to crave longer meditations.”

The Creation of a Meditation Convert

Monica is a 75-year-old retired psychotherapist and mediation convert (thanks largely in part to Breethe) from Montreal. “The most important factor for me is that on this meditation app, the guide with her easy delivery gives a short explanation introducing each daily session. Also, there is a meditation concept that is developed through each week’s session. Being able to use the app on my iPhone makes it so accessible. I have it whenever and wherever I want it.”

Monica uses it at least five days a week, complementing it with alternate forms of meditation such as walking. “Before meditation I was always yearning to find more peace in life. I didn’t know that I was stressed, but the idea of being more at peace always appealed to me. Meditation has helped me recognize stress and deal with it much more effectively than having it deal with me!”

Own Your Own Mind

“If you want to know your own mind, there is only one way: to observe and recognize everything about it,” instructed Thich Nhat Hanh in his 1975 book The Miracle of Mindfulness. To do so, he added, “You don’t have to sit beneath a special tree in a distant land.”

“Meditation is neither shutting things out nor off. It is seeing things clearly, and deliberately positioning yourself differently in relationship to them,” wrote Jon Kabat-Zinn in his 1994 classic Wherever You Go, There You Are.

According to author and Spirit Rock Meditation Dharma Teacher James Baraz, “In the moment that you’re mindful, there is a spaciousness in the mind. In that consistent willingness to come back and to be here (and to want to be here), mindfulness develops in its own natural unfolding.” While the practice’s look has perhaps been scrambled in the hand off to our digital culture, its intention of establishing some clarity of heart, mind, and consciousness remains intact. Rabbi Lau-Lavie, Founding Spiritual Director of Lab Shul in New York, recently described his daily mediation simply as, “Carving time to be there for the ‘me’ so I can be there for the ‘we’.”

Keeping Calm

Sarah is an East Coast-based business owner who somewhat new to meditation. Her rapid-fire days are filled with sporting multiple hats while making decisions and solving problems. To say she punches out feeling a bit depleted would be an understatement. She learned of the app Calm through a newspaper article. While meditation for her is not quite yet a non-negotiable activity, she’s been pleasantly surprised by the way she has stuck with it. For that she credits the app’s portability and its cueing. “Meditation calms me down and makes me think clearer, which were both a concern before I started using Calm. The brevity and simplicity of a meditation app is for me really appealing. Also, I need someone to guide me, so that’s very effective. The ability to be mobile in my practice is also key.”

Customizing App-Based Practices

The freedom to customize one’s mindfulness practice certainly appears to be fueling meditation’s global sweep. Rebecca, a Senior Manager with Trip Advisor based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a perfect illustration of this. “Meditation has brought a lot of positive benefits into my life, including more calm, better balance, better communication, a more balanced and wholesome diet and lifestyle.” At the recommendation of a friend, she began using the Calm app a few months ago. She uses Calm along with the 10% Happier app, as she says they offer different and complimentary programs.

Meditation on the Go

The 10% Happier content themes and the conversational approach of creator and author Dan Harris, however, is the underlying reason Rebecca has stuck with her practice. “The apps help to apply meditation practice to aspects of my day-to-day life such as work, eating, communication. When I started to feel positive effects in these areas, that felt productive. It shed light on how powerful they are. I like that 10% Happier and Calm both encourage meditation on the go — in the car, while walking, et cetera. I like that you don’t have to be sitting on a cushion, because that is not always most desirable or enjoyable for me.”

Turn your Home into a Meditation Studio

unplug, “the world’s first drop-in, secular meditation studio,” was a pioneer in making edits to the practice in order to keep it current and accessible for all. The app was a passion project for its CEO/Founder Suze Yalof-Schwartz. “My goal is that folks will use our app to turn their homes into a meditation studio.” With two meditation studios in LA (Brentwood and the corner of Melrose Avenue and La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood) and the debut of app’s unplug 2.0 version, Ms. Yalof-Schwartz suggests that customization is what it’s all about.

“Here’s the thing, if meditation came in a pill form everyone would be addicted because it works for every single person who commits to doing it regularly. But, we each consume it in our own individual way. With over 400 videos our users have the choice to either stay with some of the more classic mediations (such a gratitude), or for example, to smell their way to happiness using essential oil meditations.”

Subscribe to Results

David, a vascular surgeon in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, has used both the Headspace and Breethe apps. In a prior chapter of life, he relied on setting a timer for practice. This approach had mixed results. Yet with Breethe he found he was able to “get to that daily frequency” that had previously eluded him.

“When I switched from my prior (sporadic) meditation practice to a daily practice with Breethe, I was going through some extremely stressful family situations to the point where I was barely holding things together. Following a daily practice, I was able to cope better with the same difficult situations.”

Bringing Meditation to the Mainstream

New York City-based Paige is the Creative Director for a brand of fine jewelry. She likes to mix up her practice by meditating at least four to five times a week using a the unplug app and her own personal practice. She says she got her “feet wet” on Headspace. Paige was able to absorb some of the techniques learned through that tool to then thread them into a personal practice. She’s a fan of Ms. Yalof-Schwartz and the way in which she was able to bring meditation into the mainstream through both unplug the meditation studio and unplug the app.

“unplug in LA is my first stop whenever I am on the West Coast. When I learned about the app, it was a natural step to subscribe. I love that you are able to browse by teacher, topic or time, and I can access content on my phone or iPad at any time. The myriad choices allow you to customize the type of meditation that you are looking for at that moment.” Paige also uses the unplug app’s teen meditations with her ten-year-old son at the finish of the day.

From the Meditation Cushion to the Meditation App

It seems we’ve collectively travelled some distance from the meditation cushion. With these cultural edits, skeptics naturally express concern that our devices have made the practice all too convenient. Are we swerving too far from meditation’s original roots? Ms. Goldberg offers, “I feel strongly that if you keep your head in the sand and you don’t use the tools that are available, then you miss out on the potential to connect and change the world. I see these new routes as an incredible platform to make a difference in an exciting way that I otherwise would never have been able to accomplish by traveling around leading individual classes.”

We’re a culture of people ever-seeking that one magic fix. But settling the mind is no easy task. As with encountering anything that is difficult, we never run out of ways to make progress. “We might have all kinds of ideas of how we want to be. We think, “Now I’m on a spiritual path, and I know better, and I think I’ve got it figured out.”

The Solution to our Meditation Quest

“Be careful of that thought,” cautioned Mr. Baraz through my earbuds as I sauntered along on my afternoon walk listening to free meditation content, compliments of the website Dharma Seed. His reasoning felt on point and well worth heeding. Maybe the true solution in our quest to source compassion for self (and for all) is ever-unfolding. It is a spacious blend of the old and the new, in forests and in cities, both seated and mobile, with socks on or socks off.

Resources for Meditation

References and Research

Lab/Shul: labshul.org
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health: nccih.nih.gov
Dharma Seed: dharmaseed.org
Spirit Rock: spiritrock.org

Featured Meditation Apps

10% Happier: 10percenthappier.com
Breethe: breethe.com
Calm: calm.com
unplug: unplugmeditation.com
Yogaglo: yogaglo.com

Additional Meditation Apps

Brightmind: brightmind.com
Headspace: headspace.com
INSCAPE: inscape.life
Insight Timer: insighttimer.com
MNDFL: video.mndflmeditation.com

Susan Currie

SUSAN CURRIE is a West Palm Beach-based poet with a camera. Her words and images have been widely exhibited and published. She met her muse some time ago when she discovered the ancient eight-limbed practice of yoga. Its way of life continues to inform and imprint the art she makes. The creative workshops she offers throughout the country share her signature approaches for practicing mindfulness in order to connect more authentically with one’s creative voice. Susan is the author of four books —Once Divided, Gracenotes, Breath Taking, and Superflow: Light Up the Artist in You (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021)—and the creator of CHARMCODES.
website: www.susancurriecreative.com

www.susancurriecreative.com

The post How Do You Take Your Mindfulness? To Go with a Collection of Meditation Apps appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

It is a constant revealing, a constant unlayering or peeling away, to find that essence of who you really are.

The artist Francesco Mastalia has traveled the world photographing tribal, religious, spiritual, and indigenous people. These past couple of years however have found him a bit closer to his home in Rhinebeck, New York, engaged in a deep and divine encounter with the practice of yoga. That immersion has resulted in YOGA: The Secret of Life, a fine art salute to the ancient eight-limbed practice of yoga, to be released in October by powerHouse Books.

Chelsea Jackson-Roberts, YOGA The Secret of Life

“Why are we here?  What is our ultimate purpose on the planet?”  So begins Mastalia’s inquiry. Like a nomad, he goes on to use the following two hundred or so pages to forage into the mystery. In YOGA The Secret of Life, the author fuses masterfully prepared portraits (captured over a span of 18 months, largely in and around the Hudson Valley) with personal revelations of yogis spanning myriad genres and generations.  The practice has long beckoned for an honest offering where art and alchemy divinely collide.  That call has been sated, magnificently, by Mastalia with YOGA The Secret of Life.

Shiva Rea, YOGA The Secret of Life

For its familiarity of faces, as I took a first pass through the book, I had the feeling of holding a class yearbook – personalities the yoga community has long come to revere against page after page.  You just want to sit with and revisit each story.  Dharma abounds throughout with countless quotable moments such as the insight above of Sarah Platt-Finger in which she equates yoga to a “constant revealing”.  With passionate personal reflections on the practice from Kia Miller to Deva Premal to Ana Forest to Tao Porchon-Lynch to Krishna Das, it’s a tall order to convey its survey depth here in the confines of a book review.  Here’s just a random glimpse of the testimony which supports Mastalia’s ethereal portraits:

“Our body is our first instrument and we use the body to reach our inner divinity, that inner soul that exists in all of us.” Patricia Walden

“Just feeling calm and feeling stable and at peace with yourself is a reasonable goal.” David Regelin

“Yoga is the state of missing nothing.” Rima Rabbath

“Yoga is a secret doorway into a very full and delightful life.”  Wah

And while the narratives serve as a powerful soundtrack, it’s the images that bewitch – the forest serving as the “stage” for most of Mastalia’s captures. As with his previous (photo documentary) book Organic: Farmers & Chefs of the Hudson Valley (powerHouse Books, 2014), the portraits of the yogis were photographed in his signature treatment using the wet plate collodion process, a photographic technique developed in the mid-19th century.  The labor-intensive collodion process involves capturing photographs on glass plates and requires that each step be performed by hand. With the use of a large format wooden camera and antique brass lens, glass plates are hand coated to produce one of a kind ambrotype images. The collodion process, when light and chemistry collide, is beloved by many for its ability to transcend viewers to another place, another time – accenting nuances, invoking mystery, and proving to be a perfect tool for conveying the soul of yoga. “The process begins by hand-pouring an emulsion of collodion onto a plate of black glass. In ceremonial fashion, the plate is then bathed in a solution of silver nitrate to render it sensitive to light. Waiting, under the mystical shroud, the ‘wooden-view-camera’ sits in silence, as the glass plate is brought to light. With the subject holding perfectly still, the lens cap is carefully removed from the antique brass lens and the seconds are counted. While celebrating nature’s offerings and absorbing the power of the sun, the breadth of time embodies the spirit. Eager to reveal itself, the glass plate is quickly brought to development. Appearing as a negative, it is immersed into a fixing solution, and as it clears, the inner light magically comes to ‘life’.”

Amanbir, YOGA The Secret of Life

With its long view and its patient portraits, YOGA The Secret of Life parts company with others who have set out to creatively chronicle the odyssey that is yoga.  As a photographer and yoga instructor myself, I have for some time fancied a compelling visual account which might weave together words and images and speak some truths of the holy nature of yoga and all its subtleties. Much to my delight, that testament has arrived.  A practitioner of yoga himself, the author’s fluency with the practice is evident throughout his probe.  In my experiences of capturing yoga with a lens, a command of that vocabulary is essential in drawing out its sacred qualities.

Rod Stryker, YOGA The Secret of Life

And, as I consider the collective voice of YOGA The Secret of Life and the (many) truths echoed throughout its pages, I find myself recalling these few lines from the poet David Whyte (from the poem Working Together)…

so may we, in this life
trust
to those elements
we have yet to see

or imagine,

and look for the true
shape of our own self,
by forming it well
to the great
intangibles about us

“Look for the true shape of our own self, by forming it well…”  This line in particular invokes for me the “secret of life” that Francesco Mastalia has so humbly unearthed in his (very) fine art salute to yoga.

To learn more about Francesco Mastalia, please visit his website: www.francescomastalia.com. 

Susan Currie

SUSAN CURRIE is a West Palm Beach-based poet with a camera. Her words and images have been widely exhibited and published. She met her muse some time ago when she discovered the ancient eight-limbed practice of yoga. Its way of life continues to inform and imprint the art she makes. The creative workshops she offers throughout the country share her signature approaches for practicing mindfulness in order to connect more authentically with one’s creative voice. Susan is the author of four books —Once Divided, Gracenotes, Breath Taking, and Superflow: Light Up the Artist in You (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021)—and the creator of CHARMCODES.
website: www.susancurriecreative.com

www.susancurriecreative.com

The post Discovering Life Through Yoga: YOGA The Secret of Life Book Review appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

I applaud all of these teachers.  You know the more people we can enlighten and help find a more peaceful way to walk on the earth.  I say power to you.  There’s just something really gorgeous to all this.

Halle (Homegirl) Becker does not pull punches.  She wants the truth to “lead the way”, and has absolutely no qualms about passionately spreading that dharma.  She’s 54, lives “loudly and proudly” neither denying the process of aging nor necessarily embracing it but rather extracting its very essence and bringing that ripening forward into the light.  A bright light she has emitted for nearly twenty years holding court as one of New York City’s most beloved yoga and spin instructors.  Known for her Sweat and Surrender signature classes, don’t expect to sit quietly for her sermons.  Halle Becker teaches in layers – seamless layers of music, grit, kicks and perhaps most thundering…  heart. Never, ever scripted, either on mat or bike.  The only thing you can expect in a Halle class is to be swept up on a fantastic voyage over which the mind has only a remote chance of getting in the way.  When it’s all said and done, you are left stretched. Stretched in ways that you never saw coming.  A common refrain from her band of followers, “I don’t do spinning.  I do Halle.”

So just what is it about this gal?  A sort of grounding agent is she.  A little bit Maria (Von Trapp).  A little bit Keith (Richards).  Then toss in a hint of Patti (Smith).  In the Pali Canon, Adhitthana (one of the ten perfections) is loosely defined as determination or resolution.  Author and Co-founding Teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center James Baraz translates the term as “an unwavering persistence”, or “summoning our courage to meet anything”.  It’s a concept at the root of every overture Halle Becker serves up.  Be it on a yoga mat, spin bike or on retreat, nothing less than completely showing up will suffice.  Her demand comes not from a place of grandstanding or any desired guru status, but rather it bleeds from the tracks of her own personal sweat (and tears).  “She’s just an amazing woman filled with so much love.  She just has this instinct to kind of know and then she zooms in on it.  I am just amazed at how much better my emotional state feels after her classes. I just think of her as this motherland of love.” This from Debbie a longtime spin and yoga student.

Becker senses that along with her parents humor genes, she arrived on this planet armed with an innate sensibility for calling the shots.  Born in Cleveland in 1962 the daughter of an actress/costume designer and a high-powered attorney, Halle is pretty certain that her first words (at about two weeks) were, “This place is not hip enough, we need to move.”  Move she did to the storybook suburb of Wellesley, Massachusetts where she and her younger sister Barrie enjoyed all of the trappings of the bucolic suburb just west of Boston.  With a roof over her head, fine clothes and a pony outwardly she appeared to want for nothing.  Despite the privileged childhood, she confesses to always feeling as though something was missing.  Consumed by their careers, Halle is very candid about the parental detachment she experienced while sharing a roof with her mother and father.  She also refers to her parents’ animated personas as possessing the air of the sad/happy clown.  A Leave it to Beaver type home Becker’s was not.

With her parents divorcing in her pre-teen years she found herself grappling with mounting feelings of inadequacy…  Are You There God?  It’s me Margaret, by Judy Blume serving as an early Halle bible.  Her big personality and natural gift as a storyteller enabled her to mask these inner doubts and kept her sallying forth in her signature pluck.  She jokes that public speaking may have been in fact the only subject to which she excelled in high school.  That verve propelled her onwards through what she refers to as a “really long run including drug addiction”, “feelings of not being in the right body”, and eventually “a marriage in shambles”.  Her only real solace during these years came through her deep spiritual connection to animals (horses in particular).  She attributes the sudden (fatal) heart attack of her father (in her sophomore year at American University in Washington DC) as the curve which sent her swiftly tumbling along an arduous slope – a battle with which she would wrestle into her late thirties and early forties.  Throughout this extended period of numbing out she continued to fall back on her winning personality seeking out the comfort zone of what she refers to as “the big stage”.  This secret weapon fueled her as she somehow managed a successful stint in the corporate world as the CEO of Halle’s Comet a production company she founded which staged large scale events for the corporate world.  Riding high in a huge industry with clients such as Oprah Winfrey, Becker found herself featured in the Washington Business Journal and indulging in the many spoils of success yet still plagued with that looming shadow side.  Luckily for her during this chapter the practice of yoga was quietly rearing its head.

In a roundabout fashion, Halle’s passion for yoga was sparked by discovering Jane Fonda’s Workout video and book late in high school.  While she had always been physically active, something in the sequencing and teachings of these media pieces found her curiosities heightened.  With little rehearsal the early 1980s found Becker sporting leg warmers and teaching aerobics out of the back of a hair salon on Newbury Street in Boston with nothing more than these materials as her guide.  She swiftly parlayed that gig into a stint during her college years spreading the gospel of aerobics at a DC area fitness center.  All the while she could not even touch her toes.  A fellow yoga instructor at the fitness center, Jane Fryer, happened to notice, and began gently pitching her on the eight-limbed practice’s many merits.  Halle would have none of it.  “I hated it.  It was so boring.  Fast forward a couple of years and I’m in New York City where I take my very athletic yoga class at Equinox with no rigid rules and cool music taught by Michael Leconsczak.  I was like WOW!”  From there she never looked back eventually completing her 200 RYT training with Sondra Loring (of Sadhana Yoga in New York’s Hudson Valley) and leaving the corporate world to teach yoga full time.

Along with life in New York City came the truth.  The truth Becker finally needed to tackle.  Adopting a baby and on the verge of parenthood at 42, that ray of new life forced her to confront her demons and do the work to combat her addictions for good.  In doing so, she said farewell to an unhealthy marriage – a decision she and her ex-husband made together for the sake of the “beautiful being” (a daughter Maya) who had come into their lives.  With great conviction she credits yoga for the clarity it brought to her and the subsequent transformation to get clean once and for all.  “I had to find that quiet mind in order to get it done.  I had to dig deep, battle some serious shit.  Just take it on.  Yoga helped me with this and gave me the confidence to start to tell my story through teaching.  Let me be clear that I am extremely lucky to be here today, because the way I was going with my lifestyle, it was anybody’s guess whether or not I was going to make it.”  And with ongoing resolve, make it she has.

With her own battle scars ever present she arrived as an instructor on the New York yoga scene with a burst, boldly charging her students with “showing up” and trying to find the highest versions of themselves.  Speaking a language all her own and spouting pet names like “unicorn” and “sis” from her perch, folks quickly began responding to her no nonsense neighborhood banter.  From the get go her approach has always been to simply deliver to students a dose of humor, some rock and roll and that sacred space in which everyone moves on a level playing field. For Halle, It was never about being someone’s guru.  “Think of my classes as the Cheers Bar of yoga.  I want to welcome people to come in and find their seat.  Yoga will always have something to teach us.”

Despite no formal religious background, there is an undeniable preacher coursing through her veins.  She credits the likes of MC Yogi, Shiva Rhea, Raghunath and her longtime teacher Sondra Loring for keeping he inspired.  It’s a brand undeniably all her own and one that continues to engage the willing.  Beyond her longstanding tribes at New York City’s Earth Yoga and Pure Yoga East and her very own Home Girl studio, recent years have found Becker headlining at events like Wanderlust in Stratton, Vermont and also presenting at the 2013 Lulu Lemon World Conference in Vancouver.  The larger scale the setting, the better for her to connect in widening circles and share her own personal story.

It’s that Halle vibe that prompted Soul Cycle founders Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler to come calling in 2013 and take a chance on a female yoga instructor in her 50s.  Rallying the troops at that 83rd street location with its particular clientele is no small challenge to be tasked with, and she bears tremendous respect for the owners’ gamble in passing her the baton.  Even though she claims it took her six months to figure out how to clip into her pedals, this latest gig has for Becker proven to be a perfect extension of her yoga teaching.  In the saddle with the house lights dimmed and the music loud she again assumes the mantle of storyteller.  Those versed in both yoga and spinning can attest to the shared subtractive qualities.  On the bike, on the mat…  you are tasked with removing your “self” and diving deep inward to the present.  Adhitthana.  In salute of that inner work and as with her yoga teachings, Becker builds her message from her all important playlists.  A great deal of intention goes into crafting soundtracks which both sonically and lyrically reflect her expected audience – clans for which she she is eternally rocking gratitude.

I could write a chapter book of Halle escapades and antics, but your really must experience her in person to get the big picture.  When I signed on to meet Ms. Becker for my inaugural Soul Cycle class I relinquished all expectations and resigned myself to simply dive in to the mystery.  Well in advance of her arrival, the bikes have all been spoken for and street shoes have been swapped out for the ones that clip.  Devices are being stowed and other necessary adjustments made before the doors to studio B swing open.  And then Halle marches in with abandon and at once all is rendered electric.  Vivid and vibrant and sporting a hint of swagger.  The seas part as she begins her lobby greetings.  “Who is setting me up this morning?” she wants to know.  To that proposition a team of bright eyed crew members fall in swift synch and a Macbook is produced – a conduit for the almighty play list which will dictate the current.  Lights are dimmed just so and off to see the wizard we pedal… “Inhale, let’s.  Exhale, GO!”  Blasting off on a 45 minute odyssey – that signature mashup of drive, dharma, team and of course sweat.

From her in your face opening straight on through to the big exhale finish, among the rush and the push there’s an undeniable comfort of being held.  Over Simon and Garfunkel’s Cecilia, to PitBull, then Guns and Roses Sweet Child of Mine downshifting to Bruce Springsteen’s My Hometown (yes, My Hometown), we have collectively in under an hour broken on through to some other side.  Everyone pedaling, well-versed in some foreign vocabulary, launching themselves on the wave that is Halle.  Strangers for an instant all one, digging deep for some greater good.  As the climb progresses, Halle speaks of setting the tone for the rest of one’s week.  She speaks of the class, the 45 minute “rocket to the wilderness”, as representing opportunity – an exceptional opportunity to “show up”.  Our Monday, perhaps our week, has been forever altered with Halle’s imprint.  A continuous stretch of “ah-ha” teachings.  The gospel according to Halle.  As the class wraps I’m curious to see how quickly she’s engulfed in a swarm of pumped up disciples soaked and jockeying about for just another spot of “Halle” time…  She leaves me with one for the road trumpeting over the fray…  “Susan, hey we were always friends, we just hadn’t met yet.”

My retreat is not about acrobatics.  And I’m not going to shove spirituality down your throat.  But you are going to leave a different person.  We’re going to sweat, lie in clay, play some volleyball, maybe have a glass of wine if that’s your thing.

One of her favorite places to meet new friends these days is in beautiful Tulum Mexico where each February she leads a band of pilgrims in her annual Soar and Restore retreat at the famed Amansala resort.  It’s a retreat she has been leading for years with Loren Bassett and this season Dana Slamp and an experience of which she is particularly proud. Here among the Riviera Maya she and her teaching crew turn strangers into friends.  “My retreat is not about acrobatics.  And I’m not going to shove spirituality down your throat.  But you are going to leave a different person.  We’re going to sweat, lie in clay, play some volleyball, maybe have a glass of wine if that’s your thing.  It’s for people who want to step out and step back in (to their lives) a little differently.”  2017 marked the retreat’s sixth year – all of which have sold out.

And, from where does the “Homegirl” handle originate?  Again, it all comes back to telling stories.  In 2008 she created the brand as a moniker for the weekly drop-in yoga classes she teaches out of her home on the upper east side.  On any given Tuesday or Thursday morning her kitchen is pulsing with a blend of “super high rollers”, upper east side moms fresh from dropping their kids at school and a handful of students from Hunter College.  Before any mats have been unrolled, there is venting, sipping of fruit infused water, yakking about menopause and more.  Nothing is off limits.  And, that’s precisely why she built Homegirl, a kula of sorts.  In opening up her home she wanted to again create that colloquial experience around a common passion…  yoga.  Sacred space where things are kept real and stories can be swapped, safely.  Now in its eighth year, she remains very intentional in setting the tone for Homegirl.  Despite the swanky zip code, as common in all of her classes, status is of little interest.

As she saunters leisurely through her fifth decade it’s her thirteen year old daughter Maya, who she refers to as “a magical unicorn”, to whom she gives top billing.  Together they share a love of dogs and horses, and by her daughter’s side she is tutored daily in patience, kindness and whimsy.  As Becker says, “She shows me everything about myself that I need to work on.”  She is filled with gratitude for this second chance she has been given, and she and her ex-husband (with whom she is peacefully raising her daughter) make certain to tailor their professional commitments around her evolving needs.  The 50s in many ways find Halle “returning” as she likes to say.  Returning to the sorted life experiences which have ripened her and also tapping into a building level of confidence that she earned in the school of hard knocks.  In the truth that is her legend she now finds an overflowing natural resource.  And to her contemporaries still at it sharing their good words on the mat she sports nothing but respect.  “We may not be able to still do the advanced poses that the younger ‘kids’ can do, but we’ve got the stories and the truth and the years and the wise tales we’re willing so share.”  But in true Halle fashion, she continues to cheer for everyone. “I applaud all of these teachers.  You know the more people we can enlighten and help find a more peaceful way to walk on the earth.  I say power to you.  There’s just something really gorgeous to all this.”  She leaves me with a favorite line from Ram Dass which rather perfectly embodies (Homegirl) Halle, “Sis.  We’re all just walking each other home…”

Don’t miss Halle at (MIND, BODY) & SOUL CAMP this September in Stowe, VT.  A weekend exhale, with benefits.

Halle Becker: http://www.homegirlyoga.com

Spirit Rock Meditation Center: http://www.spiritrock.org

Jane Fryer: http://www.janefryer.com

Sadhana Center for Yoga and Meditation: http://sadhanayogahudson.com

Soul Cycle: https://www.soul-cycle.com

Wanderlust: http://wanderlust.com

Earth Yoga: http://earthyoganyc.com

Pure Yoga: http://pureyoga.com

Michael Leconsczak: http://www.intelligentyoga.com

Amansala: https://www.amansala.com

Loren Bassett: http://lorenbassett.com

Dana Slamp: http://danaslamp.com

Susan Currie

SUSAN CURRIE is a West Palm Beach-based poet with a camera. Her words and images have been widely exhibited and published. She met her muse some time ago when she discovered the ancient eight-limbed practice of yoga. Its way of life continues to inform and imprint the art she makes. The creative workshops she offers throughout the country share her signature approaches for practicing mindfulness in order to connect more authentically with one’s creative voice. Susan is the author of four books —Once Divided, Gracenotes, Breath Taking, and Superflow: Light Up the Artist in You (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021)—and the creator of CHARMCODES.
website: www.susancurriecreative.com

www.susancurriecreative.com

The post Living Loudly and Proudly – Rocking Gratefulness with NYC’s Wise Woman of Fitness Halle Becker appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

“We’re in this together,” writes award-winning journalist Lauren Lipton in the introduction to her new book, Yoga Bodies: Real People, Real Stories & The Power of Transformation. She and photographer Jaimie Baird seize the book’s pages to illustrate that conviction with unscripted images and candid testimony shared by an honest cross-section of real people and their tales of personal transformation. Featured within these pages are a selection of men, women, children (and yes, dogs), who embody the essence of yoga.

As many yoga instructors will acknowledge, their tasks do not begin and end with cueing asana and breath. There is this other hat that they wear (often at the finish of class) — that of the compassionate witness. It goes without saying that everyone comes to the mat with something, and with her book, Ms. Lipton really listens…quietly documenting these personal stories and curating them into a powerful collection.

Visually, Ms. Baird further echoes Lipton’s message. In her naturally lit portraits, she has elected to capture ease and exhale and candor with her lens, resisting the soft brushes and other post-processing fixes for perfection. Coupled alongside each yogi’s account, her images further plant the reader in the book’s rich narratives.

For example, meet Jim practicing his headstand variation. “As a blind person, it is my experience that how things feel, not how things look, matters most.” Turn the page, and we are introduced to Naomi (Watts) in navasana (boat pose) sharing how she has relaxed some of the physical exertion of her Ashtanga days in order to stretch and heal her aging body. There’s Betsy in monkey pose who speaks of the moment that the yogi in her was born. She goes on to share that moment as a harrowing (literal) fall from a cliff in northern Minnesota. Mid-fall she transforms herself to become “unbearably light.” We also are introduced to Babette and her big smile in cow face pose wondering why aging isn’t more celebrated in our society.

Yoga Bodies: Real People, Real Stories & The Power of Transformation offers a timely reminder of the sheer humanity that gathers people in the spontaneous community of yoga. It’s a book of inclusion; a gift that welcomes all. As one yogini Heather puts it, “Yoga builds self-esteem in a humble way, reminding us of our sameness, not our differences.”

Susan Currie

SUSAN CURRIE is a West Palm Beach-based poet with a camera. Her words and images have been widely exhibited and published. She met her muse some time ago when she discovered the ancient eight-limbed practice of yoga. Its way of life continues to inform and imprint the art she makes. The creative workshops she offers throughout the country share her signature approaches for practicing mindfulness in order to connect more authentically with one’s creative voice. Susan is the author of four books —Once Divided, Gracenotes, Breath Taking, and Superflow: Light Up the Artist in You (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021)—and the creator of CHARMCODES.
website: www.susancurriecreative.com

www.susancurriecreative.com

The post Yoga Bodies: Real People, Real Stories & The Power of Transformation appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Natasha Rizopoulos Photographed at her home in Brookline, Massachusetes by Tricia Gahagan. Natasha is wearing top by Hard Tail and pants by Jala Clothing

From Beachwood Canyon to Brookline, Massachusetts

In 1996, while hiking the northern section of the Hollywood Hills, Natasha Rizopoulos had a “moment.” In that reflection, in the balm of Beachwood Canyon, she experienced a bit of a homecoming. After years of professional roaming, the moment was a bow to the ever-present voice that had been long dimmed by the “shoulds” that can mute a life.

In chapter nine of the classic Great Expectations, Pip counsels, “Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.” You might say, in her flash Ms. Rizopoulos was channeling some Dickens. Inquiring in, staring down the truth of the matter and hushing, “Ahhh… yoga.” In that brush with clarity, there was a merger of her inner and outer selves.

Natasha Rizopoulos is beloved by students on both coasts for her strong command of asana and dedication to proper alignment; she is a respected educator of thousands of yoga instructors, former Director of Content of the YogaWorks teacher training curriculum, Yoga Journal cover model and contributor, star of Yoga Journal’s Yoga Step-by-Step video series, creator of the Align Your Flow™ system, Yoga U presenter, and more … The earnest maestro sports a resume with which many in the yoga world are well versed.

Yet there is a story to the origins of these great expectations Natasha Rizopoulos holds of herself and her students. Just how does an East Coast bred, Ivy League educated daughter of two academics with years of training as a ballet dancer wind up with a 2X6 mat as her office?

Yoga was not necessarily in her early plan. “With Natasha, since she was a little girl, it’s been, ‘I’m here. I’m going to do my best. I’m going to get myself organized, and I expect everyone else to do their best too’,” recalls her mother Diana de Vegh. Growing up among books (many books) in New Haven, Connecticut and New York City, Rizopoulos’ strong will and seriousness of purpose surfaced early on in her childhood.

These “all in” characteristics spilled over to many of her youthful pursuits from paper dolls and make believe to her intense study of ballet. In dance and movement she found an early vessel for self-expression, a vessel in which she abided well into her high school years. Although dance’s punitive nature eventually quelled a bit of her spirit for it, it was an early link nonetheless.

After four years in Cambridge, graduating Magna Cum Laude from Harvard, she returned to her beloved Gotham City to work first as a civil servant in city government, then to enroll in a graduate program at Columbia (a Master’s Degree in Social Work and Public Policy). In her first year, she worked as a counselor in a hospital in the South Bronx, then partway through her second year of study, she realized that her passion was in a different path so she parted ways with the program to follow a long-simmering ambition to pursue a life on-stage as an actress.

An unwavering determination and the sense of purpose that came with self-expression led to her accepting a number of smaller stage roles as well as a coveted invitation to summer with Shakespeare and Company. “In some ways, the acting was wonderful in that it filled that void for self expression that was left when I gave up dance. I also loved the community – being part of a production was so seductive for me. So thrilling.”

The logical next stop for an emerging actress in the prime of her life would be Hollywood. Once there she worked both in front of and behind the camera, juggling odd jobs and odd hours and growing increasingly disenchanted with both. Along the way she began to dabble in yoga and adopted a regular (Ashtanga slanted) practice.

In this chapter, and by chance, she found herself in class with Saul David Raye as he was serving as a substitute for the scheduled instructor. She was struck by his knowledge and teaching style that soared above and beyond the simple recitation of poses; through him she found her way to YogaWorks where she continued to be drawn in by the practice’s physical aspects and the experience of being completely present in her actions on the mat.

“I had a brain that was going all of the time. There was for me just something so absorbing with the physical practice.” Then there is that Beachwood Canyon pause in which she takes stock and recalls a dance experience during a role in the Shakespeare and Company production, that sheer joy of expressing herself through her body and the happiness in her work. She says, “The memory of that time made me realize that I could do this with yoga – to be in the world and take this practice I was falling in love with and do something useful with it.”

Natasha Rizopoulos photographed by Tricia Gahagan. Clothing by Hard Tail. Yoga Mat by Manduka

“Finding yoga was the big shift for me. On the surface I always seemed to have it together, but all the while I was truly quaking inside – perfectionism, a certain self-consciousness… When I started teaching yoga I had found my voice. And finally, it was an authentic voice.” The following week she committed fully and enrolled in a teacher training program at YogaWorks – a leap from which she has never looked back. “Ahhh… yoga.”

Invoking a young King Arthur and the building wisdom he earned through wearing varied hats in the story The Sword in the Stone, de Vegh, a therapist in private practice in New York, summarized her daughter’s professional trajectory, “With Natasha, the things that she learned as an actor and as a dancer are very apropos for yoga. She learned how to work with herself. How to work with her breath. How to use breath to sustain her. How to use breath to give her energy and when to preserve it. She learned how to work with her body – when is the time to stretch and push and when is the time to cherish and protect. She learned about listening to the music and getting that internal beat, and of course as an actor listening to other actors. Her training in these areas fed into her work as a yoga teacher, and I think her natural generosity and kindness probably helps a bit as a yoga instructor as well.”

Rizopoulos brought to her (Iyengar and Ashtanga) yogic studies a complete attention and that signature strong constitution. Beginning in 1996, she completed two successive 200 hour teacher training programs under the tutelage of Lisa Walford and Maty Ezraty, the first as an avid civilian and the second just as she was added to their teaching roster. As soon as YogaWorks’ Advanced Teacher Training program was developed, she completed that as well.

With a wealth of training under her belt and hesitating less, she launched herself fiercely into her teaching, from the start teasing out the promise of the willing. “I was fortunate to have begun teaching so quickly because that accelerated path just ramped up my desire to know more and more. I did not want to just be teaching gymnastics.”

Ms. Rizopoulos educates in lyrics all her own—a fact to which anyone who has spent time in her company can attest. “Spinning inner thighs”, “pinning elbows”, and “rebounding the spine” are just a swatch of the currency she trades in her precise guidance.

Clothing by Hard Tail. Photo by Tricia Gahagan

In the practice of asana she sees a window with dual opportunities: to reveal vulnerabilities and also to correct them. A big part of seizing these opportunities involves listening—a dying art for which she displays ongoing mastery. “If you are really looking at your students, you can see the piece that isn’t working. Whether it’s a part of the body that is weak, dull, tight, whether it is a quality of mind that is not allowing the person to be present – skillful teaching is about helping the person turn into the skid which is often an area that they’re trying to avoid… but doing it gently and mindfully and with support.”

It bears mentioning that her mother, Ms. de Vegh, was for years a teacher in Reevaluation Counseling (RC). This process of uninterrupted, attentive listening is said to naturally facilitate best conclusions from within. These teachings drifted into the family home for a time impressing Rizopoulos deeply. Perhaps in homage to this concept of listening fully, she has little use for the sensory overload which has become so accepted in contemporary yoga. “I want people to be listening to my instructions or their own breath. Why do we need something else?”

After a storied career in the Southern California YogaWorks family, Rizopoulos was tasked with the export of the program’s teacher trainings to Boston when her personal life spurred a cross-country relocation. She continued to share that curriculum, one which she had personally refined over time, in her role as a senior teacher at Down Under Yoga (Newton and Brookline) until 2015 when she elected to devote her full attention to creating and sharing her own teacher training programs in collaboration with Down Under.

A trusted mentor to many, these days in addition to her concurrent 200 and 300 hour teacher training programs, she also leads four public classes each week in the Boston area as well a number of Align Your Flow™ master classes in and around the city. Although the teaching commitments do at times compete with her own personal time on the mat, it is on these smaller stages that she sees her tomorrows. She does not rule out a writing project at some point, but resisting impulse she insists that such a venture must be predicated by her uncovering something distinct to relay.

Brookline, Massachusetts sits some 3,000 miles east of Los Angeles. A hamlet just outside of Boston, the town is home to stellar public schools as well as choice shopping and dining. Founded in 1705, Brookline is perhaps best known for its proximity to Fenway Park and also its discerning inhabitants. Rizopoulos traded 15 years of Southern California perpetual sunshine to be here.

Tucked gently in among towering pines, an accent of white checkering the grounds… her home and its setting are enchanting. I arrive for tea in the early afternoon on a chilly Friday. More than just a dwelling, it’s a refuge she has peacefully occupied for the past four years with her husband, the Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Michael Kirk. Dressed casually, she and her “lassies,” rescue dogs who answer to Alice and Zucchini, welcome me with a steadied cheer. As in the studio, her voice breezes seamlessly with conviction from one topic to the next, her volume perpetually dialed to about 3.5, obliging the listener to lean in.

Natasha and Zucchini. Natasha is wearing clothing by Hard Tail. Yoga Mat by Manduka.

In just a few hours she will kick-off a 300 hour teacher training program, a program in its third sell-out year. Yet her manner is so at ease. It is perhaps under this roof that she hears best; her free time is spent reading fiction, wandering out in nature, following her tennis hero Roger Federer, and meditating in her home studio. When we approach the topic of her husband, she gushes sweetly beaming gratitude for their union. She and Kirk met in 2003 while filming Yoga Journal’s Yoga Step-by-Step video series. From their working relationship, in time, a deeper partnership unfolded eventually prompting her shift in coasts.

Their life together is intentionally quiet, and although in June 2016, Rizopoulos presented at Yoga Journal’s San Diego conference, she goes to great lengths to preserve that order, cutting back on her travel and making any other necessary edits to suit their life together. These include embracing a smaller, more local career and being at much peace with that decision. Despite her resistance to the siren calls of social media and things viral, she has found in her practice channel with Yoga U a means of skillfully bending technology to honor her preferences yet remain connected remotely with her swelling audiences. In this expanding series of online classes sporting titles such as “The Art of Building Core Stability” and “Harnessing the Transformative Power of Inversions”, students find Rizopoulos continuing to disrupt myths, herald key actions, and highlight the use of oppositional actions in poses such as salamba sarvangasana (supported shoulderstand). Regardless of your viewing zip code, expect to be tasked with her signature homework poses or “daily vitamin regimens” at the finish of each class.

Grateful to be back to a pretty well-rounded practice herself after navigating some injuries and the limits of a hyper-mobile body in its late forties, Rizopoulos feels strongly that “teachers have teachers.” Still curious and forever foraging for novel content to share with her students, Patrica Walden, whom she views as a significant mentor, continues to guide her as she deepens her personal Iyengar studies. “Natasha is a teacher committed to growing, not that she needs to. Yet she sets the bar very high for herself. As a result she has so much to contribute to her students,” shared Walden. “When she teaches asana, it is not just physical. With great humility Natasha also honors pranayama and shares yoga’s rich philosophy. And, I would underline humility.”

Natasha is wearing tank by Hard Tail. Pants by Jala Clothing. Photo by Tricia Gahagan

Thirty-five of us have just wrapped up a master class which plumbed the depths of the all-important backbend. Over the course of two hours the tenor swirling around Ms. Rizopoulos morphs rather organically from all business to the charm of a doctor in the house. Under her careful guidance in breath and motion, collectively we’ve journeyed from an unpacking of tadasana (mountain pose) straight through to three variations on urdhva dhanurasana (upward facing bow), our peak pose for the morning. At the finish of our travel there is a genuine experience of having covered terrain, physical and intellectual, with many small epiphanies along the way. Despite the fatigue, I’m struck by the audience (mostly comprised of yoga instructors) lingering, continuing to hang on the instructor’s every word as she elaborates whole-heartedly on “pairing actions to find your neutral, your zero” in these poses.

Longtime Natasha student, teaching assistant and Boston area studio owner Kristin Olson summed up her personal experience in Natasha’s company, “Natasha’s intelligence pervades her teaching. She creates a more cerebral asana experience and through her choice of words and sequencing she forces students to not only stay present but to also notice their own personality through the practice. Every single pose and every single cue is thoughtfully chosen to create a profound and enriching asana. She has an extraordinary ability to translate asana and yoga philosophy so that they resonate with people in a way that we can actually live by the ideals of yoga.”

In her company, as I witness her extending time and rich imagery to advance excellence among her students, I get the sense that there is no place else that she needs to be. There is no rush. The movement is ever deliberate. The scholar, the dancer, the actor, the Virgo and yes the teacher… all serve in the stewardship of her beloved yoga. Long ago she made peace with the swerves and in doing so she has arrived at her precise place of shelter.

“The universe does take care of us… You do end up where you are supposed to end up… eventually. I was meant to teach yoga. I know that I was.”

For more information on Natasha, visit: natasharizopoulos.com

For more information on YogaWorks, visit: yogaworks.com

For more information on Down Under Yoga, visit: downunderyoga.com

Photo shoot assistants: Tamara Hickey and Siobhan Beasley (siobhanbeasleyphotography.com)
Hair and Makeup by Erica Morales of ENNIS Inc

Clothing by Hard Tail Forever (hardtailforever.com) and Jala Yoga (jalaclothing.com)

Yoga Mat by Manduka: manduka.com

Susan Currie

SUSAN CURRIE is a West Palm Beach-based poet with a camera. Her words and images have been widely exhibited and published. She met her muse some time ago when she discovered the ancient eight-limbed practice of yoga. Its way of life continues to inform and imprint the art she makes. The creative workshops she offers throughout the country share her signature approaches for practicing mindfulness in order to connect more authentically with one’s creative voice. Susan is the author of four books —Once Divided, Gracenotes, Breath Taking, and Superflow: Light Up the Artist in You (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021)—and the creator of CHARMCODES.
website: www.susancurriecreative.com

www.susancurriecreative.com

The post Great Expectations with Natasha Rizopoulos appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Portrait of Yoga Teacher and Bhakti Musician Raghunath by Susan Currie

I’m on the road to an afternoon of bhakti (the yoga of devotion) with the former punk rocker and once celibate monk known these days simply as Raghunath. He traverses the world as a yoga teacher and musician spreading his message of love and service. There is no corner of the globe to which he will not trek. It’s a full house at Repose Yoga and in the few minutes of prelude, I can already sense an approaching climate shift… the sun-filled studio pulses with a hushed anticipation as Raghunath quietly unpacks his harmonium.

“When love is behind the current, it’s bhakti.” So begins our immersion into a workshop that combines the devotional practices of singing and chanting with asana, breath, and meditation. I’m not surprised by Raghunath’s big personality given his storied background as a performer, but I was surprised by how he employs it to softly command the room. His direction is precise and his message unwavering, prompting at times a blend of fatigue, fear and, of course, reflection. Under his guidance, I felt held throughout.

Gin Evans, owner of Repose Yoga in Newburyport, Massachusetts (where the workshop I took was held) explains, “There’s something about when you bring a roomful of people together for a class or a workshop… any personal or social differences no longer matter, and there’s this coming together or union that magically occurs simply from either the opening ‘Om,’ or the chanting, or from the physical energy created by all the bodies in one room. Raghunath has an ability to make students feel happy, empowered, and positive about themselves. What better way to feel a sense of community than to leave a two hour workshop feeling blissful from the energy of others!”

Raghunath photographed by Tricia Gahagan

From Joshua Tree to Brooklyn to the banks of the Ganges, on any given day you might find Raghunath (often called Raghu) sharing the wisdom he has earned through the arc of his life. Whether on tour supporting his debut CD (Krishna Kirtan: Music as Meditation), leading his popular bhakti immersions, or traveling with students through the holy cities of India, his work is rooted in universal love.

Raghu enjoyed early commercial success as a professional musician, yet the pitfalls of that fame remain tattooed to his heart and soul. Popularity is not what fuels his present-day life on the road. Rather, bhakti guides his generosity of time and spirit. Bhakti, the Sanskrit term derived from the root “bhaj” which means to “divide, share, partake”, is often translated in our modern world as “devotion” or “love.” First introduced to the concept during in his teenage years, it is now the guiding principle of Raghu’s life. “A living tunnel to an ancient world” is one of the many ways in which he unpacks the term bhakti in conversation.

His story begins in the 1970s outside of New York City in the quiet suburb of Danbury, Connecticut. Growing up Ray Cappo as the sixth of seven children in an Italian American (and Catholic) home, from his early childhood Raghunath felt a deep longing for something that fueled his homegrown and evolving spiritual path. Seeking more than the mainstream music coming through on FM radio and answers to the deeper questions, he made his way to New York City as a young teen. In Manhattan’s Lower East Side (known at that time for its excess), a new world was revealed. Insane, reckless and crazy are just a handful of the adjectives Raghu uses to detail the scene as it unfolded in his eighth-grade eyes. The punk rock movement was driven by a culture of drugs and hardcore living. Despite his emergence as the lead singer and songwriter of the punk band Youth of Today, he rejected that pervasive culture. While he embraced his contemporaries’ leaning away from mainstream music, he could not embrace the decadence of their lifestyle. “It was heartbreaking. I saw a bunch of kids addicted to heroin, huffing glue, committing suicide, smoking angel dust. In the name of being alternative, they were going down a dead-end street. I feel blessed to have had the good insight or karma to not follow.”

Raghunath when he was in his Youth of Today/Straight Edge Movement days. Photo by Ian Harper.

He attributes that pivot to an inner compass for clean living (organic threads which pulsed since childhood). Raghu was also getting a taste of what he now knows as bhakti through observing the rituals and offerings shared publicly by the Krishna devotees in and around Thompson Square Park. Although yoga had not yet exploded onto the scene in New York City, he was introduced to the practice through the (now defunct) Ahimsa Cafe, a health restaurant at the corner of East 9th Street, where he worked at the time. He was swiftly consumed by the ancient eight-limbed tradition.

Buoyed by spiritual influences and his inner compass, these formative years found Raghunath championing alternatives through song. He discovered the Bhagavad Gita; taking inspiration from the Gita’s call for selfless action he began to pen words and music. As Straight Edge’s star rose they used fame to spearhead movements including vegetarianism and animal rights while denouncing intoxication. Peter Singer’s 1975 classic Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals inspired Raghu’s call to vegetarianism.

Youth of Today’s words and music struck a chord and delivered them to a level of success they had not envisioned. As the story often goes, that elevation came with a price. Raghunath became restless and disillusioned as he paused to consider his deeper intentions and question this life of fame. Greed, competition, striving and envy began to school Raghu in what he refers to as “material cynicism.” He set out on a path of deeper inquiry – exploring best practices for channeling his artistic talents, what he refers to as shakti. Again, he turned to the Vedic literature and sacred teachings.

Bhakti Guide, Musician and Yoga Teacher Raghunath photographed by Tricia Gahagan

In this introspection Raghunath came to the understandings that now deeply fuel his teachings. He refers to it as a dawn. “I came to the realization that our shakti is on loan to us. You take what you’ve got in terms of your gifts and you give it back in service—in a spiritual way. Yoga, music or otherwise … it’s not about being the object of praise. The sharing of our individual gifts should be pushed by a genuine concern for others. Otherwise, it’s all just a performance. In everything we do, love should be the current.” There was no looking back.

The next 10 years were marked by discovery and ongoing explorations, Ayurveda, yoga and a vegetarian lifestyle. He spent much of his late twenties and early thirties living the life of a celibate monk traveling back and forth to ashrams in India and the US. While these contemplative years were marked by intensive study, they also included music. With newfound intention to spread the good word of the Gita, Raghu patched together a band comprised of fellow monks who engaged audiences far and wide. Practicing yoga, leading kirtan, immersed in bhakti and living clean … this life agreed with him.

Raghunath photographed by Tricia Gahagan

His story then entered another chapter. Heeding the unsolicited advice of an older monk he met, Raghunath found himself in a time of deep introspection, considering how his present reality of a strict ashram existence would eliminate marriage and a family. In his mid-thirties, he made a choice to include a partner and family while maintaining his passion for teaching — a passion not just for leading asana, but for spreading bhakti.

Motion is a word that comes to mind as I reflect on my personal experience in Raghu’s workshop. Dialogue is flowing, music and chanting is weaved in. Raghunath himself is perpetually drifting the sea of mats connecting seamlessly. As our practice unfolds I am struck by the quick and easy manner of his greeting—as though we have of course met somewhere before and are now all simply reacquainting. At one point after pitching us a particularly clever sequence he asks, “Are you ready to accept this mission?” Despite some chuckling, his plans clearly do not include the use of the word “no.” Another Raghu student, yoga instructor Sandy Snyder, summed it up rather perfectly, “Each time I take a class with Raghunath I either want to burst out in tears, confront something, or laugh my butt off. He has a way of provoking very strong shifts.”

Raghunath photographed by Tricia Gahagan

One of his favorite avenues for sharing bhakti is through his ongoing pilgrimages to India. His prerequisite for travel is that participants tour like pilgrims in a “spirit of humility.” Raghu’s own early expeditions through India were humble and with an air of “prospectors seeking to uncover the bounty of hidden gems.” It’s an intention he found powerful and one to which he continues to cling as he now wears the cap of leader. A typical Raghu pilgrimage consists of a party of 14 – 30 kindred spirits seeking transformation on some level. Over a two week stay each day is spent in asana practice, in meditation, and in song. A bhakti narrative is peppered throughout.

As we bid farewell I am curious to know what’s next for Raghu. It’s a 120 or so mile drive back to his home in upstate New York where he resides with his wife of 13 years Brij – a partner with whom he shares a deep yogic and spiritual sensibility. Together they have created five children and also the Supersoul Farm in Albany, which is in the midst of hosting its inaugural 200-hour teacher training program and will also sponsor 500-hour teacher trainings in India. Under this roof, Raghunath is “Dad.” It is in this setting that he refuels. Most mornings find him ferrying his young children to the local Waldorf School on a 400 acre farm where they share the campus with sheep and chickens. Raghunath recalls how he was fortunate to enjoy a healthy dose of nature growing up. He speaks of a love of Thoreau and Emerson and how nature has been “calling him back loudly” these days.

Ever seeking, he also keeps current under the guidance of his longtime spiritual teacher Radhanath Swami – he is never without his 2010 book The Journey Home. Turning up the volume for one last lesson, he signs off with, “I am convinced the best thing you can do for your health is take off your shoes and walk in the forest and breathe. Before you start shoving a bunch of herbs in your mouth, take off your shoes and walk in the forest.” While he continues to enjoy the platform of the big stages, it’s his family that now takes priority. It’s a long way from the club scene of the East Village and the solemnity of life in an ashram, but it is home, where love is forever feeding the current.

For more information about Raghunath, his pilgrimages and teacher trainings visit: raghunath.org or supersoulyoga.com.

For more information about Repose Yoga visit: reposeyogastudio.com

Tricia Gahagan is a fine art photographer whose work can be found at triciagahagan.com.

Susan Currie

SUSAN CURRIE is a West Palm Beach-based poet with a camera. Her words and images have been widely exhibited and published. She met her muse some time ago when she discovered the ancient eight-limbed practice of yoga. Its way of life continues to inform and imprint the art she makes. The creative workshops she offers throughout the country share her signature approaches for practicing mindfulness in order to connect more authentically with one’s creative voice. Susan is the author of four books —Once Divided, Gracenotes, Breath Taking, and Superflow: Light Up the Artist in You (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021)—and the creator of CHARMCODES.
website: www.susancurriecreative.com

www.susancurriecreative.com

The post On the Road with Raghunath appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

In the prelude to class, before the first encouragement to inhale has even been uttered, I can already sense a distinctive vibe in Jill Miller’s Yoga Tune Up® class. For years I have grown accustomed to students lounging in balasana (child’s pose) or swaying in a forward fold before the instructor opens class; in this setting, however, folks are employing small high grip balls in a jolly shade of blue, rolling them forward and back behind different parts of the body. The energy I feel is similar to when the orchestra fills the pit just before they strike up the overture — the musicians plucking their strings, following their scales… tuning and taking stock before the curtain lifts. I later discover that my neighbors on their mats were making good use of those moments and their props to engage in a form of self-massage, soothing trigger points, collecting information, and tapping into their bodies. This probing will prove integral to the “aha” moments to follow.

“We know our way around our cities better than we know our way around our own bodies,” says Jill Miller, author of The Roll Model and creator of the corrective exercise format Yoga Tune Up®. When Ms. Miller set out to build her signature program, she tapped into not only her twenty-plus years of practicing and teaching yoga, but also her deep exploration of anatomy and the human body. Drawing from both, she uses a fundamental navigation of the body, or a term she earnestly refers to as “body sense,” as the core tenet of her Yoga Tune Up® model.

It all began far from the grid. Growing up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in a neighborhood that relied on the sun for all of its power, Miller never imagined she would one day be connecting with others in the global lane she currently travels. Her pioneering spirit, coupled with a quest to help folks heal their body and their mental “blind spots,” has deposited her at the hub of a worldwide network of students and several hundred trained teachers passionate about Yoga Tune Up®, her unique blend of corrective exercise, self-massage, and yoga.

What led Miller to revisit our beloved eight-limbed practice of yoga and place a wider lens on its anatomical components? She says that the seeds were planted early on. Inactive as a child, she quickly learned the tough lessons brought on by a sedentary life. Weighing 100 pounds at just 11 years old caused a sense of feeling helpless. Plagued by these weight issues as a ‘tween,’ she found solace in the Jane Fonda and Raquel Welch fitness videos that her mom was practicing at home, became hooked on physical fitness or “obsessed” as she puts it.

As her passion for the ritual and repetitive movements presented in the sequencing of these workout programs exploded, she also found herself turning more and more towards her physician father’s anatomy and medical books. The combination of exercise and investigation proved effective for Miller, but she pushed herself to extremes and within a year her weight dropped by 35 pounds, she had become anorexic. Yet, her battle was far from over. As Miller describes it, her teenage years were marked with rebellion around food. “By the time I went to college, bulimia was a weekend ritual for me.” Her pivot toward recovery happened in her freshman year at Northwestern University when she found an unexpected solace in the form of a shiatsu massage session. For the first time she sensed the possibility for real healing. “Nothing in my life had touched me so deeply, and I needed to learn this art inside and out.”

Despite her subsequent shiatsu studies and pockets of clarity, Miller’s fitness infatuation heightened, segueing into a rigorous yogic lifestyle. Her overuse was undeniable. “I was the poster child yogini, and I overstretched every single joint in my body. At 19, I was old before my time.” That overuse blunted her ability to sense the workings of her body. In the depths of these conditions she experienced another dawning. Certain that something had to give, she took refuge in her early fascination with the human body and years of body work study, along with fresh insights she experienced from Glenn Black, who would become her lifelong teacher.

Ms. Miller and Mr. Black (whom she refers to as a “wizard body worker”) crossed paths at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, during a summer internship after Miller’s junior year in college. Eternally grateful for his wisdom, she attributes his four-limbed practice approach of “human embodiment: yoga, movement, massage, and meditation” to changing the trajectory of her life. As a result of his movement-based training, she approached standing, walking, and breathing with a newfound curiosity. She directed her critical thinking to the repetitive movements of yoga and other fitness regimens, considering their impact on the body’s skeletal structure and fascial tissue. She became less interested in the execution of the asana and more interested in human movement, from which Yoga Tune Up’s conscious fitness format (built around pain, posture, and performance) was born. This logic ushered in the whole “body sense” component of Miller’s signature programming.

In her mid-twenties, Miller moved to Los Angeles and experimented with various forms of self-treatment in an effort to replicate the hands-on work of Black in which she had found tremendous relief. The corners of sofas, countertops, foam and wood rollers, even dog toys — no gadget was off limits. These experiments also included the use of an array of the famed rubber balls which she favored for their grippy rubber, pliable density, and “just enough squish to tumble into tissue and over/around bony prominences.” Eventually she began to bring the Roll Model balls into her classes. Blending her personal healing techniques with embodied anatomy and conscious corrective exercise gave her yoga classes a laboratory-like feel. “People bring years of body wear and tear into the classroom. They can become disappointed in their structure and souls because their bodies do not conform to the frame of a pose or asana. They have personal body blind spots. Rather than just calling out poses, we, as teachers, need to meet the problems our students are bringing into class,” says Miller. “My classroom became a sanctuary for students and teachers to get honest about their bodies’ limitations. Students learned a new paradigm to reframe their potential.”

Striking a chord across widening spectrums, that “laboratory” developed into Yoga Tune Up® (a term she coined in in 2004) as we now know it. From that curriculum, Miller’s teacher training programs were born. Beyond the use of such props as sensory balls and an enhanced savasana (corpse pose) in which students are instructed to “turn on their off switches”, the framework of a Yoga Tune Up® class has a logic which isn’t unlike traditional hatha yoga classes. When I asked Miller if her teachings required any special pre-requisites, she actually suggested the contrary, “The less trained you are, the less biased you are.”

Since October 2008, Jill Miller’s Yoga Tune Up® program has certified more than 400 teachers worldwide. From Dubai to Dublin, her self-care fitness programs have become staples at fitness centers such as Equinox and 24 Hour Fitness locations, spas, hospital-based gyms, CrossFit boxes, yoga studios, and corporate wellness classes at companies such as Cedars Sinai, Apple, Google, Nestle, and more. As of press time, YogaWorks is now programming Yoga Tune Up® classes throughout all of their regions including Los Angeles, Orange County, Northern California, New York and Boston. These techniques can also be accessed on any given day in the comfort of your own home with the Yoga Tune Up® At Home Program (a monthly video series that can be found at yogatuneup.com).

Delf Enriquez, Group Fitness Manager at the Equinox in Encino has witnessed the program’s appeal firsthand. “The vibe I experience from the students embracing the format? ENLIGHTENMENT. Members that take their first few classes and get this ‘light bulb’ aha moment, where they realize that there’s an aspect to their fitness/wellness that they didn’t realize existed. Yoga Tune Up® stands out in the fact that it addresses a growing need for self-care and physiotherapy. Whereas the trends always lean toward harder/faster/stronger, Yoga Tune Up® appears to buck that trend on the surface, when really, it complements it. You can’t keep working toward just harder/faster/stronger without first addressing imbalances, injuries, and the overall health of soft tissue.”

While Yoga Tune Up® makes generous use of the sensory balls for techniques such as skin rolling, cross fiber motion, and sustained compression, it is only one portion of the programming that also includes embodied anatomy, breath work, and conscious corrective exercise. Certified Yoga Tune Up® instructor Nancy Bellantone of Om Warrior in Boston’s financial district allows that Yoga Tune Up® is a new breed in her city. “Yoga Tune Up’s language of bones and muscles, that quantitative language we provide for mapping out the body… That’s what I see my students embracing in these classes.”

Circling back to my personal Yoga Tune Up® experience, which is now 40 minutes or so deep into a shoulder protraction-focused sequence, the dots begin to connect for me: inhaling and exhaling minus any grasping. I am able to experience garudasana (eagle pose) in a new light, especially through the upper body. I recall some of those trigger points I met at the opening of class and am certain that my shoulders will be speaking to me (in a good way) tomorrow. We wrap up with an invitation to lounge deeply back into our breath, and of course, the “little rubber pills” are always an option. Still curious, but with my “off switch” slowly turning “on.”

As someone who “came back from being an overstretched Gumby to teach on this issue of overuse and misuse of the body,” Miller seamlessly assumes this mantle. Her enthusiasm is at once infectious and empowering. In high demand, she currently leads more than 50 trainings, workshops, conferences, and retreats a year. She counts her blessings for the path that has led her to this point, for the personal healing, and for the platform she has found in sharing these practices.

What’s next for Jill Miller, a self-described life-long learner and author of The Roll Model, a book beloved by movement enthusiasts? “Almost every weekend somewhere on the planet one of our teacher trainings is occurring with one of our certified YTU Teacher Trainers. Seeing our conscious movement and recovery concepts reaching a mass market… It’s all very exciting! Right now my deep interest lies in my ongoing studies with the biomechanics of breathing. Along with our roots in the Yoga community, I’m working with the military Special Forces, professional sports teams, and bringing this work to the strength and conditioning community. It’s all about channeling best practices and teaching students to Live Better in Their Body.” It’s quite the distance from her days off the grid.

Learn more about Jill Miller and Yoga Tune Up® at yogatuneup.com

Nancy Bellatone and Om Warrior can be found at omwarrior.com

Discover Equinox gyms and their programming at equinox.com

Susan Currie

SUSAN CURRIE is a West Palm Beach-based poet with a camera. Her words and images have been widely exhibited and published. She met her muse some time ago when she discovered the ancient eight-limbed practice of yoga. Its way of life continues to inform and imprint the art she makes. The creative workshops she offers throughout the country share her signature approaches for practicing mindfulness in order to connect more authentically with one’s creative voice. Susan is the author of four books —Once Divided, Gracenotes, Breath Taking, and Superflow: Light Up the Artist in You (Shanti Arts Publishing, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021)—and the creator of CHARMCODES.
website: www.susancurriecreative.com

www.susancurriecreative.com

The post Jill Miller Maps the Body with Yoga Tune Up® appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.