Saturday Yoga 9-10:30 BY DONATION

I took over a class from my main teacher Anusara Certified Adam Ballenger. One of the awesome kind thing Adam offers is that the price is by donation. Its very laid back you just drop some cash in a box before leaving class and then he pays for the space that he rents at a small community art building called Sugar Space. I continued doing that when I took over the class. Which I love because it makes you more accessible for more people. I have some people leave 5$ and some people leave 20$. When I started teaching the attendance fell off a little. I totally understand because I came to that class every Saturday to take a class from Adam. Anyways I made a flyer to hang around at local coffee shops and other local stores hoping to inspire some new students to come and check the class. Here is what it said

Saturday Yoga!! 9:00-10:30 BY DONATION Weekly all level public yoga class that builds both strength and flexibility. Kim’s yoga classes include a heart based theme, alignment, knowledge of kinesiology, modifications for healing injuries, and smiles.

Kimberly Achelis Hoggan has been teaching yoga for over six years and is currently working toward being an Anusara-Inspired teacher. Often the physical body has to get to a place of less pain so the mind can become more still and the heart more open. In her yoga classes you move your body into therapeutic yet often challenging poses to get the body to experience “awe” instead of “ouch”

Where: Sugar Space 616east Wilmington Avenue (2200south)

For more information visit AuthenticSelfYoga.com

Changes happen... Its part of nature

On Saturday I taught a class at Sugar Space (9-10:30). I talked about how often I close my mind and I think that things will never change and instead always stay the same. A very fatal way of looking at the world and one that is totally inaccurate because this universe is fluid and is always changing.

For example, I've been staring at a hole in the ceiling of our new house, sigh, thinking this is always going to be here. Or its the middle of summer here in SLC, UT with average temperatures around 95 degrees. I assume that's how it will always be (until fall) and then I wake up to go on a hike and it is pouring rain and thundering. Or ill be in a fight with my husband over something stupid and I think this is how our relationship is going to be now, and a few hours later every thing is fine, Or ill be in a yoga class trying to do a pose which I believe is entirely impossible for me to do.

When I instruct certain poses in class I swear I can hear some of my students eye balls rolling around in their heads and their minds saying well I wont ever be able to do this pose...and it is sooooo cool and an amazing gift to see those students continue to practice regularly and see their skill ability and confidence improve and see them perform the pose that before made their eyes roll and now they maybe can or can not do the pose completely but they have improved and are strong and stable and proud.

One thing I love about the yoga practice is it is called practice. It isn't called perfect. Or "if you arnt good when you start you never will be good". Its called practice. As long as you show up to your mat on a regular basis and push yourself but not to hard you will be able to do poses that before you could only dream about.

I used to find myself in awe and in some jealousy when I would admire the strength of some yogis and their dedication. Not to mention their ability to fall upside down into a handstand or forearm balance. I say fall upside down because they did not kick and hop around to get inverted instead they would float up and it looked like they were falling upside down. I thought that would never be me! I would never be strong, stable, dedicated. I would always be weak, off balance, with my mind racing at 100 miles per hour. However now a few years later I am much stronger, stable, and focused. Now I can kick up to handstand in the middle of the room and hold it for a minute or two. I NEVER thought I would be able to do that.

Take a moment to pause and breath, maybe even close your eyes. Think about your practice and whether you have been practicing for 3 days or 30 years think about how your practice has evolved for example how poses that you thought you would never be able to do are now doable. Or feelings to have in a pose which you never thought would come like feeling flexible, or strong now are a part of your practice. Remind the deepest part of your heart that everything is fluid and everything is in a flux of chance so when the thought comes that "it will always be that way" "or I will never be able to do that" remember if you continue to practice or work toward something or patch the hole in the ceiling you'll get more in the direction of the change you want to see. In my experience the changes I see are always slightly different then the way I plan them in my head but they are wonderful never the less.

Shri

I was in Tiffaney Wood's Anusara immersion this weekend At The Yoga Vented. Tiffaney talked about shri a Sanskrit word often translated as divine beauty. Tiffaneys definition which I love so much is: when you meet a moment or situation with the appropriate amount of effort and surrender.

I love how this can so easily be applied off of the Tog mat. I can also see that when I can skillfully choose to use more effort or surrender that it does add beauty to my life and the situation I am in. In this way every minute every breath is an oppurtunity for us to create beauty/shrill by consciously dancing with our effort and surrender.

Thinking about surrender I am reminded of ishvara-pranidhana meaning a wholehearted openness to Grace. I can sometimes find myself thinking I am surrendering when in fact I amjust being lazy. However real (nit just lazy) surrender for me is when I can let go of my will, my wants, my presevied needs and instead merge my will with gods will.

"By voluntarily dropping your identification with the limited concept of yourself, you are able to realize your fullest potential. When you offer your heart to God, you won't lose individual power. In fact as you empty out in an unconditional offering, the ocean of Consciousness fills you up. By surrendering, you actually become vastly more powerful than the limitted person that you usually identify with." Anusara Teacher Training Manual

Just like I would be lazy instead of surrender,I would also overly effort which leads to a hardening and percents grace from flowing through me.

I can tell a huge difference and I can feel the shri when I am not being lazy or over efforting and instead have met the situation with balanced effort and surrender



Its always such a pleasure to practice and learn from tiff.

Spiritual Awakening

When I started practicing yoga 7 years ago my mission was to heal my broken body, quite literally a broken back and a hurt knee. Yoga healed me right up. But it also started to plant some seeds in me about being more connect with myself, with others, with nature, with spirit. After my body healed instead of going back to my extreme sports where I continued to hurt myself I started practicing more yoga, and being more loving toward myself and others. Instead of being extremely competitive and jealous of others. A few years later I found Anusara Yoga.

Anusara yoga is a very physical practice. I learned to really use my gross body (gross as in muscles, bones, solids mass of the body). I learned how to squeeze my muscles and become more solid, how to broaden my hips and shoulders, how to tuck my tailbone, how to lengthen and extend out. I learned how to layer these physical commands, for example hug in here, rotate this up, scope this down reach from here to here all at the same time. So yes, the practice of Anusara yoga can be a very physical experience.

One reason having such a physically based alignment practice is so beneficial is it address injuries, areas of pain and tension. When we have these feelings in the body it is harder to connect to spirit and to experience all the beauty in the word. This kind of practice helps bring our body into a place of ease allowing our awareness to move from say, the throbbing pain in your stick neck to the pretty your breath and the mountains that surround you.

In Anusara the first universal principle of alignment is Open To Grace. When I do this I remind myself that this is so much bigger then what is happening on my yoga mat and in my muscle bodies. That I am so connected to this one source of power call it Grace, God, Great Out Doors, Science.... what ever you want to call it.

Looking back I smile  at how I started practicing yoga to fix my back and now I practice because I want to be a better person to myself, to others, to serve the earth, and connect with my higher power. I also see it happen other yoga students. They start practicing because they are in pain or want to lose weight and they end up practicing for so much more.

I found this on facebook and thought it was funny and I can see a lot of these changes happening in my life.