*** Yoga Month: Yoga Teacher Training by Donation ***

Last year I served as the local coordinator for Yoga Month in Kansas City. We offered free yoga classes and workshops across the metro area and raised money for non-profit organizations that support community health.

This year while still focusing on free yoga classes and workshops, I decided it would be good to offer something for current and aspiring yoga instructors. Given the economic situation, many are out of jobs and are looking for new career avenues. The catch 22 is that more and more people don't have the money for additional training during these tough economic times and financing career training is more difficult during the current financial situation.

During Yoga Month we will be offering yoga teacher training by donation, aspiring teachers can register for the training by choosing a price they can afford with no strings attached. This by donation option is for the regular 200 hour teacher training and the yoga therapy training as well.

Yoga Month is a grassroots, community-based global campaign to educate people about the health benefits of yoga and to inspire a healthy lifestyle.

Yoga and Autogenic Training

Autogenic training has its origin in research on hypnosis conducted by the famous brain psychologist Oskar Vogt at the Berlin Institute according to Martha David in The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook. He found that his clients could produce relaxation similar to hypnosis just by thinking of heaviness and warmth.

Athletes may greatly benefit from Autogenic training as a way to relax and focus for an activity. While the techniques are widely used for sports, they are very useful, autonomic nervous system relaxants for the common person. Autogenic training can be tailored to meet a person’s need by using their own autosugesstion.

Here is a sample script I often incorporate into my savasana or final relaxation.

My right arm is heavy
my left arm is heavy
both arms are heavy.
My right leg is heavy
my left leg is heavy
Both legs are heavy.

My right arm is warm
my left arm is warm
both arms are warm.
My right leg warm
Both legs are warm.

My right arm is heavy and warm
Both arms are heavy and warm
Both of my legs are heavy and warm
My heart is calm snd
I feel fresh and energized


Although, it doesn't have an yoga origin, I find that many western mind-body techniques are very useful in combination with yoga. I teach all elements of relaxation in my yoga teacher training programs: physical, mental, autonomic, emotional and spiritual.

Yoga Therapy Training at Balance Yoga Lounge

Yoga as Therapy Training 200 Hour Program
Learn to use therapeutic yoga tools

October 19-30 (no weekends)
Balance Yoga Lounge in Ankeny, Iowa
8:00-4:00 p.m.

Learn western and eastern therapeutic yoga tools for non-apparently health populations including: cancer, heart disease, stroke, MS, musculoskeletal problems, arthritis and more.

Pre-requisites: Recommended 200 or 500 hours of yoga training and previous yoga teaching experience.

Application deadline: October 15, 2009

For more information visit Yoga Therapy Training:


KCfitnesslink is a 200/500 hour Yoga Alliance Registered School and Charter School with the International Association of Yoga Therapists

Getting away from Perfection in Yoga

A few nights ago in yoga class, a student of mined exclaimed, "I almost did the pose." I replied, "you did do the pose."

Even on the yoga mat we bring to class ideas of perfectionism or being right and wrong. At times I don't like to focus on precise alignment in yoga poses because it reinforces the idea of doing things right and wrong. People won't even come to yoga classes because of the fear of doing something wrong. Yoga should be about letting go and de-stressing, not creating additional stress. As a teacher I have to question my own intent in "correcting" postures as I teach.

In yoga, the concept of purnam or wholeness (perfection) teaches us that we are perferct already. Each moment in our lives is perfect and our souls sparkle with this divine perfection.

In yoga class, we can experience purnam by not focusing on "fixing" our poses but experiencing them as they unfold, noticing our breath, our sensations, our thoughts and emotions. We can then guide our bodies and minds into this wholeness and accept to grow this wholeness in a way that is right for us physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally.

The concept of purnam, ahisma (non-harming) and overall safety has made reconsider hands on adjustments and achieving perfection in my own approach to yoga instruction and my philophy in yoga teacher training and yoga therapy sessions.

The Yoga Mind: You are What You Think!

Many people know the saying, "you are what you eat." Yoga psychology advocates that "you are what you think." When we celebrate the negeative aspects of our lives, it continues a state of negativity. In this way, we produce our own negative states or hell here on earth. Yoga teaches us to be mindful of every moment and to celebrate the positive!

Here is a related quote from the book About Peace by Scott Shaw:
"If your mind is troubled,
preoccupied with unhappy thoughts about:
your job,
your relationships,
the money you owe,
your unfulfilled desires,

you will not be able to concentrate on the positive elemts of life.

Thus, you will be kept from peace--bound to a world of unhappiness.

Start Right Now--begin redefining your life in a new, more positive fashion.

Yoga Documentary: Enlighten Up

There are several yoga documentaries worth seeing to get a better glimpse of yoga. The first, Yoga Unveiled, is a formal and scholarly production that examines the branches of yoga, yoga history/culture and the emerging field of yoga therapy. It is a great overview of yoga and many yoga teacher training courses use it as a multi-media learning tool.

The second is a new documentary that is more practical in that it follows how a new student to yoga is transformed through the practice. Enlighten Up follows a 29 year old skeptical journalist through India as he reflects on whether yoga is more than just a physical practice.

Yoga in the Park

We celebrated May Month or national physical activity month with a day of yoga in the park at the Nelson Atkins Museum lawn. What a wonderful sense of freedom you get with fresh air, lush greenery and the soothing sound of passing cars. Join us for more dates if you're in the Kansas City, MO area.

Dates: June 20 and July 4, 2009, 9-10 a.m.