About the 'Trip and the Trade'

This is a journey about connections, friendship, new experience, community service, and yoga. This idea quite appropriately came about during a yoga class. While I was supposed to be watching my thoughts pass like clouds through the sky of my mind, I was instead thinking hard…thinking about the road trip I was planning. I intended to drive through multiple cities visiting friends and family along the way. As I thought about this trip an idea began surfacing in stages. It went something like this: Oh no! How am I going to practice yoga while I’m gone??... Hmmm, I bet there are studios in most of these places …oooh, that’d be fun! Trying out new studios! ... and then I began to wonder about how I could integrate my yoga with community involvement. I love connecting with people and places. I kept thinking and by the end of the class decided that I would attempt to forge relationships with at least one studio in each location where I stayed, a relationship based on passion for yoga and interest in their community. That’s it! I would ask them if they would be willing to trade me one yoga class in exchange for a couple hours of my time giving back to their community, and THAT is exactly what I’m doing.

I will be blogging daily along the trip, mostly about my time with each studio and community. After my class with each studio I will dedicate a post to my experience there with photos and a direct link to their website. Although I am open to all that this trip will bring, I do have a few objectives. These objectives fall under two things: ‘Trip’ and ‘Blog’ and one crosses over into both:



Trip Objectives:

1. To connect with each location through community service

2. To experience a yoga studio in each community

3. To inspire people to incorporate yoga in their lives and get

involved in their communities as well as others



Blog Objectives:

1. To have a forum for writing and sharing my experiences

with others

2. To track/document my trip

3. To inspire people to incorporate yoga in their lives and get

involved in their communities as well as others



I have sent hard copy letters to a few studios in each of the places where I plan to stay. Getting to this point has been an interesting process. I vacillate regularly between excitement and fear. Excitement about meeting new people and doing good things in their community and fear of well…fear of failure. Will anyone be open to my idea? What if no one responds? Each time I feel nervous I remind myself to move forward with a heart and mind open to possibilities and yes, one of those possibilities is failure and that is okay. So here it goes, cheers to trying something new and being satisfied with unknown outcomes. I invite any of you that will be in the same locations as me to join me for a yoga class. The map with destinations, dates, and yoga studios is below. If you are interested in joining me for a class in your town during the dates I will be there please e-mail me at berghk@gmail.com and I will let you know what class(es) I will be attending and when. Cheers to The Trip and the Trade!




Tuesday, October 5, 2010

The Beginning

The Trip and the Trade has officially begun - and today has been a GREAT day! I made it to Salt Lake City around 9 p.m. last night. I love the landscape of Utah so enjoyed the drive here. A colossal rain storm slowed me down a bit but I'm here! I've been catching up with my cousins Britne and Morgan, drove to Park City, and will be eating Morgan's prime rib tonight. Before I have dinner I'll be heading downtown to meet a classmate of mine from UNLV, Brian Pugh, and his wife Caroline. It has been about 4 years since I've seen them and am excited to catch up! Britne will be joining me in my yoga class at the Lotus Leaf Studio in Heber City tomorrow morning. I am also crossing my fingers that Kristy, another classmate from WSU, will be able to attend the class with me as well.
Today's developments:

Marcy from Muse Yoga in Boise, ID called me today. What a neat lady! She told me a little about her class that I will be attending and we discussed my community service intention. Kendra, another instructor at Muse, suggested that I get involved with the Treasure Valley Food Coalition, "a network of community members working together to create a sustainable local food system." I've left a message with their service coordinator and look forward to hearing back from her. Their organization sounds very interesting; I hope that I will be able to get involved with them.

I also reached out today to the Barn Beach Reserve in Leavenworth, WA. Their mission statment is: " to promote the environmental, economic and social sustainability of the Greater Wenatchee Valley through educational programming and stewardship - bridging environment, arts and cultural history." Sounds pretty amazing, right? I have Marion from Snow Creek Health & Yoga to thank for this suggestion.

I am full of excitement for my first yoga class tomorrow. Natalie, the owner of the Lotus Leaf Studio will be the instructor. It will be wonderful to meet her! My good friend Katrina lives in Heber City with her family and has been invaluable in helping me set up my experience there. She is working with the local school coordinating my opportunity for community service time.

I've updated the Travel Route map and I've got great news...I've heard back from not just one but TWO studios in Portland! I now have studios teaming with me in all locations. Because of the wonderful generous instructors and studio owners who have responded to me, The Trip and the Trade is far exceeding any expectations that I had. And yes ... I notice that I'm using an unusually high number of exclamation marks as I write these days and you know what? It's because I'm really enjoying this process! Thank you to all of you who are sharing this journey with me, things are good!

(Favorite song while driving this leg of the trip was: Jimmy Buffet's 'Wildflowers' :)










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3 comments:

  1. JudyOctober 5, 2010 at 11:23 PM

    A safe start to a great journey!I think it apropos that the rain was the beginning of your cleanse...

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 6, 2010 at 4:02 PM

    It was so great to see you Kari! I enjoyed meeting your friends and Arthur. Wish you the best on the rest of your adventure!
    Kristy

    ReplyDelete
  3. KirstenOctober 6, 2010 at 7:28 PM

    Great news! Which studios in Portland did you hear from? I'll check them out a little fo you get here. Congrats on a great first day!You're exclamations and excitment are contageous!

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