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!




Friday, October 1, 2010

The Influence of Yoga Instructors


















One of the many things that I find so great about the practice of Hatha yoga are the instructors. While we all connect more with some than others, all instructors I have had have brought something new into my practice and sometimes my life. I took a class with Rachael the other night at the west Yoga Sanctuary Studio here in Las Vegas. She is a very talented instructor who has a gift for combining an understanding of body mechanics and communication. When I take her classes I find myself in poses that I wouldn't have thought possible. It's awesome! A complete feeling of accomplishment. It was this ability of Rachael's that led me to take a private class/thai yoga session with her. Thai Yoga is awesome! It involves a lot of assisted stretching etc., if you ever have a chance to try it, do it. Before we started the Thai Yoga portion at my request Rachael worked with me on my form in a few different poses and sequences: down-dog, chaturanga, up-dog, jumping my feet forward though my hands, eight angle pose, and shoulder pressing pose. (I know, I know, I use all the English terminology instead of Sanskrit, I'm just not that cool yet - but I'm working on it.) I had never really thought of taking a private yoga lesson before but boy do I wish I had loooong ago. Rachael helped me make some adjustments that really got me back on track. Some of my incorrect alignments have actually been causing me some problems in my right shoulder, like I said...why didn't I do this a long time ago? There just isn't enough time for an instructor to give individualized assistance to everyone in a group class. No matter how basic or advanced your practice, I think that everyone can benefit from a private yoga lesson every so often. I still have a lot of work to do, but boy did I see an improvement! I've attached some photos showing some of the adjustments.

After our lesson/thai yoga session I was complaining that I missed the results that I got from running (taking time off running because of foot injury). Rachael invited me to a 30 minute circuit training class that she does a few times a week so I am meeting her there today at 2:30. So let me just tell you, this gal is fit, I mean really fit and SHE said that it's a challenging workout. I'm not so sure how I'll fare in this training session. Rachael mentioned that they call the trainer 'Doc' because he's actually a doctor. I failed to confirm that he is an M.D. and not a PhD., I hope it's the former because I may need medical assistance by the end of it ...
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