Meet the teachers: part 1

This week we want to introduce you to the wonderful teachers covering Steph’s classes this summer – they are all teachers at Mala and we are very excited that you’ll get a chance to come practice with them while Steph’s on maternity leave. Next week, we’ll continue to introduce the Mala teaching staff to you.
One of the kleshas”, (a poison of the heart) is “raga” = attachment– and this is an opportunity for us to practice non-attachment. After all it is in non attachment that we can truly start to unbind ourselves from the habits and patterns that are so engrained and keep us bound in the cycles of karma……
I asked the teachers three questions:
What’s your favorite pose?
What’s your most embarrassing yoga moment?
Who are your teachers, inspiration etc.
And here are their answers! Enjoy and get to know our teachers better!

BRITT CARLSON
Oh my, I have so many favorite poses, and embarrassing moments!

Favorite Pose:
My favorite pose is side crow, because arm balances make me feel so strong and light! And I could twist all day long . . .

Most Embarrassing Yoga Moment:
My most embarrassing moment, so far as a teacher, was when I got so into what we were doing that I had NO idea how much time had passed! And I thought it must be time to end class, so I abandoned my class plan and started to wind the sequence down, a half an hour early! Luckily a student gave the clock an inquisitive look and I realized that I had gotten entirely confused about when the class began and ended . . . and that I plenty of time left to get everyone upside down!

Teacher Inspiration:
I’m not sure what you mean by teacher inspiration, but I will say that I am always inspired by teachers that make me pay closer attention to my own experience, and help me discover just how a pose works.

ANGELA CLARK
Favorite Pose:
This changes for me.  When i first started practicing yoga it was savasana (corpse pose), I looked forward to it because it was the only time I felt I could truly rest.  It then changed to Adho Mukha Svanasana (downward facing dog pose) which at one point was my least favorite pose.  Lately I would have to say it’s been Uttihita Tikonasana (extended triangle pose) but i’m sure this will change too.  I don’t think it will ever be Utkatasana (awkard pose/ chair pose/fierce pose).

Most Embarrassing Yoga Moment:
Ha! I have too many, I don’t think I can type that much…

Teacher Inspiration:
My teaching is inspired by the many teachers around me and the many teachers that have come before me. My teaching style is probably best described as alignment based vinyasa asana. I love the idea that the awareness we build in our practice can and does spill over into our lives allowing us to the opportunity to make the choices that best suit us and help us cope with the world we live in.

JULIE DOHRMAN:
A contemplation on favorite poses:
I always go back to in my asana practice is why I do mostly what’s easiest, or routine. (Backbends and Inversions are my favorite, and forward bends and hip openers on the floor are my least.) Is that always what’s helpful?

And When is it good to push a boundary?  Not going past the boundary,
but challenging yourself to make the boundary bigger. Always doing the same routine, same poses, translates in your life too – speaking the same way about yourself, eating the same thing, not changing up a routine in daily living … while I recognize this builds the great base of security and comfort, it also encourages stagnation.  Energy gets blocked in the way we see, hear and interact with the world. We go to that place first because its become easy – its what we’ve always done.

The possibility of more simply becomes cloaked, and takes form as resistance.

In Anusara, a belief that more is possible is called Opening to Grace.
Opening to seeing possibility in front of us, even in its cloaked form, as our repeated avoidance of some poses, avoidance of dealing with that person, or that difficult situation.
When those walls of resistance show themselves, there may be more behind them.  The difficult thing can hold some insight?  Some place of expansion?  An opportunity to experience our freedom?

Our physical bodies work in this way.  Only into backbending?  Your hamstrings will tighten up. Only on the floor doing seated poses?  You won’t build stamina.  Avoid arm balances and Inversions? A lost opportunity to build strength.

Most Embarrassing Yoga Moment:
……. always most embarrassing is when its MY phone that’s going off.
A couple of years ago I had a phone with what I thought was an excellent ring!
It was a cat meowing.  No one else had this ring, so I was totally busted  – a bunch! – for not turning my phone off while teaching or practicing. In the middle of some super intense pose, you’d hear this whiney “meow, meow, meow’!

Now my phone is always on vibrate

CHRISTINA HATGIS
Favorite Pose:
Hmm can’t decide. I keep coming back to Surya Namasakar A. Not a single yoga pose, but a beautiful dance of poses that always brings me back to my breath, helps me check in with my body and reminds me to be grateful, so grateful for my yoga practice.

Most Embarassing Yoga Moment:
Not sure I want to share some of them….. but high on the list are falling with student while working on drop backs! Realising that in fact it’s MY phone that’s ringing and maybe one of the funniest…. Making a comment to the mommys in Baby & Me class about loving to teach with the fussy babies in my arms so that mommys can practice, as long as they don’t spit up on me… and within 5 mins a baby had spit up ALL over both my top & bottom ☺

Teacher Inspiration:
Pema Chodron for her accessibility on the practice of working with all the STUFF that makes us suffer, and makes us human. She teaches from the place of infinite compassion and understanding. Sri K Pattabhi Jois for his teaching “Do your practice, and all is coming”. It doesn’t matter what style of asana we practice, what teachings we resonate with … what matters is that we practice, with discipline and commitment. Because it is through our regular practice that we learn to connect (and stay connected) to that place deep inside that is so hidden by our habits, our judgments, our attachments, our aversions, our inability to accept reality…….we practice on the mat and off to keep coming back to ourselves. And from that place of opening to ourselves, we discover how to truly open to others –

HEATHER SHAW:
Teacher Inspiration:
“Between you and me,
There is only Me.
Take away the Me,
So only You remain.”
(Rumi)

Okay, so I have been living with these few lines from Rumi for about a year now.  They serve as a constant reminder to view each class less as instruction and more as conversation.  To offer an authentic, living yoga practice, rooted in my own experience, while at the same time, listening deeply to the needs and experience of the students.  Dissolving the feeling of separateness.  Getting out of the way.

Favorite Pose:
The very first downward dog of my practice each day.  It’s a bit like checking the weather.

Most Embarrassing Yoga Moment:
Giving a student such an unbalanced adjustment that not only did I knock him off balance, but in fact caused him to topple over on top of me, which naturally sent me toppling over onto another student’s mat and so on and so forth…  Total domino effect!

OLYNDA SPITZER:
Favorite Pose:
These days I would say Ardha Chandrasana.  I love the combination of grounding and expansion I feel in this pose.

Most Embarrassing Yoga Moment:
Maybe the time I had to walk into a class 30 min. late.  Embarassing really doesn’t even cover how I felt. I was in North Carolina at a studio owned by dear friends who are all pilates teachers.   I had a serious migraine and had lay down to rest at home.  Unfortunately my “rest” turned into a nap.  I awoke at the time I was supposed to be starting the class. AHHH!  I called the studio and jumped in the car- heart thumping all the way to the studio.  When I walked in, my students were in some interesting version of triangle and one of the pilates teachers – a sweet man who shall remain nameless – was saying “um… move your right foot back.”  I was happy to see they were all still there, and that they were warming up… they seemed happy to see me too.  The pilates teacher was doubly happy to see me

Teacher Inspiration:
I am an Anusara-inspired teacher.  I incorporate teachings on the universal principles of alignment into each class with the intention of helping each student find their own unique optimal alignment.  I hope to create a warm and nurturing environment where people can feel safe to play their boundaries and step into the transformative power of yoga.  For me this practice is about stepping into my highest-self, so I can live my life with self-awareness, humility, compassion, gratitude and joy.