By Bo Forbes, from LAYoga.com
What does it mean to be embodied? And doesn’t yoga already take care of that? When we take a closer look, the answer might surprise us. Think of embodiment on a continuum. On one end, we have exteroception, in the middle proprioception, and on the far end, interoception.
This year we celebrate 10 years of offering Yoga Teacher Training in Tāmaki Makaurau! On each training we co-create a learning environment that has a clear educational model, one that is based on ethical, safe, accessible, individualised practice where everyone is seen and has a voice in the space. We honour and acknowledge the rich history of Yoga and weave in current research about the mind-body.
Lucy Tofield is a graduate, associate and friend of the Contemporary Yoga community. We last interviewed her in July 2021 and asked her to join us again because she does fabulous stuff and we wanted her to share her ongoing yoga journey with you.
In this interview she shares her evolution as a teacher and informs us that it does get easier. Ever the learner – Lucy has plans and new directions … all of which she intends to bring to her Yoga work.
This week’s interview is with Katie Rudd. One of our recent graduates, contemporary dancer Katie Rudd talks about the power of Yoga to bring us home to our bodies.
Katie graciously shares her passion for movement with us and suggests that advanced Yoga is doing less ‘with a deeper focus on intention’. We love it – and think you will too, so read on…
“I am living today as someone I had not yet become yesterday. And tonight I’ll only borrow pieces of who I am today, to carry with me to tomorrow.”
Andrea Gibson
Closing the ritual is as essential as the beginning. Welcoming in the circularity of the practice or an integrational interlude giving space for all that needs to land, to land. Integrating all that has surfaced and moved you to ‘shape your soul’.1 Think of integrating Cacao as savasana – a closing ritual that keeps on giving.
Cacao helps us restore and remember our connection to nature, to earth, to the ancestors that have lived before us. And to the ancestors that we are yet to become.
I could write about the history of cacao, of traditions and legends told through lineages of Peruvian tribes. And yet I question whether it is my voice that should be speaking to it.
A cacao infused poem
Inhaling her
aliveness infused through me.
Relief passed along synapses.
Senses awakening.
Present to being wholly here.
Home.
The first sip of the elixir beckoned
Tendrils (of gratitude)
from my pelvis (spine)
to root down into all that is below.
A wave of levity migrating up my spine,
reaching towards the vastness of space above.
Connectedness.
Steph Le Gros is a health coach, personal trainer, Reiki practitioner, and qualified Yoga teacher based in Nelson. In this three-part article, Steph talks about her passion for cacao as an important part of her yoga practice.
She introduces us to yoga and cacao as practices of homecoming; shares a delectable recipe and ritual; discusses the tradition of cacao; and finally shares some of her poetry and practices inspired by yoga and cacao.
This week’s interview is with Shelley Fitness. Shelly completed the CY 200-hour Teacher Training in 2022. She is a school principal who somehow finds time to teach two Yoga classes a week – one for pre-teens at her school, and the other for adults at Yoga and Oils Studio in Te Awamutu.