Start a Yoga Journey
Welcome to Mind Body Spirit Yoga’s Blog, a journey to learn more about yoga. I am Pam and will be writing to you here weekly. I started this blog to be a resource to yoga students for support and guidance with their yoga practice. Whether you are new to yoga or have been a student for decades this blog will guide you to a deeper understanding of yourself and your practice. I will share things that I have learned on my own journey as a student and a teacher.
Let’s start with a little about my yoga journey and how I started. I was curious about yoga in my 20’s and tried a few studio classes and took a course when I was in college. The books we studied seemed old, and the pictures of the poses were odd-looking men with beards in strange outfits. The teachers were good, but I didn’t develop a connection to any of them or the yoga. When I first became pregnant, I took a class from a teacher. She didn’t modify the poses for pregnancy, and I became frustrated and a bit scared. I kept looking for books and teachers. Years later as a young parent of 2, I was overwhelmed. My daughter was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and I had a 7-month-old son with lots of energy. I was busy and needed some help. My dad listened to a radio program about a teacher who taught parents how to practice yoga with their special need children.
That is how I found Sonia Sumar and her program “Yoga for the special Child”. She taught parents to practice her yoga techniques with their children. I packed up my 2 kids and my mom and we traveled to Evanston Illinois to take the class. It was wonderful and hard all at the same time. The class was 7 long days of intensive training. I met many other parents and teachers, and we learned a lot. We all had hopes of going home and practicing yoga with our kids and finding some answers about their disabilities. My mom took care of my kids at a local hotel, while I trained. It was hard on all of us and exhausting to be away from home. Mom supported me and my search for help with my daughter’s disability. So, we stayed, and I finished the course.
When we returned home I worked on the things I learned and tried to practice yoga with both kids. It was the early 90’s and I had no teachers or peers at home to share my ideas with. My internet connection was poor so I had a hard time keeping in touch with my teacher, she lived in Brazil. I continued to attend Sonia’s programs when she came back to the United States. Eventually I found a yoga teacher training program that I could attend in a nearby state. I travelled 5 hours each way for a 3-day class one weekend a month for a few years. This expanded my understanding of yoga, and I became a registered yoga teacher. I decided if I couldn’t find a yoga studio I would open one myself. I taught 3 classes a week to students in my small rural Wisconsin town. It was great and I learned so much. The classes helped my students and helped me. I continued to work with my kids but teaching my adult students is was what kept me going. It became my life’s work.
Fast forward to today. I am still teaching and opened an online studio in 2019 right before COVID. This was to help my students practice with me when they couldn’t get to the studio. Classes at the studio were great but students kept asking me for help with their home yoga practices.
My goal is to keep teaching what I have learned from my yoga practice and teaching to help others. What is different about my teaching? What will you learn from me that you can’t find in another online membership or studio class? I will teach you what I have learned about yoga and also support you as you go through your own yoga journey. This is something I looked for when I began. I found great yoga teachers who taught me a lot about yoga. What I would have liked was a yoga teacher to also support me as I learned. At the time there wasn’t an easy way to get to my teachers’ studios and the internet wasn’t what it is now. To make this possible for you I’ve joined an online platform for yoga teachers. Since 2019, my coaches have been supporting me with my online studio. They’ve taught me how to make it possible to teach and support my students online like I’ve been doing in my studio.
I will teach you about yoga poses, breathwork and meditation. We will talk about how to find time for yourself to practice even when you’re busy. I will give you advice about meditation and how to start a daily practice and keep it going. We will meet here weekly to learn more together. Subscribe to this blog below so you don’t miss anything.
You can also practice with me online. My studio is at stream.mindbodyspirityoga.com where you can join me in one of my studio classes live streamed or in a monthly membership of recorded classes and lessons.