Confessions of a Yogini - A New York Minute

Publicerad 29 june, 2020

a New York minute…that changed my life.

It was on a lunch break. There was a debate orchestrated between some of the prominent American yoga teachers who were our guides at the 2 day continuing education for Yoga Teachers at the Yoga Journal New York Conference in 2007. The debate was open for us students to sit in on and have our lunch, nestled in between the half day workshops, while we enjoyed the topics discussed by the main teachers. On the panel was Jivamukti founder Sharon Gannon, and an Anusara Senior teacher and two others. I remember this moment well. 

The debate topics were digested and the floor was opened to questions from the audience. Someone in the crowd asked Sharon how important it is to have a teacher when you are a student of yoga and/or yoga teacher. Sharon looked at this student, a no nonsense look. She said, simply: 

“Get a teacher”. 

That got me. From that moment I started asking to find my teacher and a method I could commit to. I had been exploring so many styles of yoga and meditation, for a few years already, but could not yet settle for one. Nothing had moved me deeply enough to develop my discipline for practice and I was still seeking. My prayers were answered only 2 years later when I first experienced the YogaMonks (YM) Method and a year later committed to studying this practice, a commitment that lasted for 8 years with the founder of YM Jon Monks.

For the past 4 years, alongside the YM Professional Teachers Team who have studied my 5 year YM Teacher Training Program, I am the grateful care-taker and director of this beautiful method of hatha vinyasa yoga. 

 

At the same time as I began my YM journey, I was also fortunate to meet a true Yoga Master with whom I continue to travel my spiritual journey. Blessed beyond belief. 

Beloved Guru Kriyaji - inexplicable is the gratitude. 

 

 

Thank you Sharon of Jivamukti Yoga for that timely guidance that landed with a certainty that I needed a teacher if I were to be teacher and practitioner myself. If I were to evolve and develop mastery. And that I needed to get to daily. Thank you, thank you, thank you. What I share with all my teachers in training at the YM school:  the most important aspect of being a yoga teacher is being a student. 

Listening to the Prayer on this Guru Purnima (Day of honoring the Guru in the yogic and hindu traditions) and so moved to tears.

For more information on the YM Method: yogamonks.se

Photo credit yoga class at NIA Yoga Dance festival: Pontus Fagerstedt Photography