Chanda

What initially inspired you to do yoga? My sister was handed book called Waking by Matthew Sanford. Upon receiving it, she was excited about the story... one man losing movement due to a spinal cord injury, only to reclaim it a different way through adaptive yoga by reconnecting the mind and body in the most powerful way. With my sister being a yoga therapist and me having a spinal cord injury, Matthew's story inspired our new found venture. We no longer lived on polar opposite ends of movement. After reading Waking, I must admit I was still struggling with the possibility of me doing yoga. "How can I do yoga when I can't move my own?" However, with props, a belief that simple is more and an amazing yoga therapist, I do yoga!

What do you remember about your 1st yoga class? I remember feeling my body in ways I had never felt in it before. With paralysis, you always seek this experience. The new feeling offer a new connection I was excited to extend.

What keeps you coming back to your mat everyday? The ability to connect with portions of my body that I naturally to not feel day to day due to my paralysis.

Chanda is the founder of The Chanda Plan Foundation, which is all about "Improving the quality of life for persons with physical disabilities through education and programs to access integrative therapies."

Lindsay

 

What initially inspired you to do yoga? 

The movements alone were a great inspiration and helped me heal my body from the effects of competitive and extreme sports. But I was inspired to do a lot of yoga and become a teacher while living in Costa Rica with a group of girls who taught myself and other people in our surfing community. 

What do you remember about your 1st yoga class?

I took my first yoga class while in High School. It was taught by my childhood gymnastics coach. I remember I was so thrilled to see her in a different light...there was no competitive drive, only love and she told me I had a fantastic "toe spread as I was grounding into my mat". 

What keeps you coming back to your mat everyday?

The feeling of love that I receive from the universe keeps me coming back. I become more in touch with my feelings and subtle energies around me. This gives me more energy to move forward from a place of mindful movement.

What part(s) of yoga resonate with you?

Over the years many things have resonated with me in different ways or at different times. The physical postures allow me to protect my body. The spiritual work of yoga keeps me compassionate and eager to learn. The the study of yoga is keeping me connected with my students.

How has yoga affected your life? what does it mean to you?

To me the practice of yoga is a way of life and the physical postures are only the prep work for how I handle all situations.  

How does yoga make you feel? has it contributed to some healing in your life?

Yoga helps me feel happy and content with where I am and in love with each experience. It has helped me heal my lower back from several injuries lifting weights, running and snowboarding. The healing comes mostly from mindful movements around this area.

What makes you avoid yoga? what makes you commit to yoga?

With teaching yoga as my full time job, there is no avoiding it. I am committed to the service of sharing experiences in a safe way to prepare the mind and body for stressful times. This to me, becomes preventative medicine.

What about yoga enables you to help others and change the world for the better?  

I actively do my best to practice the eight limbs of Yoga. One that resonates with me is Ahimsa: non-violence/non-judgment. This limb challenges me to not harm myself or others through thoughts, words and actions. It helps me stop and think before acting.

Do you have a favorite quote that you live by and if so, what is it?

In any quiet moment when you are breathing,

The breath may flow out and pause of itself,

Or flow in and pause of itself.

Here experience opens into exquisite vastness

With no beginning and no end.

Embrace this infinity without reservation.

Dive into it,drink deeply, and emerge renewed.

- From The Radiance Sutras, Tantra Yoga Teachings For Opening To The Divine In Everyday Life.

Lindsay Gonzalez

www.lindsaygonzalezfitness.com

Twitter- LindsayGoYoga

Facebook-Lindsaygyoga

Lauren

What initially inspired you to do yoga? 

I have always been in love with the mysteries of the universe and existence.  The deepest reaches of space, the smallest particles, and the biggest questions about the origins of existence.  I studied at the Colorado School of Mines to delve into those questions in the physics program there.  I started practicing yoga seriously when I was studying abroad in England, and it was a lifeline.  Yoga was the perfect antidote to the high stress of a competitive physics program and the stress of modern life.  My almost daily tension headaches disappeared.  I was falling into yoga and falling out of physics. As I fell, I started finding the deeper layers of yoga - people asking those same questions about God and the universe and the human experience.  Asana practice is a somewhat modern development, but the history of yogic philosophy rest on thousands of years of deep spiritual practice and study.  So when I tell people that I left physics to teach yoga they say, “Wow!  What a switch.”  But really, to me, it wasn’t.  Yoga is the internal exploration of the universe - the microcosm in macrocosm.  And I am still in love with those deep questions and still in love with science.  I love to geek out reading science magazines.  More and more scientific research is emerging to support what yogis have always known about the near-miraculous effects of a yoga practice.  In the coming decades yoga and science will draw together even more closely with new studies on yoga and meditation, new modern support for this ancient practice.

What parts of yoga resonate with you?

Breathing is the most exquisite thing in the world to me, and one of the most valuable aspects of yoga practice.  A few long luscious Ujjayi breaths can make a lot of things right.  As my practice evolves and matures, I notice my mindful breath coming off my mat with me more and more.  I am completely in love with breathing. 

How has yoga affected your life?  what does it mean to you?

The metamorphoses I see in my yoga students astonish and inspire me.  I see bodies unfold and bloom.  Some people find a strength they never knew existed.  Many people find ease for aching bodies.  Everyone finds connection to their bodies and breath. Yoga heals the schism that we have created between body and mind. 

Nicole

What initially inspired you to do yoga?

My inspiration for yoga began when my life was quickly in a down ward spiral 4 years ago. I was managing a restaurant and had just earned my third DUI. I was destroyed...how was I ever going to live thru this one? I was living in fear and had no inspiration for life. I was terrified of what my future held and knew I was in need of a change, the drinking and drug life was getting me nowhere besides jail. I was sad, lonely, destroying my body and drowning my spirit.

How has yoga affected your life? 

A drinking friend talked me into trying yoga in a warehouse with a roller derby chick covered in tattoos. She was intense and I wanted to have stories like hers. We started doing cross fit and yoga, a few days a week and I was quickly challenged in a positive way. Shortly after I began my new workout I was sentenced to 6 weeks in jail with work release, and yoga quickly became my outlet. I was up early leaving the jail, taking a bus through Denver to get some morning yoga in before my day at work. I would return “home” and teach other girls headstands. I loved going upside down! After released from jail I was sporting an ankle monitor and attending Core Powers FREE week of yoga. Really? I wear an ankle monitor into the yoga studio, I was in need of change.

A few months later Root Yoga Center opened the doors next to the restaurant, a gift from God. My happy hour drastically changed from cocktails to downward dogs. Somewhere along this journey I got inspired to go back to school. If yoga had helped me so much then I wanted to share that with others. If only I found yoga earlier in life, imagine where I would be. If only I could share my strengths and hopes for yoga with others.

How does yoga make you feel? Has it contributed to some healing in your life?

A teacher of mine inspired me to do the Ana Forrest teacher training and that is where my real healing journey began. Yoga has changed my life in such a positive way. I now have hope, strength, dreams and inspirations. I can feel, I can breathe and I am more alive and connected to my spirit every time I get on and off of my mat. Yoga saved my life. Teachers would always say, “what can you take off of your mat and into the real world with you?” I thought they were crazy, I was so disconnected from life, that made no sense to me. I enjoyed being on my mat more then I enjoyed being in real life. I began to find my breath, an inner peace and some clarity. I now activate my feet, pay attention to my breath and stand up straight in real life. 

What keeps you coming back to your mat everyday?

I will forever be grateful for all of the inspiring people that came into my life when I needed strength, encouragement and love the best. I would not be where I am today without ever finding my mat. I find my mat daily now, if it is to share this gift with others or simply to connect to my spirit. I could not and would not imagine my life with out yoga. It has done so much for me and I will continue to share the gift with others.

Cate

What do you remember about your 1st yoga class?

The brilliance of Savasana

What inspired you to do yoga?

I immediately connected with an "activity" where my flexibility felt like an asset.

What keeps you coming back to your mat everyday?

The discovery that the real asset of yoga is the internal shift it facilitates, one of peace and loving kindness towards myself and everyone around me; a shift that awakens every cell in my body and breaks down the idea that there is a disconnect between the interior and exterior.

What part of yoga resonates with you?

The yamas and niyamas - a beautiful gift, like a guidebook on how to live a more fulfilling life, only 1000 times more than that.

How has yoga affected your life? what does it mean to you?

It's helped me feel still even when everything around me is bustling. It's given me a path to follow, a holistic one that addresses every inch of my being.

How does yoga make you feel?

Like my heart is smiling  (I know, I know - but it's true!)

What makes you avoid yoga? What makes you commit to yoga?

I avoid yoga when I become too wrapped up in just the physical aspects of it. I recommit myself to yoga every time I feel the joy it manifests coursing through me. 

What is your favorite quote that you live by?

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I'd still plant my apple tree." - Martin Luther King