DC yoga Podcast Chris Parkison

DC Yoga Podcast Episode 41- Nancy Talley "You need to go to Yoga!"

- Working and teaching in Occoquan VA- "mouth of the river."
- History of Soaring Spirit Yoga
- Falling into owning a yoga studio
- The nuts and bolts of running a yoga studio
- Working in the fashion industry...and then leaving the fashion industry
- Finding Kundalini yoga in California
- Yoga classes out West- pranayama, meditation, mantra. Not just Asana
- Moving from 90 min classes to 75 min classes to 60 min classes over time
- Yoga clearing the mind to help deal with a job you don't like but also helping to realize the job isnt worth the dealing.
- How gifts can fulfill and also drain
- Running a yoga studio during the explosion of yoga in the late 2000s
- Offering yoga to a community that practices for stress reduction not physical fitness
- Learning how to teach to the room
- The Quarantine
- Transitioning to Zoom classes...and seeing enrollment go up
- Virtual Yoga Teacher Training
- Developing studio culture without dictating content
- Self Practice and Self regulation
- The importance of Japppa
- The importance of adductor muscles
- Riding motorcycles

Bio:

Nancy began her yogic journey in 1997 while working in the Los Angeles fashion industry. To relieve stress and insomnia she explored Kundalini and Restorative classes but soon found Vinyasa to be her calling. She attended the White Lotus Foundation to study under Ganga White and Tracey Rich for her 200 hour RYT in Santa Barbara, CA. Nancy received her 500 hour RYT through Beloved Yoga in Reston, VA in 2012. Nancy has also studied Yin Yoga and has completed the Self-Awakening Yoga Therapeutics Teacher Training under Don and Amba Stapleton.

Nancy reminds her students to work with compassion towards themselves and to stop and enjoy the journey rather than focus on the final pose they are trying to achieve. She purchased Soaring Spirit Yoga Studio in 2010 and hopes to continue to serve the growing yoga community in Prince William County and surrounding areas.

On the web:

soaringspirityoga.com
www.facebook.com/soaringspirityogastudio
@soaring_spirit_yoga

DC Yoga Podcast Episode 40- "Even if the body doesn't move like we want, there's an elegance there and maybe something better."

- The cycle of being a AAA type person
- Karate and Yoga to help deal with the sleeplessness accompanying the Type A
- The obvious logic of movement to Karate but not always of asana practice at first glance
- Discovering yoga at the Fairfax rec center and then in Reston at Health Advantage
- Learning the logic of asana with Betsy Downing
- And how that is different from learning from a book
- Burning out at work
- Accidents and realizations (and broken noses)
- Purchasing Health Advantage
- Figuring out how to teach yoga full time
- Running a yoga studio in the early 2000s
- The popularization of yoga and the yoga boom of the late 2000s
- When yoga students became customers
- The rise of Yoga Teacher Trainings
- The rise of Yoga Alliance
- Developing standards for yoga teachers
- The Great Recession and the contraction of the yoga business
- The Beginning of the End with Coronavirus
- The beginnings of Anusara yoga
- Becoming an Anusara teacher and then being asked to not be one
- Loops and spirals
- The end of Anusara yoga
- Becoming the Health Advantage Yoga Center
- The importance of a daily, personal yoga practice

Bio:

Susan is the director of The Health Advantage Yoga Center. She has been a yoga practitioner since 1989 and began teaching in 1997. Susan has studied with many world-class teachers, focusing on alignment-based styles. She received a BS degree in computer science and linguistics from the College of William and Mary and she particularly enjoys applying the logic she learned while programming to the progressive teaching of yoga poses. Susan's approach is warm and clear with an appreciation of individual differences.

On the web:

http://www.healthadvantageyoga.com/

DC Yoga Podcast Episode 39b- "Spiritual growth is expansion of consciousness not a contraction out of fear."

-Writing books about yoga
- Recent research into history of yoga philosophy
- Karma and reincarnation
- Cross pollinatization of ideas between cultures of the Indian sub continent
- Tracing the path and change of yoga as concentration and yoga as union
- Hatha as a simplified democratized response to the Tantric tradition
- Separating Hatha yoga from religious iconography
- Religions laying claim to yoga
- The Varna or Caste system in India
- Brahmin in action during the day and Tantric in thought by night
- The influence of Patanjali and the yoga sutras (The sage has not always been popular, especially in India)
- Patanjali's resurgence the result of Krishnamacharya and his students, Pattabhi Jois and Iyengar
- Vedanta's influence on the 19th century Transcendentalists and their influence on the Indian independence movement
- The evolution of the concept of Dharma
- Internal and external yoga- responsibility to ourselves and responsibility to our community
- John Friend and Anusara
- Developing "systems" of yoga
- Teaching therapeutic yoga around the world
- The Vagus nerve and the Central Nervous System

Bio:

Doug Keller’s background reflects a lifelong commitment to studying, imbibing and sharing the vast field of knowledge and practice known as yoga. After receiving honors and graduate degrees in philosophy from the top Jesuit universities in the United States, Georgetown and Fordham Universities, and teaching philosophy at a college level for several years, he then pursued his ‘post-graduate’ education in the practical experience of yoga at the Siddha Meditation Ashram, Gurudev Siddha Peeth in India, for seven years. He spent a total of 14 years doing service, practicing, training in and teaching yoga in Siddha Meditation Ashrams worldwide. He received intensive training in the Iyengar system in New York City, mainly with senior certified Iyengar teacher Kevin Gardiner. He also practiced Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga in India, and became one of the first certified Anusara Yoga teachers, producing three highly respected books on asana, pranayama and yoga philosophy.

His further expansion in learning is reflected in his latest and most in-depth work, ‘Yoga as Therapy,’ which is truly one of the most comprehensive, innovative and useful treatments of the structural aspect of yoga therapy available. And for three years he was a regular columnist for Yoga+ Magazine (formerly Yoga International, published by the Himalayan Institute), writing the ‘Asana Solutions’ column that addresses specific therapeutic problems. He is at the highest level of certification with Yoga Alliance, ERYT500, and a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

For more about Doug:

http://www.doyoga.com/about-us.htm

DC Yoga Podcast Episode 39a- Participating in the World instead of Renouncing it

- Studying Philosophy at Georgetown and Fordham
- Meditation as the introduction to yoga
- Learning from Swami Muktananda
- The connection between flexible hamstrings and spirituality
- Unlocking prana through asana
- Living in an Ashram in India for 7 years...starting in the kitchen
- Ego stretching and getting out of the intellectual mind
- Relationship between temperament and environment
- The balance between Grace and Effort
- The surprise of and attachment to profound experiences
- Being deconstructed physiologially
- Leaving academia for a life of Experience
- Self awareness to realize what you need to let go of
- Tracing thoughts back to the wellspring
- Finding the knots within
- Working to make the ego transparent instead of discarding it entirely
- Tantric yoga and gurus vs. Hatha yoga without
- Recognizing truth you already know instead of adopting another's truth
- Meister Eckhart
- And finally...teaching asana.

Bio:

Doug Keller’s background reflects a lifelong commitment to studying, imbibing and sharing the vast field of knowledge and practice known as yoga. After receiving honors and graduate degrees in philosophy from the top Jesuit universities in the United States, Georgetown and Fordham Universities, and teaching philosophy at a college level for several years, he then pursued his ‘post-graduate’ education in the practical experience of yoga at the Siddha Meditation Ashram, Gurudev Siddha Peeth in India, for seven years. He spent a total of 14 years doing service, practicing, training in and teaching yoga in Siddha Meditation Ashrams worldwide. He received intensive training in the Iyengar system in New York City, mainly with senior certified Iyengar teacher Kevin Gardiner. He also practiced Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga in India, and became one of the first certified Anusara Yoga teachers, producing three highly respected books on asana, pranayama and yoga philosophy.

His further expansion in learning is reflected in his latest and most in-depth work, ‘Yoga as Therapy,’ which is truly one of the most comprehensive, innovative and useful treatments of the structural aspect of yoga therapy available. And for three years he was a regular columnist for Yoga+ Magazine (formerly Yoga International, published by the Himalayan Institute), writing the ‘Asana Solutions’ column that addresses specific therapeutic problems. He is at the highest level of certification with Yoga Alliance, ERYT500, and a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists.

For more about Doug:

http://www.doyoga.com/about-us.htm

DC Yoga Podcast Episode 38 - Catching up

- Welcome back
- Effects of Quarantine
- Yoga Alliance Webinar on Yoga and Anxiety
- Surviving the Quarantine
- Stress showing up on the mat
- The reorganizing of every aspect of life
- Recognizing emotions and thoughts associated with each day being the same and yet different
- Re-establishing a Pranayama practice
- Discipline in a time of chaos
- Creating boundaries for your mind
- Teaching yoga virtually
- Demonstrating and teaching virtually over Facebook versus teaching over Zoom
- Authenticity in a virtual class
- The value of a virtual class and the necessity of a studio class
- How did studios and gyms approach the Quarantine?
- What's next?

Yoga and Stress workshop:

https://www.yogaalliance.org/Get_Involved/COVID-19_Resources/Archived_COVID-19_Workshops_and_Events/CE_Workshop_Scientific_Research_on_Yoga_and_Stress_Part_1

DC Yoga Podcast Episode 37b- John Schumacher "Deep relaxation without force."

- "I do yoga and people have come to call it Iyengar Yoga."
- Bringing Iyengar yoga to the DMV area
- Opening Unity Woods in 1979 on 40 acres in MD
- Letting the Universe decide
- The parallels between music and yoga
- Opening Unity Woods Bethesda in 1985- the first yoga studio in the area
- Apprenticeship instead of Yoga Teacher Training
- The traits of a good yoga teacher: strong and disciplined personal practice
- Becoming a nationally recognized yoga teacher
- Leading annual retreats to Jamaica...for the last 37 years
- The daily morning practice
- Urban legends
- What is fitness? The purpose of an Asana practice
- The explosion of yoga industry in the US
- Pranayama
- Pratyahara
- Meditation
- Sitting instead of meditating
- Quiet in a full sense
- Changing people's consciousness instead of changing the world
- The 8 limbs of Patanjali's yoga