Forrest Yoga Teacher Training


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September 28th 2007
Published: December 10th 2007
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This is my room at Leann and John's sweet condo in Freemont
Aug 26th: I forgot to mention in my past entry that I totalled my car while driving from Jackson Hole to Salt Lake City early July, by driving into a deer. So, we spent the whole summer sharing a car. Therefore, Adam had to drive me to Salt Lake City to catch my flight to Seattle. I flew to the northwest and later that day, Adam flew to Yosemite. Somehow, I was happy to take a break from climbing, and this yoga teacher training was the best opportunity to do just that.

I flew in and took a bus to downtown Seattle to meet with Kristie's sister, Leann. Kristie is a good friend from Boulder, Colorado, with whom i've climbed in Ethiopia, in Ouray and around Boulder. She is an amazing and sweet person and climber! She asked her sister if I could stay with her in Seattle during my training and she accepted. Very very lucky me! I had the best set up, with a private room and bathroom, and the best mode of transportation: a very bright pink beach cruiser bike that I bought brand new from Ebay for a little over 100$! I got settled in, and
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I had to put it together myself and of course, I put the front wheel on the wrong way :-)
before I knew it, the 24day long course was starting.

My daily schedule looked like this: I woke up every morning at 4am (considering Ana woke up at 2am to do her own 2hrs practice at 3am!!!, my 4am really didn't seem too bad!) and rode my bike to the yoga studio (www.shaktivinyasa.com). Each day would start with a one hour long meditation, that involved Korean chants and either some walking or silent meditation. I would get there earyl to "reserve" the same sitting locations for myself and two other classmates: Tara and Veronica. We would sit close to the door in order to be the first ones out for the one and only shower (for 80 people!!!) after the two hour intensive class. It was a fun little race that we had going on between us each day. So, following the meditation, we had the daily two hour intensive class given by Ana Forrest and her husband, Jonathan Bowra. Ana would have four assistants (Unmani, Kelley, Suzi and Sarah) to give us hands on assists in poses. The class would focus either on twisting, on backbends, on shoulders or on hip openers. But every class would inclue a
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Neti is an Indian tradition of cleaning the nose daily, by running water from one nostril to the next
huge amount of abs. Ana focuses a lot on abs because abs are the main support of back issues. It's hard, but it feels really great!! The room would be heated up to 80F and everyone in there would be dripping of sweat. 80 people would take the class daily, only 42 of which were Yoga teacher trainees. The rest of the day, we would only be the 42 of us.

After the morning intensives and a nice hot shower, we would break for breakfast-lunch and be back at 11.30 on weekdays and 12.30 on week ends. I would spend my breaks at this super cute tea shop in Ballard (www.mirotea.com). And on sundays, I would stroll down the beautiful and rich farmer's market one block down from the studio. The afternoon would involve lots of yoga teaching that we would teach each other. We had to create 1.30 hr long classes on a specific topic and teach it and take it in turns (we would each teach a section of it). We had lots of discussions about different topics that were real eye openers to me, as they would involve lots of introspection. It was very emotionally loaded
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Miro Tea shop where I spent most of my breaks
and most people would be in tears. Ana teaches that being a strong person is not being afraid to cry and show emotions. It's funny that once people are given the right to "let go", they eventually do. Our society teaches us (espacially men) otherwise and I love to go against society rules... so, that was a real relief to be able to be ourselves, shamelessly.

This training proved to be one of the best things that I have ever ever done in my life and for myself. I learnt so much about myself and others! I wish I could have a lifetime of this. My yoga mat now follows me everywhere aroud







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Each day, there would be a new display of tea samplers!
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The worldwide known market on the Seattle seashort
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Flexible ans strong, did you say?


Tot: 0.149s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 59; dbt: 0.0515s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.1mb