Gratitude

Seems like an appropriate day to say thank you to you all. I'm so, so, so grateful to the MFY community and for our little Sangha (sacred community) which feels hidden away, private and special. I'm so grateful to our team of amazing teachers and the community of amazing Yogi's that have helped create this space!


We all know how transformative Yoga can be when we let go of ego based striving and "embrace the flow." I wanted to share this email I got from a student yesterday, her email subject line was "Gratitude," My ego doesn't need serving, I know I'm in my flow and love to teach, but it awesome to see students be transformed by opening themselves to the process. Nothing brings me more joy or gratitude to me as a teacher than to be witness to this kind of flow.


"Dear Jaime, Just want to tell you how thankful I am to have you as a teacher- you have really rocked my world in such a positive way and I am so thankful! I've had many teachers since my first Bikram class back in 1998, but you bring everything I've ever craved/needed/didn't know I needed together into this crazy harmony that just works for me. I joined your studio almost a year ago (my first class was last year on my bday- what a gift!) and I can't tell you how thankful I am for it! Your classes, blog, music choices (as a Dead Head, I love that you play the Dead in class), the knowledge you share- First Greens, biokleen, yoga nidra, reading the Bhagavad Gita, transferring yoga into life (I swear I'm able to breathe through running, difficult situations, LIFE better now) has all helped me be in a better place today than I was a year ago. It's funny, I started writing down mantras to put up as reminders of how to get through the breakup I was going though this time last year and I remember asking Tara to remind me of one she said in a class back in January or February- Letting go of that which does not serve you- Letting go of the idea that the past could have been different, and then I incorporated that into you saying that we do yoga to learn how to breathe through the difficult situations in life, right and then you've been saying that we need to cultivate openness by clearing out the monkey chatter so that we can be open to the transformation we need, to stop the negative thought patterns- holy sh*t, this has been so helpful. Your classes have been the best gift I could have asked for! I've been super nervous about this time of year- it just brings up a lot of pain around the breakup, but I am so thankful for all you have taught me and helped me realize that I feel so prepared to get through my bday and the holidays and just breathe and enjoy. Svaha!So, thank you Jaime for being who you are and for sharing so much!"
Namaste

New Logo!

A million thanks to the very talented Hannah Wygal, http://www.monsterinvasion.com/, for creating this amazing logo.

Embrace the Flow :: The Stars Have Aligned

So many of my posts have talked about living one's dharma, entering the state of flow, and being happy—probably because I'm aware of how lucky one is to actually move in that direction. So it's totally worth pausing, posting a little blurb, taking note of and being grateful for flowing. I sincerely believe that when we step into our lives and our dharma, the universe responds. So it's with great joy, gratitude and awareness that I'm not doing this alone that I get to announce the creation/manifestation of Spin :: Flow. MFY will be expanding its reach and offerings with a new fusion spinning and Yoga studio. MFY has leased 3000 SF of beautiful space on the corner of 12^th and Cherry (right by Seattle U) and the new spin/flow fusion studio will open its doors on approximately Feb 1, 2012.

Spin :: Flow is the manifestation of at least 1.5 years' worth of creative energy. As most of you know, I came to Yoga as an athlete. I spent my childless summer's reaping around the mountains, climbing, and mountain biking and being somewhat "intense" about it all: a happy Wednesday in July involved a quick stomp up to Camp Muir. With children, life obviously had to change: my husband spent more than one night anxiously awaiting my return home from an adventure, and that kind of life simply didn't serve a family. For a while I wallowed around, fully aware of—and a little bit resentful of—my "sacrifice. " Then I found Yoga. All of a sudden all that fire, all that drive could be realized in just 60-90 minutes just miles from home. I was home! I dove in and for a long time all I had time for, outside of my family, was Yoga, learning to teach Yoga, studying Yoga, teaching Yoga and opening a studio . . . . Yoga, yoga, yoga. I was happy and having a lot of fun, I could do the full splits for the first time since I was 9, I could lead a room full of people in a Pranic dance with life, I quickly received a lot of local notoriety and I could stand on my hands . . . FUN. But about 2 years ago I started getting hurt . . . A LOT. I met my new and amazing healing friends: my massage therapist (really the best ever jselements@msn.com), my chiro (also amazing Dr. Sasaki at Functional Health on Madison), and my physical therapist and I learned/worked to recreate stability in my body. I had become so hyper flexible, that I was no longer serving myself; my joints started slipping around and I become very prone to injury. I learned this: there's no point in fluidity and flexibility without stability. In fact, I believe stability must be built in advance of flexibility, or the flexibility can't be supported.

I also believe Yoga can be the PERFECT physical exercise, when taught and practiced properly and balanced: I haven't found a better endeavor for maintaining/accessing a full range of motion in our bodies while simultaneously building strength. I also believe that Yoga can and should be augmented with additional stability creating work, i.e. spinning, running, weight lifting. Spinning and running actually create tightness in the quads and hammies as well as around the hip, knee and ankle joints, this tightness can promote strength and stability, it's tightness that can actually serve us if we then build the flexibility. So with all my injury, I bought a spinning bike for my basement and started running again, while Yoga is still my primary physical endeavor, I balance it out with quite a bit of spinning and running to promote stability and create strength where I over-stretched .

Another amazing thing happened when I went back to running and spinning after years of just Yoga: I took my Yoga with me! I noticed that the breath, body awareness and mental presence to physical effort infused EVERYGHING I did. Running and spinning transformed into a meditation of mental and physical release into presence. I no longer rode my spinning bike watching the TV or the clock, I rode with eyes closed, breath flowing and heart pumping awareness. Same with running, my stride became effortless, I found my flow, and I could go forever . . . I realized that I wanted to bring this experience and this balance into the studio. I wanted to create stability based classes that were taught Yogically—classes in which the teachers promoted awareness and presence rather than competitiveness or striving. I am not a renegade: YAS Yoga in L.A, Soul Cycle in NY and Y Yoga in Vancouver have all beat me to it, but I realized their effectiveness and wanted to bring what they had to offer to Seattle. I visited many of these studios, planted the seed of intention to create it in Seattle, and here we are! Coming in early 2012, a dedicated spin studio with 30 state of the art, brand new Keiser spinning bikes and a 900 SF beaituful studio for flow will provide exactly this vision.

So this is a long story that explains the manifestation of Spin :: Flow. There's another long story about flow and serendipity that allowed this creative idea to actually manifest, I'll save it for another blog. For all of you Madrona efficionados, don't worry. MFY Madrona will stay open. The schedule will alter and the Yoga will be differentiated, but you'll still be able to walk to your classes there ;). Your packages will be good at both studios, but those are all details that will follow. For now, just get ready to spin and to flow.

I also want to give a big shout out to Thomas McCarthy, Jessica Robinson and Don O'Neil. The schedule is being created and some of Seattle's best spinning instructors are on board to compliment the already amazing crew of Yoga teachers MFY provides and another shout out to Tess Tabor, a current MFY teacher, who's leaving years in business and PR to be our new studio manager.

Feel free to contact me info@mountainflowyoga.com or Tess, tess@mountainflowyoga.com, with any questions you may have!

Namaste,

Jaime

Ps—post 2 today: A Huge Thank You

A huge thank you to Sarah Tomson Beyer (www.flowmotionstyle.com). In my life as a teacher, a few teachers have crossed my path that have really created the way I teach, live and flow. Sarah is one of them. MFY teacher Madzy met Sarah in Park City when she hired her for privates, Madz brought Sarah to the studio about 3 years ago and it was serendipitous for me: Sarah arrived with all of her flow at a point in time where I felt like my teaching had become rote and stagnant. Sarah taught me all about how to teach from a place of authenticity and enter that state of flow. She rocked my world and re-oriented my path as a teacher: through Sarah I was lead to other master flow teachers like Shiva Rea and more recently Janet Stone. It was really Sarah who lead me to teach flow. Sarah was in Seattle teaching today and I spent the whole day flowing with her amazing energy. Sarah has recently launched her amazing line meSheeky and invited me to be an ambassador for the brand (http://www.mesheeky.com/sheekyluv). Check it out and most importantly seek out opportunities to embrace her flow and learn from her . . . we'll get her to MFY Spring 2012. THANK YOU, SARAH!

Namaste