May 2011 Teacher of the Month

Jorja Rivero

Hometown: Mexico D.F.

Why Do You Love Teaching:

“When I serve others, I connect to my deep sense of purpose…”  Favorite Pose(s):

I love the richness of my yoga practice. My relationship to poses and life is ever-changing, even with poses I thought that I’d love until I am 90 and beyond! So, I will say that – at this time – I am drawn to these poses and/or combination of poses:

Vashistasana (side plank) and all its variations, even the ones I have yet to discover and learn! A definite favorite series is: Vashistasana to Hanumanasana (split pose) and – it does not stop there – but back to Vashistasana and pouring myself back into Wild Thing, as if offering something sweet.

Another favorite is Parsvakonasana (side angle pose) to Ardha Chandrasana (half moon pose) to Ardha Chandra Chapasana (over the moon pose) to Utthita Hasta Padangustasana (standing big toe pose) and back to Ardha Chandra Chandrasana to Parvakonasana.

Backbends reflect back to me the resilience of my heart, its vastness, its ability to heal and grow, its wonder and unending desire to keep unfolding, longing, desiring, expanding, and to continue to love, believe, and remember the bigger picture.

Handstand and headstand and all its arm variations and fun leg variations and transitions to other poses are metaphors that remind me of the mystery and magic of possibilities and how some situations do need to be turned on their head, flipped upside down, and/or experienced from another perspective so that I can gain amplitude, reconnection, and/or a deeper ability to see, feel, remember, experience, taste, and be with them and with myself. Often, it is not what has happened to us, but how we see it, hold it, and relate to it.

Dragon fly pose and its variations are without a doubt favorites mainly because they once seemed impossible, unexplainable and unfathomable.

I love all seated twists and meditation postures and I will not even go on about the mudras (hand gestures).

I love the power and simplicity of Child’s Pose, especially at a random moment in the day. When I do a pose, make juice, savor a piece of chocolate, or roller blade with whole and light-heartedness, with intention, devotion, and mindfulness, I truly expand and discover qualities, magic, and unexpected connection, openness, and possibility. And then, well, there are few things as amazing as doing Downward and Upward-Facing Dog next to my dog!

I enjoy writing anything from little poems to big ones. I love writing my blog and newsletter. I love to dance and love music; my taste is pretty eclectic. I have a particular weakness for rock concerts and for rockers! Bollywood and Indian dance have and continue to open my heart.

I love food, friends, wine, and chocolate. I love to cook, host, and share space with loved ones. I love to roller-blade and ride my bicycle. I love the ocean, sunsets, the moon, and dolphins.

I discovered by accident that I have a gift when I tend to orchids – so I do!

I am passionate and committed to self-growth, learning about myself and others. I believe in becoming better each day. I love fearlessly. Humor is healing. Love a powerful glue. I cherish sitting in silence and feeling my breath. I also enjoy solitude. I love singing in the shower: I must say the echo is comforting! And if I call my shoe and boot obsession a hobby, I feel better about it (although it’s a bit delusional!) Photography and I have to meet soon.

My practice is an honest, authentic expression of my feelings, thoughts, and being AND a conduit, a portal, and gateway to experience spirit, authenticity, and desire: all those things that are bigger than me and show up as me! I love practicing because it is one of many strategies I rely on to come back to my senses and the silent space of my heart.

Through my practice I reconnect, become attuned to my experience, fine-tune myself, observe, and feel how I shift and grow. Even if I am not aware of it, I am always shifting, transforming, growing. It is an intimate conversation, a discovery of what is available at each moment, through each pose, and through each breath. It is another way to know and love myself and return to the world more capable, willing, aware, and inspired.

Going to class is a delight and an experience of joy as I connect with many people I love. My practice teaches me to relate and to belong to a community.

My home practice is a profound teacher as well – it is the binding glue that keeps my promise to myself and tests me in many ways as well as supports my flexibility of mind and body as I play, explore, and follow my intuition, spontaneity, and desire.

One of my favorite fun things to do is to link poses, movements, words – as if dancing, writing a poem or song, or as if just following my breath. I am passionate about paying attention, not only to the poses and how I am experiencing my body, mind, heart, moment, but living the transitions fully. I love the idea that I can shape-shift, back and forth, in and out of a series of poses! These are such metaphors for life, for all the roles I play/take in my life and life’s ever-changing unstoppable nature! Often, it is not what we say, but how we say it.

I will share with you that I am forever curious of my least favorite poses because my once much-dreaded Virasana (hero pose) opened up one day and taught me so much! I used to cringe, complain, feel unable, and really go through a whole series of unsupportive statements even before attempting it  - or if in class, it was the perfect moment to go to the bathroom or fix my hair!

One day, I do not remember what got into me (but I am thankful), I decided I would do the pose everyday for a week and see if I would feel any shift. I did, and then I learned more about how patience is support, about how trying is worth it, about how returning and approaching things with curiosity creates a conversation that creates a relationship of growth, how intimacy does not mean to just agree with everything, but to fully be present with difference and to make space to hold more than one thing at the same time.

And so, I encourage you to know what you like and be skilled at the knowing – but also to stay open, be curious, approach, and enquire what you resist. There is wisdom in what we resist! This is one way I opened into the window of Vashistasana and Hanumanasana.

I am a vehicle!

When I serve others, I connect to my deep sense of purpose. I love learning to stretch myself beyond my imaginable boundaries, I love holding the space for others to have their experiences, and above all, I love learning.

Both my professions expand me, challenge me, nurture me, and fulfill me. Both keep me a student and paradoxically ask me to take the lead.

My passion is dedicated to allow, make space, and support each student to connect with their own experience. I believe that our experience matters and everything that we feel has a message for us. I love to encourage people to stay curious and to discover themselves and the moment.

I believe in relationships of equality and those that foster clarity, boundaries, independence, responsibility (more like response-ability), and teach us that what we do matters, how we live matters, how seeing and participating in the world matters.

I believe that no matter the situation, life has granted us the gift of being here, and I want to support living life as fully as we are able and willing to!

Living fully includes embracing our joys and sadnesses, our successes and sorrows. I love reminding people (I often need this reminder myself so it is good to remind others that also reflect this back to me!) that we have everything we need to grow, heal, and be ourselves!

I love to connect and support students. I am so honored, inspired, interested, and thankful for the experience to join students in their journeys, not only teaching and sharing what I know, but learning from them as well.

I love and have a deep passion for growth, life, our resilience, potential, and un-shatterable radiance (as a teacher says). We are all in this together! Connection heals!

I moved to NYC 11 years ago, and in the midst of more than one major life transition, I eased out of a 10 year career in music and entertainment and jumped (courageously, as I tend to do) into the arms of the unknown. I reinvented myself and pursued yoga and gestalt therapy professionally because I knew I wanted to do both. Despite my fantasies and expectations, I had no idea how I was going to grow into these two professions. I absolutely believe in transformation!

My yoga path solidified three years in, when I went to my first Anusara class in late 2002. Before that, I jumped from studio to studio, from style to style. My first teachers were Amy Ippolitti and Elena Brower and I fell in love. Deep love.

I completed my first Immersion in 2003 and as I deepened my practice in Anusara training, I simultaneously completed a 4 year clinical program in Gestalt Psychotherapy.

I have had openings that seemed therapeutic in yoga and openings that seemed yogi in therapy. I have a deep passion for how the language of these practices and philosophies meet, inform each other, expand. Above all, how they invite me to the courage and wisdom of my heart, of seeing and knowing my process as sacred experiences and expressions of something bigger, and how to trust the mystery and unfolding of life and my desire.

The work of Genpo Merzel is a profound influence in my life and I am grateful to know him.

I am currently an Anusara-inspired teacher and this year I will begin my Anusara certification process. I am psyched to continue to grow and expand into moreness! I’ll say it again: I love what I do. I smile and hope to see you in class soon!

Ashleigh Sergeant-Altman Hometown: Brooklyn, NY Why Do You Love Teaching: “I love teaching because it is an art. Teaching is the way that I study yoga and the way I study life…”

Favorite Pose(s):

This is really hard to narrow down…I guess I would have to say handstand,  Parsvakonasana and thigh stretches.

Handstand is such an amazing pose because it is both completely terrifying and empowering at the same time. The sheer fact that you are attempting to balance on just your hands is hilarious and really, really cool. It takes a great deal of courage but when you muster that up, you will totally surprise yourself with your ability. And then it becomes just plain fun. Plus, it’s a good party trick.

Handstand is a really powerful shoulder and chest opener. It’s great for your lungs as it creates space around the diaphragm (all inversions do) to help enhance your breathing. It is also great cardio, when you go up in to the pose your heart rate spikes. When you come out, your heart rate drops back down. This quick shift is really healthy for your heart as it trains it to regulate quick shifts in heart rate and blood pressure.

Parsvkonasana or Side Angle Pose is a heavy hitter. I love it because it is extremely powerful and effective in strengthening and opening the lower body….fast. It also aligns the psoas and deep back muscles and enables them to open efficiently. I like to do it two times on each side when I don’t have a lot of time to practice. I might go as far as to say that I don’t think any other pose opens the big muscles in the lower body as effectively. But that’s just me, obviously a little biased.

Any and all thigh stretches are a must in my book. Opening the front of the legs is the key to freeing the low back. Being someone that has lived with back pain most of my life, thigh stretches were my savior when I discovered them. Seriously, get involved if you’re not already. It will change your life; promise.  Plus they will prep you for backbends, create space within your organs and aid indigestion. A great pose to bust out in airports in order to save your ailing body from the treacherous airplane seats.

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I absolutely love seeing live music. It has been my passion for most of my life.

Nothing is better than a delicious meal shared with loved ones.

I love hiking, swimming in the ocean, skiing and every type of cheese in existence. That also applies to chocolate…and maybe champagne.

Traveling the world and experiencing new cultures, cuisines, geography and architecture is a privilege this job has blessed me with–so much gratitude.

I love learning new languages! I’m not successful in any as of yet but I’m determined to get French in the bag in 2011.

Not to mention horseback riding, making up songs, obsessing over my dog, dancing, singing, reading, writing and spending time with my hubby.

Most of all, I enjoy the practice of meditation, where I deepen my connection with myself and learn to soften and see the beauty of this great world around me.

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My practice is my life and my life is my practice. They are one and the same. The practice of yoga is about how we perceive ourselves and the world and how we engage and relate to others. When we become aware that every moment is an opportunity to work on this, the experience and sensation of life is enhanced.

It’s the same thing on the mat. The more articulate I learn to become with my body, the deeper the sensations are and the more alive I become. It’s a practice of awakening to what is completely possibly and then the much harder act of figuring out how to live that. I love to practice because it challenges me to redefine and grow myself every single day. It’s conscious evolution and it’s totally badass.

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I love teaching because it is an art. Teaching is the way that I study yoga and the way I study life. Teaching is the way that I take the experience I have inside and articulate it to others. That process, that connection between those two worlds is what it’s all about. And it’s SO hard. Teaching is the work of finding just the right word to effectively convey a feeling or an idea so that everyone can relate to it.

My life has been profoundly shifted and enhanced by the grace of my own teachers. Their words, touch and gaze have moved me to my core and blown my heart wide open. I love teaching because it gives me the sweet forum to share these experiences with others.

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With a yoga teacher for a mother, Ashleigh Altman has been surrounded by yoga for most of her life. Beginning her deep and dedicated exploration of yoga at an early age, Ashleigh is now honored to be the youngest Certified Anusara Yoga Instructor in the world. She has been teaching yoga for over five years and maintained a playful and strong personal practice for nearly a decade.   In 2008, Ashleigh had the great privilege of traveling with John Friend, Anusara’s founder, both nationally and internationally while assisting him and his tour staff. Through this life-changing experience, she accumulated hundreds of classroom hours with John which empowered her to grow exponentially on a personal level as well as in her teaching. Ashleigh continues to study with John regularly throughout the year and loves the ongoing invitation and challenge to connect with her Highest self. By remaining a student herself, Ashleigh is always discovering new and exciting ways to guide her students on this beautiful path of yoga.   Ashleigh’s classes are light-hearted, fun and powerful as she invites you to connect with your Heart, empowering you to experience and celebrate the beautiful gift that every moment has to offer!   Ashleigh is deeply grateful to her many inspiring teachers including John Friend, Zhenja La Rosa and Douglas Brooks and of course her mom most of all.

For more info on Ashleigh check out: http://RockinHeartYoga.com.