I think for a lot of us, the pandemic shook up our priorities and realigned the stars. Here we are, a couple years out if it, and all I can do is look back and think, what if....? But I don't need to look back, I just know it got me to where I am right now.
Hawaii
These are all photos taken my first week back to Hawaii in December of 2021. Two years ago. I say "back" to Hawaii because I first experienced Hawaii 20 years ago as a college student. I was a pale girl from Idaho who just needed to see the world and landed on Oahu. I knew then I would get back some day.So when the pandemic hit and the life I knew in Indiana with my husband and three teenage kids started to reorganize, our 'someday/retirement' goal of moving to Hawaii got expedited.
As a yoga teacher, I had found my feet, my yoga people, my Self in Indiana. I was in no hurry to reestablish my yoga business on island. Luckily, it found me. Due to my kids' activities (isn't it always that way, any mom's out there?) I found myself in Honolulu during peak traffic. I definitely did not want to fight traffic just to turn around and come back. UGH. So I started looking around. I spent an hour at a beach here, some time at the mall there. Eventually I figured I would look around for a yoga studio. Finding a place to practice yoga can be very personal. I went to a few classes, talked to a few teachers, but just wasn't settling in. Soon enough I realized that for multiple hours a day I was leaving just one of my teens at home - so my search for a place for myself turned to a search for a place for her. It was in the non-direct path that I found a yoga studio.
That yoga studio above my daughter's CrossFit gym became a true community for me. Initially I got to wear multiple hats as teacher and to be part of the community building as a studio manager. I met the loveliest people. That's how Laura and I met. (She will tell her own side of the story some day) I was a teacher and studio manager who lived on the west side of the island, and she was a yoga teacher and fitness trainer who lived on the east side of the island. I can't conceive how we would have met otherwise.
Laura and I soon started having long discussions in the lobby before and after classes about yoga principles, anatomy, new techniques and philosophy. It was not uncommon for one of us to end up on the floor demonstrating something new we had discovered to the other. It was a meeting of the minds as we couldn't stop debating various different angles, often arguing our own counterpoints. It wasn't a far leap from lobby demonstrations to curriculum development as so often the urge to share grows stronger when you know that the information could help so many people.
It just so happens, I love curriculum design. It also happens to be true that Laura and I could digress toward the finer aspects of yoga on every tangent possible so it has 'taken us a minute' (still a Hoosier in so many ways, as is Laura shockingly) to organize all our good ideas. The best part for both of us about designing a yoga training is really thinking about what would help everyone the most. Combined, Laura and I have around 5,000 hours of yoga trainings which mean we have shopped around a lot. Each time looking for a missing piece or diving deeper into another aspect of the science of yoga. All of that has led us to creating this. Complete Yoga Training.
I'll have more to say, as you'll see. More beginnings and more musings. Because even with 200 hours of yoga training to teach to others, it still won't be enough time for all the little things.
Shine On,
Nancy
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