Teacher Feature: Ian Paredes

Ian is an avid adventurer, combining his passion for the outdoors, exploring new things and sharing his discoveries in both his personal and professional life.  

He found yoga while looking for an alternative way to recover from a lower spine injury, a result of one of his (mis)adventures. Starting with Bikram yoga, he quickly became hooked on hot yoga, practicing almost every day for the next two years. 

Not too long after, he decided to take the Absolute Hot Yoga Teacher Training at yoga+ Makati in order to share his enthusiasm for yoga and the holistic benefits it brings to others.

Ian is also an organization development practitioner, entrepreneur, scuba diving instructor, and photographer. He brings his being an explorer, educator and forever student in the many hats he wears. 

As a hot yoga teacher, he continues to find light and beauty in the practice and those he has the honor of guiding in the hot room. 

Teacher Feature: Roxanne Piad

Since I was young, I've always been very active and up to the challenge to try out different physical activities. For several years, I was very into boxing, swimming, and running. The endurance, cardio and strength training helped keep me fit and strong. However, at around 2011, I took a corporate job with a new company and had to take a pause from my regular fitness routine while I was adjusting to the new workload.

Eventually, I started to feel the difference in my body and I was easily affected by the stress and anxiety that came with the job and knew that I had to do something about it. I saw that yoga+ was just in the building across my office and I went for it! After my first class, I was hooked! I kept on coming back and tried the other types of yoga that the studio offered. At first, the practice was more physical for me but soon, I started to see beyond the physical benefits that one can get from a regular asana practice.

I felt more energized, more compassionate, happier, and had more self-awareness. I've never felt healthier and stronger. I found myself sharing and talking about yoga non-stop with my co-workers, friends and family. I decided to look into the teacher training, with the initial purpose of deepening my personal practice. But having experienced teaching during training was such a high that I was immediately convinced that it was something I wanted to do.

I completed my 200-Hour Absolute Hot Yoga Teacher Training last April 2014 and my Yin Yoga Teacher Training with Victor Chng last September 2014 in Manila both with yoga+. It was amazing to be able to study and learn from my mentors, all of whom I look up to and aspire to be like. To be the kind of teacher that students can relate to and who can push them to go beyond their comfort zones. I want to inspire my students the same way that my teachers serve as an inspiration to me.

When I was given the opportunity by yoga+ to manage their new studio at De La Salle University, it was both humbling, an honor and such a blessing for me. I thought hard about it, especially the pros and cons of leaving the corporate world for good. But I knew deep down that my heart belonged to yoga. So, I left my day job and instead, worked full-time as a yoga instructor and the studio manager for yoga+ Express at DLSU.

The change hasn't been easy and the pressure was different from what I was used to back in my corporate job. But I looked at it as a challenge and as a new journey for me to embark. I had my family, great mentors and friends who supported me all the way. After teaching my first class at DLSU during our opening day, in spite of having only 5 students, that was the moment I knew I made the right choice. To be able to impart and share what I have learned and am continuously learning from my personal practice. I know that this is just the start of a new path and in yoga, the journey is what it's all about.

Teacher Feature: Jayme Timbol

Transitioning into Pigeon

My first yoga asana practice started with one of my friends in Phoenix taking me to a Bikram class. After the session, I remember thinking, I wasn't exactly sure what we did in there but it felt awesome! But it was not till I moved to Salt Lake that I took my practice more seriously. At that time, I was off-balanced with my weight. I was vegan, went to the gym and even ran, but I was bloated and was at my heaviest and did not know why.  On the outside, I was doing everything everything I should be doing to be healthy, but felt really off-kilter on the inside. So I went back to the hot room and did my yoga practice every single day, no matter how trying it was sometimes. Then I began to love it - the teachers, the practice, and became so inspired with fellow students who were so determined and were there every single day. After a few weeks, my weight went back to normal. I felt so much clarity in my thinking and I was more calm no matter what was happening around me.

After a few months, I was approached by the studio owner to join the US Mid-West Asana Competition. I didn't know what exactly a yoga "competition" meant but decided to give it a try since the goal was not to win, but to inspire others to do yoga. I was introduced to my coach who did teacher training when she turned 60 and was amazed with the other "competitors" and what they could do with their bodies! I would then be completely star struck when former champions just popped in the hot room to help train us, and even if I was in the hot room for 4 hours, it did not matter! I felt great! I was so inspired with the control I was developing with my breath, body and mind. I also started getting into my meditation easier and deeper with the concentration discipline I developed with the practice.

With Bikram Choudhury, creator of the Bikram Yoga Series

After that, I traveled all over the world with my mat, everywhere I went, and one day hoped to become a teacher to help others make changes in their lives, the way yoga changed mine. The opportunity presented itself when I came back to the Philippines and yoga+ was offering the Absolute Hot Yoga Teacher Training. I just gave birth at that time, but it did not matter since I knew that I really wanted to teach. It has been an amazing journey since. I have taken more certification courses and not only teach Hot, but also Yin and Pre- and Post-Natal Yoga. I have also been certified as a Theta Healer and currently specializing in Intuitive Anatomy, Diseases and Disorders.

My practice has been richer by doing all yoga types now, not just Hot, and my love for yoga has even more intensified. I am very grateful that my practice and teaching have given me more compassion and kindness not only towards others but especially for myself. Most important of all is my divine romance with Guru and God which continues to get sweeter with the constancy of my practice and meditation. After all, we are all divine beings who are awakening to who we truly are and yoga is our path to remembering exactly that.

Teacher Feature: Dinah Salonga

My journey with yoga started in 2005 when a Bikram studio opened one floor below my office. During that time, I was going to the gym and playing badminton for physical fitness. I loved taking the group classes and also did one-on-one weight training with a trainer once a week. I remember feeling like I wanted to die in my first yoga class. I thought I had strong thighs from all the squats I did at the gym but I was shaking in awkward pose! I started out practicing yoga 3x a week and loved it so much that I gave up my gym membership and focused on yoga. I joined the first Asana competition in the Philippines in 2008 for the fun of it. I was not expecting to win anything but decided the experience will be well worth it.  Standing in front of 3 judges and executing 5 compulsory poses and 2 advanced poses was nerve-wracking, to say the least. But the sessions we did with the teachers to prepare us for the competition really inspired me to hone my poses and made me gain a deeper understanding of how the body and the mind can really change with the yoga practice.

After 3 years of practicing yoga 5-6x a week, I found myself starting to give feedback to my classmates about their poses and alignment.  I also found myself talking more and more about yoga and how it has changed my life.  During sales calls, I end up talking more about yoga than about my company's products and services! It was then I realized that I wanted to be a yoga teacher, put up a studio and retire from IT. With my business background, I had my ideas about what I wanted in a studio and I articulated these ideas with my yoga friends. Some of them expressed interest in my ideas and in partnering with me in case I decided to set up one. This was how the concept of yoga+ was born. I took the 200-hour Absolute Hot Yoga Teacher Training in October 2010. When I got back, yoga+ was incorporated and we broke ground at the BGC studio soon after. While the studio was being constructed, I started teaching at the roof deck of my condo. My friends and staff were my first students. I was teaching 3x a week in an open-space venue and we didn't even have heaters! My classes were donation-based and the fees collected were used to pay for the venue. Whatever was left was donated to the eyeglass project of the A Better Chance Foundation.

I started teaching more regularly after we opened yoga+ BGC in February 2011. In yoga+, I got introduced to other yoga styles like Ashtanga, Flow and eventually Yin. Dona Tumacder-Esteban taught a Yin feature class in the BGC studio in 2012 and that got me interested. I started taking her classes in Echo Yoga as well. My body loved the practice and it was a perfect complement to teaching and practicing Hot Yoga. I enrolled in the 100-hour Yin Yoga Training with Victor Chng in Singapore in December 2012. Since that time, I have noticed significant changes in my body. My hips and lower back have softened significantly and this has affected my dynamic practice as well. Now I teach both Hot Yoga and Yin in the BGC and Ortigas studios. 

Teaching 4 classes a week and managing yoga+ while having a full-time job running an IT company was not easy. I eased off slowly from my duties in my IT company until my eventual retirement in October 2013. 

Teaching yoga classes made me realize how much deeper this practice can take us and how much it affects our lives off the mat. I wanted to do something else that can combine my over 20 years of management experience in a corporate environment and 4 years experience teaching yoga.  I discovered the program of the Asian Leadership Institute (ALI) through Poncho Cottier. I enrolled in their 9-module Personal Transformation through Mindfulness Program and also recently completed the training to facilitate the course. Currently, I am a facilitator-in-training for TeamUp, an ALI affiliate. As soon as I complete the 2 practice triads required, I will become a Certified Facilitator.

My training with ALI and reading various books like Non-Violent Communication, Search Inside Yourself, and The Gift of Imperfection prompted me and my colleague Neil Salang, who is a meditation advocate to come up with a new yoga+ offering called Change From Within. It is a mindfulness-based program for developing emotional intelligence and we will be launching the first public training in April 2015. Mindfulness has been practiced for thousand of years by yogis. This program will focus on how mindfulness can help improve relationships, manage emotions, increase self-awareness, improve careers and contribute to over-all feeling of happiness and contentment. This is essentially taking our yoga off the mat!

Who would have taught that my first yoga class will lead me to this path? Last February 19, we had a teacher development program for all teachers in yoga+ which was facilitated by Dona. During the program, we were asked to list down the things we love, the things we are good at, the things we get paid to do and things the world needs. I was not surprised with what came up for me - teaching! When we were asked to write our personal purpose, this was what I wrote - To help others achieve TRANSFORMATION through TRAINING based on my personal experience. Whether this training will be asana practice on the mat, mindfulness training in a classroom or triad setting, I have no doubt this is the place where I was meant to be. 

Teacher Feature: Rosan Cruz

I first stepped on a yoga mat in New York in 1995, while on sabbatical leave from a stressful corporate job.  Since that first Hatha Yoga class, I went on to study and practice several styles of yoga, including Sivananda, Iyengar, Ashtanga, Bikram and, eventually, Kundalini Yoga.  This then led her to workshops all over Southeast Asia and India, where I trained under teachers like Bela Lipat (Sivananda/Ashtanga), Sri Pattabi Jois (Ashtanga), Dinah Salonga (Absolute), and Marisa Harnadh (Kundalini Yoga).

Early this year, I completed the teacher training program in Hot Yoga at yoga+ where I now teach the Absolute Series. After that, I did the Kundalini Yoga Level 1 and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction meditation technique under Guru Dass at the International College of Kundalini Yoga in Bali.  Guru Dass, a direct student of Yogi Bhajan (Kundalini Yoga) and Ramesh Balsekar (Advaita), is one of the most knowledgeable and experienced Kundalini Yoga teachers in the world.

I love how the ancient technology of Yoga goes beyond the physicality of the poses and awakens the practitioner spiritually. I want to deepen my own practice, share my knowledge, and inspire others by teaching.

I love teaching yoga. My class is in the morning and I wake the students up by telling them to look at the mirror, smile and greet themselves a good morning before we start class! It's best to start the day right and the best time is on the mat! I have regular students in the morning and each month we try to push a little harder. If you ask my students I'll be more focused on sucking the navel in, working more on the core than trying to be more flexible.

Depending on the number of students in the class, I try to give them all a gentle massage and remind them to lie longer in savasana and enjoy the healing benefits of yoga. Sometimes, I'd tell them to command their body to heal - wherever the healing is needed. As much as possible, I want the students to enjoy the class, go for stability by building their core muscles, and keep practicing!

Through my classes, I hope to help students open their hearts and eventually, master all aspects of themselves which is the true meaning of Yoga.

Teacher Feature: Michelle Monroe

A few months before my 30th birthday, I noticed that my clothes felt different- tighter, harder to put on and take off.  I realized that my metabolism was slowing as I aged, so I decided to step up my fitness routine from walking around London to actually exercising on purpose.

I did what most people might do.  I hired a trainer and headed to the gym.  We set a goal together, then he collected data to track our progress.  The data made me cry.  I'd never been so out of shape in my life.  I was both disappointed and ashamed of myself for letting it get so bad.  I confided my feelings to a childhood friend and she suggested I try Bikram yoga.  She'd done it before and thought it was my style.

I'd practiced Hatha intermittently, but never tried Bikram.  I found a studio walking distance from my mom's home, read up on the first timer info, and took my first class.  I had never sweated so much in my entire life, but I was hooked.  I practiced daily for six weeks while visiting the US.  I felt strong, capable, and in control of my own body.  

I'd never been much of an athlete.  In secondary school we were forced to play sports and participate in PE and dance classes, but in college I quit fitness.  Friends convinced me to be their workout buddies and we'd spend an hour in the gym together chatting and doing the same light weight routine a few times each week.  Needless to say, after college it didn't stick.  I don't think I saw the inside of a gym from 2000-2008 and it showed.  

Yoga ignited a love of movement and active behavior.  It allowed me to become aware of, and listen to, my body.  I looked forward to my daily, 90 minute moving meditation.  I began to inadvertently memorize the dialogues of my favorite teachers and purposefully practice their classes.  I asked questions.  I practiced tough poses outside of class.  I did doubles.  I found the familiarity of the sequence comforting, like visiting an old friend.  No matter what kind of day I'd had, my practice always set things right.  I found refuge on my mat.

About three years in, I got bored.  I started cheating in poses and being inconsistent with my practice.  I credit yoga+ with exposing me to other styles of yoga that could stimulate my mind, as well as my body.  I'd never thought to try Jivamukti, Ashtanga, or Yin before practicing those styles with various yoga+ teachers. I did 30 day challenges, increased my strength, particularly upper body strength, and flexibility.  

I put it on my bucket list to take teacher training one day so that I could share my love of yoga with others. Again, yoga+ deserves credit for offering me an opportunity to learn more about yoga and maintain my full time job at the same time.  Without the training I did, my goal of becoming a yoga teacher would probably have stayed a dream.  I did my 200 hour Absolute Hot Yoga Teacher Training Certification from February to April 2014 with my yoga family and felt loved and supported throughout the entire process and beyond.

Off the mat I teach middle school English and I try to incorporate yoga into my lessons.  This way my students range in age from 12 to adult. I am also certified as a Kids and Family Yoga Teacher by Rainbow Kids Yoga. I offer a weekly yoga club for my tween and teen students to explore asana practice and breathing techniques.  

Sometimes you have those pivotal experiences that alter to course of your life.  Yoga was one such experience for me.  My yoga journey continues as I practice more, learn more, and teach more.  I'm happy to have found such a welcoming community to enrich my journey.

How to survive hot yoga: hydrate

It is said that yogis fall into three groups when it comes to hot yoga

- they love it with a passion
- want to try it but are afraid that they might not survive the heat
- they avoid it because of the heat