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. 

Oscillations, Diversity, Equanimity, Unity.

Oscillations, Diversity, Equanimity, Unity.
by Dona Tumacder-Esteban

photo credit: Daisy Darilag and Women's Health Philippines

The world operates on the principle of duality. Light exists because there is darkness, cold as opposed to hot. And yet, within those two values, there is relativity. Cold for me is February in the Philippines while that may feel like summer for someone from San Francisco. Everything is relative, depending where you are. If we go over our daily life, we may notice that we are constantly pushed and pulled into these relative states of Yin and Yang.

And then there is the desire for union, for wholeness. For some, this desire leads us to the mat. For others, the desire for union is an inevitable outcome of continuous practice.

When you really think about it, it may seem futile to find this union in a world that operates on the principle of duality. And yet sages have spoken about it, written about it, encouraged practices that lead to union, practices that have survived millennia. Many of us have invested time and resources to find ways to experience this union, even just a second of it.

But what really is Union? Is it the balance between polarities? The coming together of the parts to make a whole? The midpoint between two vacillations?

As my mentor Victor Chng discussed yin and yang and the oscillations during the teachers retreat in 2013, what came to me is that union is embracing both aspects, not to find its midpoint, not to focus on that central point where everything is neutral, but embracing its entirety including the idea that we are constantly oscillating between the two aspects. When we are in a state of yang, we are in a state of externalization - a separation of some sort as Victor puts it - while when we are in a yin state, we are in a state of internalization and unification.

We are always in states of separation and unification. Respecting the nature of these oscillations and the natural timing and rhythm of these allow us to be in a state of integration and union with our nature, a state where we need not struggle against the flow. As Victor puts it, "understanding diversity is not to see it as divided but bringing it together in unity." (not verbatim, but almost). We have to embrace both, just like the Earth – an embodiment of the Yin aspect – embraces the diversity of life and experience. The Earth will take both our seeds and our shit.  It does not have cravings or aversions, not bound by preference.  Even shit is transformed to something useful when given to the Earth.

In my experience, when I do as Earth does and drop cravings and aversions, a certain steadiness abounds - not a stagnant steadiness but a dynamic, flowing steadiness. The Tao, as I understood it that day, is about being in a state of equanimity wherever we are - yin or yang.

This brings me now to Yoga Sutra 2, and I will dare voice out my thoughts knowing that I could very well be wrong or incomplete in my thought (after all, I am a work in progress!). The cessation of the fluctuations in our mind may not be easily attainable, but we can very well come to a state where we no longer identify with these fluctuations and vacillations. Instead, we come into a state of witnessing the fluctuations and embracing these movements without judgment -- a state of equanimity, a state of unity, a state of Yoga.

***

Explore these oscillations and find your way into equanimity and unity on Feb 7 and 8, 2015 in the Yin Yoga Weekend with Lek Kittikunadul and Dona Esteban.

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Dona has been practicing Yoga since 2000 and is the leading Yin Yoga teacher in the Philippines.  Her somatic journey began in 1999 through movement as meditation. Her exploration continued to deepen with Yoga as therapy and Yin Yoga. Dona is also a yoga therapy consultant at St. Luke's Medical Center BGC. Dona gives workshops in Yoga, Women's Health, Workplace Spirituality and Wellbeing, and Energy Management all over Asia. 

www.donaesteban.com
Yin Yoga Philippines on Facebook

Yin Yoga Handout

During the Yin Yoga workshop for Better Sleep, several participants requested to have a copy of the Yin Yoga handout made by Dona Esteban. As more and more yogis become interested and eventually have included Yin Yoga in their regular practice, we thought it would be great to share this handout to all. 

Thank you Dona for making this available. If you wish to know more about the Yin Yoga community in the Philippines, check out their Facebook page by clicking here.  

Yin Yoga Workshop for Better Sleep with Victor Chng

As human beings, we have no choice on our need to sleep. We have to sleep if we want to stay alive. We have to have enough, and good quality sleep, if we want to stay healthy.

If the number of participants to our Yin Yoga Workshop for Better Sleep with Victor Chng held on September 30 was any indication, it seems that there are a lot of people here in Manila who either have sleep problems or want to learn how to improve their sleep quality, or both.

We are grateful to all who have attended the workshop and to Victor for bringing this much needed practice to yoga+.

We hope that those who have attended the workshop have applied what they have learned during the workshop and are now experiencing more restful nights and higher energy during their waking hours.

***

The Yin Yoga Workshop was sponsored by Tempur Philippines. Know more about Tempur products known for sleep innovation by visiting their website or Facebook page. 

Teacher Feature: Ria Tirazona

When I was younger, I used to dream of becoming a gymnast. As I grew up, I discovered this practice called yoga and I was amazed at the beautiful shapes and forms I saw in pictures. I began to wish I would do that, but I could not muster up enough courage to actually give it a try. After all, being extremely unhealthy and overweight, tipping the scales at almost 250 pounds, it felt not just unimaginable, but impossible. Add to that, the sheer thought of coming to a yoga studio and being in the company of fit and flexible people daunted me.

As 2010 came to a close, I made a New Year’s resolution to finally give it a try. In January 2011, I finally found the courage to show up on the mat --- and to myself. I walked into a Yin Yoga class and immediately fell in love with the practice. Soon after, I found myself exploring different styles of yoga, ranging from Hatha, Ashtanga and Bikram. By the time I discovered Vinyasa, I knew there was no more turning back from this path. I went all in and began my journey towards becoming a yoga teacher.

In 2012, I took my 300 Hour Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training under the supervision of Anna Carbonell, Clayton Horton and Moching Yip. I am also certified as a Kids and Family Yoga Teacher by Rainbow Kids Yoga and I hold a Level 1,2, and 3 certification by Radiant Child® Yoga, where I was trained to work with children with special needs.

In December 2013, I came back to the practice that began it all for me, and completed my 100H Yin Yoga Training in Singapore. I received my certification from Victor Chng, director of Yin Yoga in Asia. My next goal is to become a yoga therapist, and at present I have completed a 50H SmartFlow® Teacher Training Intensive on Older Adult, Restorative and Therapeutic Yoga.

My greatest insecurity in the early stages of my teaching career in yoga was the fact that was my weight. Despite having lost quite a bit of it and seeing how yoga benefited me, I could not help but catch myself feeling inadequate next to other teachers who were not only physically fit and attractive looking, but they could do poses such as inversions that remained elusive to me. While I was teaching a number of classes already and was getting the hang of being a teacher, from time to time I would catch myself making excuses about myself and my not “looking like a yoga teacher”.

Things changed for me immensely when yoga+ introduced the Warrior Flow series and invited me to be a part of the team in leading these classes. It made me realize that everything I was worrying about was truly useless!

Warrior Flow, for me, is not simply a beginner Vinyasa or a foundations class. It is a class where I got to really understand what it meant to be in yoga. In these slower paced and yet dynamic classes, one has more time to discover how to modify poses depending on their body structure, to build on strength and flexibility with more time for awareness and self-discovery, and to also sweat it out without being overwhelmed by the class.

Leading these classes and working with differently bodied, differently abled, and differently capable students made me appreciate the practice even more. Indeed, it is a class wherein everyone can find their Inner Warrior --- regardless of weight, age, and physical condition.

Off of the mat, I work as a Senior Associate at a psychology clinic. I hold a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology, and I incorporate my psychology practice into my style of teaching yoga. As a college instructor of psychology, I have been able to conduct workshops on breath and bodywork, as well as yoga and mindfulness. I have also lectured on yoga psychology, breath and bodywork, and yoga for special needs populations in several 200H Teacher Training Certification programs in Manila. From time to time, I do freelance writing work and blog at www.archetypesandasanas.com.

Besides leading classes in the studio, I love doing community classes. One of the highlights of my teaching career was being able to lead a community class in Singapore as a fund raiser to support Yolanda relief efforts. On occasion, I lead classes at the Farm at San Benito.

To say yoga has changed my life is an understatement. Through the practice, I learned to believe in my own strength and that I can overcome impossibilities. More importantly, I learned to be comfortable in my own body, whatever shape, form or condition it is in. This is what I long to share with my students always --- that it doesn’t matter how much you weigh, how old you are, or how seemingly “inflexible” you may be. All that matters is that you show up for yourself. Once you do, you will be amazed at how abundant blessings can come into your life. What motivates me most as a teacher is being able to witness my students discover their own potentials, both on and off the mat.

Three Things I Learned at a Wellness Event for Entrepreneurs (That non-entrepreneurs should learn too)

by Rica Encarnacion

At yoga+, students are often encouraged to apply what they discover and learn from yoga off the mat. This makes sense as the time we spend in the four peaceful corners of our yoga mats is just a small percentage of the 24 hours we have in a day. Last month, the studio held a free Wellness Event for Entreprenuers that included a lecture by Dona Esteban and a yin yoga class by Ria Tirazona.

One truth that lingered with me long after the event ended is that business owners tend to take care of their business more than they take care of their own bodies and health. Another truth is that this applies not just to business owners. Whether you employ people or are one of the employed, it does happen that our work takes precedence over our health especially if we are passionate about what we do for a living. Sometimes, sadly, even if we are not.

So to take care of our health, we practice yoga and we eat nutritious food. But there's also more we can do for overall wellness especially if we want to thrive in our chosen career path. Let's start with these three:

1) Managing stress vs avoiding stress

Our instinct, as well as common advice we hear from others, tells us that it is best to avoid stressful situations as much as possible. Reality tells us otherwise: in our day to day activities before work, during work and after work, stressful situations happen, sometimes one after another. It then makes more sense that instead of avoiding or ignoring stress, what we should learn is to manage our response to stress.

In fact, as Dona has pointed out, peak performance at work can happen during stress. However, this does not mean seeking out stress is the answer as performing at our peak during stress can leave us drained in the end. Thus, we do what we can to lessen the amount of stress we encounter in work and in our lifestyles but at the same time, when a stressful situation does arise, we manage our response to it as it happens.

2) Energy management vs time management

Another concept that has been deemed as an essential skill that every career person should have is time management. For bettter performance at work without compromising our overall wellness, Dona advises that we should go beyond time management and learn the skill of energy management. Just as businesses have a business recovery plan, we must have a personal recovery plan wherein energy usage and energy recovery is taken into consideration when planning what activities to do and at what time during the day. Thus, having enough sleep at night is essential. Doing relaxing activities such as taking a walk to clear the mind or having a power nap in the middle of the day are also examples of how we can practice energy management.


3) Work-life balance vs work-life integration

Lastly, I learned that the concept of Work-life balance is a myth and that one must strive for work-life integration. This means that instead of aiming to spend an equal amount of time in our work and in our personal life, why not try to find meaning in our work and make it an expression of our life? When what we do for a living is in line with our personal values, we find meaning in it, there is no disconnect between our personal and professional selves, and that when we do something for work it would not feel like it is stealing time from our personal life.

*****

Rica is the in-house writer and social media consultant of yoga+. She aims to bring yoga to EveryBody one status update and blog post at a time. 

Yin Yoga Meridians Master Classes - Locking in of Energy with the Kidney and Urinary Bladder Channels

Soft. Yielding. Relentless. Such is the nature of Water.

In May, our Yin Yoga Meridians Master Class with Dona Esteban focused on the Water element. The class started with a short lecture. Key points from the lecture included:

• How this element is the integrating mechanism that locks in the energy we get from what we take in;
• The concept of the body as a vessel wherein leaks of energy happen, which in turn will result in lack of willpower and motivation;
• Traditional Chinese Medicine concepts of prenatal and post-natal chi, with the latter being renewable versus the unreplenishable nature of the former.

After tracing the Kidney and Urinary Bladder channels, we did a yin yoga practice designed to restore balance to these channels.

Rosan Cruz, an avid Kundalini yoga practitioner and Hot Yoga teacher shares her Yin Yoga experience and insights:

I'm glad that my #HYTTManila co-teacher Jayme Timbol pulled me to attend Donna Esteban's Yin Yoga Meridian Master Class at Yoga+ Makati. 

Each month, Donna conducts a two-hour class focusing on specific organs. And this Saturday, she focused on the kidneys and urinary bladder. 

As you know, we have two kidneys located in the lower back. The kidney functions to remove waste products from the blood, regulate water fluid levels (works with the urinary bladder) and produce blood-vessel protein (angiotensin) to regulate the blood pressure. 

Read more on her blog here: Yin Yoga Meridian Class

This July, we will be having the final installment of our series of Yin Yoga Meridians master classes. We will end with Fire. The focus of the class will be on the Heart Meridian, the channel that runs down our arms and represented by the element of Fire. In exploring this channel, we aim for a more balanced expression of our Selves.

Yoga (not just) for Lovers

Is it possible to remain friends with your ex? Yes it is, and even go out on a Valentine's Day date no less! yoga+ student Rica shares how an ex-couple experienced a yoga class for couples. 

We were together for seven years and never had a Valentine's Day date. After six years of being just friends, I somehow managed to convince my ex to join me on a Valentine's Day date. Of sorts. We attended yoga+'s Valentine's Day partner yoga class to be exact. With the majority of the class composed of married, engaged, or exclusively seeing each other couples, I wondered, how awkward is this going to be? 

Yin Yoga Intensives - Round Two

There will be a another run of Dona Tumacder-Esteban's Yin Yoga Intensives on January 11, 2014 at the yoga+ Makati studio. This is perfect for those who are looking to detox or just get their bodies to a healthier state to jump start their 2014 after all the parties and feasts in December. 

Yoga with Ria

We'd like to congratulate Ria Tirazona for successfully completing her Yin Yoga teacher training with Victor Chng. Being certified as a Yin Yoga teacher capped her three years of practice and study of Yin Yoga.

Ria now leads Yin Yoga and Flow classes in addition to her regular 7AM Warrior Flow classes on Mondays and Wednesdays at the Makati studio. You can visit her too at her online home, Archetypes and Asanas. Congratulations once again, Ria!