Kula Scoop
December 2009
“The greatness of Anusara Yoga is largely due to the bright contributions of each member of our illustrious community. I am so grateful to Grace for bringing each of you to Anusara Yoga.”
--John Friend
Welcome to Kula Scoop, where we welcome all news, musings and contributions from students and teachers alike. Our community is growing and we’d like to hear from you!! Tell us about your interests, wonderings, talents, celebrations. We also welcome volunteers to our Team. Please write to us at trikulanews@earthlink.net.
Below you will find introductions from our newly certified teachers, a yoga question-and-answer, a report on John Friend’s visit to New Orleans for Halloween weekend, and another great discovery of yoga on-and-off the mat by Anne Libby.
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Saprema (with Divine love),
The Trikula News Team
Congratulations to our newly certified teachers! Read on as they introduce themselves.
Jordan Mallah
I started my Anusara journey in 2001, and then from 2006-2007, I had the honor of working as the Global Productions Manager of Anusara Yoga. I toured the world and studied extensively with Anusara’s founder John Friend. From 2007-2008, I had the honor of assisting Sianna Sherman for a year on the road as well.
My myriad life experiences range from working as a corporate consultant with the global management consulting firm Accenture, to volunteering with the Peace Corps in Peru, where my primary focus was on helping indigenous Andean villagers curb their rate of malnutrition by creating sustainable, community, bio-intensive organic gardens.
My passion to motivate for positive social change in the world has led me to extensively explore the United States and more than forty other countries. In addition to teaching full time in my New York yoga business called Steadfast Freedom Yoga, I also recently became a partner in Sunara Sail, a company that offers health and eco-conscious yoga retreats on world class luxury sailing yachts to the Caribbean. The first trip leaves at the end of January!
I am immensely grateful to all of my teachers, friends, family, and students worldwide, who continually inspire me.
John Levis
It is truly an honor and a privilege to become a Certified Anusara Yoga Teacher !! I am so happy to be a part of such an amazing community of students and teachers.
In my early years I played hockey and lifted weights, and eventually came to take my first yoga class in 1999. As I began a thorough yoga practice, I came to realize that my body felt and performed better. My chronic back pain went away, I grew over one inch after the age of 30, and I haven’t been to the gym since 2000!
Now that I’ve become a Certified Anusara Teacher, I am deeply humbled and proud. To be able to share this most benevolent and auspicious practice with others is such a great honor. I have tons of gratitude for the wisdom bestowed upon me by my teachers John, Todd, Douglas, Paul, Desiree, Naime, Amy, Sianna and so many others. Every time I practice with the kula, I feel such a magical shift taking place. I always discover something new, I expand further in my asana practice and my heart just bursts open. Watching students grow and experience Grace in magical ways is deeply gratifying. I am honored to be able to share in this Light as a student and as a teacher. I now teach full-time in six different studios in northern NJ and also give sessions in Thai Yoga Bodywork. I invite you to visit my website at www.InJoyYoga.com. Be well, in joy.
Yoga Therapeutic Question-and-Answer
Question: How should someone with glaucoma adjust their yoga practice?
Answer: Glaucoma is a condition of pressure build-up from inadequate drainage of the aqueous humor inside the eye. It's measured in units of intra-ocular pressure, or IOP. Glaucoma can progress without outward symptoms and can cause significant vision loss due to damage to the optic nerve, so it's definitely a risk worth taking seriously. Some reports say that fifteen million Americans have glaucoma.
A yogi who has been diagnosed with pre-glaucoma or early glaucoma should ask his or her doctor what range of measurements he or she considers to be a mild risk, which a medium risk and which a strong risk. Doctors will differ somewhat in that determination, and experts are hesitant to name a specific number as a threshold of danger. Not enough studies have been done to be sure. Also some people have high readings without symptoms, and others have symptoms with low readings. The IOP plus the various vision tests and eye examinations are what they use to determine risk level. I recommend strict yoga precautions with any measurement higher than the mild category.
Measurements can vary with time of day and stress level. One suggestion is to go in for measurements many times over the course of a few days to track the range of variation. That way one doesn't get alarmed unnecessarily by only seeing one high number, if it's a spike and not a consistent measurement.
If you have a thicker cornea, your measurements will be a few units higher than your "true" IOP. Likewise a thinner cornea can result in a lower than actual IOP reading. It’s worth asking your doctor about this.
Full inversions do cause an immediate rise in IOP, within 15 seconds. How much it will raise is hard to predict and may be related to other things like blood pressure. Unfortunately Sirsasana and Sarvangasana are contraindicated. Handstand is in the grey area: a short hold up to a minute may be safe but there is no guarantee. Downward Dog is not so dangerous because the body is not fully inverted, and this applies to Prasarita Padottanasana and Uttanasana as well.
Viparita Karani is good, however. In one study this pose caused the IOP to drop. The full pose is with the pelvis raised on props, and legs up the wall with the pelvis flat is a variation. Both are fine in this situation.
As for dietary recommendations: Studies indicate that a diet rich in beta carotene, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, omega-3 fatty acids and selenium can be helpful. Bilberry is a good nutrient for the eyes. Also drinking 32 ounces of water per day is recommended, a little at a time throughout the day.
--Answer by Ellen Saltonstall
John 's North American Ultimate Freedom Tour ends at the mouth of the Mississippi River
When Hurricane Katrina hit my hometown of New Orleans (aka NOLA) in 2005, I never fathomed all the beauty that could transpire from such devastation. It has been a true story of the blossoming, bright lotus rooted in the dark, muddy muck and mire. Not unlike our NYC experience after 9/11, New Orleanians have found yoga to be an amazing vehicle for expansion and empowerment as we rebuild the city into a better life-affirming version of itself. It was all but a dream to imagine hosting the Anusara Yoga founder for the first time ever in my native home. And it took four years of locally building momentum to have enough of an Anusara foundation to fully feel ready to receive the teachings of the Merry Band. And that we did!
Amidst the debacle of the typical Halloween weekend, VooDoo Music Fest, and a half-marathon, John and his crew playfully brought healing energy below sea level and to the Southeast gulf coast region, both on and off the mat. Yogins came from all over to practice: from LA, MS, AL, TX, SC, NY, NJ, CA, and CO, to name a few. The most haunted city in the country created a wonderful backdrop upon which John inspired us all to shine the light of Tejas to help clear out the darkness, as the nights get longer, in celebration of the pagan new year. With such a thin veil on Hallows Eve, we were encouraged to tighten up our regional yoga matrix, so that the kula can stay connected and continue to spread the shaktilicious love all around. This beacon of light continues to shine out in each of our radiant hearts as we now pave the illuminating way for John’s next visit to the Crescent City. Thank you to John, Kelly, Christy, Tiffany, Peter, and the TX staff for leaving NOLA on such a high! Oy Namah Shivaya Vey!
Catherine (Cat) McCarthy is a certified Anusara Yoga instructor in both NOLA and NYC.
For more information about the growing Southeast US yoga kula, please contact her at: cat@nolayoga.com, or visit her website: www. nolayoga.com.
Creating A Business to Serve the Community: Attitude, Alignment and Action
by Anne Libby
Anusara yogis understand attitude, alignment and action as the foundation of our practice. Awareness of our three As may also serve as a source of foundation for a mindful business.
Jessica Boylston-Fagonde has been an avid yoga student since 2005. Off the mat, she heads up RuConcept, a brand strategy and design firm. More recently, she started RuYoga Design, which provides yoga teachers/studios with affordable identity and website solutions – and through which she embodies the power of attitude, alignment and action in business.
Attitude: The Power of the Heart
As Jessica developed personal relationships in the yoga community, she became a source of information for teachers who had questions about developing their identity and web presence.
Early on, RuConcept created websites and brand identity for several teachers and studios. Working with these businesses, Jessica saw a tension. Yoga teachers needed ways to connect with their students. And for many of the one-person businesses in our community, professional design work was a steep investment.
As a marketer with a passion for her profession, Jessica knew that a solution offering yoga teachers strong visual representation, while conveying their intention to serve, would help them to thrive professionally. As a yogi and entrepreneur, she asked, “How can I help teachers to integrate: to present themselves as professionally in their businesses as they do in their teaching?”
Alignment: Mindful Awareness of Connections
Standing in Tadasana the Summer of 2008, she says, “Something sparked an idea for a solution during Elena's yoga class."
The heart of the solution: to find alignment.
Professional design is a labor-intensive process. And like private yoga instruction, the price depends on the number of hours of hands-on time.
In a “light bulb” moment, Jessica realized that she could create beautiful designs, at a lower price, by offering yoga-inspired solutions ready for purchase.
Quickly, over the course of a couple of months, Jessica and her team created RuYoga Design. In an online venue, yoga teachers can choose from original logo designs, thematically designed for the yoga community, for presentation on standard business card and websites. The website templates allow teachers to create and manage their own content independently.
Marjorie Nass was one of RuYoga Design’s first clients. She says, “When I hand clients my business card, they respond brightly to the uplifting logo….As a Certified Anusara yoga teacher, I want to inspire students to recognize the light within their own hearts. Before ever meeting in person, this is conveyed through the design on my cards and website.”
Action: Energy in the Service of Stability and Freedom
Jessica has chosen to serve more than the community’s design needs – she also created the business to give back. RuYoga Design awarded a $500 scholarship at the beginning of this year to a student in teacher training, and periodically awards logos/business cards as a “good karma giveaway” to teachers who demonstrate a dedication to community service.
Even so aligned, action has its challenges. Jessica notes that her industry is going through major changes. Companies are increasingly outsourcing design work to firms in developing countries, where people earn a fraction of the salaries required by designers based here in the US.
Jessica takes this challenge as an opportunity to initiate conversation about the meaning and boundaries of the “buy local” movement, sustainability, and even community.
“What you choose to step into, align with, pay for, is your true voice,” Jessica says. She adds, “But this also speaks to bigger changes in the world.”
She continues, “My goal is to also keep creatives working in our country, and to get businesses to see the value in what we do -- it isn't cheap nor should it be.”
Jessica Boylston-Fagonde is one of many diverse talents in our community, aligning attitude and action in response to the question: how will we choose to serve? www.ruyogadesign.com
All of us on the Trikulanews team, on behalf of our entire Anusara community, want to thank Jessica for her generous help in designing this website and its logo.
Anne Libby is a management consultant and Anusara inspired yoga teacher. You can find her at her blog, Conscious Business (www.consciousbusiness.blogspot.com), or at www.annelibbyllc.com