Yoga Adventure Club

The plan: dive deeper into yoga. Thus, I signed up to participate in the Rubbersoul Yoga Adventure Club that meets every Saturday (10-7) and Tuesday nights from September to December. Yoga has been a foundation for my life ever since I first tried it back in 2000. While training for the Chicago marathon, and feeling a lot of tightness and cramping in my muscles, I went to my first yoga class with a friend. After totally "blissing out" in the last pose, Savasana (the resting pose), my relaxed heart and mind fell in love with yoga. Ever since then I have been hooked. In Boulder, CO I practiced with an incredibly creative and compassionate teacher for 6 years and then moved to Europe where I took yoga classes taught in foreign languages (Norwegian, Portuguese, and Finnish). It was these two years in Europe, where I could not understand the body alignment cues, that I realized I already knew them. This got me thinking...maybe I should teach yoga. Arriving back in the U.S. I signed up for a yoga certification where I lived in a Colorado mountain ashram, Shoshoni, for two straight summers. While at the ashram I discovered meditation, my own spirituality, and the bliss of sharing yoga with others.

Moving to Athens, Georgia and starting the PhD program was a huge life transition. Luckily, I found the Rubbersoul yoga studio early on and have been teaching there ever since 2008. When I speak of yoga...it is not only the physical practice, but the lifestyle, the breath, and the uncluttering of the mind. Yoga has helped me overcome life transitions. Yoga has brought stillness, calmness, and peace to an otherwise crazy life. Yoga has especially been a nice addition to an academic life where I exist in my head A LOT.

The Adventure Club is not just the physical practice of yoga, but it includes circus skills (yes, I am attempting to learn how to juggle), meditation, vegetarianism, nutrition, and activism. It is much different than my experience at the ashram...as it is a different type of spiritual awakening...one that makes you look at your everyday routine of eating and the impact that you have on the earth and people in your life. Every week we read a book (see photos of books below) and watched a documentary. My mind was spinning from all of the new information and the realization that the meat and dairy industry has a great deal of influence on the public information on nutrition (i.e. food pyramid, school lunches, etc.) I am still working on processing the information as I continue to cut out meat and dairy from my diet and move to a more plants-based diet.

BOOKS (that we read and that I would recommend):
Happy Yoga (all about happy yoga, highly recommended), The China Study (an academically sound study that found animal products correlated to cancer and other diseases), Healthy at 100 (looks at healthy lifestyles of international communities known for their longevity), and Eating Animals (all about the cultural narratives that we use to rationalize eating animals).

DOCUMENTARIES (that we watched and that I would recommend):
No-Impact Man (this was my favorite documentary that we watched...a couple in NY decides to live their life with no-impact...funny yet real).
Food, Inc. (all about the F'ed up U.S. food industry).
King Corn (two dudes decide to grow corn with the feds subsidy, they find that corn is more than we all bargain for).
Wall-E (Disney flick about earth if we do not take care of mama earth, bonus: great love story).
Tapped (Who owns our water? The big companies are bottling municipal water and turning a profit on it. WTF?)