Ojai Yoga for Scoliosis with Suza

http://yogaforhealthyaging.blogspot.com//some-consideratio

Elise Browning Miller is one of the teachers I've studied with. I highly recommend her videos, books, and workshops. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MChCtekk7MQ

June 12, 2020 "When all else fails, turn upside down" Fifty years ago I stood in the Gateway bookstore in the Ojai Arcade reading a bulletin board notice announ...cing a nine-month Yoga Teacher Education program in San Francisco. (By the time I graduated, the nine months had evolved into a four-year program.) I had fallen into teaching yoga at the Gables, the Ojai Valley Woman's Club, and the Ojai Art Center, and, until that moment, hadn't realized I needed to go to yoga school. But, reading the program flyer, it dawned on me that it might be good to learn some anatomy, physiology, and take some kind of training. I needed $500, a small fortune at the time. As a single mom with a five-year-old son, I did not have that kind of cash lying around. So I placed a small ad in the Ojai Valley News right by my popular weekly Living Naturally health column (the editor, Fred Volz, allowed this appeal), stating that if someone would lend me $500 for teacher training I would come back to Ojai to teach.) Every week, when I hand-delivered my column, I would ask the receptionist if there was any mail or messages for me. I thought surely one of my many health food fanatic fans or organic gardening enthusiasts would loan me the money. But the answer was always the same. There was no mail or phone messages for me. A month went by. And then, just like in the movies, just when I was about to give up hope, the receptionist handed me a piece of paper with an out-of-town phone number and name I didn't recognize. It said something about my ad in the paper. I rode my bike home as fast as I could and with great trepidation called the number. When a man answered, I introduced myself. He asked me a few questions about my plans, told me how much he liked my health column, and then asked where to mail the check. This was like a small miracle to me. The second "miracle" was that I found some friends who were driving to San Francisco and I could hitch a ride in their camper instead of the twelve hour bus ride. (What I'll save for another day is how painful it was to leave my young son with my youngest sister and her husband, even though they were like a second set of parents to him.) When I got to the Institute for Yoga Teacher Education, I asked the director if I could skip Asana I and II and go directly to Asana III because I had been teaching a year out of books by Richard Hittleman and Lilias Folan . More important, I could afford to stay only for one semester. She laughed at my naive assumptions and insisted I had to start at the beginning like everyone else. I thought I was flexible, but my memory of that first Iyengar asana class is that, when it came time for seated forward bends, the teacher had me sit on a stack of books or some primitive hard wood block (professional yoga blocks had not yet been invented), put a strap around my feet, and instructed me to feel if my vertebrae were poking out. It was all overwhelming, classes were three hours long, and when they finally laid us to rest in Savasana, for reasons beyond my understanding silent tears flowed like a river down my cheeks. By the end of the first semester I knew enough to realize I needed more training and for the next five years I found ways to make trips back and forth to the Bay Area until I had enough credits to graduate from the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco. Those early, basic, step-by-step beginning-yoga classes gave me a strong foundation and planted the seed of yoga deep in my core. Last night, as I hung upside down to decompress my spine and replenish my energy reserves, I felt so lucky all over again to have this great holistic health resource in my life.

Fall/Winter 2018-2019 Update from Suza http://www.suzafrancina.com