Meet the Teacher: Elissa Jordan

Today's episode of "Five Questions" features yoga teacher Elissa Jordan, her favourite things and Canadian spelling. Elissa teaches Power Yoga Elements (Mondays at 5.30 pm) and Power Yoga Dynamics (Thursdays at 5.30 pm).

1. What is your favourite thing about yoga?

Without yoga I live at the polar ends of life's spectrum: too much/too little, too fast/too slow, too high/too low. Yoga brings me right to where I need to be.

2. What is your favourite yoga pose?

At the moment? Supported supta bhadda konasana. Aka bound angle pose on a bolster.

3. What is your favourite thing to teach?

Attitude. For example: don't take yourself or your yoga too seriously. Laugh a little. Especially when you fall down, especially when it's not going the way you think it should.

4. What is your favourite posture to teach?

Down dog. NO, no, forward bends. Which, technically - down dog is a forward bend. So, right - forward bends, final answer.

5. What is your favourite thing to do other than practice and teach yoga?

Cycle. Or read (anything I can get my hands on), write (not as much as I should), watch movies (from rom-coms to the NZFF, but nothing scary), travel (over 40 countries so far), run (a few 1/2 marathons), walk (long walks, like the Heaphy track or Abel Tasman and the like), drink tea (lots of tea), drink wine (mostly New Zealand wine), bake cookies and cakes (they turn out well so long as I follow the recipe), write for my wine blog (read it at www.wineylittlebitch.com), cycle some more (all about the cycling), eat out in Wellington's amazing restaurant scene (om nom nom), watch LOLs with my love (and eat chocolate). Oh, and cycle.

New Yoga and Movement Classes at Healium!

This week we've been sharing the results of our yoga survey and all the exciting new developments happening at Healium. Today we have a first look at our newly expanded class schedule, which goes into effect Monday, 2 April.

And now - apart from the Group Private Classes - you can use your concession (4 classes for for $40, etc.) for any class on the schedule! Mix and match your classes, times and teachers - have fun and go crazy! Just be sure to book your classes through our Ezybook page.

Over the next week or so we'll be going into more detail on our new classes - stay tuned! For now, here's a quick summary of all our class offerings:

Chi Power. A blend of conditioning exercises, martial arts including tai chi, qi gong and karate, and moving meditation that strengthens your body, enhances your mobility and develops your internal energy for greater health and vitality. With Algernon Williams.

Elemental Yoga. Explore the energetic elements of Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Ether through yoga postures that release, invigorate and rejuvenate the whole person - you! With Elissa Jordan.

Feldenkrais - Awareness Through Movement. A mindful practice that creates new connections between body and brain, facilitating ways to move with greater freedom. With Oli Wiles.

Fertility Yoga. Explore yoga postures and breathwork that support fertility. Postures focus on the endocrine system, and you'll have time to discuss your unique situation and gain insight from other students into the process of supporting fertility naturally. All women welcome! With Jenifer Parker.

Gentle Yoga. Using props and a gentle sequence of yoga postures, this class is designed to release tension and develop deep relaxation. With Valerie Love and Jenifer Parker.

Group Private Class. A private yoga (other other movement) class designed specifically for the needs of your organization. (If you'd like one of these for your group, let us know and we'll work something out!) With Jenifer Parker.

Postnatal Yoga. Bring your babies and enjoy a fun yoga class where we work on realigning and strengthening the hips and pelvic floor, reducing the "mummy tummy" (including healing the diastasis recti) and relieving tension in the neck, shoulders and upper back! Mothers and babies up to one year old are welcome; breastfeeding and laughter encouraged! With Jenifer Parker.

Pregnancy Yoga. While all of our classes are prenatal appropriate, we now offer this special women's-only pregnancy yoga class to facilitate your body's comfort and balance during pregnancy, as well as prepare for labor and birth. With Jenifer Parker.

Power Yoga. A flowing sequence of postures and breathwork to develop physical and mental integrity and agility. With Jenifer Parker.

Power Yoga Basics. This class offers the benefits of power yoga but goes into greater depth on the alignment of postures, breathwork and philosophy. Great for everyone, perfect for beginners! With Jenifer Parker.

And finally our special free "off-the-grid" class, held the second Saturday of every month, starting 14 April:

Power Yoga Exploration. Deepen your practice! A 75-minute class for exploring how yoga works, having fun with your postures and relaxing. Held the second Saturday of every month; available free of charge to any student who has been coming to the studio for six months or more and is on a current concession or is a regular drop-in. With Jenifer Parker.

55 Monkeys!

A great big Thank You to everyone who participated in our yoga survey! The information you provided and your unique insights have given us a wealth of information on how to move forward. Today's post is the first in a series of blogs that we'll publish over this week and next to let you know how we are implementing your suggestions.

For me, the most exciting development is how we are expanding the class schedule. It's not simply expanding into new times, but really responding to a common sentiment: more diversity!

Foremost, everyone wanted more lunchtime offerings. So we are expanding from the current 5 lunchtime sessions up to 12.

I know, right? From 5 to 12? How can that be?

We're adding four classes at 11:15 am and opening two former classes to the pubic. And, our Feldenkrais - Awareness Through Movement class will now be open to you under the current concessions, rather than being a separate course.

Two of those 11:15 classes will be Gentle Yoga, and the two other 11:15 classes will introduce Chi Power - a blend of conditioning techniques and movement exercises from karate, qi gong and tai chi that provide a powerful energetic boost!

To diversify the Power Yoga classes, three of the lunchtime sessions will be Power Yoga Basics. These classes will take our normal all-levels Power Yoga and provide more detail on the practice. It's perfect for beginners, but those of you who have been doing yoga with us for awhile will benefit too!

The remaining four lunchtime yoga classes will be our all-levels Power Yoga classes - adding in more postures, trying new directions and sequences, and essentially providing a more diverse, fun practice!

In addition, we'll be starting our family-focused classes. Monday mornings at 10:15 am, we'll be starting our Antenatal Yoga class for new mothers to come and practice with their babies. Wednesday mornings at 10:15 am we'll hold our Prenatal Yoga class for those mums to be! And finally, on Friday mornings at 10:15 am, we'll hold Fertility Yoga - a class designed to support fertility and a place for those women trying to conceive to come together and share their experiences.

The diversity doesn't end there! We are bringing in new teachers as well! Al, one of our amazing massage therapists and energy workers - as well as a karate sensei - will be teaching Chi Power. Valerie Love will be taking on Gentle Yoga - but because of her extensive travel schedule I will be sharing the class with her until July, when she takes on the class full time. Elissa will continue to teach on Mondays at 5:30, now leading Elemental Yoga, an exploration of the energetic elements of Air, Water, Fire, Earth and Ether through yoga postures that release, invigorate and rejuvenate the whole person!

But, wait! There is one more class we are adding to the schedule!

With a great deal of gratitude, I want to give something back to those of you who have been here and supporting us over the past year. I feel very grateful to have each of you in my life - those new to us and those who have been with us from the beginning.

As a further opportunity for you to explore the yoga practice in more (and intermediate!) ways, I am offering a FREE once-a-month yoga class for students who have been with us for more than six months (if you started coming to us with the the last Groupy deal from October of last year or before) and who are currently on an active class card (or a regular drop-in). It also includes those of you who are corporate clients!

These free classes will be held the second Saturday of each month from 9:00 to 10:15 am. Classes are one hour and 15 minutes so that we have enough time and space to really explore and have some fun with our postures. We'll also get a longer relaxation time and a bit of time to go deeper into the practice - how yoga works and why we practice!

If the 9:00 class fills (you'll need to let me know that you're coming - we won't be using ezybook since we pay per booking), then we'll hold a second class from 10:30 to 11:45 am on the same day. If the first class doesn't fill, then there's no second class. Just let me know as soon as you know that you want to come!

So when are all of these things starting?

The new schedule begins the first week of April, with the first FREE class on 14 April. Look out for our new printed schedules - as well as the updated timetable on our blog and website (coming soon!), as well as on ezybook so you can make your bookings!

I hope you are as thrilled as I am - and look out for more blogs about our new developments right here . . . based on your suggestions!

Healium Yoga News: Advanced Teacher Training in Wellington

Here it comes again! The Advanced Teacher Training will be offered here in Wellington at Healium in April, May and June! It's going to be just as amazing as the first time around, so if you've been thinking about joining us, definitely do!

Here's the original blog/description that goes with the training - and of course Elissa Jordan's great articles on The Yoga Lunchbox about her experience in the training:

• Who knew? There isn't just one right way to do things. Even in Yoga.
• How to take your teaching even further - assist!
• How to answer: what exactly is the energy body?
• How to find the purpose in your teaching
• How to get the most out of any yoga teacher training - ask questions!

Looking forward to seeing you!

.     .     .

So, you've taken a teacher training, and possibly two. And you lead a good class. People like you, they like your style.

But then the questions come. "I'm feeling this, what do I need to do?" And "I'd like to get to doing x fancy posture, but how do I get there?" Questions that you can't really answer effectively when you discover that what one person can't do when they have a special need, another person can - flying directly in the face of what you thought you knew about the posture, its indications, its contraindications. And when a student is ready to advance, you realize that you don't have any idea how to do that posture, or how to teach someone else how to do it!

You can't just tell the special-needs client not do to things, and you can't just teach a workshop on one area because there is one special need in the class. It needs to be balanced - for the individual student and for everyone in the class! And, while you can be honest and tell a student "I don't know how to do that posture!" - the student will seek out a teacher who does, or who can tell them - even when they love you and your classes! Truthfully, they want to continue with you, but suddenly they've simply outgrown you. And if they do stay in your class, how can you effectively advance them, while also meeting the needs of everyone else in the class?

If you've noticed this in your teaching, or you simply just want to know more - a lot more - about yoga and how to effectively teach every student, in every class, every time, then you are ready for the Advanced Yoga Teacher Certificate course!

The course for our Advanced Yoga Teacher Certificate answers these central questions in regards to both kinds of students:

1. How do I specifically choose the right postures for this student to facilitate his/her healing?

2. How do I specifically modify and assist those postures so that he/she has the best possible benefit from the postures?

3. How do I effectively sequence those specific postures - and supporting postures - in order to provide a full, balanced experience for the individual student as well as the class as a whole?

To answer these questions, there are three intensive weekends of workshops with me, going over how all of this works:

Weekend 1. We start with the physical body - discovering anatomy and biomechanics, and diving into how to identify the essential elements of postures, and how to modify and assist for any body at any time!

Weekend 2. We move into the energy body and energetic alignment - studying the chakra system and major movements of energy through the body, as well as how to identify the energetic movement within postures, and how to modify and assist for the maximum energetic alignment for that specific student's body!

Weekend 3. We go into sequencing theory in depth, how to take a student from point A to point B to point C - whether that's taking a beginner with a special need from a deep modification to a more normal or average expression of a posture; or taking a more experienced student from the general, balanced sequences you usually teach into more advanced and more dynamic postures.

In between these weekends, there will be homework and you'll work with your study group to bounce ideas off each other to develop your understanding and have "check and balances" for your work. Your fellow teachers-in-training will test out your theories and ideas and provide you with feedback - and you will do the same for them.

And all along the way, I'll be providing one-on-one and small-group mentoring (via Skype or email) to help you find your way through this amazing information, to provide more questions to ponder and more context for development and understanding.

And, finally, to make sure it's all sunk in, we'll have a fun, yet intensive final examination: written and oral. In the written exam, you'll be tested in short answer and essay format - to have the opportunity to completely explain and defend your position. Don't worry, multiple answers are usually correct! In the oral exam, you'll be given a posture to describe, modify, assist, and sequence around - and a student to take through the process!

The teacher training is designed to give you optimal interaction with me, but also with your fellow students to create an environment that is supportive of your really learning this material. You'll gather at least 80 and probably closer to 100 hours of advanced training during this course, with 60 hours being contact hours with me!

After all, I want you to know this information! I want a lot of teachers to know how to do this - because yoga changes people. Yoga works. And the more we know and understand how it works, why it works, and how to make it work for individual students - the better it is for everyone, the more life-changing for ourselves and our students!

So, now you're probably wondering about the when, wherefores, and all-important *costs* involved.

• Foundations in Asana: Modifications and Assisting for Every Body, Every Time, 27-29 April;

• Understanding and Working with the Energy Body through Asana and Assisting, 25-27 May; and

• Integrating Body and Energy: Understanding the Whole, 22-24 June!

Yoga teacher Jenifer Parker.

Sign up for the Early Bird Registration by 16 March, and this amazing course costs only $1200! If you sign up after 16 March, it's $1500. Note that this is the cost for the certification program and doesn't include travel or accommodations in Wellington.

If you want more information about the training, drop me an email at hi@healium.co.nz and I'll send you a PDF. Or, give us a call! For more information about me, you can check out my bio or read my interview on The Yoga Lunchbox. I look forward to seeing you!

Healium Yoga News: Updated Class Schedule

Hello, and welcome back to yoga, to Healium, and to a new year. We're really excited to see everyone returning after the holidays - as well as lots of new faces - and eager to hear of your adventures.

We've been busy too. If you haven't already seen, we've expanded the studio, doubling the space and adding a bunch of beautiful new Manduka mats for your use. And our full yoga schedule has resumed with teachers Jennifer Parker (Power Yoga) and Elissa Jordan (It's Just Yoga). Here it is:

Remember, if you've bought a class concession, you can attend any class listed except for the Group Private classes (marked with an asterisk). If you'd like one of these for your organization, however, let us know and we'll work something out! As always, we recommend booking your classes through our Ezybook page.

Finally, if you're into Feldenkrais, the next session of Awareness Through Movement group classes starts up on Thursday, 9 February. These are led by Oli Wiles.

We'll see you soon!

Holiday Yoga at Healium!

Hey, all! Some news to bring you up to date on our holiday yoga schedule. We love our yoga but we also love some time off traveling and catching up with family.

So, we're placing our regular yoga schedule in suspended animation from Friday, 23 December 2011 to Monday, 2 January 2012 - no classes those seven days. However, we will be offering a limited yoga schedule in the first week of January - four classes so we can all ease back into our asana awesomeness. If you're in Wellington, you can begin your New Year's revolution right away. Check it out:

Then, on Monday, 9 January 2012 we're back to our full Yoga and Movement timetable.

But wait! There's more! :-)

Special hold on concessions. Normally our concessions run for four consecutive weeks, but if you get your next one before Christmas we'll put a hold on it for any time you're away until you return in January.

New Year membership - limited time offer! Through 22 December you can buy a three-month membership that runs after the holiday concession!

a. 1 class per week for 12 weeks: $120
b. 2 classes per week for 12 weeks: $216
c. 3 classes per week for 12 weeks: $288

Lock in the frequency and price point that work for you AND get one private yoga lesson or Thai yoga massage equal to the number of classes you take each week - with the 3-classes-per week membership you get 3 yoga lessons or massages free - a $300 value!

Gift vouchers. These are available for yoga as well as all our offerings, starting at only $40. Ask us for details!

Have a great rest of the year as you get ready for the holidays, and we'll see you soon!

Cultivating Softness

Soften: to lessen hardness, reduce resistance, make less critical.

Softness is not a very highly sought after quality in modern Western society. Softness is perceived as weakness. Strong. That's the way to be. It's how you make something of yourself and succeed. To get what you want out of life. Right?

Humor me for a moment. I want you to form a picture in your mind of a thing that you really want. A thing that has been eluding you. It can be whatever you want: a better job, moving to Paris, the ability to do a headstand. Visualize this thing you want getting farther and farther away. And feel what's happening to your body. To your breath.

Release that picture.

Again, see this thing that you really want. This time, picture yourself getting this thing you want so dearly. And, again, check in - mind, body, breath - how are you feeling?

For most of us, when we picture something we really want getting beyond our reach, our body and breath will tense. Everything will draw in and harden. When we picture actually getting what we want everything releases and we soften.

When I first started practicing handstand I would harden. My body would go completely rigid, my breath would catch in my throat. And my feet would barely leave the ground. I would visualize this thing that I really wanted, the ability to progress my practice, and my belly would clench up, my limbs would fill with lead. The only option I saw left open to my finally getting what I wanted was sheer determination and brute strength.

I believed that above all else I had to be strong.

And for months I carried on in this way. Gritting my teeth, holding my breath and just trying to push my way forward. And in all this time I made almost no progress. It was a battering for my self-esteem.

Turns out that yoga isn't a competition. I mean, in North American there is actually a Yoga Asana Championship, but on a day-to-day, personal basis yoga is not a competition. Not with yourself, not with those around you and not with an idealized photo in a book or magazine.

And therefore the idea that you need to push yourself through to greater and greater success in a pose is rather unyogic - don't you think?

So what's the secret? Softness!

I had to learn how to soften. In body and in mind.

This is a lesson I'm still learning. Like, I don't need to be the best right now.

Part of my challenge with handstand was that I wanted a perfect freestanding balance right from the start. By cultivating softness I was able to accept that I didn't need to be perfect. Instead I could focus on celebrating where the practice has taken me today. It may look a little more or a little less like the poses in a book or a magazine, but it really doesn't matter. Because exactly as I am is exactly as I need to be.

Elissa Jordan teaches It's Just Yoga - a fun sequence with the right mix of strength and softness - at Healium.

Healium Yoga News: Introducing Elissa!

We are super excited to have yoga teacher Elissa Jordan at Healium! In fact, she's already had a running start - she teaches the 5:30 class every Monday as well as kids' yoga the first Sunday of each month.

Here's what Elissa says about her approach to yoga: "When on the mat I bring a sense of playfulness to the practice. I reckon life is serious enough and so I try to make yoga fun. Or as fun as it can be when your thigh/high/back/core are having a stern word with you."

For more on Elissa and a number of other new faces and offerings at Healium, stay tuned for next week's big website update. We'll keep you posted!