Joyce Englander
I have been a devoted student of yoga since the fall of 1999. When I began to formally practice yoga I was a freshman in college. John Friend once said in a teacher training that I participated in that everyone who comes to yoga does so because they are looking to feeling better in some way – this was true for me as well. I will never forget how challenging that first class was, nor will I forget how at home I felt. Something soulful awoke in me that night as I diligently listened to my teacher’s every instruction. I quickly took a job at the front desk and started taking classes every day. Not only did my body begin to change, but my temperament, and my ideas about the world and what is possible began to shift as well. Eventually I participated in an extensive teacher training, which opened my eyes even wider to the transformative power of yoga and meditation. My teachers were kind, attentive, and loving, and they are still dear friends of mine. When I graduated from college with a degree in Psychology and Linguistics, and an emphasis in how people learn, I moved to Chicago where I was warmly welcomed into the yoga community as both a teacher and a student. After living and breathing yoga for four years in Chicago, and taking several more teacher trainings, I decided to move to New York. Again I feel the yoga community has opened its arms to me in welcome and I have been very fortunate to meet many dedicated students and practice with kind, compassionate, and attentive teachers. I have studied and trained in various forms of yoga but most extensively: Vinyasa, Anusara, and Ashtanga yoga.
I am grateful for all that I have learned from my teachers, my students, and from the time that I have spent curiously exploring the intricacies of my own mind and body this past decade. Through yoga I have learned how to slow down, what it means to be balanced, when to take chances, to use my imagination to change my life, to breathe for healing, how to be more compassionate and accepting of myself and others, as well as how to put my body into fascinating shapes. The physical, philosophical, and spiritual implications of yoga fascinate me endlessly, and I hope to pass on some of my knowledge and inspiration to others in the way that I live and teach.
Class Description:
I teach a Vinyasa class, in which I instruct students how to listen to their breath while moving and while holding postures. I emphasize the importance of breath, foundation, accurate alignment, focused attention, and opening up to something bigger than one's individual self. Through learning how to focus on the breath, which is where all of our innate wisdom comes from, students will learn how to concentrate and quiet their mind, as well as how to reshape their bodies. Each week my classes maintain a structure that students can count on to help them feel safe in their bodies, and secure to explore where they have room to grow. In other words, students will work on a core set of postures each class, which safely prepare the body for feeling better in life. These core postures will also prepare students for more advanced postures by strengthening areas that need strengthening, and opening areas that need more flexibility – as students learn how to work and breathe properly in these core asanas more challenging and complicated postures will be introduced to play around with. This format allows students to build on what they learn from class to class, because as we become more coordinated in the postures and the breathing we are capable of going deeper and deeper into the nuances of the yoga practice. It is my intention that in my classes students will always feel supported and safe, but that they will also feel like their breath is the center of attention.
