Savasana

Savasana

Into the spiral shell
I ascend, the sound of ocean
waves lapping through my blood
The sea within
ebbing and swelling
With my breath

Still, serene, floating on the water
Into the horizon, nerves flickering
Like lightening bugs in a soft field
Of energy flowing through my body

This refuge, the hub
Suspended above and below
My thoughts
Namaste, peace
One and all

Yoga with LeeAnn – Teachers

In 2002, about 10 years after my first yoga experience, I decided I wanted to go into yoga teacher training. A lot had changed in my yoga practice over the last 10 years. I was aware of so many transformations in my life that I decided I wanted to share these teachings and these tools with others so they could make choices to help them heal, physically or otherwise. This was not an easy decision for me. I wasn’t sure I was really ready to be a teacher. But I was sure I wanted to at least go through the training, if I was meant to teach, it would happen.

The biggest transformation in my practice happened when I was studying in France in 2000. Every student had a family they stayed with while studying abroad. I believe I was placed in a household that uniquely fit my personality and life. My first hours there weren’t so great, as I cried because I was stuck at the train station after every person had been picked up and my family had apparently forgotten me. When my French mother arrived, she spoke no English and I understood about every 20th word. I thought, “What have I gotten myself into?” All of a sudden I understood the word yoga! HAHA! I know that word. I do yoga. “Je fais de yoga!” I shouted. She smiled at me with this look of all is going to be OK. We couldn’t understand one another yet, but we had yoga in common.

When we arrived at the house, there it was – a yoga studio. Beatrice was a yoga teacher. I smiled. I was taken to my room, which was uncluttered with just a bed. a wardrobe and a desk. Beatrice said something about yoga in the morning. I wasn’t quite sure exactly what she said.

In the days that followed I figured out she was doing yoga in the studio every morning. I was still practicing in my room. I felt I wasn’t suited to join her in her yoga studio. I mean seriously, she was a teacher. I had been doing yoga on and off for many years, but she was a teacher. She must be brilliant and what would she think of my practice?

I would come and go from the house when I needed to and I would notice there were classes going on from time to time. Eventually she spoke to me about my practice. It was a slow conversation as we were trying hard, but the French I knew was so limited. I’m sure she felt like she was talking to a toddler. But we got through the conversation which led me to believe she wanted me to join her in the morning I got up and made my way down to the studio the next morning, unaware of what she was expecting. Was I supposed to do my own practice or what? She was already moving. I noticed her moving in a way I had not seen with other yoga teachers. She moved in rhythm with her breath reminding me a bit of a sheet fluffing when the air catches under it and moves it to lie on the bed in the perfect position. I watched and noticed positions that looked familiar yet slightly varied from what I had been taught in my classes.

When Beatrice finished moving she sat in stillness, breathing in way that felt to me like she was taking one breath per minute for about 1/2 hour. I wondered why I had never been told about all this breathing stuff. I mean really, here it was about 8 years of yoga classes and not once had a teacher spoken to me about the breath or how to breathe.  It’s part of life. Right? I breathe everyday or I wouldn’t be walking around. I have asthma, but for the most part, I breathe like everyone else. Beatrice spent several mornings showing me how to move through asanas (postures) with my breath. Connect!

This was completely new to me. It was if I never took yoga before. I could move the way she wanted my body to move. I had body awareness. But she had this way of taking the postures and bringing more to it. There was movement within the asana and then there was stillness, which never meant not moving because the breath was always moving me. Why had I not noticed this breath stuff before?

So after some time, I developed my morning practice, moving through some asanas that prepared my body to sit and breathe! It was amazing to me how this awareness of breath seemed to make me really tune in. I could follow my breath through my body. I could notice areas where I lacked awareness of breath movement. I was able to breath freely! My breath wasn’t constricted to my chest, it moved all through my body.

Beatrice had shared these tools with me. And although yoga is sacred, it is not a secret. I was and am so fortunate that someone was willing to share her knowledge with me.
When I returned to Austin, I looked for a teacher who moved me in the same way. I needed to find a teacher who talked about breath and knew that asanas were only a tool if they worked to help support the breath and the body that I was living in. I kept practicing what Beatrice shared with me. It was limited since our time together was limited, but it was a good base to build from. The foundation was laid; I just need the right architect.

I went from class to class, teacher to teacher, never connecting to anyone until I went into my teacher training. The second weekend we had a class on Pranayama. Pranayama is breath control. I was excited about this class. Heather Kier walked in and once again, I found a teacher! Heather moved in similar ways to Beatrice and talked about the breath as if it were the most important part of the yoga practice. I was hooked. I spent the next few years going to her classes and taking private lessons.

Heather had trained for 6 years with Gary Kraftsow and Mirka Kraftsow at the American Viniyoga Institute. The more she shared with me, the less I felt I knew about yoga. (And I must admit I still feel this way today.) For me, since my first lessons with Beatrice, I noticed that I wasn’t having asthma attacks and I wasn’t having panic attacks anymore. Life seemed like it was less threatening and frightening. It was becoming more beautiful and a bit easier. Not easy, just easier. And people were asking me “How do you stay so calm?” and “I don’t know how you do it, but you should teach me how to let go.” “Could I teach them how to let go?” I wondered. I wasn’t sure I could, but a lot of this led me to step up and try.

Because of Beatrice, I wanted better teachers and I was led to Heather. Heather’s teaching led me to Gary and Mirka Kraftsow. Going to workshops with Gary changed every idea I had about yoga and what it was about.

I do not believe it was an accident that these people were placed in my life when they were. They came when I was ready to receive what they had to offer and I am grateful. Each of these teachers is present in my life and my teaching even though I do not have them by my side every day in the physical sense. Their words resonate in my head and lead me to accept each opportunity that comes my way. They lead me through my practice each morning and guide me through the classes I teach.

Sat Nam
LeeAnn Mateson

Yoga with LeeAnn – Introduction

LeeAnn Matson-Thomason is a certified Hatha Level 2 teacher, completing an intensive study of asana, pranayama, and meditation designed for experienced teachers and students. Her teachers, Mark Uridel Sadani and Heather Kier encouraged her to further refine her personal practice and her teaching.

LeeAnn’s Hatha classes are inspired by Viniyoga and the teachings of Gary Kraftsow.  She has had the wonderful opportunity to study with Gary and Mirka Kraftsow, Leslie Kaminoff, Donna Farhi, and Srivatsa Ramaswami, among others. She incorporates pranayama and variations of the traditional asanas into her classes to allow students to create different physical and meditative experiences for themselves.

LeeAnn‘s yoga story

Who I am now and who I was when I first began my yoga practice (while ultimately the same underlying person) is very different.  I might describe myself today as a mother and wife who has a wonderful opportunity to share the teachings of yoga as I was taught, in the Vini Yoga tradition.  And yes, I do teach yoga classes – but I do not consider myself by any means a yoga master.  The more I learn about yoga, the less I feel I really know.  I share what I have learned with others so they may experience yoga as a practice leading to the elimination of suffering.

Let me tell you about my first yoga experience.  I was living in Monterrey, Ca. studying dance and theatre at the Monterrey Peninsula College in 1992.  I had an amazing jazz teacher, Debbie, who told us one day “In our next class I am going to share some yoga with you.  So dress in layers of clothes because your body temperature will change according to what we are doing.”  I left class wondering what she was talking about.  I asked a fellow dancer, “What is yoga?”  Meredith’s response was something like “Uh, it’s just a relaxing way to stretch.  No biggie.”

So I came to the next class in layers of clothes, full of wonder about what to expect.  I was taken through a sequence of postures and poses that stretched my body in such a wonderful and gentle way. I felt as Meredith said, relaxed.  In fact, I was so relaxed I felt like I could just stay in the last pose she called corpse pose, forever…funny name and how I felt I could stay in that state forever, right?

And so I experienced my first yoga class.  Relaxed, refreshed and back to life I went.  I left and really didn’t give it another thought.  About once a month Debbie would share another nice way to stretch with us.  And every time I felt so relaxed and yet ready to go in the same breath. Not ready to leave, but ready to move and do and take care of things.  But I didn’t connect the feeling with yoga quite yet.  I just knew I was doing some gentle stretching of the body, which for a dancer was great.

It is nearly 19 years from my first yoga experience and I’m still learning and taking it in, trying to not only practice these poses on the mat, but carrying the focus into my daily life to bring some balance and understanding to whatever life might throw in my direction.

I wanted to share this, not only to let you know that we all have our first experience with yoga, but also to remind myself that where I began and where I am now is so different.  As a teacher, it is important to remember when someone starts classes, that sitting still, focusing and learning how to breath properly is not easy and not even on most people’s mind.  We all come with different expectations, or without expectations, wondering what yoga is about.  I had a teacher once tell me that there are two ways that yoga happens for people – those who find the physical practice easy to begin with, then yoga becomes more challenging as time goes by and those who find the physical practice difficult and find that yoga gets easier as time goes by.  I think you can guess that I fall into the first category. Physically I could do anything my teachers asked but going deeper inside myself was a challenge.

I can’t wait to share with you how this practice has changed for me through the years and why I stuck with it and began to share these teachings.  It has changed my life in so many ways, ultimately allowing me to discover some of the real me, not just the words that tell you I am a mother, wife and teacher.

Sat Nam
~LeeAnn Matson~