The Power of Self-Study in Community
The first yoga immersion I ever took was with my teacher, Donald Moyer, in a gorgeous wooden Julia Morgan building in Berkeley, California. That first day was like turning up to college for the first day of class. I was a bundle of nerves because I didn't know anyone and because I had never taken an immersion before.
I remember taking my first Adho Mukha Shvanasana (Downward Facing Dog Pose) about 15 minutes into the session. Donald had laid out what we were to be thinking about for the immersion—the relationship between the hands and shoulder blades, if I remember correctly—and given us some preparatory stretches and poses.
In that moment, I felt a completely different relationship to my body in this pose I’d done several hundred times over the previous years. I’d never felt so excited and so curious to be in my body.
It is easy to think of Svadhyaya (self-study, a central pillar of yoga) as a solitary pursuit. We imagine it as a private, isolated journey on our own single rectangle of sticky mat. But true inquiry thrives in the company of others.
When I saw our students at last year’s immersion, most of whom had never met each other before, supporting each other in their poses and chatting animatedly about their practices, I knew we achieved what we’d intended: that same feeling of excitement and camaraderie that launched my own practice to new depths.
Erin and I have modeled our summer immersion on that exact experience. We will create an environment that fosters the feeling of self-study in community. Over the course of three days, we will balance teaching and practice with inquiry, helping you find yourself in your poses using props and sequencing to develop deeper flexibility, greater mobility, and strength in your practice.
If your practice has been feeling a bit isolated or repetitive lately, come spend a weekend diving deep with us. I hope you’ll join Erin and me this July in Portland, Maine, and uncover a new layer to your practice in the company of like-minded people.
