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Happy New Year and welcome to the January edition of Conference Connection.
With the holidays behind us and the San Francisco Conference only one week away we're excited about what the
New Year has to offer. Read below for:
- Sneak peak at the organic San Francisco "Be Inspired" t-shirt.
- Choosing A New Perspective by Diane Anderson, senior editor at Yoga Journal.
- San Francisco Conference scholarship winners.
- Spotlight on Sianna Sherman, one of our most popular instructors whose birthday gift to herself almost 20 years ago led her to yoga.
Namaste,
The Yoga Journal Conference Team
Elana Maggal, Conference Director
Renee LaRose, Conference Manager
Heidi Hill, Conference Sponsorship Associate
Alden Conant, Conference Coordinator
San Francisco, CA
January 18 - 21, 2007
The San Francisco Conference is next week. Although many of the classes have sold out, a limited number of
day passes and single class passes
are still available.
You don't have to be a conference attendee to stop by and shop! The Yoga Marketplace is FREE and open to the public!
Click here for a list
of exhibitors and Marketplace hours.
You can also join us for Shiva Rea's Yoga Trance Dance with DJ Dragonfly.
Kicking off the evening will be a Kirtan with Jai Uttal ($25 for non-conference attendees). All proceeds benefit Trees for the Future.
Click here to register and for more information.
Please note the Continuing Education for Teachers is SOLD OUT several months ago and we are no longer taking names for the waiting list.
However, please join us at our 2-Day Yoga Continuing Education for Teachers Conference in New York City on March 7-8, 2007.
This program is also approved by Yoga Alliance for Continuing Education Credits.
Here's the first look at this year's San Francisco conference t-shirt,
designed by Yoga Tribe and Culture.
It's organic cotton and available at the conference for $25!
New York, NY
Continuing Education for Teachers
March 7 - 8, 2007
Registration is open for a 2-day Continuing Education for Teachers Conference in conjunction with the ECA/NYC Fitness Convention and Tradeshow, the premier event in the fitness community.
- Learn effective elements for teaching yoga.
- Gain in-depth knowledge of how to adjust your students and safely teach inversions and backbends.
- Explore the fundamentals at the basis of every yoga class, and develop unique and insightful sequences.
- Deepen your yoga practice to infuse a new awareness, insight, and intelligence in your teachings.
Open to yoga teachers, yoga teachers-in-training, and group fitness instructors. This program is approved by Yoga Alliance for Continuing Education Credits.
Click here for more information and to register.
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
Grand Geneva Resort & Spa
May 4 - 7, 2007
Join us at the Grand Geneva conference at the Grand Geneva Resort & Spa in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin! Come practice with the world's top teachers,
improve your golf game with yoga, or bring the whole family for family and kids yoga.
Click here to register and for more information.
As we've been mentioning in previous Conference Connection Newsletters, we're proud to offer a scholarship program designed to support low income yogis and yoginis who want to attend a Yoga Journal Conference.
Thanks to the generosity of our community, we're delighted to announce the San Francisco Conference scholarship recipients: Emilie C. (Los Angeles, CA); Ava K. (Rockville, MD); Stacy C. (Duarte, CA);
Kelly Ann G. (Seattle, WA); Susan O. (El Dorado, CA).
Each of the recipients was awarded either a weekend pass or a day pass to the conference. Congratulations!
For more information on scholarships, application guidelines and deadlines, visit www.yjevents.com/scholarships.
by Diane Anderson
It's a New Year. Which means you have New Choices. And what you choose is entirely up to you.
Well, almost. OK, you can't choose anything. You might choose to pursue your dream of being in the NBA but gender, age, and physical ability might hamper the fulfillment of that particular dream. You might wish to stop war in the Middle East but your simply wishing it to be so might not resolve any conflicts in that particular region this instant (however, your caring about such situations might have a greater effect than you realize).
Each year and each and every day, actually you do get to choose what you think. You have incredible power. The most intoxicating part about your power? You get to decide how you react to people and situations in your life. Every moment.
In our normal automatic-pilot mode, we are always in a rush. I, for one, get annoyed waiting in line. It helps to remember that, unbelievable as it is and as much as I wish it were otherwise, I am not the center of the cosmos.
Humbling? Yes. But mentally freeing, for sure.
It's also hard to see people being mean to their kids or wasteful to the planet's resources. But I don't know everyone's story. Maybe the dude snapping at his kids at the crowded store just heard terrible news, maybe a loved one was just diagnosed with a fatal disease and his child's rendition of It's a Small World, while cute to me, has been sung ad nauseum and, with all that's going on, dad Just Can't Take It right now. He's only human, after all. So while I might not like certain behaviors, I don't know everyone's whole story. It's ultimately more liberating to hold the judgment a bit and instead look at life through a lens of compassion.
You can see life and all its petty miseries. That's easy. But this year, consider that what you think is true might not be so. And love that you just don't know for sure.
Diane Anderson is a senior editor at Yoga Journal.
Editor's Note: Sianna will be teaching at both the San Francisco Conference and the Continuing Education for Teachers Confernece in New York.
Click here for Sianna's San Francisco classes or
here for her New York classes
I believe there are initiations all throughout our lives, some conscious and others more subtle in our field of awareness; and these are the very events that feed our souls and change our lives forever.
It was December 1989, when I found myself locked out of a friend's apartment on a cold night in New York City where I was visiting for the New Year holiday. I walked the streets, combing them for somewhere warm to spend the night when I saw a bookstore open for 24 hours. It was the bright ray of hope I was looking for because I loved books and I wouldn't need to curl up for the night shivering outside. I walked in and scanned the shelves, when I felt my "invisible hand"
guide me to the periphery of the store. The "invisible hand" is a name I gave as a young girl to a magnetic and guiding force I felt whenever I needed counsel or guidance. This "hand" seemed to move me in directions that often held a surprise for me. Sometimes, I resisted the direction but then the sensation would grow into a strong nudging push! Anyway, I felt drawn to a particular shelf of books and when I walked to it, a book fell onto me and I caught it with sweaty palms and a flushed face:
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, by Joseph Murphy.
I sat down, right in that spot where the book fell onto me, and feverishly read the book all night long.
I knew I had received a great gift of possibility for my life! I was not versed in such concepts as this book revealed to me but I knew that somehow I would dedicate my life to the Heartbeat of Empowerment and Conscious Co-Creation of my experiences. Even though I felt tremendously inspired at the time, I was about to plunge into the darkest months of my life.
For the next 5 months, I fell into a dark hole of depression. It was my last year in college and my entire life had in some ways been a preparation to become a medical doctor. My future seemed so promising outwardly but inside I felt a bleak existence, as if I was missing the boat to my own happiness. These months were filled with inner fatigue, anguish, heartbreak, physical sickness and finally suicidal obsessions. I was completely wrecked inside myself. I knew that I needed a drastic change. I made an impulsive move overnight to Chicago from my little home town of Florence, KY, and I began to waitress, releasing the journey of medicine I had been carving for so long. I spent every night dancing in the clubs of Chicago; dancing was my way of praying and asking for help in my life.
In May 1990, I saw a small group of people coming out of a house with a special radiance about them that struck me as something I wanted to inquire more about.
One of them came over to the store where I was working part-time as a cashier, and I asked the man what the group was doing inside the house across the street. He said yoga and meditation.
Yoga! I had heard that word before but wasn't quite sure what it meant. The next day, I signed up for an 8-week Hatha Yoga series as a gift for my 22nd birthday. Every morning at sunrise, I would go to the lake after my nights of dancing and practice sun salutations with the sprouting of dawn. I began to experience a deluge of tears and an ocean of self-love that had somehow gone underground inside my heart. I knew I wanted more than anything to follow this journey of my heart; and it has been an adventurous and awakening experience ever since the initiation of the book falling on my head! Every day, I continue to wake up inside myself with the practice of yoga.
My journey continued to be sparked by my interest in healing and medicine. Along the path of my yoga studies, I trained as an herbal consultant, wildcrafter of herbal medicines, massage therapist, nutritionist and priestess of the Celtic tradition.
I turned to my studies of yoga in the same passionate and focused way I had always studied in school, and this led me to share in the company of many great teachers all throughout the world. I studied every style of yoga I came across.
Every style continued to feed my soul and opened me to the greater possibilities from within. Ultimately, I landed home in Anusara Yoga with John Friend as my teacher and guide. When I first saw John, there was an immediate recognition that he was my teacher. As soon as he began teaching, I realized that all the pieces of my journey were falling together so fast that it was a lightning bolt of awakening, laughter and joy. I knew I had been waiting to meet him, and that every step of my path was in some way a cobblestone to this very moment of recognition. John was talking about hugging in and expanding out, and I felt every word he said in my entirety of being. I ended up travelling with John, helping to assist the students in his workshops, while attempting to absorb as much knowledge and understanding about yoga that this generous teacher was sharing with so many people.
Several years later, John introduced me to his good friend and my main philosophy mentor Dr. Douglas Brooks, and I now dedicate my philosophy studies to the Tantric Traditions with both John and Douglas as my teachers.
I am dedicated to the healing and creative arts of life, to connection with nature in all Her many forms, and to the light of consciousness that is love. May every single human being recognize their beauty and choose to cultivate their gifts in the way of empowered offerings.
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Free Gift from
Avalon Organics
Avalon Organics honors the importance of yoga and organic body care in a healthy, balanced lifestyle. As a sponsor of the San Francisco Yoga Conference 2007, we are happy to send a complimentary gift of our refreshing, organic Lemon Bar Soap to the first 150 individuals who respond to this offer.
Learn more and register to win.
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One Month Free of Monthly Yoga DVD
Apply for the Enlightenment Card and upon approval receive a free month
of Monthly Yoga DVD. Choose from teachers like Gurmukh, Cyndi Lee
and Peter Sterios. The Enlightenment Card is the first socially
conscious credit card where you can earn points toward yoga workshops
and classes, retreats, organic products, or use your points toward
making a donation to a charity.
Click here to apply.
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Taste the Numi Difference
Numi Organic Tea is a proud sponsor of the 2007 Yoga Journal Conferences in San Francisco and Grand Geneva so be sure to visit the Numi booth in the Yoga Marketplace for free tea samples.
Click here to download a coupon for $1.00 off any Numi tea.
Visit us as numitea.com.
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Save the Dates
San Francisco 2007
Hyatt Regency
January 18 - 21, 2007
Last Chance to Register
New York 2007
Marriott Marquis
March 7 - 8, 2007
Registration Now Open
Grand Geneva 2007
Grand Geneva Resort & Spa
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
May 4 - 7, 2007
Registration Now Open
Estes Park 2007
YMCA of the Rockies
September 23 - 30, 2007
Registration opens April '07
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