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Welcome to the June edition of Conference Connection.
From students to staff to volunteers, thanks to everyone who made the Grand Geneva Conference last month such a wonderful event. Over 1,200 attendees enjoyed a weekend of yoga, golf, kids yoga and more. Plus, Caroline Myss' keynote raised over $4,000 for YouthAIDS and the LUNAFEST Film Festival raised over $1,300 for the Breast Cancer Fund.
Photos and audio recordings of the Grand Geneva Conference are available for free download.
If you plan on attending the Colorado Conference in Estes Park and have not yet registered, we strongly advise you to do so soon. Although the event is 4 months away, we're already half full and will certainly sell out.
Finally, this month we're pleased to present two exclusive Conference Connection articles: Nora Isaac's The (Downward Dog) Days of Summer and our Teacher Spotlight on Timothy McCall MD. Timothy is a board-certified internist who traded his stethoscope for a yoga strap and is now one of the leading voices in therapeutics yoga.
Namaste,
The Yoga Journal Conference Team
Elana Maggal, Conference Director
Renee LaRose, Conference Manager
Heidi Hill, Conference Marketing Associate
Alden Conant, Conference Coordinator
12th Annual Colorado Conference
YMCA of the Rockies
September 23-30, 2007
Drop Back into Nature at the 12th Annual Colorado Conference.
Whether it's mantra or meditation, Anusara or Ashtanga, we're confident you'll find something just for you:
Get sweaty with intense flow classes, explore yoga and rock-climbing, or discover how to end your back pain.
Come celebrate at our Saturday YouthAIDS benefit concert with Edie Brickell and learn to
incorporate yoga and healing into your life from our keynote speaker Timothy McCall.
In addition to our Main Conference, All-Day Intensives, and Half-Day Intensives, we are pleased to offer three 3-day Intensives focusing on Therapeutics,
Ashtanga, and Iyengar. So leave your stress behind, roll out your mat, and allow yourself to drop back into your natural state of ease and grace.
Click here for more information and registration.
by Nora Isaacs
I always think of summer as a three-month pause. I know, we still have to get up earlier than we'd like to, make sure the pets and children are fed, and get to work somewhat on time. We don't get a break from our mind's crazy thoughts or the fact that the bills need to get paid. But still. The chunk of time between Memorial Day and Labor Day always seems like a gift: a time set aside to embrace the transitions happening all around us. In other words, summertime is a great time to Do Things Differently. Here are a few ways to start:
Press Refresh. Growing up in an urban area, the only bodies of water I had ever plunged into were my bathtub and over-chlorinated pools. So I vividly remember
the first summer I dunked into a cold mountain stream. It felt like heaven. This is the perfect metaphor for this season-the experience of newness and exhilaration of doing something delightfully refreshing. I try to recapture that feeling in little ways, all summer, whether this means an extra-invigorating early morning yoga practice, a cooling spritzer made with sparkling water and a splash of juice, or even a yummy afternoon nap.
Take Stock of your Life. The hiatus of summer invites introspection. I find that the long and sultry evenings, opportunities for hiking and biking, and just spending more time outside lends itself to slowing down and thinking about my life. With its change of pace, summer is a time to plant the seeds you'd like to sow in the upcoming months. I like to find a spot where I have space to breathe, do a few restorative yoga poses and a short meditation, and think about where I am now—and where I'd like to head when fall rolls around.
Try Something New. My family had a summertime tradition: every once in awhile we'd skip our evening meal and head to Baskin Robbins instead for a coveted "ice cream dinner." I still remember these nights, they seemed truly magical to be together as a family, breaking the rules, and eating what seemed to be the perfect meal: a double scoop of mint chocolate chip with rainbow sprinkles. Summer is the perfect opportunity to bust out of your routine, jump into a Handstand in the center of the room, do the unexpected, and see how good it feels.
Take a Mini Vacation. On the first night of summer, I put my son to sleep and then went out to my favorite local restaurant, where I sat at the bar and ordered dinner and a glass of wine. To me, this was almost as good as any summer vacation I could think of! Sure, many of us take "official" family vacations in the summer. Most often these involve visits to relatives, family reunions, long road trips with the kids. But don't forget about taking for yourself a vacation and getting some solo time in there, too. Squeeze in a yoga workshop on the weekend, a massage, and a catnap. Anything that feels like an indulgent treat will do.
Savor Simplicity. Much of the year is spent doing complicated tasks: meeting deadlines, juggling work and family life, cooking a 5-course meal for a dinner party. But I think of summertime as an invitation to simplify. Instead of a dinner that leaves every pot dirty, throw an eggplant on the grill. Rather than trekking a plane ride away to a theme park, find the wonders and excitement in the leaves, trees, and insects in your own backyard. While you are at it, apply the same rule to your yoga practice: Instead of thinking that more "advanced poses" are better, come home to the basic ones, the poses that made you fall in love with yoga in the first place.
Nora Isaacs is a freelance magazine writer with a specialty in health, wellness, yoga and the author of Women in Overdrive: Find Balance and Overcome Burnout at Any Age.
Editor's Note: Timothy McCall, MD, is a board-certified internist, Yoga Journal's Medical Editor, and the author of Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing.
Click here for information about his classes at the Estes Park Conference.
In 1997 I decided to leave my medical practice, just two years after I started to practice yoga, and not that long after I'd begun a steady home practice. So you can already see how much good yoga has done me. Seriously, though, I'd already been writing part-time for a number of years, but I was finding medicine increasingly unsatisfying. At that time, profit-driven managed care was taking over. One of the consequences of cost-cutting was a speed-up in the conveyor belt of medical care, allowing doctors and patients less time together. This made medicine way more stressful, and made me feel like I couldn't do as good a job - especially since I was always the kind of doctor who spent a lot of time getting to know patients, explaining things and answering questions. And with personal connections to patients diminished, one of my favorite parts of practicing was slipping away.
To be fair, I wouldn't say that yoga led me to leave my medical practice exactly, but it certainly put me in touch with an inner voice that told me that this isn't working anymore. My writing career was going well-enough at that point that I could contemplate the jump, though I knew I'd have a major drop in income. I thought it through then jumped without hesitation, and I have never regretted it.
There was one unexpected consequence though. Since the major topic of my writing was health care, I found myself missing having one foot in the real world of medical practice. I'd always valued the cross-fertilization between doctoring and writing: Each made the other better. Without that real world grounding, I worried that what I wrote was losing something.
Then one day around 1998, I got an idea: What if I took this hobby and new love of mine, yoga, and made it my foot in the real world. I began to examine the yogic approach to health. All the stories I'd heard from fellow students about how yoga had helped their backs, or eased their transition into menopause, plus the few studies I'd read, made me want to learn more. I didn't find it easy to find information at first, but I kept plugging away. By the year 2000 (after a brief stint back in health care activism) I decided to devote myself full time to researching the scientific basis of yoga and yoga therapy.
The last day of 2001, I flew off for my first trip to India. Even though this was shortly after 9/11 - and several friends and family members were advising me to cancel or postpone my trip - my intuition told me it was time to go, and again I listened to the inner wisdom. I had an absolutely fabulous trip, visiting a number of yoga therapy centers and research institutions, learned a ton and managed to stay healthy.
Two weeks before I left I called up Kathryn Arnold, then the Editor in Chief of Yoga Journal, to see if she might be interested in an article. She said yes, and soon after reading that article she and YJ's then owner John Abbott asked me to become the magazine's medical editor. Later that year, they asked me write a book on yoga therapy as well, and I got cracking way more than full-time on Yoga as Medicine almost immediately. That was four and a half years ago, and I've pretty much worked without interruption since then. So now I am really excited to finally not be writing a book for a while and enjoy my new home of Oakland California, in a nice neighborhood not far from Berkeley.
My research has brought me back to India twice more since 2002, and I'm planning to head back in 2008. Most recently, I've been studying Sanskrit, Vedic philosophy, Tantra, and Ayurveda there, and I've been blessed to work with some amazing teachers. The picture that accompanies this article was taken at an Ayurvedic clinic in Kerala, the birthplace of Ayurveda, just a few months ago. There I worked with an amazing traditional Ayurvedic doctor, Chandukkutty Vaidhyar. At one point, in response to a question I asked him about the lack of a soft spot on my skull's anterior fontanelle, he prescribed a thick and fragrant gee-based herbal preparation that was spooned onto the top of my head each night before bed. A large fresh leaf was placed on top to keep the goo in place, and a cotton bandage looped around my chin kept the whole thing in place (which is what you see in the picture) while I slept each night.
I'm guessing that my fontanelle may have ossified as the result of a head injury I suffered when hit by a car as a small child (and yes I was already a little eccentric before that accident). Chandukkutty believes that when the fontanelle is closed that it's hard for heat (and pitta) to escape from the head, and that headaches and other conditions could result and before yoga I did have headaches. Even though I've come to believe in the healing power of Ayurveda, I must admit I was pretty floored when after three days of treatment, the soft spot returned, and, I've just confirmed, has remained. (And for all I know it may have softened sooner -- day three was the just first time I bothered to check.) And so far so good on the headaches.
Someone might say I wasted seven years of training in medical school and in residency training in primary care internal medicine, when what I've ended up doing is researching and writing about yoga. But I feel like I'm using my medical training and what I learned in all my years of practice every day. And I suspect if it weren't for my medical degree, I never would have had all the opportunities I've had to explore therapeutic yoga and to try to reconcile what I learned as a doctor with what my yoga practice has taught me.
To me this work is endlessly fascinating, challenging, and intellectually stimulating, and best of all, the practice of yoga has touched me in a way nothing before has. Sure I earn less money than if I were practicing medicine, but my life is so much richer. I feel happier, healthier, more relaxed, and more grateful than ever.
I'm particularly grateful that I no longer have to wear a tie to work. My intuition had been telling me ties weren't for me all along. It just took me a bunch of years to act on the information. These days a yoga strap is about as close as I come, and I can't tell you how much better that feels.
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LÄRABAR
LÄRABAR, creator of the 100% whole fruit and nut food bar, is proud to be a nurturing force in the yoga community. As a sponsor of Yoga Journal's Estes Park Conference, we're offering the first 500 readers a sample gift (click below to register). Visit our booth in the Yoga Marketplace, and enjoy "Yoga for the Whole Family" sponsored by LÄRABAR.
Click here to register for your sample gift.
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Sunstone Yoga
Sunstone Yoga is dedicated to promoting health and wellness for the yoga industry. With safe, effective teaching practices, world class teacher training programs, state of the art systems and full support for our studio owners, we lead the industry in creating stability and opportunity for yoga professionals.
www.sunstoneyoga.com
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Save the Dates
Estes Park 2007
YMCA of the Rockies
September 23 - 30, 2007
Registration Now Open
2008 Events
San Francisco 2008
Hyatt Embarcadero
January 18-21, 2008
Registration opens
August 2007
Boston 2008
Sheraton Boston
May 16-19, 2008
Estes Park 2008
YMCA of the Rockies
September 21-28, 2008
South Florida 2008
Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa
November 14-17, 2008
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