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Welcome to the October Conference Connection.
We'd like to start this month with a warm thank you to everyone who made the 13th Annual Colorado Conference in Estes Park such a special event. We were privileged to host T.K.V. Desikachar as well as our other wonderful presenters who make the Yoga Journal Conferences the premier yoga events for yogis from around the world. Click below for photos, audio recordings and blogs from the conference.
Also in this edition, we're honored to share with you the story of two yoga pioneers, Angela Farmer & Victor van Kooten. Born just before the start of World War II, Angela and Victor both explain how their early childhood experiences have had such a profound effect on their yoga practice today. We hope you enjoy the honesty and sincerity of the remarkable stories of their life journeys.
Namaste,
The Yoga Journal Conference Team
Relive the Colorado Conference: Photos, Audio & Blogs
Photos
Audio
please note, the audio recordings are very large files -- please be patient when downloading.
Blogs
7th Annual San Francisco Conference
Hyatt Embarcadero
January 28 - February 1, 2010
Register by November 20th for Early Bird Pricing!
In addition to our celebrated Main Conference, we will offer beginners classes, All-Day Intensives, Continuing Education for Teachers, and a 2-Day Business of Yoga Workshop.
Highlight events this year include a Keynote by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait and a Guided Meditation and Group Savasana with David Swenson.
And for the sixth year, we are pleased to present the Saturday Night Ignites Kirtan and Dance Party with Shiva Rea, Donna De Lory, DJ Dragonfly and just added MC Yogi.
Click here to register and for more information.
Stay connected with the Yoga Journal Conference community on Facebook & Twitter.
Did you receive a door hanger at the Estes Park conference? Show us how you're using it at home or in your studio, and your picture could be in the next conference connection.
Submit photos to Yjconference2009@gmail.com.
Editor's Note: Both Angela & Victor will be teaching at the upcoming San Francisco Conference.
Angela Farmer
Born in the UK to an American mother and Scottish-Irish father, I was the eldest of four children. Two years later, at the start of WWII, we had just moved to the countryside, my mother was pregnant with my
first brother when my father was called up to join the Army. Six years of very basic living followed, with food rationing and no transport. We lived three miles from the nearest village, so any shopping was done on foot.
Apart from the occasional bombing, we were not in any immediate danger, so my brother and I were able to enjoy our big, untamed garden, climbing trees and imagining that we were 'Indians'. I made bows and arrows, painting chicken feathers for a headdress while my mother sewed us outfits (out of potato sacks!) with colored ribbons that we wore almost all of the time. This enhanced our expeditions around the
hills and neighboring countryside where I led a 'tribe' of friends in tracking animals and building camps! Many years later, I discovered that my great grandmother was an American Indian from Maine and my childhood fantasies fell into place as did my connection with trees and animals.
I loved anything physical and would lie in bed after "lights-out!" and find ways to move different parts of my body from the toes to ears. I was certain that somewhere in the world there existed a set of
exercises that would move each and every part of the body. Twenty years later, I began to uncover that possibility. At 11 years old, I owned a horse and rode her bare-back through the woods and over the hills. I told her everything
and she always listened quietly - she was my closest and dearest friend apart from a few trees that felt like family!
In spite of my love of movement and of life, within my body, I held deep fears and injury. At 10 months, I had been violated and traumatized by a nurse that my parents left me with when they went on vacation for 2 weeks. At age 8, I injured a hip that then contracted a tubercular infection which led to a painful and frightening 3 weeks alone in a hospital with traction and penicillin injections every 3 hours.
After I was released, there was no follow up or physical therapy. In order to deal with the pain and weakness, which caused me to collapse on that side, I found ways to build an armoring of muscle- holding
around the joint that enabled me to eventually walk and run again.
In my early teens, I was sent to a school in London which meant a 3 hour journey each day in a train car packed with chain-smoking business men. The outcome was undetected nicotine poisoning (unknown in those
days) and I suffered a drastic circulatory problem in my hands and feet. Two surgeries were performed and large parts of my sympathetic nervous system were cut out from my neck and lower body, leaving me
with depleted energy, unable to sweat and no chance of every conceiving a child.
My love of life and "warrior" nature ensured that I over rode all these issues as best I could.
I attended teaching training college and pretended that nothing was wrong, even though I had lost touch with a huge part of myself.
Nature was my solace and at college, I often crept out at night and danced to the moon and the stars, conversed with the sea and listened to the wisdom of the trees.
I loved children and for many years, created a rich world of movement, drama and art in several different schools.
In 1961, my spiritual life was enriched by becoming a 'whirling dervish' for 7 years and visiting and 'turning' with the Sufis in Turkey. Greece was my 'haven' and each school summer vacation, I was off to
the islands living and sleeping on the beach or in the mountains and "filling up" on the wonderful clean air and beauty.
At 28, I found Yoga and was mesmerized, fascinated and challenged to the edge! Iyengar was wild and brilliant in those days before he developed a "system" and the introduction of certification and fixed
instructions. I am so glad that I knew this time in his teaching. Although it did emphasize and embellish the armoring I knew so well, it served to give me a sense of confidence and strength in the 'outer
world'. However, deep inside, I knew that I was burying my fears and "dark places" deeper and deeper.
After my first 3 months of study with him in India, I was privileged to travel and meet the most wonderful yogis and teachers and receive their Darshan and blessings that truly opened a new doorway in my life.
10 years later, I was given the gift of clarity at a temple in northeastern India, where I saw clearly how I had denied my feminine nature in order to survive and 'meet the world'. It was a huge shock to
realize how sadly limited my life had become in spite of all the hours of dedication to my yoga practice! It was indeed a 'wake-up!' call. From then on, my life changed rapidly. My practice evolved into one
of "undoing", listening with patience and understanding and finding ways to meet the sad, hurt, lonely and frightened places inside, hidden so well and so deeply in the tissues and cells of my body with
compassion.
Now my life has blossomed in ways I could never have imagined. My love and respect for Victor continues to enrich my life. We have a most beautiful place in Greece on the island of Lesbos near the sea, the
mountains and a thermal hot pool. We receive students from all over the world who come to share and evolve a Yoga that is kind and deep and allows them to develop in freedom and fun - their own personal
practice where their souls can begin to shine out through their bodies!
It has taken me many years to see, understand and ultimately be grateful for all that happened to me when I was young that closed off so much of life for me for so long.
Without it, I may never have taken the plunge into my depths - like Inanna's descent into the underworld, to recapture and return with the jewels of understanding that enable me to meet so many students,
especially women, at the depths of their own trauma and pain and offer them some ways to recover a sense of wholeness, empowerment and joy thru Yoga.
Victor van Kooten
Born just before the outbreak of WWII, surrounded by fear, you would find me sitting on the cellar staircase with my brother, cooking pots on our heads to protect us in case the V2s that whistled over the
house on their way to bomb England, should fall before they reached their target. (Some did fall around us!). Our father, a professional military officer was away in a German concentration camp and the world around me seemed nuts.
I went inside to find peace of mind.
In the school days, teachers tried to fill my head with useless stuff. The world was still nuts and I went off to the woods and little streams, full of waterlife, plants and fishes, to get inside and find
peace of mind. I worked as an artist, painting and drawing until the depth of night for many years, ignoring my body's complaints about me driving it nuts! Starting Yoga and meditation and being connected to
the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Sri BKS Iyengar brought me deeper inside, finding some peace of mind. Then becoming an Iyengar witness, being convinced this was the only Yoga in the world, better than
whatever was around, I proceeded to spread a method that was not coming from within myself, with institutionalized poses and certification programs that once again drove me nuts and I went looking for true
peace of mind.
(I thank Rama Jyoti Vernon for letting us join the Unity in Yoga conferences soon after that.)
I married and had five children, a lovely family but Fate had something else in store for me. I met and fell in love, madly, with Angela Farmer. This also drove me nuts, in a way!
This relationship was something I deeply recognized within me as very important, even beyond my own benefit. So I looked for peace of mind in the midst of all this turmoil.
Now, some 30 years later, we are teaching in a way that brings a quiet and happy state of mind to those yoga practitioners who are willing to connect with their own inner path, to find the teacher within, discriminating what is useful at this time for their growth rather than criticizing themselves and projecting this to the world outside.
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Upcoming Conferences
7th Annual San Francisco Conf.
San Francisco, CA
Hyatt Regency
Jan. 28 - Feb 1, 2010
Register Now!
Save the Date
2010 Boston Conference
Boston, MA
Sheraton Boston
April 6 - 11, 2010
Evening with Deepak Chopra
Registration opens December
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