About

cropped-hmb-half-moon3.jpgWhat is this blog?

This blog is a way for me to record my time going through 200-hour yoga teacher training in Half Moon Bay, California.

The training takes place one weekend a month for six months, August 2018-January 2019. During that time I’ll be attending the weekend trainings, taking and recording reflections on 45 yoga classes, attending at least one workshop, and doing lots of reading, studying, learning, and practice-teaching.

Who’s writing it?

It’s me, Maria. I’m a woman in my late 30’s, mother-of-three, wife-of-one. I was born and raised in Kansas, went to college and graduate school at University of Kansas, and moved to California in 2011, which is when I went to one of my first yoga classes at the neighborhood YMCA in Palo Alto.

I had some severe physical complications in my back and legs about four years after I started practicing yoga due to a disc herniation in the L4-5 of my spine. At one point, I couldn’t walk. I have healed from the symptoms and the experience has completely changed the way I live in my body and practice yoga.

I’m also a writer: I’ve written a book, kept lots of other blogs, and currently work as a content editor for a marketing agency in San Francisco.

I’m a Leo, a young Gen-Exer, and an ENFP. I have lots of big feelings and like to talk them through with people close to me. I ask lots of questions. I try to keep an open mind. I abhor small talk.

sonoma dancerWhy “breath, posture, cue” ?

The teacher training is based in vinyasa yoga, which uses the breath to guide the body’s movements. One our first assignments is to practice teaching Surya Namaskar A, or Sun Salutation A, with these instructions:

  • Breath (“Inhale” or “Exhale”)
  • Posture (“Tadasana” or “Mountain Pose”)
  • Cue (“Stand with palms open by your side.”)

I am learning so much about breath, action, and cues, on a literal level and also a symbolic one: everything breath can do and stand for; the cause-and-affect of our actions; the preparation it takes to move through life, depending on what we’ve learned and experienced and where we are willing to go.

Breath, posture, cue, my friends. Breath, posture, cue.

Namaste.