Kaiut + Other Methods

1/29/23

Hello Family!

It's a cold and sunny day in Boulder, CO. I'm writing to you from the guest house where I'm staying for the week while teaching out here. I first moved to Boulder in 2012 just after graduating from college and getting married. My ex-husband and I spent four years pursuing graduate degrees at Naropa University. I studied, worked as a waiter, and taught Yoga classes to fill my time. This place is full of memories, and returning each year always reminds me of how much I have changed since I lived here.

Many of you know this, but I actually first found Kaiut Yoga while teaching out here in 2016. I took classes at Yoga Loft with Jeff Bailey and experienced the magic of this method. When I moved back to NC after graduation and post-divorce, I found myself including pieces of Kaiut into my regular classes. My students kept asking for more, so I jumped into a teacher training up in Toronto with the creator of the method, Francisco Kaiut. On day one of the training, I felt that I had made a huge mistake.

On day one of my first training with Francisco Kaiut, I thought I had messed up. Up to that point, I'd spent ten years teaching identifying as a "Yoga mutt," meaning that I taught a blend of styles and techniques from different lineages of Yoga. I assumed that Kaiut would be just another feather in my cap, something I could pull from when sequencing my classes. I was wrong!

In this first training with Francisco, I was forced to confront things of which I had been blissfully ignorant. I watched over the course of five days as my entire world was flipped upside down. When I came home, I felt there was no way I could go back to teaching like I had before. I felt fundamentally changed. To survive, I decided I had to split my brain into two pieces. One half would hold all my previous Yoga and embodiment knowledge, and the other would house this new beast of Kaiut.

That worked for about a year, but slowly the number of Kaiut classes went up up up, and the other classes I taught started to drop one by one. It's been five years now, and I am still inspired every day by this method and all that it offers. I have seen incredible growth and healing in my students and in my own system. I am committed to sharing this work with anyone who wants to learn it, and I am devoted to practicing it until I die. Even so, lately I feel called to include more of my old Yoga knowledge in my practice and teachings.

My ultimate goal is to teach what I believe best serves all beings. In full transparency, I don't think that is exclusively Kaiut Yoga. I believe Kaiut is amazing, and I also believe it misses some things. I can say in full confidence that other styles of Yoga also miss the mark but hold certain gifts that Kaiut lacks. In fact, I actually see Kaiut not as Yoga but as a method for approaching life.

I believe that Kaiut is built around an essential truth that belongs to every being by birthright. As I see it, Kaiut is a method for reconnecting to an understanding that is already within each of us. Once we get that, as long as we keep nourishing it, I think we can then turn our attention in any direction and approach life from this understanding. That means no practice/style/use of the body is ultimately out of bounds. This takes time and shouldn't be rushed (as is our tendency), but I believe we are all capable of developing such a connected understanding in this lifetime if we commit to it. 

This is part of my impetus for adding new classes to my schedule that are based on blending Yoga styles together. I love my Kaiut, but I also feel nourished by moving, breathing, and concentrating in different ways. The intention of my new Yoga Blend classes is to present a practice-led, slow, gentle movement and stretching practice that is complementary to the work of Kaiut. If you're curious to try a Yoga Blend class with me, I will be starting those up in February, and they will be offered in a hybrid format (online and in-person). I'd love to see you there!

Check out this week’s free talk Using Stress as Nature Intended —> https://vimeo.com/793498934/90fff73763