A Look Inside Our Stellarflow Yoga Teacher Training
A Look Inside Our Stellarflow Yoga Teacher Training:
by Stellarflow Graduates Ali Greene, Kristen Law & Allison Lin
Our Teacher Trainings are a unique playground in which to dive into your inner mysteries and deepen your movement practice. In our Stellarflow Yoga Teacher Training, Michelle and Kiki and their Guest Teachers create a safe, inspiring learning environment and a sense of community and comfort, meeting each trainee where they’re at and encouraging them to grow. Our graduates move through multiple breakthroughs in our short time together, and tell us that the effects of our training ripple out into their work and personal relationships in magnificent ways. Keep reading to learn about three of our graduates, and how their experiences in the Stellarflow Teacher Training have surprised them and continue to influence their lives. . .
Why did you sign up for Stellarflow Yoga Teacher Training (SFTT)? What were you hoping to get out of it?
Ali Green: The truth? I signed up for SFTT because I had a relapse in my PTSD symptoms that led to a painful break up. Innerstellar has been my safe place, my home, my community since moving to Oakland, and it was the ONLY place I wanted to be at that point in my life. I’d always had this dream of being a yoga teacher, but it felt decades off… like ‘oh, maybe if i’m lucky, in 20 years i’ll teach a senior’s class in my spare time’. Lot’s of stories about not being good enough to be a rockstar yoga teacher. When I did sign up, it was a, ‘well, what have I got to lose’ kind of moment.
Kristen Law: I wanted to do a Teacher Training in order to deepen my practice and engage with yogic texts. I had reached a plateau and felt that the schedule and assignments of a training would provide motivation for me to take my practice to the next level. My intention was not to become a yoga teacher - it was much more personal than that. I developed skills beyond my expectation and discovered that I love teaching! I am grateful for the outpouring of love, support and guidance from my tribe while I embarked on this transformative journey.
Alison Lin: I signed up for SFTT at a time of transition. I was starting a career as a collaboration consultant working with social justice networks, looking for a new place to live, and recently single. Originally, I’d wanted to deepen my practice and expand my knowledge of anatomy and philosophy (which absolutely happened). And I wanted to be able to teach!
What was your favorite part of the training?
Ali: It’s really hard to pick one thing. So I’ll tell you two (of dozens).
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Learning to be truly intimate with a group of strangers. My cohort really became my family, and I still talk to many of them regularly. Just last night I got to have a surprise playdate with one, and the second I saw her my heart sung! You really get to know these people on a very special and sacred level. It’s a unique bond, and I feel so beyond blessed to have found this tribe!
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Kiki terrified me because she calls me out on my stories. That fear, over the course of the training, grew to a deep and magical appreciation. I remember being triggered by something someone in the cohort said. I was red, steam coming out of my ears, and ready to walk away from the whole training. Kiki came over and whispered in my ear “Breathe”, and then asked me how much of this was mine, and how much was theirs. I hated it in the moment, but I really love it as a memory. That moment totally changed me in a wonderful and fundamental way.
Kristen: There are so many favorites! It seems like the opportunities provided through SFTT go above and beyond what is offered by standard yoga teacher trainings - because of these tools I left the training feeling ready to teach!
The homework syllabus was a bit overwhelming at first - particularly for someone with a demanding full time job. However, I soon found myself looking forward to the sacred time to reflect on what we were learning and on my experiences in a quiet and private setting. I think I got more from the homework than I ever anticipated.
Through the hands on assist labs and the teaching opportunities I have learned that I am pretty intuitive with my hands! I love putting my hands on people and seeing them release tension and move safely into a poses. It is hard to put into words what it feels like to touch someone and watch them receive and incorporate your touch - but it is powerfully healing for me and my students.
Alison: I loved that we started teaching each other the very first weekend of training. I have the distinct memory of practicing our teaching sessions in pairs. I was nervous and excited, I had to teach elbow to knee and there were so many words to get out. It felt like puzzle pieces to fit in all the cues, to breathe for myself and also teach with feeling. Yet when it was my turn to teach, I could feel that everyone wanted me to succeed and I messed up and that was ok. That is what teacher training is about learning, pushing yourself, reflecting, study, improvement and deepening of your own practice.
In tandem with the practice teaching, other favorite parts were the individualized feedback I got about how to explore my own power and strengths, the focus on “seeing” each student, and practice with hands on assists and healing circles.
Whether I’m taking a workshop, subbing a Stellarflow class or most recently facilitating a discussion on race and yoga, I feel held by the Innerstellar’s walls for all the learning, struggle and growing that has gone on for me and others within them.
What are the greatest lessons/take-aways you took from SFTT?
Ali: I learned to be my authentic self! The biggest take away for me was learning to let my guard down, and live from my heart. Before the training, I don’t think I really recognized how closed off I’d become to the world, and how out of whack my inner alignment (chakras) had become. As it turns out, my natural authentic self leads and lives from the heart. This me is the happiest me. All of the hard work, and indispensable education from SFTT guided my journey in breaking down the layers upon layers of barbed wire and concrete I’d built up around myself. It was the best possible gift.
Kristen: I went into the training with a pretty strong physical practice - however, I learned quickly that my practice was almost entirely in my head. What I mean is that I intellectualized my practice rather than felt my practice. Stellarflow Teacher Training goes far beyond key components like alignment, sequencing and anatomy - it is also a journey of self-discovery that includes learning how to harness your empathing skills, discovering new ways to feel your practice in your body, and using all of your information centers to hold space for you and your students.
I also learned one important teaching tool that has impacted my personal and professional life: The Breath Formula! In other words, inhale deeply and speak from your diaphragm. This formula taught me to speak louder and with more confidence and forces me to speak slower and more clearly. I regularly speak publicly and facilitate dialogues about complex and emotional topics and this formula is something I now use daily.
Alison:
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Use the breath formula when teaching! It not only helps you stay centered, it allows students spaciousness and to track their own breath.
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Know, explore, believe in, and bring your own flavor of sparkle to your teaching.
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Teacher trainings in the US have a long way to come in terms of addressing race and yoga. I’m grateful that Kiki and her team continue to examine how institutional racism plays out in studios, teacher trainings, and classes. It is courageous and more importantly essential to understand and take action to undo racism, so that we may increases our own and each other’s humanity and find new ways forward.
How does the SFTT continue to influence your teaching/life?
Ali: I’m always going back through the materials while planning my classes, because there is always something more I can get from it. Everytime I read through, it’s with new eyes and understanding, and the lessons keep coming! Really though, it’s more than that. My life has been forever changed, my way of thinking, my ways of understanding myself. I’ll catch myself in old stories and suddenly I remember a moment from training where I overcame that story. I’ll stop and have a little heart to heart with myself, and move on with my day. That’s wild! Also, the way I interact with the world is so much more intimate and wonderful. SFTT really prepared me to love and honor every student, teacher, friend, and even foe in such a sweet way. That comes with me everywhere!
Alison: Currently, I teach on Wednesday at 4:30pm at at Addison Yoga Loft and every week I write up my sequence, paying attention to my intent, and what will warm students up for our peak pose. I often look through my notes from class and readings we did during SFTT. I always flip through my SFTT notebook which now holds close to 100 classes that I can riff off for the week or create a new one from scratch. This thematic and sequencing scaffolding combined with the practice of teaching helps me to inch towards “a grace and efficiency that comes with increased mastery” so that I and those I’m practicing with can find a place where “ breath replaces the thinking mind as a guiding impulse behind movement” and we can listen to the sensations in our bodies to better heal, to get stronger, and to continue to fight for justice.
How does your activism shape your yoga practice and vice versa?
Kristen: Yoga and activism shape most of what I do and who I am in this world. For years, my activism was rage-filled, reactive and at times unfocused. After more than a decade of a yoga practice, and perhaps maturing a little, my activism feels more balanced, grounded and focused. For years I considered myself an activist, but I wasn’t truly activated. I was angry and too afraid to say or do the wrong thing - always aware of my privilege as a white and straight presenting woman. Today I am better able to go within and feel for what truely matters to me and the communities that I care so much about. I am also more aware of unintended consequences of my activism and practice self-compassionate when I make mistakes. In my younger days, I often felt guilty if I engaged in self-care. If I had time to exercise or do yoga, I wasn’t doing enough. I now know that without my daily yoga practice I would not be the person I am meant to be.
As a younger activist, I was attached to struggle which led to burnout - I overlooked or downplayed accomplishments and avoided seeing anything positive. As a white person, feeling joy can feel like a luxury and a privilege and can bring guilty thoughts of not doing enough and not being enough. Yoga provides me with a tool to practice staying awake in the face of struggle and allowing for joy and pleasure too. I try to balance my home practice with poses that are challenging with those that I love and do well. I pay attention to how I respond to both types of poses physically and emotionally and use these as lessons for how to respond to the injustice AND the beauty that I see off the mat.
Learn more about or take a class with our Stellarflow Yoga Teachers:
Kristen Law
Ali Green:
FB: Disco Kitty Yoga
Allison Lin: