Barn Yoga

Kaiut Yoga Classes in North Boulder

The Class You Ordered Has Not Been Delivered!

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Many people come to the practice of Kaiut Yoga because they are experiencing pain in a specific part of the body and are understandably seeking relief from that pain. They want their yoga practice to target their hip, their neck, their low back, etc., and are sometimes disappointed when the day’s class appears to be focusing on other parts of the body. But even though students may not get the class they think they need, they often find that they actually do experience the relief they are seeking.  Much to their surprise, the pain in their shoulder has eased even though it was not seemingly a “shoulder class”; the knees feel better even though the knees were not apparently addressed directly in the class at all.

Based on conventional understandings of the body, these results might seem quite mysterious, but from the Kaiut Yoga perspective they are not mysterious at all.  This is because the body is not conceptualized as a collection of discrete parts but rather as a unitary energetic system with energy patterns which move through that system which do not conform to conventional anatomical maps.  Kaiut Yoga is designed to touch in with these energy patterns, dissolving blockages in the flow of energy and, in so doing, provide increased freedom of movement and relief from pain, often at a distance from the area of the body which is seemingly involved in doing a pose.

Because the mind and the body are not seen as wholly separate entities, these energy patterns are understood to involve not just the body but the mind as well, with the result that stimulation to one part of the body impacts not just other parts of the body but also impacts the mind.   The implication is clear:  Although Kaiut Yoga is most definitely a potent means of addressing physical issues, this is only a part of its impact.  This practice acts powerfully on the mind itself, up-regulating areas that are stagnant and sluggish and down-regulating areas that are overcharged, balancing the mind and clarifying the entire mind-body system, enabling it to function as a coherent whole.  This coherent unification of the mind and body not only provides the basis for physical health and emotional well being, but is also the foundation upon which deep spiritual growth can flourish.

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How Did This Happen to Me? – My Journey to Becoming a Kaiut Yoga Teacher

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Although most of you know me only as your Kaiut Yoga teacher,  no one could be more surprised than I am to find myself in this role.  My journey to becoming your teacher has been rather a mysterious process, one that  I would like to share with you by telling you about some of the twists and turns along the way.  I also want you to know about the vitally important part that you have played in that journey.

So here’s my story:

After nearly a decade of “lost years” in my twenties during which I was pursuing my medical training, I was well into my thirties by the time I found my way to my first yoga class.  Because of my natural flexibility, I discovered that yoga, unlike most physical disciplines, was something I was “good at”.  I enjoyed the challenge of doing more advanced poses and I enjoyed the vitality I felt after a rigorous class.  My yoga practice also served as a lifeline to my sanity, providing at least some measure of comfort to my nervous system, frazzled as it was from the hard work of parenting and doctoring, not to mention the hard work of simply being alive.

This way of practicing seemed to serve me well enough for a quite a number of years, but somewhere along the line I began to feel that something was out of sync between me and my yoga practice.  Although I was not aware of any lessening of my ability to do the poses, I began to notice that I stood out in class for being older than the rest of the students, many of my same age peers having dropped out due to injuries or inability to keep up in such rigorous classes.  I supposed I was one of the lucky ones who had not  been seriously injured doing yoga, but I did begin to wonder whether it was simply a matter of time before I too would have to stop practicing, which would have been a great disappointment to me. What I wanted was a yoga practice I could continue to do for the rest of my life.  I wanted a yoga practice I would not have to  abandon as I aged,  but rather one which could actually deepen over time.   So even though I had not been injured and even though I could keep up in class, as I passed my sixtieth year, I began to feel that my yoga practice was not the right fit for me anymore.  It had become a practice consisting of putting my body into difficult poses simply because I could  rather than a  practice which was providing my body with the poses that it actually needed.

Despite this growing discontent with my long-time practice, I stayed with it for lack of a better alternative.  That is, until one day, while wandering the aisles at McGuckin’s Hardware Store here in Boulder, I ran into an old friend from yoga, who, like so many others my age, had stopped coming to classes and had dropped off my radar.  He told me about an extraordinary yoga teacher from Brazil who had developed a radically different approach to yoga.   He told me that this teacher had been coming to Colorado for a few years to teach classes and that he would be coming again but not very soon.  When he mentioned this teacher’s name, Francisco Kaiut, I somehow mysteriously knew that this would be an important teacher for me.  I jotted down my email address for him and asked to be notified when this unknown teacher was in town. [Read more…] about How Did This Happen to Me? – My Journey to Becoming a Kaiut Yoga Teacher

Notes From the Jungle

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Greetings from Sitio Gloria,  a spectacularly beautiful retreat center in the jungle several hours drive outside of San Paolo, Brazil where some twenty-five of us have been holed up with Francisco Kaiut for the first ever Kaiut Yoga Carnaval Retreat taught in English.

Today is day seven of our eight day retreat and, although I have been trying diligently to keep my engagement with the internet to a minimum this week,  as our precious and other-worldly time here draws to a close, I am stepping back  into cyber-world to send this message in the hope that I can share with you at least in some small measure what this experience has been like.

Our daily  routine has been simple:  Early morning breathwork/meditation practice, breakfast, three hour morning yoga practice, lunch, afternoon rest, three hour afternoon yoga practice, tea, light dinner, occasional after dinner Q&A with Francisco and  then off to bed.

Yowza, you might be thinking, that sounds pretty intense and, indeed, it has been intense, but it sounds more daunting than it actually has been.  We are in a magical place and the lush natural beauty of the setting enhanced by the exquisite  artistic sensibilities of architecture and furnishings, the beautiful and healthful food prepared by a warm and friendly staff, the gentleness of the climate, whether on warm sunny days or in the midst of frequent downpours, have generated the perfect alchemical mix to create a safe, nurturing and altogether delightful  container for our yoga practice.   Within that container it has been possible for Francisco to guide us masterfully, drawing us all  slowly but surely to incredible depths in our practice, depths which would not be possible to touch in hour long classes occurring in the midst of our everyday lives back home.

My intellectual understanding lags so far behind my intuitive understanding that any description I can muster seems to capture only the barest outer layer of the full experience.  Bearing that limitation of language in mind, [Read more…] about Notes From the Jungle

What Do We Bring With Us to Yoga Practice?

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New students often ask me if they need to bring anything with them when they come to class. Of course they are referring to yoga mats and props which they might be accustomed to bringing to other yoga classes. I am happy to be able to let  them know that all the equipment they need will be provided. It gives me  great satisfaction to lay out mats, bolsters and other props before class so that when students enter, they are entering a space which is ready to fully support them in their practice. However, even though students don’t need to bring any physical props to class, that does not mean that they don’t need to bring anything whatsoever. What is it then that all of us, new students and old students alike, must bring to our yoga practice in order for it to be of greatest benefit to us? The simplest answer, like so many other answers to questions about yoga, is paradoxical: we must at one and the same time bring absolutely nothing and absolutely everything to our practice. How is this possible?

We bring nothing to our practice by letting go of preconceived notions both about ourselves and about the practice of yoga. This includes notions of what our bodies are supposed to look like, what they should be able to accomplish, what specific benefits should result from the practice of yoga and how long it should take to achieve these benefits. To bring nothing to our practice is to come to practice however it is that we are, just exactly as we are, and to come open to whatever it is that we may encounter, just exactly as it is that we may encounter it. [Read more…] about What Do We Bring With Us to Yoga Practice?