In 1991, I hurt my back bouncing around in a motor boat. A friend suggested I visit a chiropractor for my back and she suggested I try yoga to loosen up my tight muscles and quiet my monkey mind. I was hooked from the get-go.
For 10 years I attended gentle Hatha and Kripalu yoga classes and began to consider learning to teach yoga. In 2001, I completed a 5-year process of becoming a fully-certified Alpine Ski Instructor and was motivated to keep learning and teaching. In August of that year, I attended a five-day yoga teacher training with Beryl Bender Birch at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. I fell in love with Beryl and the classical active style of Astanga Yoga. Beryl taught with passion, compassion and wisdom. I went on to study with Beryl for many years and attained my 500-Hour Teacher Training Certification through her school, the Hard and The Soft Yoga Institute.
I began teaching yoga in 2001 and I opened Wild Mountain Yoga, a small yoga studio in Manchester, in 2004. And then, in 2006, I began to experience paralyzing anxiety, leading me to close the studio.
After some time I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). As happens with many sufferers of PTSD, it took 12 years for my symptoms to become acute and to identify my disorder. Once identified, proactive healing began.
My daily yoga practice helped enormously: moving my body to keep prana flowing; cultivating present moment awareness through breath-centered meditation; using focused breathing to quiet my racing thoughts and become grounded in my body; cultivating my witness self and noticing when my mind was hijacking the truth; using breathing practices to fall asleep at night and to calm down when triggered.
I began to heal. My anxiety lessened. I was once again able to leave the house to go to the grocery store, able to hold a conversation, able to work again.
In 2009, my husband Bob, and I were invited to volunteer at a retreat for post 9-11 veterans suffering from PTSD. Pam Greene, Program Coordinator for the Adaptive Sports Foundation (ASF) in Windham, NY, had worked closely with Bob in the ski industry and knew of Bob’s excellent team building skills. Unknowing of our personal experience with PTSD (not many did). Pam reached out to Bob to help out at this retreat.
As the veterans walked into the ASF building, their emotional suffering was palpable. After all we’d been through, all we wanted to do was help ease their suffering any way we could. One day turned into 3 years of the most fulfilling work Bob and I had ever done. ASF hired Bob to train their ski instructor volunteers and me to do marketing for this non-profit “dedicated to providing profound and life-changing experiences for children and adults with physical and cognitive disabilities and chronic illnesses through outdoor physical activity, education, support and community.”
We introduced yoga to ASF and worked with staff members to develop Warriors in Motion; a comprehensive program to provide troops injured in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq with a basic understanding of wellness and the importance of lifelong healthful living.
During this time I became certified to teach Adaptive Yoga by Matthew Sanford; Trauma Sensitive Yoga by David Emerson with Bessel Van Der Kolk; and Yoga Nidra by Jennifer Reis.
After three years of commuting we longed to be back in the Green Mountains full-time. In 2012, Stratton hired Bob to manage its ski school and both of us to develop health and wellness programs. While at Stratton I turned a storage facility into “The Living Room” yoga studio that continues to this day.
Growing up in an entrepreneurial home, I decided to leave Stratton to open Heart of the Village Yoga in 2013. Having the fortune and fortitude to survive the pandemic, we are now in our 11th year, and are blessed with a vibrant studio with a cohort of experienced yoga teachers and dedicated students.
While running Heart of the Village Yoga, I continued to study yoga and became certified to teach Yoga of 12-Step Recovery with Nikki Myers; Yoga for Traumatic Brain Injury survivors through Love Your Brain; Yin Yoga with Biff Mithoefer, Soul School Yoga with Sean Johnson; and have studied Bhakti Yoga with Manoj Chalam and Gaura Vani.
I recently completed a Yoga Therapy Certification program with Breathing Deeply Yoga Therapy. This immersive study comprehensively integrated my 32 years of yoga practice and training.
Yoga therapists are trained to work one-on-one with individuals using yoga techniques, including movement, breath and meditation, to reduce suffering. The possibilities of what yoga therapy can help with are endless, but include: insomnia, physical issues, pain management, digestion disorders, depression, anxiety, asthma, autoimmune issues, etc.
Yoga therapists do NOT take the place of doctors, therapists, chiropractors, or physical therapists. Yoga therapists cannot do their job and they cannot do our job. Yoga therapists are different because they are educators teaching individuals how the mind, body and prana works in an experiential way.
Yoga therapists do not have hierarchical relationships with their clients. They have boundaries but are “friends” in yoga, and this helps the healing process.
©Jo Kirsch, 2024