The Yoga Shala Calgary: Ashtanga Yoga Instruction & Practice

Christy Fisher

My first taste of yoga came from a book. I'll admit it...I was/am a nerd. I was in junior high and had signed the book out because I liked the picture on the front. A man and a woman standing in Virabadrasana A (Warrior) in front of a waterfall, the scene drowning in sunlight. I remember teaching myself sun salutations and practicing them in my room when I was trying to avoid my brother.

Years later a friend gave me a free pass to the new (and only) yoga studio in our city. I've never been athlectic and generally regarded myself as the least flexible person in the world. But I recalled my book; the glowing woman on the cover and the simple movements I learned years prior. When I finally braved my first class the teacher worked us through the Ashtanga Primary Series. I was lost. I looked around the room and tried to contort my un-athletic body into the postures I saw around me. No go. I would look to my teacher with a pleading and helpless expression. He would look at me and smile and remind me to breathe.

In spite of the sometimes unkind thoughts I would direct towards my teacher, I always found a sense of peace at the end of practice. Some feeling that I couldn't quite hold onto but that would saturate my body with a sense of stillness, of completeness.

I continued to attend for several reasons. I began to notice that nobody cared that I couldn't reach my feet (or even my shins) in forward bends and discovered a new freedom. I wasn't perfect and didn't need to be. And they served tea after class. Jasmine tea. A small town girl, I had never had it before and, as a small town girl, I found comfort in the sense of community that came with the tea. I once drank so much I made myself sick, but that's another story altogether.

And now, many years later, no longer fond of Jasmine tea (I really made myself sick), I still have yoga. At some point my teachers had repeated enough the message that my yoga was my own that I finally believed it. So now it's just about the journey, about finding joy on my mat every day and striving to pass the joy onto others. I often joke that yoga is my longest relationship... nobody laughs anymore, but I still make the joke. I will forever be a student of yoga, exploring my practice and working with others to find some acceptance and tolerance for ourselves and each other.

As a teacher, I hope to bring a sense of community to my classes, a sense that we all belong, that our bodies are as the world intended. I hope to support people in their relationship with yoga, so that it may be rich and whole and completely their own.