Jane’s Yoga Bio and Approach to Teaching
Dedicated to helping you live a full active healthy life
How I began
I started practicing yoga in 1976 when I was 17 while living in a little log cabin on my father’s cattle ranch in British Columbia. I was an unhappy and confused teenager and Yoga helped me feel calmer and clearer and literally turned my life around. In 1980 I attended one of the first yoga teacher training programs in the U.S., long before yoga was popular (back when the words yoga and yogurt were often confused!).
Before Teaching Yoga
Over the next 18 years my yoga practice was sporadic. I put myself through college, earning degrees in Biology and Chemistry. I spent 2 years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Burkina Faso, West Africa, living in a small traditional village and teaching high school biology in the French language. I got a master’s degree in Wildlife Biology and worked as a wildlife biologist in Colorado, North Dakota, Arkansas and Montana. I got married at 39 and had a baby at 41. I was a whistle-blower and stopped a big timber sale in old growth forest, and as a result lost my job as a wildlife biologist. At 40 I started teaching yoga, something I’d always wanted to do.
Formal Training
Over the past 20 years I’ve had a daily yoga practice and have studied yoga with many highly respected teachers, primarily in the Iyengar, Anusara, Viniyoga and Vinyasa traditions. I am certified as an RYT 500 yoga teacher and have completed additional training programs in Yoga Anatomy, Yoga for Seniors, and Therapeutic Yoga.
Teaching experience
I have taught yoga to people of all ages and physical abilities. I’ve had countless younger students, with bodies of all shapes, sizes and abilities. But working with people middle aged and older has been the most interesting and rewarding. For over 10 years I taught weekly senior yoga classes at an assisted living facility with students ranging in age from 82 to 103. For the past 16 years I’ve been teaching gentle yoga classes for people in their 50’s through mid 80’s. I’ve had many private students with a variety of physical limitations and issues. I've also watched my father’s journey with Parkinson’s, and my mother’s physical decline from caregiving, inactivity and stress. I’ve seen how varied the abilities of older bodies can be, how our bodies change with age, and also how the body responds to regular exercise and an appropriate yoga practice.
Why I Teach Yoga
I believe yoga is one of the best things a person can do for themselves. I teach yoga because I want to help people experience the many wonderful benefits of yoga.
A well rounded, intelligent yoga practice works muscles throughout the entire body, moves all the joints through their full range of motion, keeps the spine supple and healthy, and has countless other physical benefits. Yoga is the single most complete form of exercise I’ve ever run across.
In my personal life, I love to hike, ski, kayak, paddleboard, garden and birdwatch, and am usually happiest when I am outside being active. I want to stay active my entire life, and I want to help others do the same. I believe a daily yoga practice is one of the best ways to take care of our bodies for the long haul.
Yoga is also one of the best things a person can do to relax, and combat the many negative effects of stress. Gentle stretches help to release muscular tension. Paying close attention to the sensations in one’s body helps to neutralize and sooth an agitated mind. Full smooth relaxed breathing helps shift the nervous system into the rest and relax mode.
Yoga also can have great emotional and spiritual benefits, depending on how it is practiced. When yoga is practiced with qualities such as mindfulness, patience, kindness, and compassion towards oneself, these qualities become stronger and more of a guiding force in one’s life.
Most people find that yoga helps them to feel more relaxed, calm, happy, peaceful, focused, patient and energetic. To be honest, those are the main reasons that bring me to my mat every day. Those benefits just seem to come naturally if one practices with an attitude of kindness and compassion towards oneself, and a mindful present-moment awareness.
My Approach to Teaching Yoga
My work with Seniors, interests in spiritual growth and healthy ageing, and love of being active have all influenced the way I teach yoga. I want to help people create bodies that will allow them to be active their whole long precious lives. I want to help people feel better, with less pain and fewer restrictions. I want to help people feel more peaceful and more relaxed. I want to help older people maintain their independence.
What is healthy ageing? It means keeping muscles strong all throughout the body, especially the muscles most used in everyday life. It means regularly moving joints through their full range of motion to keep the joints healthy and supple. It means developing strong core muscles so you can safely move, and lift things, and do other physical work. It means practicing good posture and moving the spine in all directions so you can stand upright and tall, breathe fully, and have a pain-free back. It means regularly practicing balance exercises in order to maintain your ability to balance – an essential skill that affects everything else you do physically and that naturally declines with age.
Yoga is a wonderful and almost perfect tool to help us age gracefully and well. But the yoga that is appropriate for a 30 year old body is totally different from the yoga that is appropriate for a body that is 70 and older. All of the movements and poses I teach are modified and adapted to be appropriate, safe and beneficial for older bodies. Because the needs and abilities of older bodies are different from younger bodies, some of the poses will naturally look quite different from “traditional” yoga poses. But the essence of yoga remains strong, and that is to practice movement in a way that is beneficial to the body, and to practice with awareness.
It’s a great joy and privilege to be able to share my love of yoga with others, and to be able to make a living doing something I love. For my students and the people who buy my dvd’s I am most grateful. Yoga has been a wonderful gift to my own life. I sincerely hope that yoga – or something else – will bring you closer to the life you most dearly wish for yourself, whatever that is.
Namaste,
Jane