Why you should consider private yoga or meditation instruction
Learning yoga or meditation in a one-on-one setting places your learning, your questions, your needs as well as your capacities and any physical limitations at the center of a relationship with an experienced and qualified teacher. You develop your practice with your aspirations as the focus of every meeting. Together, we look at your intention for choosing yoga and develop a program that addresses that intention. Your purpose might be to re-gain the capacity to move with ease, balance, and strength. Or you might be invested in avoiding more invasive medical procedures by shoring up that same capacity for strength and support around compromised joints.
You might not know up front (but probably suspect) that the decision to take up a yoga practice will benefit you beyond your physicality. Through a sustained and committed practice, one that invites attention to breath as well as body, you broaden your awareness of that inherent unity. When our minds can rest in their focus on the unity of body and breath, we become more at “home” in our selves. This insight can be the sole purpose of your yoga or meditation practice and is the essence of yoga’s ability to reduce stress.
Private Meditation Instruction
These sessions are shorter (typically 30-45 minutes) and priced at a budget-friendly rate for individuals or groups.
Meditation is an invaluable piece of an embodied practice. We take the witnessing mind we’ve developed through our physical practice, combined with a relaxed focus on the breath from a comfortable seated or lying down position. From there we practice entraining attention to return over and over again to simply being in the moment.
Meditation helps to lay bare the mind’s habits and its attachments to specific feeling states and distractions which are often the source of anxiety and stress (which can then become lodged in the body). In this uncovering we can come to a deeper understanding of ourselves that arises out of simple, non-judgmental observation, unencumbered by the application of our “rationality,” or need to explain things to ourselves. Reflection on (rather than analysis of) what comes up while sitting is a humble acknowledgement of our capacity for compassion, for ourselves and others.
You can read more about my experience and teaching philosophies on this page.
Additional information
Private yoga or meditation instruction can take place in your home or office.
If we decide to work together in your home, you should clear a comfortable, clean, airy, uncluttered space that will accommodate two yoga mats. The space should be free of distractions such as pets, people, traffic and telephones for the duration of our session.
Group Instruction/Corporate:
CANCELLATION POLICY
I do not have a formal cancellation policy as such. I do ask that you please notify me the day before of any need or intention to miss our scheduled appointment.
If something comes up and you have to cancel on the day of our appointment without a reschedule to take place 1) before your next weekly or bi-weekly session or 2) before the end of your pre-paid package of classes, please think of my time and if your circumstances allow, compensate me at the level you see fit. Financial situations are widely varying, which is why I’ve hesitated to institute anything formal, or that would inhibit your commitment to your practice and our ongoing work together. I do my best to honor our agreed upon schedule and ask that we both respect the “this is my livelihood” aspect of our arrangement. (I’d be a bad business person not to, right?) The amount doesn’t matter to me. In the long run, it’s about establishing routine and sticking to it so that I don’t have to have a formal policy.
Again, there is a very narrow window for considering compensation for canceling: last-minute and without a reschedule. I’m not out to make money on last minute emergencies. A cancellation “fee” to me is symbolic of the importance of our mutual commitment. In the end, it’s there so that it never has to be applied.