Yoga for Vitality & Strength

What You Will Learn

This class will be challenging, but it is not about “getting a workout.” This class is about intelligently-applied effort that involves not only the body, but also staying connected to the breath and paying close attention to what we are doing, how we are moving, acting, and responding to the challenges offered. Endurance and energy will be required, but can we use just enough to be able to achieve the needed goal/effect while allowing all the ease that is possible to also be there.

As we advance in this class and in this practice, we move slowly and intentionally. Over time, students will have a very long breath and breath capacity – and with it, incredible capacity for attention and steadiness of mind. With the breath comes internal awareness of the body, how to channel the strength of the spine, and the deepest resources of our muscular body. We will be able to apply this awareness to our āsana practice and our life.

This class will help people with proprioceptive awareness which is one of the amazing things that comes from a breath-centered Yoga class where we have the space and time to feel what is happening in the body and system. Out of regular participation in the class, you will gain endurance, increased breath capacity, attention, focus, antidote to scattered mind, improved capacity for attention and steadiness of body, mind, and breath.

How to Prepare for an Online Yoga Class

• You’ll need room to stand and reach your hands above your head and to stretch out on the floor with arms above your head as well as arms straight out to the side
• Set up your laptop, tablet or another webcam-enabled device so that most of you can be seen standing, seated, or lying down. Desk-height is good for standing, the seat of a chair is good for seated/lying.
• Choose a space where you’ll be able to practice with the fewest interruptions
• Set aside or turn off your cell phone for the hour
• It may be helpful to have handy a Yoga mat, blanket, block, book, and short stool or chair
• If you’d like to have a candle or a special item to mark the beginning and end of class for yourself, you are welcome to have that nearby as well.

Your Instructor

Amanda took her first yoga class in 2001 and has been practicing ever since. After moving from Seattle to Austin in 2010, she enrolled in a hatha yoga teacher-training program and immediately began teaching yoga full-time. Amanda met her mentor, Chase Bossart in 2011. At this time, her yoga practice took a turn toward a more gentle and therapeutic approach and her yoga study expanded to embrace the broader teachings of yoga.

Amanda’s teaching style is down-to-earth, clear and practical.  She candidly relates yogic concepts to life experiences. In this way, yoga practice becomes a deeply personal journey and a means to live a fulfilling and purposeful life.

Amanda is a graduate of the YATNA yoga therapy program and an IAYT-certified yoga therapist. She offers individual yoga therapy to students in Austin, TX and online. Amanda is a mentor to yoga therapy students in YogaWell and Yoga Yoga programs, and offers lectures and classes in her local and online community. When Amanda isn’t teaching, you can find her hanging out with her awesome family, gardening, painting, or singing karaoke, usually out of tune.