Amazing Anusarayogini Elena Brower took time out from running her New York studio, Vira Yoga, being an Adidas yoga global trainer, and a mom, to share some life-lifting insights with Joy Yoga readers. Yay for us!
1. You teach Anusara yoga. Why this style, rather than another? Anusara has a fundamental focus on alignment, which is taught to help us gain access to our hearts. Simply put, when we are aligned well, there isn’t the need for too much rhetoric, and there is a lot of relevance to how we can compose ourselves in everyday life with confidence, ease, and elegance.
2. You’re a mom as well as a yoga teacher and studio owner. How do these co-exist for you? It’s a dance, really. Every day there is the necessity to remember that power in both realms, power is most authentically expressed in PARTNERSHIP. So with my son, I am always trying to make him my partner in everything we do. My students, the same; my business partner, staff, the same. The only way is to partner up, share the work of the moment, and express my gratitude.
3. Who inspires you? My parents. They gave me so much and asked for nothing (except my son!). My son, my teachers, my closest friends, and every student. As any teacher will tell you,we learn the most when we’re really watching our students and how they’re responding to what’s happening.
4. Can you share your favourite yoga-inspired stress buster? One full, unbridled, nourishing breath that opens your interior space and fills you with actual, factual, light. Light that surrounds your organs, fills your lungs and pelvis and extends out through your limbs.
5. If you could say just one thing to a class of 100 people, what would it be? Smile. (I almost said “Breathe” – but smiling covers breathing too. The minute we smile, we take a deep breath naturally).
