YOGA
All Good Things Must Come To An End
As many of you already know, this is my last year teaching yoga. 2023 marks the yoga studio's 25th year and my 22nd year teaching, which feels like the right time to go out.
I still enjoy teaching yoga, but there are only so many hours in a day, and after 20+ years, I am ready to use some of those hours to enjoy other aspects of my life.
I want to say thank you to all of the students over the past 25 years that have entrusted us with their physical and mental health and well-being. Huge thank you to all of our past teachers who we owe much of the studio's success to - without you all I would not have been able to go back to school and pursue my doctorate degree and start my physical therapy practice, so much gratitude to you all – Libbi, Michelle, Elizabeth, Valerie, Lynn, Melody, Nancy R, Michele, Anna, Carol, Lisa, Denise, Kathleen.
Speaking of teachers, I also want to thank my own yoga teachers, who graciously shared their knowledge and expertise and inspired me to practice practice practice. My mentor teachers are all still teaching - Elise Miller, Jaki Nett, Janet MacLeod, Dean Lerner, Jo Zukovich.
Most of all I want to thank my mom, Nancy, who never really intended to start a yoga studio. She just enjoyed yoga and found it helpful for herself, so she started Fresno's first yoga studio in 1998 to help others with stress relief. My life would have been completely different if she hadn't gifted me a month of Iyengar yoga when I was living in San Diego working a stressful job. Iyengar yoga helped calm my anxiety and teaching yoga helped me find my voice and gain self-confidence. Thank you, Mom, for not only introducing me to yoga, but also for creating a wonderful community of yoga folks.
And that’s probably what I will miss most – seeing the students every week and getting to witness their A-ha! moments. Watching a video is not the same, but the videos I made during the first months of pandemic are all still on YouTube, but unfortunately there are now ads in the middle of the videos. So my last gift to the students is that I have also uploaded the videos on Vimeo, which is ad-free and free to watch. www.vimeo.com/channels/figgardenyoga
Use them as you like, and I wish you all much health and happiness for the future.
Namaste,
Audrey