Posts In: integrity

Yoga One’s month in review, in response to Covid-19.

by Laura McCorry

Just last month (although it feels like eons ago!) the Yoga One team was full-steam ahead getting ready to open our new Mission Hills location  We were busy teaching a full schedule of classes at our Downtown location, half way through our Winter/Spring, 8 weekend 200 Hour Teacher Training Course,and leading classes at multiple off-site corporate locations. 

Our teachers were sharing the joys and benefits of yoga with students who walked into our studio off the street, with students who had never practiced yoga before, with students who popped into an empty conference room for a lunch-time practice, with students who have been building their yoga practice for years – all of whom trust Yoga One to guide them with depth of knowledge, skill, heart, integrity, and compassion.

Enter Covid-19. California and many other states rushed to issue stay-at-home orders and the world as we knew it was turned upside down. So many more people were working from home. Schools were closed indefinitely. Businesses scrambled to put protective measures in place, some closed their doors, and still others decided to offer their services online.

Our Downtown studio, a place that since 2002 has been an oasis that admits the city, a h-OM-e way from home for so many, was (for the moment) no longer a place we could congregate. We have long believed that sharing the practice of yoga was not just good for the individual, but good for the community.

How could we continue to offer yoga to help people live healthy and happy lives and to foster connection between individuals, building community, right now when people need it the most?

In just two days, we pulled together with staff and students to transition all of our classes online. Questions regarding Zoom ID#s were now as common as namaste. Because our online classes are live and interactive, they have the same feel as practicing in the studio. Teachers and students greet each other in real time. Teachers can watch their students’ alignment and provide feedback and encouragement. Soon we had our groove on and it was inspiring to see everyone really utilizing their yoga practice, way beyond the physical asana –

Holly Wright and David Lloyd got their cat Zimbo to attend classes online!

Allison Page roped her sister Caroline into rolling out her mat regularly next to her.

And the graduates of the Yoga One Teacher Training Winter/Spring 200 Hour course stayed after class for a Catch-Up Party.

It’s been amazing to see the outpouring of love and support from within our community during these challenging times. Small businesses everywhere are hurting right now. When you shop or support a small business like Yoga One, you’re taking one step forward towards the kind of world we all hope to emerge from isolation to find. (Tweet that)

In recent days, we’ve been reviewing our class recordings, trying to determine how and when we might be able to offer them for a streaming service – so students could access quality yoga instruction whenever is most convenient for them. 

What we’ve found is not just hour-long yoga classes: We’ve seen our whole community encouraging each other, sharing updates about their families, offering each other blessings and messages of hope, checking in on teachers and students and neighbors alike. Despite the upset of Covid-19, we have found each other and forged a real, human connection through the portal of the internet.

Our community has adapted and our connection is intact and strong. Yoga means union, or to yoke together. Thank you (yes, you!) for showing us through your presence and your support that we really are all in this together.

Laura McCorry
Contributing Writer

Yoga and Laura had an on-again-off-again relationship from 2004 until 2009 when they decided to move in together and there’s been no looking back since. Passionate about both yoga and writing, Laura loves to introduce others to the joys and benefits of yoga and healthy living.

Contact: laura(AT)yogaonesandiego(DOT)com

Thank you to each and every reader and student of Yoga One, both online and in person, and we especially love it when those two worlds overlap!

We choose our posts, our writers, and our content with care because we believe that our online presence should reflect the same values we share through our San Diego yoga studio – we value integrity, we are committed to sharing knowledge, and we believe helping the individual live a happier and healthier life leads to happier and healthier communities.

Thank YOU (yes, you!) for being a part of the Yoga One Family!

To celebrate, here’s a round-up of our all-time top 8 posts. Enjoy!

8. Confessions of a Yoga Teacher-Military Spouse
7. 5 Yoga Poses for Your 8-to-5
6. The Potency of Backbends and Breath
5. Top Ten Yoga Myths: Part Two
4. The Power of Intention
3. Yoga Playlist from Amy Freeman
2. Top Ten Yoga Myths: Part One

and appropriately, the number 1 post on our site:
1. The Benefits of Yoga

by Monique Minahan

We all wear our stories in some way or another, don’t we? They make us who we are (and sometimes keep us from becoming who we can be if we let them define us too narrowly.)

I started making what I call “Life Malas” because each marker is placed for a life event. I used yellow jade for manipura chakra (solar plexus), green jade for anahata chakra (heart), green ruby zoisite for sahasrara chakra (crown), and a spiral shell I found on the beach because it feels like home.

I made this one for me, so I placed the green jade marker beads at the times when my life and heart were busted open. Marker 1 is at 25, the age I was when Nathan died. Marker 2 is at 37, when my baby was born. Marker 3 is at 98, the age of my great-grandmother, born in 1917, who is breathing her last breaths this year.

Stringing the beads under the darkness of a new moon, it occurred to me that at one of these beads I will pass away myself (and that this life is not a dress rehearsal, so I’ve got to live it right the first time.)

There are 108 beads in a mala, and if I get to see bead 98 like my grandma, I’ll count myself very lucky. I’ll still count myself lucky to see 39 this month.

I made this mala necklace to remind me that both loss and life are part of the same cycle. They coexist beautifully if I let them, and if I practice embracing both rather than inviting one and rejecting the other, I get to experience the full depth of being human instead of just skimming the surface.

My life mala is an outward representation of the integrity, cohesiveness and beauty that emerges when I allow every experience to support the next one. Broken or fragmented as they appear at times, when I view them all together they form this fragile but beautiful thing called life.

Monique Minahan
Contributing Writer

Mo is a writer and yoga teacher who believes in peace over happiness and love over fear. She likes to set her sights high and then take small steps to get there. You’ll find her walking the dirt path behind her house with her little fluffy dog, practicing walking her talk by keeping her head high and her heart open. 

Read more from Monique on her blog, mindfulmo.com