Kate Taylor's Yoga Site

I still haven't taken the time to write anything up about our amazing visit to Yogaville, DC, or the Qigong conference, but hope to get to that soon. For now, though a few words about an amazing teacher.

While we were at the Qigong conference and trying to decide where to visit next, I revisited a listing for an Ashtanga workshop at Yoga Squared in Philadelphia, which was starting the day after we were scheduled to leave Maryland. When I had read about David Keil's workshop months earlier I had decided that taking 5 days out of our trip to stay in Philly was not a good idea. I was torn, though, because is an expert in anatomy and a certified Ashtanga teacher, so I knew I might be missing out on a chance to get some really detailed instruction on some of the poses that are the most challenging for me. Lucky for me, Brad thought it was a good idea and we decided to make an extended detour through the city of brotherly love.

The "workshop" was really five days of Mysore practice - which is basically what I had done in India - you show up at your allotted time and do your practice and the teacher adjusts/helps as needed. The difference between this experience and India was that I got to ask lots of questions and have a dialog with David about my struggle in some of the poses. In India, practice, self-observation, and a few adjustments from the teacher in your terminal pose are the mode of learning. While I learned a lot from that method, and my practice would not be the same without having that experience, I have been struggling of late with finding ease in some of the poses. And doing them 100's of times had not yet revealed the "secrets" of these poses to me.

While I can't say David revealed any "secrets," he did take the time to identify and explain the limitations in my hips and shoulders and show me how to work on opening them up in each of the poses so that the most challenging poses for me (like backbends) might one day come more easily. I also bought and watched his amazing Yoganatomy DVD. While I knew some of the information from my teacher training, it was a great refresher and went into more depth on some issues than I had learned before. I highly recommend it if you are interested in understanding how the human musculo-skeletal system works in relation to your yoga practice.

I can't say enoough good things about David as a teacher - he is extremely knowledgable, patient, good humored, and he knows how to push you to your limits and when to back off. He will be coming to Savannah in March and I am looking forward to learning even more from this gifted teacher.