wanderlust or bust

the countdown begins!* we leave thursday and return to stratton mountain, VT, for our second time wandering and lusting.

i'm excited to not be a newbie. to return to this wonderful festival as a practicing yogi, a teacher with almost a full year under my belt, a person who has pushed her practice further than she ever thought she could. my mom and i will walk onto that mountain top with all of the confidence in the world, because this time, we will have a map. this time, we will have our schedules. and this year, we will know where to park :)

last year was definitely a learning experience, as most adventures tend to be. yoga wasn't the only challenging part- figuring out where to go, getting lost between classes, running from tent to tent so you could get your mat closer to Rolf Gates than the hundreds of other yogis- was all very overwhelming.

i'm excited to see my mom try new poses and find out how far she can push her own practice. to spend time just relaxing, talking, and trying new things with her.

i'm excited to be a wanderlust sophomore. i wont be as cocky as a junior or senior and walk around like i own the place, but i might just have the balls to strike up a conversation with a couple of teachers that inspire me, like Seane Corne and MC Yogi.

i'm nervous AND excited to take the amazing classes i got into this year. handstands? paddleboard yoga?!? YES PLEASE.

i promise lots of photos and a recap that puts last year's recap to shame. wanderlust or bust- here we come!


*technically, i've been counting down since the day we got back last year...

peep this

so i wanted to give a little peek into what was, and hopefully will be again, my weekly sunday yoga class.

after about a year of training with my yogi teacher, i taught my first class in september of 2012 to a pretty decent-sized intermediate group. susan had built up a following and most of them were kind enough to give me a chance :)

i made a playlist that looked something like this:
eyes- rogue wave
sunrise sunset- we are trees
skinny love- bon iver
the thoughts that give me the creeps- hello goodbye
vcr- xx
whole love- wilco
fidelity- regina spektor
heart it races- dr. dog
animal- miike snow
prophets- a.c. newman
tightrope- yeasayer
if there's love- citizen cope
dead sea- the lumineers
how to love- lil wayne
amazing eyes- good old war
the wooden sky- the wooden sky
*(fyi-all of my yoga class playlists are available on my spotify account)

i created a formula that would be 'my style'- a frankenstein-ian creation of all of the classes i had ever taken and loved. i would take barre, pilates, and yoga classes throughout the week and jot down notes if i liked something different that the teacher did. then i would go home and do p90x, or insanity, and incorporate moves from those programs, as well (sphinx push-ups, anyone?). when asked, i called it ashtanga vinyasa, but i was later told that my students referred to it as 'katie's yoga bootcamp' :) i would pick one or two peak poses in the same sort of category (hip-opener, arm balance, back bend, etc...) and build a class that would prepare them for those poses. starting out slow with stretches and small balance postures, moving quickly into sun salutations and vinyasas, pausing in between the flow to focus on a pose that would give them the confidence to fly later on. i wasn't sure if this was how to teach, but it felt right. after a few weeks, my students started telling me that i not only prepared them physically, but mentally for those challenging poses, most of which they had never been able to get into :) (did i mention how much i loved my yogis?)

i tried to come up with my signature closing (you know that thing that teachers say at the end of their class and it always sounds so effortless and all encompassing when they say it? like they just summed up everything you were thinking, and everything the person next to you was thinking, and now you can go in peace and just smile for the rest of the day...?). my teacher used to say the most beautiful phrase that began with 'may all beings be happy', and immediately i would go to a place of quiet content. after my first class ended, i looked out at my students and just said the first thing that came to mind- thank your body for what it's done for you today and thank you for allowing me to practice with you. namaste. it's really very simple, but now that i think about it, it's the core of ahimsa. be nice to yourself. thank you for being nice to me. go in light :)

yea we up, up, up in the clouds

so picture this: yoga & live music. on a mountain top. in vermont. for 3 straight days.

that, my friends, is what they call wanderlust, and the only way to describe this crazy magical festival is life-changing. i documented the entire trip with photos and notes so that i could share it with you guys, but my advice is to just do yourself a favor and go next year.

here is my attempt at the first in a 3-part recap series. i'm separating these parts by the days that we attended, starting with numero uno.

Day 1:
Class Schedule
Ganesh, Remover of Obstacles
Performed by MC Yogi

Vinyasa Forever
Taught by Schuyler Grant
(co-creator of wanderlust)

Air: Arm Balances that Defy Gravity
Taught by Desiree Rumbaugh
with live music by Todd Boston  





my mom and i arrived at stratton mountain in vermont at 9:00 am on friday morning with way too many bags. we weren't exactly sure what to expect, so we brought snacks, a different outfit for every class (just in case), and 4 yoga mats. we went straight into the little village at the base of the mountain to register for the classes that we had already signed up for weeks prior to our arrival. we had each purchased the 'seeker package', which meant, for $500 (not including our room and food) we had unlimited access to all of the entertainment, live concerts and were able to attend up to 3 classes a day (the most that's allowed). we chose 2 classes a day to take together and then 1 that we would do on our own.

our first class that morning was located on top of a small mountain, in a massive tent known as saddlespan. the front stage and first few rows were covered by the tent, but the back of the class was wide open to the sun. over 150 people were signed up for the class, so we squeezed our mats together in order to make room. mc yogi introduced himself and his wife, amanda giocomini, and they began by telling us the story of ganesh, the lord of success and destroyer of evils and obstacles. he is also worshipped as the god of education, knowledge, wisdom and wealth. mc yogi began rapping while his wife instructed us through a fast paced vinyasa series, which peaked in several 'group positions'. bending forward in warrior 3, we were told to reach our arms to the left and to the right and link arms with our neighbors. you would think that we would only be as strong as our weakest link and go down like human dominos, but for some reason, it gave us an incredibly strong base and we maintained the pose for a few minutes.

mc yogi's style was full of energy and humor, just how i like my instructors. when he played buddhist monk chants, he would shout out "sing along if you know the words!"and when someone sneezed, he would reply "ganeshu". after about an hour of sequences, he cranked up the tunes and told us to throw our hands in the air and start jumping like we were at a concert. immediately, the tent was full of people running around, laughing, clapping and jumping to the music, until we eventually spilled outside onto the mountain top where the celebration continued. i dont know how long it went on for or which songs were played, but i remember that when it stopped, and we stepped back onto our mats, a strange feeling came over me. at first, i felt dizzy, like when you stand up too fast and the blood rushes to your head and you almost fall over and the world gets a little blurry for a few seconds... and then that feeling was followed by this strange urge to cry (which i managed to refrain from, fyi), and then i realized i was smiling. and i looked over at my mom and she was too. both of us, with these huge, cheshire grins, which had spread across our faces...and we were giddy, even during the chant that followed, while mc yogi beat boxed (om gam ganapatayae namaha). i remember thinking, if this is what wanderlust is, i never want to leave. my teacher, susan, would later refer to this as my yoga break through... i just couldn't stop smiling.

and then it continued throughout the day...

we spent our afternoon with the amazing schuyler grant. holy cow, what a difference from our morning class.

over a hundred of us gathered in a large room inside the lodge and we listened to her as she discussed correct posture and common mistakes that yogis make. then we stepped onto our mats and went through a blur of a vinyasa as schuyler chanted poses to us in a poetic rhythm, "updogdowndoginhalexhalechattarungaagain". she flowed between our mats, adjusting us, literally and figuratively, as she passed. if i felt her looking at my right thigh, i would move it, just in case she was thinking, 'why the hell is that girl's right thigh like that?'. there was something about her that made me feel like i needed to do better. she taught us how to protect our shoulders by loosening our trap muscles when we are holding our hands above our heads. there is this belief that we need to be rigid and pull our arms out of the sockets to reach perfection, but that's not the case. from the shoulder to the elbow, our arms should be relaxed and in their sockets, but from the elbow up through the hands is where we really lengthen. she taught us how to protect our knees and watch for hyper-extending, which is very common for yogis. when we are standing in balance poses, we shouldn't lock our knees- there should be a slight micro-bend. the strength and the base comes from tightening your quads up and into place. try it. it's genius.

we also spent a serious amount of time on alignment- she taught us how hips need to be tucked under and slightly forward for both warrior 1 and 2. this prepped us for our saturday class with  natasha rizopoulos, who would take these instructions even further (but ill get to that later). overall, i really learned a lot from schuyler, and that one class with her has definitely improved my form.

my third and final class of the day was arm balances. at this point, i was already exhausted and completely running on excitement because, as you already know, i love me some arm balances. my mom opted out of this class, so i headed back to the saddlespan tent, where i had had my yoga break through earlier that morning. again, over a hundred people attended, but looking around the room this time, i noticed more men scattered about. for the first time that day, i started to get a little nervous- maybe i shouldnt have signed up for an intermediate/advanced class like this. maybe everyone here can do handstands. maybe they are all looking at me and can tell that i cant. paranoid much? it was strange to be so uncomfortable, because yoga is usually the one place where i feel like i can be myself. but our teacher, desiree rumbaugh, immediately put me at ease with her bubbly personality and sweet sense of humor. she climbed on stage, explaining how arm balances should technically be easy because, in actuality, our divine selves want to fight the gravitational pull and float away, so if we can just let that happen, then boom, crow pose will follow. she made everything sound so simple, as she twisted her body into crazy shapes and let her legs float up into the air- then she would pause, challenge all the boys by shouting "you're not gonna let a girl show you up, are ya?", come back down and say "now you try". so we did.

we tried crow and crane, side crane and dragonfly, 8 limbs, firefly... every arm balance pose you can think of... i was able to successfully hold all of them with her helpful cues and techniques, but i was most psyched about dragonfly. i wanted to do it again and again, but she interrupted our class and asked "how many of you are perfectionists?". i looked around the room and noticed almost every single person had their hand raised (mind, included)... she continued, telling us that most yogi's are. we strive for perfection and thats the driving force behind arm balance poses. wanting to get it just right, but the truth is, we never will. desiree said thats the beauty and curse of yoga- perfection doesn't exist. poses are different for everyone and technically there is no right or wrong way. i found that really interesting because over the next 3 days, i would be told to tuck my hips under, then no, point them out, straighten my back, but with a slight curve, turn 45 degrees to the front while staying parallel to the side...each instructor had their own cues for how to "correctly" find my way into a pose. of course, there are better ways to prevent injuries, to get the most out of your practice, and to cater to your own body, but it was a real 'ah ha' moment for me. and the best part about this class? i learned a bunch of new party tricks, like this one... :)

xo