Weekend with Desiree Rumbaugh

We just got home from a full weekend of workshops in Ashland with the fantastic Anusara yogini, and our friend, Desiree Rumbaugh. We've been studying with Desiree since 2003 and it's so fun to see what cool stuff she comes up with. She has a great flair for creativity and is always inventing new ways to get the alignment across and to help people deepen their practice.

Originally, I was just planning to attend 3 of the 5 classes, and Patrick just 1, but we were having such a great time, we stayed to assist the Therapeutics class and then took the last arm balance class as well. It was awesome to assist as many people were in pain or having questions and we loved the opportunity to help. It was also sweet the way Desiree honored us as certified teachers and gave us lots of kudos and support and even promoted our upcoming trainings! She really turned a lot of people on to Anusara Yoga in Ashland so many of them are excited to join our upcoming Immersions there and in Arcata!

This time, I was quite impressed that after the first 2 classes, all the neck tension I'd been having from the computer and the car drive had vanished, just through intense focus and alignment in back bends, shoulder and head stand. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised because the principles really do work when we apply them deeply and sometimes it takes an intensive workshop like that to get in deeper than we normally do at home.

So I learned lots of new tricks and was reminded of many older tricks I'd learned from her which I'm excited to share with my students in classes this week. Desiree has a great gift of keeping the yoga experience real, authentic, and yet light and accessible to everyone. She makes it fun and playful and like a big game that we all want to play. And she just kept me laughing! She would crack jokes in class and crack herself up, cackling out loud and just her laugh and smile would get the rest of us going. Such a bright spirit she is.

We are super lucky to have her coming to Arcata October 7 - 9!!! Don't miss it! It's been since 2007 since she taught here and it could be a long time til she returns! Check our website for more info on this.