What makes for a transformative yoga class?

Written By Angela Cerkevich

I’ve spent thousands of hours on my yoga mat — alone at home, taking class, teaching class. And while all of those practices have left an imprint on my life, not everyone has been super remarkable.

But many have.

After nearly 20 years of practicing yoga, I still carry with me the feeling of some of the most transformative yoga classes I’ve ever taken & taught.

Have you ever experienced an unforgettable feeling on your yoga mat?

Maybe it’s a heart-opening, tear-inducing backbend, when you’re least expecting it.

Maybe it’s the realization that you’ve been completely swept up in the flow and, for at a least few moments, you’ve left behind the stresses & busy-ness of your daily life.

Maybe it’s that moment in savasana when you feel completely at home in yourself.

Or it’s emerging from a yoga class, having finally figured out the answer to a problem that has been nagging you for a while — without having actually spent any time worrying about it or thinking about it during class.

What makes for a yoga experience like this?

What stands out for me when I look back on my own transformative yoga classes isn’t so much… the pose we were doing, the song that was playing, or anything else that happened on that day.

It’s the quiet aspects I remember most: the surge of an emotion, the subtle shift of a feeling state, the way the sunlight danced across my mat, the gentle, yet sturdy touch of a hand offered in a simple child’s pose assist, the feeling of being seen & noticed, yet given space to have the experience I needed to have, to learn the lesson on my own.

At the helm of every transformative experience was a yoga teacher who could all at once offer her deep knowledge (from the anatomy to the energetics to the alignment to the history of yoga) with her own embodied experience of the practice & offer it to the class as shared wisdom of an ancient, universal practice brought to life in that particular moment & place.

These are the teachers who can create safe space, an authentic offering, and still leave room for their students to learn at their own pace and have the exact experience they need to have — all without ego, dogma, or attachment to a specific outcome.

If that sounds like the kind of teacher you want to be, Teaching from the Heart was designed with you in mind.

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Whether you are already teaching yoga or simply want to share it with your friends, family, and colleagues, this program will give you the tools you need & the support for your own transformation into a yogi who can practice & teach from the heart.

Teaching from the Heart will help you create transformative yoga experiences for yourself & others.

To learn more about Teaching from the Heart & apply today - read on here.

We’d love for you to join us & our early bird pricing ends November 1.

xo Cath & Sam

Angela Cerkevich

Angela is a psychotherapist and yoga instructor in the DC area. She combines her training in clinical psychology with her years of experience teaching yoga to facilitate wellbeing in both body and mind. Angela sees individuals and couples for traditional psychotherapy, yoga therapy, Thai Yoga Bodywork, and meditation. She teaches both asana and meditation classes. Angela also facilitates yoga workshops that are geared towards mood management and cover topics such as anxiety, insomnia, and depression. Angela is certified in Life-force Yoga™ for mood management and Restorative Yoga™. She has also trained extensively in Yoga Nidra/iREST™ and in Trauma-Sensitive yoga. In an effort to utilize yoga to make a real - world impact in peace, reconciliation and healing from life’s traumas, Angela created the non-profit organization, Anahata International. The organization facilitates self-healing of individuals and communities affected by trauma, by teaching strategies for recovery using yoga and meditation. Anahata International has facilitated projects in Rwanda, The West Bank, and Washington DC. Angela currently offers yoga to the general public at Flow Yoga Center where she helped to establish the therapeutic yoga program.

Angela's teaching style: Angela’s special blend of yoga and mindfulness, results in increased awareness and inner calm. Her asana classes emphasize alignment and subtle energetic components to facilitate a balanced mood and physical wellbeing. She specializes in mingling challenging asana with mindfulness practices. In her meditation classes, she utilizes deeply restorative yoga nidra and breathing practices to sooth the nervous system and address unconscious mental habits that produce tension and discomfort.

For more information on Angela, please see her website, www.DrCerkevich.com.

Angela's teaching style: Angela’s special blend of yoga and mindfulness, results in increased awareness and inner calm. Her asana classes emphasize alignment and subtle energetic components to facilitate a balanced mood and physical wellbeing. She specializes in mingling challenging asana with mindfulness practices. In her meditation classes, she utilizes deeply restorative yoga nidra and breathing practices to sooth the nervous system and address unconscious mental habits that produce tension and discomfort.

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