Tonight in Paris, after finishing my last day of travel teaching for 2015, Lydia and I exhaled deeply and decided to map all our teaching travel for the year just ending. Seeing it all in one image fills me with many emotions.
First and foremost, I feel gratitude for the fact that I can do what I do. When I took my first asana class at the New York Sivananda Center 1978, I could not have imagined how profoundly my life would be transformed. I wasn’t alone. Over the last four decades so many others have been touched by Yoga, the world has turned into a place where someone like me – who is profoundly unemployable in any other field – can travel the globe sharing these teachings with the sincere, dedicated groups of lifelong learners we call Yoga Educators.
So – in tribute to this amazing year of teaching, travel, learning, and connecting – I am going to give a shout out to all the folks who made it possible for me to spend 127 days of 2015 journeying more than 90,000 miles* to 26 cities, seven countries, and meet close to 5,000 students in my classes and workshops. It has truly been an honor and privilege to spend time with the amazing students they gathered in their diverse spaces around the world:
- Los Angeles, California – Larry Payne and his YogaRx Therapy training at LMU
- Winter Haven, Florida – Kerry Wilson at Inside Out Fitness
- Austin, Texas – Laura Forsyth and Lori McDougall at Yoga Yoga
- McCall, Idaho– Debra Murphy at Shanti Yoga Studio
- Sydney, Melbourne, Freehold, Australia – Michael de Manincor and Lisa Grauaug of Yoga Institute of Australia
- New York, New York – Renee LaRose, Alden Conant and the entire team at YJLive! Conferences
- Washington, D.C. – Rexx Samuell and his team at Buddha B. Yoga Studio
- Lambertville, New Jersey – Sue Elkind, Denise Orloff and Caroline Joan Peixoto at Dig Yoga
- Monroe, New York – Nicole Lewitan at Ananda Ashram
- Glasgow, Scotland – Mark Russell of Kridaka Yoga
- Minneapolis, Minnesota – Sarah Jane Wroblewski at the Yoga Center of Minneapolis (special shout-out to her wife Kim Bartmann for making us so welcome at a number of her retaurants)
- New York, New York – Everyone at the Breathing Project and all the amazing students who showed up for my “Transformation Through Touch” summer immersion
- Honolulu, Hawaii – Rich Girolami of Silk Bridge
- Madrid, Spain – Blanca San Roman of Dhara Yoga
- Vienna, Austria – Florian Reitlinger and Brigit Pöltl at the Yoga Zentrum Mödling
- Asheville, North Carolina – Stephanie Keach and Julia Albertson, Asheville Yoga Center
- Milano, Italy – Giulia Borioli of the Milano Yoga Festival, and my translator Vittoria Frua
- Encinitas, California – Monique Lonner of Soul of Yoga
- Cologne, Germany – Sonia Bach and her team at the yogaloft Cologne
- Paris, France – Alia M’Hamdi Bolt of AliaOM Yoga
We’re almost finished nailing down an equally exciting teaching schedule for 2016. As soon as dates are confirmed, they will appear on my Calendar Page. I will be starting off the year with my first-ever appearance at the San Francisco YJLive! event and would love to see you there!
Finally, Lydia and I would like to send a special thank you to my agent, Ava Taylor and her amazing team at YAMA Talent. Ava is an amazing partner, a great friend and a true trailblazer in the field of professional management for yoga talent and event production. She also showed us a great time in Cologne, Germany (photo evidence below).
* Lower numbers in the chart are as of December 12, and don’t reflect the days or mileage for our return trip to New York on December 15. The 39 cities on the chart are inflated since they count every time we returned home to New York. The actual number of cities we visited is 26.
