I am frequently asked "What is flow yoga?" "How is it different from hatha yoga?" I have been teaching flow yoga for 18 years, so my answer will vary from someone else’s answer. Yoga is a path of transformation, to be learned systematically, through meditation techniques, concentration techniques, breathing techniques, selfless service, devotional practices like chanting and praying, or through Yoga poses (hatha yoga). Most of us here in America learn it through this Hatha Yoga path. (Hatha yoga is a general term used to describe all the styles of yoga we do here in America: ashtanga, iyengar, anusara, kundalini, flow, power, etc). Flow yoga is a style of hatha yoga that I was drawn to immediately because of its fluid nature of linking movement with breath. Whether moving the body in and out of a pose, or just lifting the arm on the inhale and lowering the arm on the exhale, it made perfect sense to me to use the breath as the impetus for movement, rather than my thoughts. Yoga is, after all, a system designed to help us overcome the "monkey-mind": that very popular state of mind where rambling thoughts of the future and/or past just go on and on and on. This chain of rambling thoughts is said to lead to suffering, in many eastern traditions, including yoga. Yoga helps us to develop awareness of our thought patterns: even while doing some twisty yoga pose, we can still observe our thought patterns. Say you are sitting on the ground, stretching out the hips, and you notice the girl next to you has her face to the floor, and your face is far away from the floor. Here is where habitual thought patterns might creep in, like, "Oh my god, look at how flexible she is! I shouldn’t be doing yoga, I suck, I am too fat, too stiff, too neurotic, etc." What we don't realize at first is that these voices have been ricocheting around our heads for years, sometimes 20, 30 or 50! These kinds of negative thought patterns only stop us from growing spiritually, and especially stop us from becoming loving and kind humans, which is the ultimate goal of all spiritual traditions. However, once we realize we have these negative thought patterns, we can begin to recognize them, at first in yoga class, but later in life, at the store, or wherever. Once we start to see these patterns more clearly, then we can make the conscious choice to let them go and not continue to feed our thought energy into them. Eventually, the voices lessen and lessen, allowing more room in our thoughts for kind thoughts, generous thoughts, loving thoughts. With this understanding, yoga is really for everyone, regardless of body shape, size, flexibility, etc. It all really comes down to deep self-reflection and changing those parts of us that no longer are pure and true. I love to teach this philosophy while helping people out of pain through the yoga poses. Over the years, I have seen just about every ailment and injury, and have seen how yoga significantly or 100% fixes the problems! It is truly amazing what right effort can produce.

My own story is one example:

Stephanie received her first "wake up call" from God at the age of 20. She had dropped out of the University of California, Santa Barbara because of her questioning nature. She was questioning the purpose of a degree and wanting to know the deeper meanings of life. So she traveled: to Europe several times and around the US. She was living high in the Rockies when she broke her back in a car accident. It could have been fatal, no seat belt, snow storm, tumbling down a shear rocky cliff, broken glass, etc. Miraculously Stephanie limped away from the accident with only a fracture at T-12. Choosing self-healing rather than conventional medicine, she began practicing visualization, meditation, deep breathing and yoga postures. She thought she was just making it up, alone with her imagination and creative intuition. A friend gave her Light on Yoga and she realized it was yoga, and she was hooked. Only 3 months of rehab and she was pain free, doing backbends and everything!

She returned to her native Carmel, California and found Kali Ray in Santa Cruz. She also began intensive meditation trainings at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Both Kali's TriYoga influence and zazen transformed Stephanie's world. She replaced boredom with mindfulness, laziness with body awareness and judgment with acceptance. These changes inspired her to begin teaching at her local high school. This first year of intensive study, both yoga and Zen, laid the foundations for her development as a yoga student, zennie, and yoga teacher.

Craving the deeper philosophical aspects of Zen and Yoga, she returned to UCSB. She graduated with a BS in Eastern Religious Studies, where she studied the Upanishads and Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, as well as major Buddhist texts. She also taught Yoga at UCSB as well as the Santa Barbara Yoga Center. She wanted to teach philosophy to high school students. But that fell to the wayside as yoga's roots wrapped deeper around her heart.

Stephanie feels so blessed to have lived in southern California during the early 1990's, when Erich Schiffman, Rod Stryker, Sarah Powers and Bryan Kest were just ripening into their own glory. After years of vinyasa flow yoga, she entered Peter Sterios' class of Iyengar yoga. He was so gentle and playful, Iyengar yoga seemed an important compliment to her flow style. Then she studied with Rodney Yee. He challenged her relationship to asana in new and profound ways. These two men helped Steph to return to the foundation of the asana, with detail and precision. They have all been very strong role models for Stephanie, and continue to be. Anatomy began to take on new light and going to massage school seemed a completely natural companion to teaching yoga. It was there she met her husband Sunny and after a year, they were pregnant. Not wanting to raise a family in southern California, they moved east to Asheville, North Carolina.

Intending on a home birth, Stephanie got her second "wake-up call". This beautiful baby boy was stillborn. He died of a heart-attack in labor due to an enlarged heart. Even open-heart surgery wouldn't have saved him. Thanks to Zen training, yoga and Vipassana training, Stephanie and Sunny moved through this dark period by being completely present with the grief. They lovingly let go of their son whose heart was too big for humanity. Sunny named this first son, Tree, after which all his brothers are named after. Six months later they birthed a Yoga Center. One year later, they home-birthed Samson Oak Forest Keach. Three years later, they home-birthed Duncan Tyler Sequoia Keach, then another three years later they home-birthed Tobe Coyote-Willow Keach.

Stephanie teaches weekly at the Asheville Yoga Center. In addition to running several teacher training and certification programs a year, she also travels around the US and internationally conducting workshops and trainings. She has produced the Flow Yoga video series. With the loving support of her beloved husband Sunny, motherhood is her biggest and best yoga practice.

www.stephaniekeach.com