By: Christine Russell, 889 co-founder
With a burst of excitement, I proudly, humbly, excitedly, gratefully, authentically, lovingly am sharing with you the INAUGURAL launch of the 889 Living Yoga Program.
So what is this Living Yoga Program?
The 889 Living Yoga Program is program for YOGIS - students, teachers, gurus - to inspire and empower you to go inside to access and cultivate beauty within you through studying yoga and yourself: from roots to current form.
Our mission is to deepen your knowledge of the roots of yoga through local and international expert faculty, ongoing mentorship and support through the 889 Yoga community.
We have developed an extraordinarily unique program in that it is highly customizable to your interests and lifestyle (read: your time!). If you are ready for a 200-hour super-duper intensive program to ground and illuminate your practice and prepare you for even further study, we have created a 200-hour Yoga Alliance certified teaching certification.
From this 200-hour Living Yoga Program we have also created seven Living Yoga Modules - each derived from the core content of our 200 hour program to give you a deep dive into a specific topic of your interest. Hand pick for yourself from:
Body of Yoga: An Introduction to Anatomy with Osteopath yogini Riki Richter (10 hours)
Everyday Nectar: Ayurveda in Everyday Life with Ayurveda GURU and long-time 889 dear friend Matthew Remski (30 hours)
Prana Flow Yoga: Embodying the Flow with Simon Park, the “Flying Nomad” and one of the most amazing human beings joining us from Shiva Rea’s Prana Flow camp in the USA (35 hours)
Prana Flow Yoga: Energetic Alignment also with Simon based on Shiva’s teachings (30 hours)
Sanskrit + Chanting: An Introduction with Marla Joy, much-loved teacher at 889 and internationally celebrated yogi, musical artist and sanskrit scholar (10 hours)
Transformation through Restoration: Restorative Yoga also with the lovely Marla (10 hours)
Yoga Philosophy 2.0 with Scott Petrie, a long-time, loved teacher at 889 since before we opened our doors (30 hours)
These Living Yoga Modules we designed as smaller, more manageable mini bites for yoga students and teachers to gain profound insights in a smaller amount of time, in an area of specific interest.
Then we have two more outstanding faculty: our very own Nicky Poole, 889′s inspiring goddess Yoga Community Leader and Josh Cohen, Meditation guru (Sorry to those of you who don’t take the 200-hour program, you will miss out on the teachings of Nicky and Josh!). Nicky will be teaching several hours of the 200-hour program (The Art of Teaching, Teaching Beginners, Chakras, etc, etc), as well as assisting Simon. We also have Josh Cohen who will be leading us through Mindfulness Meditation from the vipassana tradition. Bringing mindful meditation into this program was essential for me as it is a foundational practice so core to my own values and those my sister and I have brought to 889 and which have been the foundation upon which the community and business has been built. Other programming unique to the 200-hour program includes Matthew and Scott who have also teamed up to offer a unique-to-889 “Yoga + Community” program, Pedagogy with Matthew, and the business of yoga and being an ‘innerpreneur’ with Nicky and myself chiming in.
This program has been developed by Nicky Poole and myself (in a much smaller capacity), with Nicky as the leader and Program Director. Nicky wrote a great blog post on the program today. Read it. This whole idea first came up when Nicky said to Emily and I not so long ago, “It’s my dream to one day create a huge yoga program packed with knowledge and academia, and vinyasa flow at 889 - way more than a teacher training.” To which I said, “So, why don’t we do it?” To give you context - this conversation was in the late fall. Look at what she has beautifully manifested for our community in such a short time.
When we sat down and started talking about this program a short impromptu meeting turned quickly into a half day. It was one of those meetings when you are feeding off each other’s words, you are sitting on the edge of your seat, eyes are wide open, notes are furiously scribbled, and you keep hearing, “and then we could….”, “and then….”, “and then….”. Do you know what I’m talking about? The energy with which I write this blog is the same very energy which at the genesis of the program, planted the seeds of the program, and have developed every single little detail thought about with care and compassion to create an extraordinary program for our thriving community [I have shivers].
We decided that the time was now - our community is ready for a big, juicy, yoga program balancing asana and academia. May I add, it is not for the faint of heart!
What does our 889 community want, we asked ourselves? In mindfully contemplating our beautiful community of yogis, Nicky and I knew that what our yogis would want would be a program at 889 to extend our learning; a program to access deeper parts of ourselves, to inspire and empower us in our everyday life through the tools we learn in yoga. The real stuff. A program to guide our relationships: to our bodies, to our minds, to our emotions, to our intellect, to our hearts, to our spirits, to the present.
We sought out to build an intensive program that suited our yogi’s lifestyles; one that we could do without quitting our jobs, or ignoring our loved ones for long periods of time, or that required us to travel to some far off land to learn. A program that we could complete intensely, but not too intensely so as to soak in the information over five months, or to complete at ease, at our own speed in smaller chunks. A program that would inspire our own teachers and team to make yoga even more a part of their own beings. A program that would inspire our yogis to live yoga, not just do yoga. A program that would have local teachers to help ground us in our learning amidst our everyday life so that we can practice and apply what we are learning to our “right here, right now” in our everyday lives (Scott, that’s still one of my favourite meditation mantras you taught Emily and I many, many years ago! It’s such an honour to have you leading a huge part of this program). A program that you can do with your friend or your spouse, or on your own. An opportunity to immerse yourself in high-quality learning to gain real, meaningful knowledge for your life. And friendships: a chance to meet new yogi friends. A chance to focus; we are so inundated today with things coming at us so fast from every direction (just turn on your phone and watch the insanity unfold), this is a chance to go inward and focus.
We also set out to bring support: mentorship, peer learning to leverage the collective knowledge our community has, dialogue-based philosophy, a course you can do over a longer period of time so you can continue on with your life, a chance to be part of the 889 community in a different capacity, a chance to connect with the under-served communities in our city. Someone asked me how our “teacher training” program was coming. It’s so much more than that. And this brings me to the best part - this program is for all yogis. You don’t have to be an aspiring teacher, or a bendy pretzel. You can be fresh out of school, seventy years old, a mom looking for deeper learning, a 1000-hour certified yoga teacher, or like me - a studio owner who has never done a 200-hour program. If you are deeply passionate about yoga and all that it offers to your life and yourself, this is for you.
And so we offer to you our 889 Living Yoga Program. A program in LIFE. We only have right now - we know our students, just as much as ourselves - want a program for LIVING. Yoga offers us an opportunity to be grounded, to be inspired, to be connected, to have community, to experience our bodies, to experience our spirit, to deepen our relationships. We have created a program to support this.
As a fellow yogi, friend, 889 team member, 889 lover, 889 member, or if you’ve never been to 889, I encourage you to explore the Living Yoga Program and the Living Yoga Modules we have so mindfully created for you.
And congratulations, Nicky. You have just realized a dream.
Join Nicky and I learning on the mat. Teachers are eternal students; students are eternal teachers. You will see us both in class.
(if you made it to the end of this ridiculously long post you must really love yoga)
With love (and excitement!),
Christine
