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Saturday, May 3, 2025

How Yoga Saved My Life

by

2137 days ago
20190625

My name is Lau­rel Hunt and I am a Yo­ga and POP Pi­lates In­struc­tor. I have been prac­tis­ing Yo­ga for three and a half years.

My love for Yo­ga be­gan in 2016 when a friend of mine in­vit­ed me to her first Yo­ga class. I had nev­er done yo­ga be­fore but I was open to try­ing some­thing new. I was at a re­al low point in my life and would of­ten be de­pressed. My life had re­cent­ly tak­en an un­ex­pect­ed turn and hon­est­ly, I was not sure in what di­rec­tion I should go. My heart was hurt, my mind was in tur­moil and I felt like I did not know where to turn.

Yo­ga saved me. I start­ed prac­tis­ing oc­ca­sion­al­ly and as I pro­gressed, my love for it grew. I did re­search in­to the his­to­ry of Yo­ga, learned about breath­ing tech­niques, med­i­ta­tion and mind­ful­ness. My prac­tice taught me how to go in­ward and lis­ten to my­self, the needs of my body and to qui­et my mind. Life goes so fast some­times that we for­get to slow down and pay at­ten­tion to what we re­al­ly need.

In March 2018, I be­came cer­ti­fied in POP Pi­lates, a free-flow­ing pi­lates based ex­er­cise to POP mu­sic. I have since adapt­ed it to fit our cul­ture and it has be­come So­ca Pi­lates. It is an in­tense work­out that tar­gets each mus­cle group and works deep in­to the tis­sues and mus­cles us­ing sole­ly move­ment and body weight to SO­CA mu­sic. I am hop­ing to in­tro­duce this on a larg­er scale and get peo­ple tru­ly in­ter­est­ed in this al­ter­na­tive. It is not aer­o­bics and it is not Zum­ba - this is the next lev­el.

In June of that year, I went to Bali, In­done­sia to Yo­ga Teacher Train­ing with the Pranashama In­sti­tute. This ad­ven­ture has taught me so much about my­self and what I need­ed. A woman who had nev­er trav­elled fur­ther than New York City, I hopped on a plane and made a 21-hour jour­ney halfway across the world by my­self. Mak­ing that trip proved to me that I could do any­thing that I set my mind to. I booked flights, or­gan­ised visas, booked my in­ter­im ac­com­mo­da­tion and nav­i­gat­ed my way through coun­tries I had on­ly seen on the In­ter­net and so­cial me­dia.

I main­ly prac­tise and teach Vinyasa Yo­ga. The San­skrit de­f­i­n­i­tion for Vinyasa refers to it as a vari­a­tion with­in pre­scribed pa­ra­me­ters. It is a freestyle form of Yo­ga reg­u­lar­ly re­ferred to as a flow in gen­er­al terms. Many oth­er styles of Yo­ga have a fixed struc­ture of pos­es that must come one af­ter the oth­er while Vinyasa, al­lows you to move from pose to pose cre­at­ing a rhythm and pace of your own. A Vinyasa prac­tice can range from gen­tle flow­ing pos­es to a faster, more high-in­tense prac­tice de­pend­ing on the type of class or prac­tice that you want.

When I start­ed teach­ing in Sep­tem­ber 2018, it was to a small group of per­sons at Jean Pierre Com­plex on Mon­day and Wednes­day evenings. I still teach these class­es and hold them dear to my heart be­cause the stu­dents who at­tend­ed, were the first to give me a chance and a step in the door, to shar­ing my pas­sion with oth­ers.

In the realm of Vinyasa Yo­ga, I of­fer Gen­tle Yo­ga, Hot Yo­ga, Pow­er Yo­ga and Restora­tive/Yin Yo­ga at my stu­dio, Am­ber Yo­gi­ni Well­ness Stu­dio, lo­cat­ed at #39 Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road, Char­lieville. I al­so of­fer one on one ses­sions for per­sons who may not feel com­fort­able prac­tis­ing in group ses­sions or may have spe­cif­ic needs that can­not be ad­dressed in a group ses­sion.

I share in­spi­ra­tional/mo­ti­va­tion­al posts and tips on yo­ga pose on my In­sta­gram (Am­ber_Yo­gi­ni) and Face­book (Nat­u­ral­ly.Ahim­sa) and I have re­cent­ly start­ed a Blog called Am­ber Alight (am­beryo­ginitt.site123.me) where I will be shar­ing per­son­al sto­ries and more top­ics re­lat­ed to Yo­ga, med­i­ta­tion, breath­ing tech­niques and well­ness.

The prac­tice of Yo­ga orig­i­nat­ed thou­sands of years ago and ac­cred­it­ed to be­ing found­ed in In­dia. It was in­tend­ed to bring uni­son of the mind and body, the heart and the soul. As the prac­tice spread over the years across the West­ern world, it was re­alised that Yo­ga has many ben­e­fits in help­ing with dis­eases, re­liev­ing joint and mus­cle pain, eas­ing stress and anx­i­ety, low­er­ing blood pres­sure and al­so in­creas­ing weight loss. All these ben­e­fits have been proven through sev­er­al stud­ies con­duct­ed by the US Na­tion­al Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of Health. The lat­ter has be­come the most in­ter­est­ing as­pect to many peo­ple how­ev­er, while Yo­ga can help you to lose weight, that is not the most im­por­tant as­pect of the prac­tice.

Yo­ga has been proven to awak­en a deep­er more spir­i­tu­al side in prac­ti­tion­ers. It makes you more aware of your­self, caus­es you to go deep­er in­to your con­scious­ness and to look at your lifestyle habits. Many teach­ings speak about sim­ple things like our eat­ing habits and how cer­tain foods (such as fried and over­ly spicy foods) af­fect the per­for­mance and lifes­pan of our bod­ies. If we are look­ing to phys­i­cal­ly im­prove our­selves, then we have to al­so look at do­ing so from the in­side - from our men­tal and emo­tion­al state to our spir­i­tu­al state and even our di­ges­tive state. Yo­ga is about find­ing bal­ance in the body, mind and soul. If we do not take care of our bod­ies from the in­side and on­ly take care of the ex­ter­nal, then there is no way we will ever tru­ly feel the bal­ance that our lives de­serve.

Yo­ga is the way that I have been able to find out more about who I am, who I want to be and how far I have come. In no way am I say­ing that it has made me the per­fect per­son but, it has made me a bet­ter ver­sion of my­self. I see some­one more in tune with my in­ner self, able to con­struc­tive­ly crit­i­cise my­self, ap­pre­ci­ate that I am not per­fect (nor do I want to be) and find ways to con­tin­ue to chal­lenge and nur­ture my­self. It has al­so made me want to share the amaz­ing­ness of what the prac­tice has done for me with every­one that I en­counter. If I can make an im­pact on the life of one per­son, then I know that I’m do­ing some­thing right.

My con­tact in­for­ma­tion:

Tel: 492-3638

In­sta­gram: am­ber_yo­gi­ni

Face­book: Am­ber Yo­gi­ni (per­son­al) Nat­u­ral­ly.Ahim­sa (Busi­ness)

Email: am­beryo­ginitt@gmail.com

Blog: am­beryo­ginitt.site123.me

When you want some­thing, the uni­verse con­spires to give it.


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