Expanding Access to the Journey Into Power flow

In this post, Baptiste-certified master teacher, and Evolution Power Yoga studio owner Lisa Taylor shares the creation story of this Journey Into Power yoga flow, as adapted for a chair practice - a practice she developed for a dear friend with a willing spirit and some physical challenges. Try the practice yourself - or share with a friend who may find within new opening, space and possibility.

Andy’s Yoga

If there is one consideration in dedicating myself to the pursuit of yoga as a tool anyone can use, it makes my heart sad when a person counts themselves out. I love yoga for the freedom and confidence I have been able to access for myself. My urge to give others the same access to whatever they are meant to get from their practice is pronounced.

A turning point moment in my experience of yoga occurred when I was assisting my teacher, Baron Baptiste, as he toured the country in support of a collaboration with Dr. Elliot Frohman, a specialist in the study and treatment of Multiple Sclerosis.

Five hundred people in some stage of this disease, from fully functioning to a person with quadriplegia, collected in chilly ballrooms ready to try yoga. Baptiste Yoga is called Power Yoga. Often it appears Power is a reference to being physically hard. In the ballroom classes, I learned that Power has little to do with hard physicality. Power in this context is a pathway to access vitality.

When teaching, I love to distinguish vitality as one becoming a source of energy rather than just a display of strength. This new kind of power is precisely the transformation each participant experienced. As a witness, I changed.

What I once viewed as limitations, I knew to be opportunities. When traveling recently, I interacted with a friend who was anticipating the birth of his second child. This man is an incredibly talented, generous human being, and he is morbidly obese. With his usual bright spirit, he set himself on a path toward improving his health and shared he would try yoga once he was ready. I could tell his soul was prepared, but he was counting himself out. With enthusiasm, I shared the story of the ballrooms full of new yogis of varying physicality.

Journey Into Power, the sequence used by Baptiste Yogis around the world, is adaptable to every kind of person. Though we were in the midst of public space, I began to show him how he could get started with his practice of Journey Into Power right now, just work on a chair! This yoga practice is created for my friend Andy and anyone else who is ready for a new adventure.