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We have all been students and have had many teachers. As students, we remember those teachers who have given gifts that we take with us throughout our lives. It’s the little stuff—the details we learn that inspire us to find our passions. My parents were my first...
I am number four of five children who grew up in Ohio with a loving family. I moved to Florida in 2003 with my husband after dreaming about moving here since our first vacation in 1979. I work in a dental office as a business assistant and have been in the dental...
The palms gracing Fifth Avenue South in Naples, Florida pull the eye to the unseen horizon where the beach meets the Gulf of Mexico. The horizon becomes visible at the pristine beach at the end of the road. From the first hint at the vastness of that place, I knew...
By Margit Bannon If you play tennis it’s not such a stretch (pardon the pun) to say that you might enjoy the practice of yoga, and if you practice yoga that you might enjoy tennis. Let’s consider the parallels between these two disciplines. As yogis we often...
Growing up in the Netherlands, I was introduced to yoga as a child by my aunt, Frieda Thepass, who lived with us. In 1957 she founded Stichting Yoga Nederland (now known as Yoga & Vedanta ) with a small group of yoga friends. It is still one of the most respected...
When I lived in northern Kentucky in 1999, my roommate and I signed up for a six-week, once-weekly yoga class learning the sun salutations in a gymnasium. We went every week and loved it. But that was the end of yoga for me until I moved to Ft. Myers in 2003. At that...
I was born and raised as the youngest of three children in Kempen am Niederrhein, Germany, and then West Germany. After my school years I did an apprenticeship in a local firm. I met my husband (who was in the army) in 1974, got engaged a year later, and we married in...
My first experience with yoga occurred in 2006 shortly after moving to Florida from northern Virginia. Moving out of state was a particularly difficult decision to make, but I bought my first house, packed my belongings, and ventured 1,000 miles away from everything I’d ever known. I felt scared, excited, and incredibly independent.
I was born, raised, and educated in Brooklyn, NY. I studied social science at Fordham University, NYC and 35 years ago married my husband Jay. We have two sons, Ian and Ryan. Jay and I lived in NYC, Long Island, and Boston before purchasing our home in Punta Gorda in...
Teacher Appreciation Day By Gwen Burdick "Everything in the world has come out of one Divine Being, the sacred fire. The sages are the direct manifestation of that fire. No one understands them. No one talks to them. No one walks with them. They live in their own...
A few times over the past couple years I have been asked the question, “When did you start practicing yoga?” I realized that, subconsciously, I have been practicing yoga throughout my life and in various ways since I was five years old. At that age, I would put on...
My name is Sarfraz Islam. I have lived in Port Charlotte for the last 30 years and recently moved to Punta Gorda. I am a physician who has practiced for 30 years, until March 2014 when I retired. I have always been inspired by the physical and spiritual aspects of...
I was eleven years old when I watched Mark Spitz win his seven gold medals in the 1972 Olympics. A nearly full-size poster of him in the red, white and blue speedo hung on my sister's closet door. My father's stopwatch was always nearby. We were a family of swimmers....
Around the year 1965, a woman named Sue Luby moved to my hometown of Andover, Massachusetts and changed my life. Sue offered yoga classes – we’d never heard of yoga, but for some reason my mother decided we should give it a try. This would have been around the early...
I came to yoga in a way that is not usual for me—little by little, one piece at a time. Usually, I hit things full force, but with yoga it was a much slower process in the beginning. My first experience with yoga was attending classes with a friend of mine in a large...
Bob and I first met when a temporary housemate of his whom I had been casually dating invited me over to see the house. Bob was painting the ceiling of his sunroom, I recall. There was an immediate attraction. Bob recalls that I was wearing tight yoga pants—I don’t...
I have always enjoyed moving around. After teaching elementary school for 10 years, and the birth of our son, I began teaching fitness part time at our YMCA—aerobics, strength training, weights, loud music, etc. If that wasn't enough, I took up running and competed in...
My first yoga class was in 2002. I remember one pose in that class, Viparita Karani, known in English as Legs Up the Wall. It struck me as being very relaxing and not at all what I expected. In 2003 I retired and found myself with time to devote to a more fit...
I was born in Michigan and moved around the mid-west as a child, living in Michigan, Missouri, and Indiana. When I was 15, I was a passenger in a car accident. During the accident my sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae were dislocated, partially severing and...
“Unified Consciousness results when the gunas return back inward because the Ascendant’s purpose is fulfilled, or when the Absolute Self is permanently stabilized in the Divine Power of Pure Consciousness.” The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Sutra IV.34 Of all the...