Meet Lisa Chavez
How
has yoga helped you living in the Washington area?
Washington has a much more stressful lifestyle compared to New Mexico, where I grew up and where almost all my extended family still lives. I sometimes use yoga as an escape from my life here, as a chance to reflect on what I left behind at home.
As I develop a stronger meditation practice, I often use imagery of my home and family to take my mind away from my busy surroundings. The simplicity of both pranayama and meditation reminds me of the more relaxed lifestyle that I still associate with my family back home. In a way, I use yoga to feel at home.
What is your favorite yoga pose and why?
Exploring the relationship between the legs, feet, hips, and spine has made lotus a favorite pose of mine for a few months. I'm fascinated by the symmetry of lotus. It's a great pose to practice for comfort and calmness. The hidden difficulty in finding the balance between effort and surrender within lotus fascinates me.
I've gone through different phases of liking different types of yoga poses, so I may have a new favorite pose by the time this is published!
What gives you the greatest joy in teaching?
I love to watch students when they discover how to be comfortable in the poses. We get so used to seeing pictures of the poses and many people struggle to fit themselves into what they think the poses should look like. For me, the path to enjoying yoga is finding comfort in the poses. Some of the best moments are when students let go of the effort and find the surrender - when they stop struggling with the directions and images and find the faith in their own bodies to guide them into their individual expression of the pose.
If you could pick one book to have with you if you were stranded on an island, what would it be? Why?
I'd have to go with "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" by Milan Kundera. I could re-read and analyze this book forever because each time I pick it up, I find shadows of myself and my life within the pages. This book found me at a special time in my life and continues to both touch and haunt me. I could never not enjoy this book.
Of course, "Light on Yoga" is a close second. With this book, I could never be bored!