Three days a week, my morning begins with a 5am run. I arrive home, get three kids under six (including three-year-old twins) out of bed, dressed, fed, on the bus (or in the car) and off to school. On my off-days, I’m up at the same hour, working before the wee ones arise.
My days are scheduled down to the minute with work, meetings, shuttling children to various destinations, and trying to remember deadlines, doctor appointments, and dinner plans.
I attempt to keep my calendar static, but it never stays that way. I try not to worry about the things I cannot control, like when my nanny’s grandmother died during the same week my son stayed home sick from school and I had a looming deadline, but I never stay nonplussed for long.
Bottom line? I run hard(ish). I work even harder. And I am stressed out.
A lot.
In the fall, as I was circling the drain of “Too-Much-On-My-Plate” despair, I sat down with Mind/Body Director Randi Lattimore to conduct this interview. Something she said while we were chatting hit home for me.
She said, “Yoga is for everyone.”
“That’s a nice thought, Randi. But yoga isn’t for me,” I said. “I’m too tightly wound. Yoga is for people who are more chill than I am. I can’t relax.”
Then I realized the irony in what I was saying.
And the next day, having never before taken a single yoga class, I enrolled in Yoga School, Midtown’s unique program for those new to the practice or those who have been away from it for awhile. Small class sizes ensure personalized attention, which was something really important to me as a Type A, because why do something if you’re not going to do it exactly right? Who’s with me here?
Over the course of the four-week program, taught by the amazing Lindsay Hildreth, I learned:
Yoga School ended two months ago. I’ve practiced yoga almost every week since.
Starting the practice of yoga didn’t eliminate my stress. It’s still there, a product of a busy job, needy young children, and a calendar that’s always packed with responsibilities.
But it has taught me that when I’m in class, on my mat, being present within myself, it’s okay to let go for a little while.
Yoga has allowed me to relax and center my thoughts. To focus on my body and what it can do. To let my breathing guide my movement. To stretch my mind as well as my limbs. To embrace the hour of practice as my own, and to shut out the distractions and pressures that often circle me like wolves.
It’s not the high-energy, cardio-heavy workout I’m accustomed to. It’s still very hard for me to slow down, and to accept that my heart won’t be pounding and I won’t breathe heavily at the end of yoga class.
No, instead yoga is something entirely different. It helps me feel less anxious and more calm. Less like my busy life is spiraling out of control, and more like I am in charge of it, instead of the other way around.
And it’s helped my five-year-old daughter too, who in the fall finished her own first session of yoga at the club, through the Midtown Varsity program, and is starting her second this week. She adores yoga, and the lovely “Miss Jen” (Hess) who teaches it. The benefits of yoga for kids are numerous, including its ability to foster a bond with your three-year-old little sister.
Check out the schedule for Kids Yoga and other complimentary Midtown Varsity classes here.
The Winter Session of Yoga School begins next week. Morning, afternoon, and evening sessions are offered at a variety of times. Grab a registration form at the club, or contact Randi for more information at 585-461-2301 x103 or randi.lattimore@midtown.com.
Trust me on this: Randi is right. Yoga is for everyone, even scary Type A’s like me. If I can embrace (and love) yoga, then anyone can.
Yogis, please share with us. Why do you love yoga?
Five years ago, Randi Lattimore was working as a substitute yoga instructor when she entered General
Manager Glenn William’s office to introduce herself. On his desk were the blueprints for the Mind/Body Studio renovation project.
She had found yoga years earlier and immediately loved everything about it: how it made her feel, the way it changed her body, the inner strength and peace she felt at the completion of each class. She quickly transitioned from practicing yoga to studying it, visiting studios across the country, absorbing what worked and what didn’t.
On that day in 2006, she sold her vision for the club’s Mind/Body Studio to Glenn. She then came up with her job title of Mind/Body Director. She hired dear friends as instructors. She expanded the offerings to encompass varied forms of yoga.
And she quickly created a culture of genuine connections and care amongst instructors and students that has flourished over the past five years and has made Midtown’s yoga program the best in Rochester.
Roots and Rhythm
A former event planner, Randi is originally from the West Coast. She then lived in Chicago for a number of years, and hand-picked Rochester as her new hometown over ten years ago when her husband’s job required them to move East. As a transplant to the ROC, Randi’s Midtown coworkers quickly became her family, a relationship that helps foster the warm community atmosphere and philosophy that permeates every yoga class.
While she feels teaching yoga is what she was meant to do with her life, Randi has big dreams to both appear and act as a guest judge on ”So You Think You Can Dance.” If she couldn’t teach yoga, Randi would love to dance professionally.
Teacher Training
Randi recently worked to certify Midtown as a Yoga School through Yoga Alliance.
Yoga Immersion and Teacher Training* begins on October 28th. The Immersion section, for those interested in become more well-rounded, informed practitioners of yoga, runs for eight weekends (a total of 80 hours) until February 5th of next year.
The Certification Option, for those wishing to pursue the Yoga Alliance standard of a 200-hour training program, includes an additional 40 hours, and extends until May of 2012.
Following the completion of 80 hours of Immersion, 40 hours of certification, and homework, practice time, and reading, graduates will receive Registered Yoga Teacher Certification, a degree many yoga studios, including Midtown’s, look for when hiring instructors.
Says Randi, “Our club has always offered a breadth of yoga workshops and special events, so it’s a natural progression for us to become a Yoga School. Our students are ready for this. Our yoga instructors are ready for this. And the training is diversified, so the instructors will teach to the strength of their students. I am so excited about this program.”
Inside Randi’s Fridge
When she’s not running the Mind/Body studio, Randi enjoys spending time with her husband of 16 years, her 15-year-old daughter, and 13-year-old son.
When I ask her about the three food items she keeps in her fridge at all times, Randi says, “Greek yogurt, almonds, and fruit. Always, lots of fruit.”
What’s one thing most people don’t know about her?
“I would rather eat chocolate cake-with chocolate frosting-than just about anything else in the world,” says Randi. “Love it!”
Midtown Pride
Randi is to Midtown’s Mind/Body studio as Bill Gates is to Microsoft, so she has experienced many proud moments in her tenure at the club.
“When members approach me and say how they couldn’t get through their divorces, their cancer battles, or their other difficult times without yoga, it’s incredibly gratifying,” says Randi. “It’s one of the best parts of my job.”
Her most memorable moment, though, took place at the club’s first-ever “Thanks for Giving” yoga class, a donation-based class benefitting Bivona Child Advocacy Center held annually near Thanksgiving.
Randi has visited the center, which helps child victims of physical or sexual abuse, and in the one hour she was there, she watched three children walk in needing assistance, something that had a profound effect on her.
The class was in shivasana, Hallelujah was playing, and Randi looked at fellow yoga instructor and friend Karen Lederman and began to cry. There were 90 people in the class, and Randi was full of joy at the contribution the club would be able to make to Bivona to help abused children like those she saw during her visit.
Yoga is for Everyone
Think yoga isn’t for you?
Randi hears this all the time. And to the yoga naysayers, she says, “Give it a try. Yoga is for everyone, for those who think they’re not flexible enough, or not relaxed enough, or who don’t think it’s a good workout. As I like to ask the doubters, ‘When you’re dirty, are you too dirty to take a shower?’ Of course not!”
The four-week Yoga School for Beginners, which will teach you yoga fundamentals and prepare you for taking one of the awesome yoga classes offered at the club, starts on October 17. Check out our Facebook Events page for more information.
Yoga is an Experience and Not “Just a Class”
It’s a practice that enables you to connect with people, to interact, to touch, to laugh, and to share. It helps you to center yourself and strengthens your muscles at the same time.
Randi has made our Mind/Body Studio not just a physical space for members to practice, but has also embodied it with a spirit that carries yogis throughout their daily lives.
And thanks to my interview with Randi, this Type A, tightly wound, former yoga-doubter will be trying it very soon.
*Contact Randi at randi.lattimore@midtown.com with any questions about Midtown Yoga Immersion and Teacher Training. If you have at least one year of yoga practice, you can pick up an application at the front desk.
