My Yoga Story
Yoga has always been there in my life. It started in grade school with yoga introduced in the one room school I attended in Gold Hill Colorado. Many of the people I have studied dance with through the years teach yoga as well as dance and integrate it into their classes. I started attending more and more yoga classes sparked by this influence.
I attended a yoga teacher training to enhance my dance in 2007. At that time, my son was serving his second tour with the Navy in Afghanistan. I shared some of what I was experiencing with my fellow trainees and one of them brought me an article about teaching yoga to veterans. I remember sitting and reading it while my car was getting inspected. Goose bumps rose on my arms the way they do in an AHA moment and I felt my clear calling. I went home and searched for any local yoga for veterans and found the only classes close by at the Denver VA hospital 35 miles away! With a bit of research I discovered that they needed teachers and after a long intake process, and hours observing and reading up on teaching adaptive yoga and yoga to veterans, I started to teach yoga to veterans weekly.
The veterans surprised and inspired me. Not only did they seem to respond well to yoga, they had to make enormous effort to get to the hospital to attend. They often biked or bused, sometimes with walkers or through icy streets just to get to that class. The veterans are used to following instruction and in a way have an edge because of their unique training and discipline. Their enthusiasm was contagious and filled my heart as did my walk through the hospitals halls full of faces with so many stories to tell. I was inspired on and off the mat, and developed a deeper appreciation for the simple things in my own life.
I now teach and practice yoga as a healing art in a therapeutic context. The benefits of yoga, and the natural way it has evolved into personal transformation of my own life, and the way I see it alter others is what I hope I can share with others. There are many aspects of yoga that seem to sneak up on anyone who attends. Before you know it people want to know more and are asking questions. It feels almost magical to witness and inspires me to keep growing and learning as a lifetime student myself.
As a Yoga Therapist, I facilitated yoga with inmates at The Boulder County Jail, group homes and the Denver VA Hospital prior to moving to the Western Slope. Here I teach Gentle Yoga at the Community Center in Palisade and The Lincoln park barn in Grand Junction. My classes are for anyone who wants to try yoga who might not feel they fit into, or are ready for a packed studio class due to trauma they have experienced. I offer a safe space and a variety of options within a mindful Trauma Informed practice.
I offer private sessions here in Palisade or can come to you if needed due to lack of mobility or transportation. My private clients vary from dancers who want to strengthen their technique to people recovering from injury and traumatic events. Privates offer a one on one, personal step toward self improvement, pain and stress management. I offer personal retreats, 1/2 day and weekend.
EVERY one is welcome.
I attended a yoga teacher training to enhance my dance in 2007. At that time, my son was serving his second tour with the Navy in Afghanistan. I shared some of what I was experiencing with my fellow trainees and one of them brought me an article about teaching yoga to veterans. I remember sitting and reading it while my car was getting inspected. Goose bumps rose on my arms the way they do in an AHA moment and I felt my clear calling. I went home and searched for any local yoga for veterans and found the only classes close by at the Denver VA hospital 35 miles away! With a bit of research I discovered that they needed teachers and after a long intake process, and hours observing and reading up on teaching adaptive yoga and yoga to veterans, I started to teach yoga to veterans weekly.
The veterans surprised and inspired me. Not only did they seem to respond well to yoga, they had to make enormous effort to get to the hospital to attend. They often biked or bused, sometimes with walkers or through icy streets just to get to that class. The veterans are used to following instruction and in a way have an edge because of their unique training and discipline. Their enthusiasm was contagious and filled my heart as did my walk through the hospitals halls full of faces with so many stories to tell. I was inspired on and off the mat, and developed a deeper appreciation for the simple things in my own life.
I now teach and practice yoga as a healing art in a therapeutic context. The benefits of yoga, and the natural way it has evolved into personal transformation of my own life, and the way I see it alter others is what I hope I can share with others. There are many aspects of yoga that seem to sneak up on anyone who attends. Before you know it people want to know more and are asking questions. It feels almost magical to witness and inspires me to keep growing and learning as a lifetime student myself.
As a Yoga Therapist, I facilitated yoga with inmates at The Boulder County Jail, group homes and the Denver VA Hospital prior to moving to the Western Slope. Here I teach Gentle Yoga at the Community Center in Palisade and The Lincoln park barn in Grand Junction. My classes are for anyone who wants to try yoga who might not feel they fit into, or are ready for a packed studio class due to trauma they have experienced. I offer a safe space and a variety of options within a mindful Trauma Informed practice.
I offer private sessions here in Palisade or can come to you if needed due to lack of mobility or transportation. My private clients vary from dancers who want to strengthen their technique to people recovering from injury and traumatic events. Privates offer a one on one, personal step toward self improvement, pain and stress management. I offer personal retreats, 1/2 day and weekend.
EVERY one is welcome.
My Goddess interest and Mythos story
In the past several years, my interest has expanded in studying the Goddesses in Hindu mythology. I have attended several courses and read countless books. I cannot get enough of it. My recent trip to India has only sparked my interest on a grander scale.
Not only are these stories applicable in these times, but they may be a catalyst in a deeper understanding of how we can improve ourselves and possibly bring humanity back to some balance. Not only that, they are fun and entertaining and have everything to do with broadening our understanding of yoga
There is a need in human consciousness and collective for a grander understanding of our relationship to and not sepserate from nature. Part of this can be traced to and in stories of old that resonate with current times.
There is a desire to find equanimity in human relationships that can cross cultures, religion and gender. Hindu mythology is a doorway to this old/new landscape. Join me in this incredible journey of reawakening!
Not only are these stories applicable in these times, but they may be a catalyst in a deeper understanding of how we can improve ourselves and possibly bring humanity back to some balance. Not only that, they are fun and entertaining and have everything to do with broadening our understanding of yoga
There is a need in human consciousness and collective for a grander understanding of our relationship to and not sepserate from nature. Part of this can be traced to and in stories of old that resonate with current times.
There is a desire to find equanimity in human relationships that can cross cultures, religion and gender. Hindu mythology is a doorway to this old/new landscape. Join me in this incredible journey of reawakening!
My Dance Story
I remember my early days in Washington DC, and the joy of stepping into my tutu and dancing. That was how my grandmother remembered me, dancing around the living room, expressing trough the music, spinning and turning in time.
Sometimes it takes a passion of their own for our parents to see the call in their children. I spent 10 of my young years after a move to Colorado living in a small mountain town, Gold Hill. At age 11 in 1971 one of the local women offered to teach “belly dance”. I signed up not knowing at the time how the music and steps would come to me as a familiar, and the shimmy of my hips would speak to me in the same way. I loved it, and as my life drifted me down the mountain to school I started staying late and hitchhiking home so I could attend the Modern dance lessons my science teacher offered. I continued with those dance classes, and I kept belly dancing through my teens with every teacher I could find in Boulder in the early 70’s.
At 19, I was asked to “club dance” and told that I’d have to accept tips. The idea came as such a turn off that I quit belly dancing and focused my attention on Jazz, hip hop and a little ballet.
It was 20 years later that I was reintroduced to belly dance when an injury made my Jazz and Hip Hop classes come to a halt. Maria Mazzafero was teaching at the studio I attended and said “Why don’t you come to my class?” It was as if I reunited with a long lost friend. I danced for several years with Maria and then with the Silk Road Dancers. I had a longing to express and create my own choreography so I started teaching and founded the dance troupe, “The Figure 8’s”
Christine is the founder, director and choreographer of The Figure 8's Dance Troupe, performing in Boulder for 12 years. You will see them revive in her new home on The Western Slope .
Currently you will find bits of this ancient dance interweaved in Christines Goddess Sisterhood Circles.
Combining these two joys;
Christine's dance and yoga practices are a fluid and ever changing part of her life. She loves to attend workshops to further improve the quality of her life, and always improve on her education and skills. There is always more to learn and this strengthens and inspires her ongoing dedication and creates an atmosphere that is ever changing, fresh and innovative. It is such a privilege to be here now in a time when yoga has become a mainstream practice and belly dance is an art that is blossoming. With a deep respect for tradition and for those who have danced and practiced before us, all forms of movement originated somewhere, from some small seed of enthusiasm. It originated with the spark of a new idea, with the hope and desire of a dream, and sometimes simply by the bodies response to the
music that energized it.
As an artist Christine feels a responsibility to stir things up, and create community through movement, to be open minded and hold space for EVERY one. We are in difficult and trying times with our health at stake from stress and sitting. Our bodies can become disheveled and drained. Moving the body and expanding the mind is one way to re energize and stay healthy and connected. In private sessions you can find even greater relief, with personal attention to what your spirit is in need of. Oracle card readings by request.
You are possibly in a place where your lifetime evolution is thriving. You can celebrate this and your body at any age, or within any body "type."
Christine's passion for movement inspired her to become a yoga teacher. While her son was serving in Afghanistan, she began teaching yoga to veterans at the VA Hospital in Denver. Practicing yoga with veterans opened her eyes to the joy of being on the mat with people who are challenged to arrive there, physically and emotionally. This was the catalyst for continuing her yoga education in mind body connection and adaptive yoga. Christine taught adaptive yoga privately and at the Broomfield "Imagine" group home, she taught for 5 years at The Boulder County Jail and 20 years at A Place to B Studio in Boulder. Recently she moved to the western slope where she is continuing her work with unserved communities.
Christine's dance and yoga students inspire her endlessly and teach her every time she practices with them, how to move through life with grace and joy.
Sometimes it takes a passion of their own for our parents to see the call in their children. I spent 10 of my young years after a move to Colorado living in a small mountain town, Gold Hill. At age 11 in 1971 one of the local women offered to teach “belly dance”. I signed up not knowing at the time how the music and steps would come to me as a familiar, and the shimmy of my hips would speak to me in the same way. I loved it, and as my life drifted me down the mountain to school I started staying late and hitchhiking home so I could attend the Modern dance lessons my science teacher offered. I continued with those dance classes, and I kept belly dancing through my teens with every teacher I could find in Boulder in the early 70’s.
At 19, I was asked to “club dance” and told that I’d have to accept tips. The idea came as such a turn off that I quit belly dancing and focused my attention on Jazz, hip hop and a little ballet.
It was 20 years later that I was reintroduced to belly dance when an injury made my Jazz and Hip Hop classes come to a halt. Maria Mazzafero was teaching at the studio I attended and said “Why don’t you come to my class?” It was as if I reunited with a long lost friend. I danced for several years with Maria and then with the Silk Road Dancers. I had a longing to express and create my own choreography so I started teaching and founded the dance troupe, “The Figure 8’s”
Christine is the founder, director and choreographer of The Figure 8's Dance Troupe, performing in Boulder for 12 years. You will see them revive in her new home on The Western Slope .
Currently you will find bits of this ancient dance interweaved in Christines Goddess Sisterhood Circles.
Combining these two joys;
Christine's dance and yoga practices are a fluid and ever changing part of her life. She loves to attend workshops to further improve the quality of her life, and always improve on her education and skills. There is always more to learn and this strengthens and inspires her ongoing dedication and creates an atmosphere that is ever changing, fresh and innovative. It is such a privilege to be here now in a time when yoga has become a mainstream practice and belly dance is an art that is blossoming. With a deep respect for tradition and for those who have danced and practiced before us, all forms of movement originated somewhere, from some small seed of enthusiasm. It originated with the spark of a new idea, with the hope and desire of a dream, and sometimes simply by the bodies response to the
music that energized it.
As an artist Christine feels a responsibility to stir things up, and create community through movement, to be open minded and hold space for EVERY one. We are in difficult and trying times with our health at stake from stress and sitting. Our bodies can become disheveled and drained. Moving the body and expanding the mind is one way to re energize and stay healthy and connected. In private sessions you can find even greater relief, with personal attention to what your spirit is in need of. Oracle card readings by request.
You are possibly in a place where your lifetime evolution is thriving. You can celebrate this and your body at any age, or within any body "type."
Christine's passion for movement inspired her to become a yoga teacher. While her son was serving in Afghanistan, she began teaching yoga to veterans at the VA Hospital in Denver. Practicing yoga with veterans opened her eyes to the joy of being on the mat with people who are challenged to arrive there, physically and emotionally. This was the catalyst for continuing her yoga education in mind body connection and adaptive yoga. Christine taught adaptive yoga privately and at the Broomfield "Imagine" group home, she taught for 5 years at The Boulder County Jail and 20 years at A Place to B Studio in Boulder. Recently she moved to the western slope where she is continuing her work with unserved communities.
Christine's dance and yoga students inspire her endlessly and teach her every time she practices with them, how to move through life with grace and joy.
“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”
- Pema Chodron
Time to Shine!
When I lift and open my heart my spirits lift.
As I explore the wonderful benefits of a deeper yoga practice, I keep reflecting on how much of what I experience is mirrored in Belly Dance.My arms reach to the sky, my chest lifts in a backbend, my feet are planted on the earth and my core is strong and engaged.
Belly Dance has been healing women for thousands of years, re-patterning our brain and healing disease as well as depression and trauma.Opening the hips as well as the heart prepares us for the challenges of being a woman. It can unlock a wellspring of emotions as it safely embraces us with a way to release. While the yogis were developing postures, women were celebrating many of the same benefits in this ancient dance.
Like I said, the secret is out. But is it?We are living in a time where women are seeking ways to find their true expression out of not so distant times of repression still prevalent in many cultures.The media flashes sexuality. Pole dance classes and sensual dance classes are taking the country by storm. Yoga studios are prevalent on every corner and packed with women. We are stepping out in a variety of ways.
What is it that we are seeking to find and create for ourselves as women in these times? I think it’s been right in front and inside of us for a long time. Those of us who have been belly dancing for years know it like we know the beat of the drum. The power and joy of sensual (I didn't say sexual) expression. We are liberated when we dance. We are stepping in the footsteps of our sisters who have danced freely as well as hidden for over 2,000 years. We are celebrating the joy of being female.
No offense to my beautiful belly dancing brothers out there that know this joy as well.
Whatever our path to joy, it’s time to shine!
As I explore the wonderful benefits of a deeper yoga practice, I keep reflecting on how much of what I experience is mirrored in Belly Dance.My arms reach to the sky, my chest lifts in a backbend, my feet are planted on the earth and my core is strong and engaged.
Belly Dance has been healing women for thousands of years, re-patterning our brain and healing disease as well as depression and trauma.Opening the hips as well as the heart prepares us for the challenges of being a woman. It can unlock a wellspring of emotions as it safely embraces us with a way to release. While the yogis were developing postures, women were celebrating many of the same benefits in this ancient dance.
Like I said, the secret is out. But is it?We are living in a time where women are seeking ways to find their true expression out of not so distant times of repression still prevalent in many cultures.The media flashes sexuality. Pole dance classes and sensual dance classes are taking the country by storm. Yoga studios are prevalent on every corner and packed with women. We are stepping out in a variety of ways.
What is it that we are seeking to find and create for ourselves as women in these times? I think it’s been right in front and inside of us for a long time. Those of us who have been belly dancing for years know it like we know the beat of the drum. The power and joy of sensual (I didn't say sexual) expression. We are liberated when we dance. We are stepping in the footsteps of our sisters who have danced freely as well as hidden for over 2,000 years. We are celebrating the joy of being female.
No offense to my beautiful belly dancing brothers out there that know this joy as well.
Whatever our path to joy, it’s time to shine!